by Piper Banks
I padded down the scarily steep, creaking stairs, holding on to an old-fashioned wood banister for support. I had a hazy memory of Sadie telling me when we came in that the kitchen and dining room were on the first floor, the living room was on the second, and the bedrooms were on the third. The voices grew louder as I reached the second-floor landing. And now it didn’t sound like the television at all. . . . There were definitely actual people over. More than one, from what I could hear.
The living room was down a short hallway, and the doorway was open. I craned my neck to see in. There was a small crowd of adults gathered inside—men in dark suits, women in cocktail dresses. Sadie, her dark eyes sparkling and her hair smoothed back from her face, stood in the middle of the crowd. She was wearing a crimson velvet pantsuit, and was gesticulating wildly as she spoke.
I groaned silently. This was so typical of Sadie. Back in Florida, she’d thrown so many impromptu parties—especially after she and my dad had divorced—that I’d gotten used to studying by the din of cocktail party chatter.
Even so, I couldn’t help but feel a little resentful that she’d have people over tonight, my first night in London. I hadn’t yet told her about Dex, or the writing contest, or how successful the Snowflake Gala was. Besides, even after my daylong nap, I was still a bit groggy and not at all in the mood to make small talk with a bunch of people I didn’t know. I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I could sneak back up to my room and wait it out until the guests left. I certainly wasn’t dressed for a party—I was wearing the same rumpled jeans, not to mention the same underwear I’d worn on the plane. I was in serious need of a hot shower and clean clothes.
I heard Sadie’s voice rising up over the others, saying, “Yes, Miranda just got in this morning. She’s spending the holidays here with me! Isn’t that fabulous?” Then, before I could sneak off, she spotted me. “Oh, wait, here she is now! Darling, come in here!”
Gah, I thought. I looked longingly back up the stairs, wishing I’d thought to shower and change before I ventured downstairs. But everyone had turned to look at me, as though I were an interesting zoo exhibit labeled DAUGHTER OF FAMOUS WRITER, so I had no choice but to smile gamely and make my way into the party, feeling horribly self-conscious the whole time.
“Come meet everyone, darling,” Sadie said, holding out her arm, beckoning me to join her.
“Um, hi, Mom,” I said, sidling over next to her. “You didn’t tell me you were having a party,” I hissed in her ear.
“Party? Don’t be silly, darling. This isn’t a party. It’s a just a gathering of bon vivants,” Sadie exclaimed loudly. “Come, let me introduce you around. I’ve been dying to show you off.”
A flurry of introductions followed, although my brain was still so jet-lagged, I couldn’t remember anyone’s name. I just smiled and shook hands, and wished that everyone was wearing name tags. Among the group, there was a portly man with thick white hair who couldn’t seem to hear a word I was saying, and kept asking, “But whose daughter is she supposed to be?” to the younger man standing next to him. Then there was a very thin woman with a long, hooked nose, giant ruby rings encircling every finger, and a thick Russian accent.
“How do you do?” the woman said gravely, inclining her head at me.
“Madame Aleksey was a famous ballerina,” Sadie twittered excitedly in my ear. She turned toward Madame Aleksey. “Miranda used to love going to see The Nutcracker every Christmas. She dreamed of being a prima ballerina. Begged me for dance lessons.”
I colored. “Mom. I was five.”
“Is that so? You are a dancer?” Madame Aleksey asked, looking me up and down in disbelief.
“She took a year of tap lessons, and was devastated when she didn’t get a solo in the school recital. Remember that, Miranda? Instead, she was in the chorus for the ‘Good Ship Lollipop.’ It was adorable. All of the little girls wore sailor suits,” Sadie continued.
“Mom,” I hissed again.
Sadie ignored me. “Miranda was so angry that the solo went to Kelli Simpson, she gave up dance after that,” she continued.
“Hmph. Being a dancer requires a tremendous amount of commitment, as well as natural grace,” Madame Aleksey said in a critical tone that made it clear she thought I lacked both.
I felt my face go hot with embarrassment. It was true, I was no dancer. But no natural grace? It wasn’t like I’d tripped walking across the room.
“And this,” Sadie said, pulling me over to a round-faced man with a snub nose and thick salt-and-pepper hair, “is Giles Wentworth, my British editor. Giles, this is my daughter, Miranda, the wunderkind.”
“Ah, Miranda, it’s delightful to finally meet you,” Giles said. His voice was warm and rich. As he smiled benignly at me, it struck me that despite the graying hair, Giles had a very young face. He leaned forward, his blue eyes twinkling merrily. “Do tell me: What is the product of 426 times 9,567?”
“4,075,542,” I said, smothering a sigh.
I was used to being quizzed by my parents’ friends. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been able to calculate sums in my head. I even attend a special school for kids with high IQs, called the Notting Hill Independent School for Gifted Children. Everyone just calls it Geek High for obvious reasons.
But here’s the thing: I don’t really like math. Sure, it’s easy for me. But just because something comes easily to you doesn’t necessarily mean that you enjoy it.
“Amazing. Of course, I wouldn’t know if that was the right answer or not!” Giles said, with a bark of laughter. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”
I smiled. Giles seemed like a nice man, so it was hard to hold the math quiz against him.
“My son is around here somewhere,” Giles said, looking around from right to left. “Ah, there he is. Henry, my lad, come over here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
A son. I had a sinking suspicion that Sadie and Giles had arranged this little meeting. . . . One that was confirmed as Sadie prodded me in the side with what was supposed to be a surreptitious elbow. When I glared back at her, she winked saucily.
“Giles and I thought that Henry could show you around London,” Sadie said mischievously.
Oh, no. Oh, no no no no no! It was a setup. How could Sadie do this to me?
For the first time in my life, I had a boyfriend. Okay, maybe Dex wasn’t technically my boyfriend. Yet. But he had shown up at the Snowflake Gala to be my surprise date. And he’d kissed me, and told me how much he’d liked me. So if he wasn’t my official boyfriend now, he probably would be as soon as I got back to Florida. The last thing I needed was to be set up with some British kid, who was apparently such a loser that he didn’t have any friends of his own. He probably had bad teeth, horrible breath, and wore prissy coats and ties even when he wasn’t in school.
“Ah, here he is,” Giles said, nodding behind me. “Miranda, let me introduce you to my son, Henry.”
I turned, expecting the worst . . .and found myself gaping up at the very tall, very cute Henry. He had the same round, pink-cheeked face as his father, but Henry’s hair was dark and shaggy and his eyes were dark blue with green flecks. He was wearing faded Levi’s and a blue cable-knit sweater that highlighted his broad shoulders.
“Hullo,” Henry said. When he grinned at me, dimples appeared in his cheeks.
I was suddenly acutely aware of just how awful I looked, with my messy hair and rumpled clothes. There was a horrible taste in my mouth, sour and bitter at the same time. I tried to remember the last time I’d brushed my teeth, and realized with a sinking horror that it had been while I was back in Florida.
That was it. . . . As soon as I got Sadie alone, I was going to kill her.
“Hi,” I said, trying to open my mouth as little as possible, so as not to blast him with my nasty jet-lag breath.
“Henry, we were just telling Miranda how we’d volunteered your services as a tour guide,” Giles said.
“You don’t have to,” I said quick
ly, all too aware that babysitting me was probably the last thing Henry wanted to do.
“No, it’ll be fun,” Henry said.
“It will be perfect, darling,” Sadie interjected. “I have to work, after all, and it will be nice for you to have someone your own age to hang out with.” Then, spotting someone across the room, she said, “Giles, look, Alice Sands just arrived. I haven’t seen her in ages. I have to say hello.”
“I’ll go with you,” Giles said, and the two departed, leaving Henry and me alone together.
“Are you hungry?” Henry asked, gesturing toward the table, which was covered with food—dips, cheeses, sliced fruit, tiny pies, little sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
My stomach gave an embarrassingly loud rumble at the sight of all the food. I covered my stomach with one hand, willing Henry not to have heard, but I could tell by the way he grinned at me that he had.
“I take that as a yes,” he said.
“I haven’t eaten since dinner on the plane,” I said sheepishly. I checked my watch. “Which was about fourteen hours ago.”
He feigned horror. “Fourteen hours? You must be starving! Here.” He handed me a cup of punch. “Drink this for strength.” Then he seized one of the white buffet plates stacked up on the table, and began to pile it with crackers, cheese, and cookies, while I watched in amazement.
“Here you go,” he said, handing me the plate. Then, noticing a platter of tartlets, he grabbed one to add to my plate. “And you have to have one of these mincemeat pies. They’re brilliant.”
“Thanks,” I said, laughing a little as I stared down at the mountain of food he’d just gathered for me. I set the plate on a small table and picked the mincemeat pie off it. “Mmm,” I said, once I took a bite. “That is really good.”
“Told you,” Henry said. “I never lie.”
“Like the island of knights and knaves,” I said without thinking, recalling a series of classic logic problems featuring an island where knights and knaves lived. The knights always had to tell the truth, and the knaves always lied. Then I blushed. Because bringing up logic problems at parties? Seriously not cool.
“You know about the island of knights and knaves?” Henry asked, his eyes widening with surprise.
I laughed at his shock. “We do have schools in America, you know,” I said.
“And here I thought you were a country of Paris Hiltons,” he joked.
“Oh, we totally are,” I said, managing to keep a straight face. “When I’m at home, I dye my hair platinum blond, and say, ‘That’s hot!’ about everything.”
“Yeah, I just bet,” Henry said. “So, tell me, which one am I—a knight or a knave.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “A knight could say he never lied, because it would be the truth. But a knave could also say it, because it would be a lie.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Henry said, drawing out the word right. “I forgot. Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of a mathematical genius?”
I couldn’t help it: I blushed. “Not really,” I said, shrugging.
“And modest, too,” he said.
“No, it’s just . . . well. I just don’t like talking about it,” I said.
“Fair enough. So you probably don’t want me asking you what 732 times 569 is, huh?”
“416,508,” I said, without thinking.
Henry’s eyes went round with surprise. “Really?” he asked. “Is that right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Great party trick, huh?”
“I’ll say,” he said, looking at me admiringly.
Normally, calculating sums on command makes me feel like a circus seal balancing a ball on my nose while clapping my flippers and barking for a fish. But for the first time, I felt a rush of pride at my odd, geeky skill. It certainly seemed to impress Henry.
“Thanks,” I said, quickly taking a gulp of my punch to hide my grin, as I contemplated just how attractive an English accent was.
As soon as the thought was loose and rattling around in my brain, guilt surged within me. Dex had only been my almost-quasi-boyfriend for less than forty-eight hours . . . and already my head was being turned by some random English guy? Admittedly, a very cute random English guy, but still. What kind of an almost-quasi-girlfriend was I turning out to be?
Chapter 3
“Mom, may I use your laptop to check my e-mail?” I asked Sadie over breakfast the next morning.
“Hmmm?” she asked, not looking up from her newspaper. Sadie has never been a morning person. There’s no use trying to have a conversation with her before she’s downed at least two cups of coffee. In fact, we still hadn’t gotten a chance to catch up. When the cocktail party ended, Sadie went out to dinner with some of her guests. Despite having slept all day, I’d felt too jet-lagged to go with them, and instead went back to bed. But once in bed, I couldn’t fall asleep. Which wasn’t surprising, considering it was only two o’clock in the afternoon, Florida time. So I pulled out my journal and worked on the short story I’d been writing, about a teenage girl who wakes up from a coma and doesn’t recognize her friends and family.
“Your computer,” I repeated. “May I use it?”
“Help yourself, sweetie. It’s upstairs in my office,” Sadie said absentmindedly. She buttered a piece of cranberry-orange scone, popped it in her mouth, and then disappeared behind her newspaper again.
I dumped my plate and juice glass in the kitchen sink, and climbed up the stairs to the second floor. Sadie’s office was in a littlealcove off the living room, just big enough for a desk, chair, and printer stand. In typical Sadie style, the desk was a mess. It was covered with the debris of her life pages edited in red pencil, bills, stray paper clips, receipts, empty coffee cups, invitations, fan letters. I pushed the mess off to the sides as best I could, and turned on the laptop. It hummed and then sprang to life with a computerized melody. I logged into my e-mail, and there was . . . nothing.
Well, not nothing. There was the usual spam, and a joke e-mail my friend Finn had forwarded:
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Best Titles Ever!
Rejected Children’s Book Titles
1. Strangers Have the Best Candy
2. The Little Sissy Who Snitched
3. Some Kittens Can Fly!
4. Kathy Was So Bad Her Mom Stopped Loving Her
5. How to Become the Dominant Military Power in Your Elementary School
6. Controlling the Playground: Respect through Fear
7. The Kid’s Guide to Hitchhiking
8. You Are Different and That’s Bad
9. Things Rich Kids Have but You Never Will
10. POP! Goes the Hamster . . . and Other Great Microwave Games
But there wasn’t anything from Dex. When we’d said good-bye to one another after the dance, he’d asked if he could call me the next day. And for one happy, stomach-fluttery moment, I was thrilled. . . . Before remembering that I’d be leaving for London, and that my cell phone wouldn’t work over here. So knowing that his parents probably wouldn’t be thrilled if Dex ran up their long-distancebill with overseas calls to Sadie’s house, I gave him my e-mail address, and he’d said he’d write me.
Well, it’s only been a few days since I’ve seen him, I reasoned. Maybe he’s busy with his friends or family or whatever.
But even so . . . something suddenly occurred to me. I’d given my e-mail address to Dex. He hadn’t given me his. It hadn’t struck me as odd at the time. But now a little voice of doubt was starting to pipe up in my head. If Dex really was interested in me, why wouldn’t he have given me his e-mail address, too? And even if he was busy, why couldn’t he have dropped me an e-mail by now? Even if it was just a quick, hey-how-are-you-how-was-your-flight note? So did that mean . . . maybe he wasn’t really that into me after all?
And just like that, my stomach soured.
No, I thought, shaking off the gloom. Don’t blow this out of proportion. So Dex didn�
��t send an e-mail yet. Big deal. He’s probably just waiting until he has something to say.
I closed out my e-mail program and shut the laptop with a decisive click. I was not going to waste my first full day in London fretting about whether a guy was going to e-mail me. Even if that guy happened to possess the most gorgeous pale blue eyes and a smile that made my entire body quiver.
“So what are you planning to do today?” Sadie asked when I padded back into the kitchen. I’d showered and dressed, and my hair was still damp. In the time it took me to get ready, Sadie had evidently consumed enough coffee to be conversant. Which was a good thing. Except . . .
“Wait. What do you mean what am I going to do today? Aren’t we going to do something together?” I asked.
“Oh! Didn’t I tell you? I thought I did, but with the excitement of your getting here, and then the cocktail party, I must have forgotten,”Sadie said, first smoothing down her royal blue robe and then shuffling the newspaper into a stack.
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. Whenever Sadie gets twitchy like this, it usually means she’s hiding something.
There was a long pause. “Well . . . as it turns out, I can’t spend the day with you, honey,” Sadie said apologetically.
“What?” I asked. This was unbelievable. I hadn’t seen Sadie in four months, and I’d traveled all the way across the ocean to visit her. Now that I was finally here, she wasn’t even going to spend my first full day in London with me? “Why?”
Sadie sighed heavily, as she downshifted into martyr mode.
“I wish I could. Believe me, I’d much rather spend the day with you than go to a boring old editorial meeting. But today’s the only day this week Giles is free to get together and go over my research notes on Victorian Widow. You understand, don’t you?” Sadie said pleadingly. Her eyes were so wide and mournful, she actually reminded me of my greyhound, Willow, when she’s begging for food at the table.
