Lost in London (4 page)

Having grandparents who were diabetic, I knew what blood sugar was, but I didn’t see the point in explaining it. I looked at Lively’s. “So that short guy is Sebastian?”

“Yes. That’s the evil bloke.”

Sebastian waited on customers, rung them up, and wished them a nice day. “He looks harmless enough.”

“Don’t be fooled, J.J.” Sam said.

I liked the sound of my new name. “I’ll get you your tart,” I offered. He was right. He was a British drama king hiding behind a potted plant in the Hall of Gourmets.

He said, “I couldn’t ask you to do that, but it’s a good idea. He won’t know you.”

I marched toward the line. When Sebastian came to take my order, he was very polite. “Two lemon tarts, please. Actually, make it three.” I remembered that Sam wanted two.

He got me the tarts in a totally non-evil way. He used a square of waxy paper to pull them out of the glass case. When he turned to the counter to grab a box, my view was obstructed for a sec. Then he appeared with the box
wrapped in red string. I paid for the tarts with some English coins.

Then Sebastian leaned over the counter to hand me my change. He motioned me closer. I leaned in.

“Tell Sam I can see him, eh?” he said, and gave me a totally evil grin.

My eyebrows shot up. I turned toward Sam and realized the potted plant was in front of a big mirror. He wasn’t hidden at all.

“Nice try,” Sebastian added as I walked away.

I pushed out a smile, my cheeks red from embarrassment. When I got back to Sam, I held up the box. “Success.”

He took it.

I added, “Oh, and Sebastian says hi.”

“Blast it! He saw me?”

“Afraid so.”

He slid his butt onto the ground, blew the long pieces of blond hair out of his face, and rested his head against the pot. He held up the box. “Just take them away so I’m not tempted.”

I took the box.

He said, “Do it.”

“Do what?”

“Throw it away.”

“Really?” I scowled. I’m pretty sure I paid at least ten bucks for those things. “That’s such a waste.”

“Rubbish! That’s what this is! We’ll come back later when he’s gone. But I can’t risk it . . . You know, the spit.” He kind of gagged like the thought of Sebastian’s saliva made him almost puke. I didn’t like the idea myself.

I threw away the white box. Total bummer, since I was
starving
. Now I’d have to wait until seven o’clock for fish and chips.

He asked, “Wanna go for a walk or something?”

What I really wanted to do was find Caroline and get started on my new look before we toured the city.

I was going to see and do absolutely everything in a new outfit! I didn’t care if I didn’t sleep for five days. . . . Oh, the thought of sleep reminded me how tired I was. I really needed to sleep. I also really needed a snack.

“Bring! Bring!” Sam said, interrupting my thoughts. “Anybody home?”

I snapped to attention. “A walk sounds good.” My stomach growled. “But I think I’m going to get a cookie.”

“You’d better get it from over there. They don’t . . . you know.” He pretended like he was spitting.

I went to the place with the cookie bouquets and got a big sugar cookie and ate it in three bites.

“Wow,” Sam said. He held up his hand with a finger toward his mouth and another toward his ear like a pretend phone. “This is the Hungry Company. Is J.J. there?” He held his hand toward me. “It’s for you.”

I giggled a little bit. I didn’t actually understand the phone thing, but it was funny. I wanted to get to know Sam better. He was goofy, but not in a dorky way. And even a dull American could see he was very good-looking.

“British girls are all itsy-bitsy about their bites of tiny sandwiches. It’s so unrealistic. If you’re hungry, you’re hungry.” Then he added, “Let’s go. If you’ve never been here, there’s some cool stuff I can show you. Like the Hole.”

“There’s a hole?”

“Well, that’s what they call it. It’s more like a lift shaft without the lift,” he said.

Maybe “pram” wasn’t in my pre-trip homework, but I knew that “lift” was an elevator, so that gave me a decent picture.

When we stood at the bottom of the Hole and looked up eighteen floors, I understood what he was trying to explain. It
was
like an elevator shaft, but instead of being surrounded by walls, it was surrounded by escalators
that made a square frame. Some department must’ve been giving away balloons, because a few floated up.

“This is all one store?”

“Yup. One big store that takes up a city block.”

Sam hopped on the up escalator.

We rode up one story and stopped on the landing. A glass display case showed what was on that floor. This floor was Toys, so the windows on the landing were decorated with games, puzzles, stuffed animals, remote control planes, and electric cars. Music trickled out from inside the toy department, and a line of kids snaked out the door.

“Every few floors there’s something for kids to do while their parents shop. My little sister loves to come with my mom to play dress-up in the Formal Wear Department.”

The next floor was Cosmetics and Jewelry, where we could smell the faint scents of various perfumes. The mannequins in the windows were drenched in necklaces and bracelets.

Hmmm . . . maybe my makeover can start on this floor?

Eventually we passed Persian rugs, so I knew that was where we were having dinner. As we walked, I scanned the crowd. People of every color and nationality I could imagine were browsing the store: women
with black shrouds over their heads that only allowed a crack for their eyes, men with long black beards and furry sideburns, people with pale white skin to very dark brown skin and black hair.

“What do you think?” Sam asked as we went up another level.

Daphne’s wasn’t the ginormous London Eye Ferris wheel that overlooked the Thames River (which was one of the things I really wanted to do this week), but I had to admit, it was pretty amazing. “It’s definitely bigger than I thought it would be. I don’t know of any place quite like it in the US. We have big department stores like Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. It’s like this place ate those stores
and
a carnival. Is there anything it doesn’t have?”

“A planetarium, a racetrack, and an ice rink. They’re working on a cinema and a bowling alley.”

I thought he was kidding me, but he didn’t laugh. “Seriously,” he said. “And a helicopter pad on the roof for people traveling from really far. Later this year they’ll let people bungee from off the side of the building.”

I narrowed my eyes.

He grinned. “Okay, you got me. I made that one up. Don’t call the Exaggeration Patrol. But the others are
true, and if I made a suggestion about the bungee, I bet they’d make that happen too.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Maybe I will,” he said, playfully pushing my shoulder.

“We should find Caroline,” I suggested.

“Good idea,” Sam said. “Let’s round up the gang and play a game of Slip Away.”

“What’s Slip Away?” I asked.

“We use the whole store. One group flees and the other searches. Every fifteen minutes the flee-ers text the searchers a clue about where they’re hiding.”

“It sounds like hide-and-seek.”

“Hide-and-seek is for tots. This is way more.”

Sam clicked at his phone, which he called a “mobile” (with a long
i
, so it rhymed with “pile”), as we approached the landing of Formal Wear and Kids’ Dress-Up Department on the tenth floor.

“They’re on their way,” he said.

A minute later the golden double doors of an elevator opened. Out walked Caroline, carrying multiple big white shopping bags with the Daphne’s logo. Ellie and Gordo came out behind her, each also carrying a bag or two.

Did I miss the shopping?

“Game on?” Gordo asked. His hair had been gelled up like a rock star’s, and I think he’d put on eyeliner. They’d gone to the salon! I
had
missed it.

Sam nodded and gave his friend a fist bump.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Ellie, examining her cuticles. “I was hoping for a manicure.”
Oh, me too!
Maybe I could go home with long elegant nails.

Gordo said, “You can get a mani any day. In fact, I’ll come back with you tomorrow if you want.”

“Okay, then I’m in,” she said.

Caroline sighed. “Fine. But I’ll need to find a locker.”

Gordo took her bags from her hands. “I’ll take care of that for you. There’s some by the loo.” He disappeared down a hallway with a restroom sign.

“What are the teams?” Ellie asked. “Last time I fleed and this time I want to search. I could be like the captain of the searchers.”

“Let’s do the coin method,” Sam said. “It’s the most fair.”

Gordo reappeared. “Good plan.”

Sam reached into the pocket of his baggy jeans and handed a coin to everyone. “Odd years are searchers. Even years are flee-ers.”

I took the coin Sam gave me and looked at the date: 1970. “Even,” I said.

“Odd,” said Gordo and Ellie. They moved next to each other.

“Even,” Sam said.

Caroline didn’t say anything but moved to our even team.

“It’s three versus two.” Sam, Caroline, and I were going to hide.

Gordo said, “You better run. You only have two minutes.”

Sam took off.

“I love to search. You guys better watch out,” Ellie called after us. “I’m coming after you!”

Caroline tried to keep up with Sam and me, but with her high-heeled boots, running didn’t come easily. I almost crashed into a group of women wearing colorful belly dancing pants trimmed with small metal discs that jingled as they moved out of my way.

“Sorry,” I said, not losing pace.

We stopped near the tuxedos and huddled. Sam said, “Okay, Caroline go to Toys. J.J., you go to Linens.”
Linens? I wasn’t going to be able to search for a new look in Linens.

“J.J.?” Caroline asked, forgetting, or not noticing, that I’d changed my name earlier.

“That’s what my friends call me.” I waited a beat for her approval. I didn’t get it. It felt like a sting.

Caroline left without much of a run.

Sam said, “I’m going to Garden.” He went to the escalator.

“Wait,” I called. “Which way to Linens?”

He pointed to the “lift” and held up six fingers.

“And what do I do when I get there?”

“You text a clue about where you are, like, ‘Cover me up, I’m cold.’ ” And Sam disappeared up the escalators.

“Wait!”

He started walking down the upward-moving stairs. “What?”

“I don’t have anyone’s cell phone numbers.”

He ran down faster and jumped the last few steps to return to the landing. “Gimme your digits. I’ll text everyone. Then you’ll have ’em all.”

I told him my number, and he practically shoved me into the elevator.

Downstairs I found Linens and looked for a place to hide. There were thousands of possibilities. Behind a pile
of towels, under a display bed that was wrapped in pretty sheets and comforters, among stacks of blankets . . . But a fake tub caught my eye, mostly because I thought of a great clue: “Rub-a-dub-dub.”

I opened my phone and saw a text from Sam. I guess he’d already found a hiding spot, because he’d sent everyone a note that said, “Rhymes with noses.” Since he was in Garden, I guessed he was hidden among roses, although it could’ve been hoses.

I replied to everyone with my awesome clue and pulled back the display shower curtain that partially hid a claw-foot bathtub. When it seemed like no one was looking, I casually pulled the curtain aside and slipped behind it.

The tub was filled with light pink plastic balls that looked like bubbles. I dug a foot in between the balls, and when I touched the bottom of the tub, I put the other foot in too. I carefully sunk into the bubbles until I was completely covered. I only left myself a little crack to watch the back side of the shower curtain so I’d know when someone pushed it aside.

The tub was surprisingly comfortable. Cozy, actually. I wanted to shop rather than play this game, which wasn’t as dumb as I thought it would be, but now that I was lying here, it felt good.