Lost in London

by Callaghan, Cindy

  I studied my map of London while waiting to be fetched. People here totally said “fetched,” right? Eventually Liam came to the guest room door. “Miss Jordan? Ready to go shopping?”

  I snapped up. “Yup!” I took a second to re-fluff my hair and straighten my fleece vest.

  Liam led me to the front door, his shiny shoes tapping on the gleaming hardwood floors. I let out a yawn and tried to shake the fuzz out of my head. I could easily sleep until dinner . . . maybe until dinner tomorrow. And I was hungry, like double-burger-fries-and-a-shake hungry.

  Caroline stood by the car talking on her cell phone. She was way more dressed up than me: boots like I’d seen only in a magazine—they went up to her knees—and a skirt that defined the word “mini.” I practically drooled over her chunky bracelets. I couldn’t see her eyes under bejeweled sunglasses—odd, since it had turned cloudy—but I suspected she wore makeup to match her red lipstick. She looked like she could be fifteen easily. Suddenly even my cute scarf felt worse than drab.

  It looked like Caroline would know exactly what I needed to transform. I wondered if I could get that look, if she could teach me to be glamorous.

  Caroline clapped her phone shut. “Liam!” she called, and turned to see us. “Oh, there you are.” She gave me an extra look over the top of her glasses but didn’t comment. “Sam, Gordo, and Ellie are meeting us at Daphne’s.”

  Liam held the car door open, and I got into the back like I’d had a driver all my life. Caroline propped the sunglasses on her head. I was right—eye makeup. “Is Daphne one of your friends?”

  “Are you serious? Daphne isn’t a who. It’s a what. And it’s the most crackin’ what to shop at in all of London. You wanted to see the sights.” She checked her lipstick in a compact mirror. “And, trust me, Daphne’s is quite a sight. People from all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and even from the other side of the pond come to London to shop at Daphne’s. You’re going to love it. First stop, lattes. Oui?”

  “Oui,” I said, like I had lattes and drizzled French words like “oui” into my conversations all the time.

  Looking out of the window, feeling a little self-conscious in my basic Old Navy clothes, I felt my mood improve as we drove over the London Bridge . . . THE actual London Bridge. The one the song is about. Then we passed the Marble Arch, and Madame Tussauds—all places I was dying to see. I couldn’t wait to visit them all. I snapped picture after picture. It started raining heavily, like nor’easter-heavy raining. I doubted that they called them nor’easters here.

  “It’s supposed to storm quite hard today,” Liam said. “That’s why they call it Rainy London.”

  He pulled over. I looked for a store. “Where is it?” I asked.

  Caroline said, “You’re next to it.”

  I squinted. “All I see is this big hotel.”

  “That’s not a hotel. That’s eighteen floors of blooming shopping perfection.”

  “Eighteen? That’s a lot of floors,” I said, craning my neck to see to the top.

  “Yes. And in order to get through all of them, we’re going to need some energy in the form of caffeine. So, let the lattes begin!”

  “Oui,” I experimented. I didn’t get a funny look from Caroline, so I think I used it right. Yay, me!

  I thanked Liam and followed Caroline, like a puppy, through the downpour into the store. I noticed I wasn’t the only puppy, but the others were riding into Daphne’s inside designer handbags. People toted their pooches along with them. If I were taking notes, I would’ve definitely written that down.

  I hiked my backpack onto my shoulder. I felt a little guilty to be at a big Macy’s instead of exploring the sights of London, but there would be plenty of time for that after I shopped. And, really, this little shopping trip was vitally important to the new me.

  I glanced at the store directory—a holographic map projected onto a humungous wall. It showed everything that could be found on the eighteen floors, from sun hats to snowshoes, and everything imaginable in between. Every brand I had ever heard of and hundreds—no, thousands—that I hadn’t, crowded the directory. The map was in English, French, Spanish, and symbols that I thought might be Arabic. It looked like everything ever made in the world was in this store.

  This could be more than a little shopping trip; this might be a complete fashion transformation, even if that meant a summer of shoveling poop.

  4

  I trailed after Caroline through what seemed like department after department of purses.

  “We can come back and you can look for a purse later. You need one.” Apparently my L.L.Bean backpack didn’t cut it. “But I want to find my mates first. You’ll love them. I’m sure Ellie will want to get a mani at the salon here.” A mani? I’d never had one.

  Salon, hmmm . . . what if I get my hair trimmed? Maybe Caroline could look through those hair books with me and help me pick out a new do?

  “Do you know all of them?” I asked. “The floors, I mean?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve been coming here since I was in my gingham plaid pram.”

  “What’s a pram? Like a shirt?”

  “Uh, no.” I think she rolled her eyes. “It’s a buggy, a baby stroller.”

  She spoke English, but it was like a totally different language. I thought about my baby cousin and decided that the next time I saw her, I was going to use the word “pram.”

  Caroline walked toward a giant copper cappuccino machine that sat behind a high counter. Three people were waiting for us—a girl and two guys. They offered Caroline hugs, and the girls oohed and aahed about Caroline’s sunglasses. Apparently, they were something special.

  I waited for her to introduce me. For a second I thought she’d forgotten that I was there, but then she said, “This is Jordan. She’s from the States and needed a place to stay, so she’s living with us for the week.”

  Needed a place to stay?

  “Actually it’s like a study abroad program,” I said. “I see the sights with Caroline and her family, and when I get back, I’ll do a report about it for school.”

  “Well, that’s exciting,” Caroline said like she didn’t mean it. “A report for school?”

  Did those totally lame words just come out of my mouth? “Actually, I was going to do a photo and video montage of my trip and narrate over it.” Her expression said that this didn’t impress her either.

  A boy dressed just about as well as Caroline (leather ankle boots, blazer over a cashmere turtleneck) said, “At least you’ll have something totally brilliant to report—Daphne’s. People bite off their arm to come here. You should find plenty to montage—eighteen floors’ worth. Can you believe it, eighteen? I know, it’s unbelievable, eh?” He stretched out his hand. “I’m Gordo.”

  “Hi,” I said. “I guess you know who I am.” I tried to rebound from “school report.” “This is bril. I can’t wait to shop. Very bril.” Okay, maybe one too many “brils,” but it was progress.

  “Ooh, I love your accent . . .,” Caroline’s friend with double-pierced ears and spiky hair said. “It’s so . . . different.”

  “Thanks,” I said, unsure if she really meant it as a compliment.

  “Where are you from?” she asked.

  “Wilmington,” I said.

  “Is that near Los Angeles?”

  “Um, yup. It’s near LA.” Crap, I was reinventing myself as a liar. “Kinda, sorta near it.”

  “I’m Ellie with an i-e,” said Spiky Hair. “I’m changing from a y. So, it’s kind of a big deal.”

  “Interesting,” I said, and I really thought it was. Maybe I’d change the spelling of my name. “How’s that working for you?”

  “So far it’s like a bomb. I feel like a new person already. Which I guess I kind of am. You know, with the i-e and everything.”

  “Yup.” I mentally considered this. Jordan Jacoby . . . Jor? Jor Jack? J Jack? J.J.? “My friends call me J.J.,” I said quietly to test it with Ellie and see if the new name was okay.


  “J.J.,” Ellie said as if trying it out. “I like it.”

  Yay! I did too. In fact, it felt like a bomb. Like a whole-big-new-image bomb.

  Gordo stopped gushing over Caroline’s clothes long enough to order a skinny latte. “Fancy one?”

  “Sure. Thanks. I’d fancy one.” (I’d just said “fancy.”) I’d heard people order coffee drinks whose names went on for half an hour . . . A double mocha joka jerky over ice with a peppermint twist and a Kansas City pickle on the side. “Whatever you’re having.”

  “You got it, baby doll,” Gordo said as he moved up in line.

  Baby doll? I was gonna use that one at home too.

  Gordo asked, “So, what’s your story, J.J.?”

  It took me half a second to realize he was talking to me. I was J.J. “Oh, you know, the usual. Regular thirteen-year-old girl.” Little did Gordo know that “regular” was an exaggeration.

  “What do you like to do?” he asked.

  “You know, stuff. Girl stuff.”

  “Like regular thirteen-year-old girl stuff?”

  “Exactly,” I said, laughing.

  “I see. So, you’re not like an undercover secret agent or something? Or a famous movie star pretending to be an ordinary girl to get away from the paparazzi?”

  “I’m positive.”

  Gordo’s questions were interrupted when he ordered coffee.

  The other guy with them had only looked in the cases of gourmet food. He bought a large bag of jelly beans. “I’m Sam. And for the record, I’m here for the candy, not the shopping.” Whether you were in America or England, there was one word to describe Sam, and that word was “cute.” He had rock-star blond hair that was longish in the front and buzzed in the back.

  “Candy?”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “You got me.” He pushed the longish part of his hair out of his eyes. “I like the pastries, too. I’m in search of a lemon tart from Lively’s. It’s just over there a bit, around the bend. When it’s all clear, I’ll get one.”

  Then he put his index finger and pinkie to his ear and mouth, like a phone. “Ring, bring!” he said. “Hello?” Then he said in a different voice, like it was the person on the other end of the phone talking, “Hi, this is the Truth Society calling. We just heard you tell a lie.” And then he said, “Okay, you got me. I’ll get at least two lemon tarts.” The hand-phone disappeared.

  “Um, okay,” I said, not sure how to react to this strangeness. “Why do you have to wait for the all clear?”

  Ellie picked up her coffee cup and turned around as she slid a bright pink straw through the little hole in the lid. “Because of Sebastian Lively. Lively is with a y. He works there for his dad. They own Lively’s bakery in town. It’s so popular that Daphne’s asked them to open a counter here. And he works at it. Anyway, Sebastian is both annoying and evil. He hates us—well, mostly Caroline—because she told everyone he was half-midget and born in a circus.”

  “I had meant it to be funny,” Caroline defended herself. “Turns out he’s a half midget with no sense of humor.”

  Ellie laughed a little too hard. Caroline gave a very subtle head shake that told everyone that the laugh annoyed her. Ellie must’ve caught on, because she stopped and quickly added, “Sorry.”

  “Because Sebastian hates Caroline, he automatically hates us, too. So, it’s not safe to eat his tarts,” Sam said. “Even though Sebastian is a royal jerk—and I do mean royal, because he claims that somewhere in his lineage he has royal blood—his family’s bakery is still the best.”

  “The best,” Gordo confirmed.

  Ellie continued, “Gordo convinced Sam that when Sebastian sees us coming, he spits in the lemon tarts.”

  “Seriously?” I asked. Ew.

  “Totally serious.” Gordo handed me a big cup that felt light, like it was only half-full. “Sebastian has quite a deviously creative mind.”

  I sipped the warm coffee drink and refrained from making a yuck-face, because if these cool kids drank lattes, then so could I.

  I watched as Gordo used silver tongs to add brown sugar cubes to his drink. When he handed me the tongs, I did the same. The brown sugar dissolved, and I sipped it again. It was better. Good, actually. I liked holding this tall cup with a cardboard protector sleeve on it. The first thing I was going to do when I got home was go to Cup O’ Joes and order a latte. My friend Darbie from home would be so impressed.

  Caroline and Ellie joined us with their matching icy tan drinks. The straws had red lipstick rings at the top. I wanted to buy a tube of lipstick. I knew the cherry-flavored ChapStick in my backpack didn’t make a ring like that.

  “Shall we shop?” Caroline asked.

  “Yes!” Ellie and Gordo said in unison. Sam ate a jelly bean.

  Caroline looked at her watch. “Five and a half hours till closing.”

  I’d never shopped for five and a half hours! “Power-shopping” had a whole new meaning here.

  “Why don’t you go on ahead,” Sam said. “J.J. looks like she wants a lemon tart.”

  Gordo narrowed his eyes at Sam. “Be careful.” Then he looked at our group, which was about to split up. “Duli for dinner at seven?”

  Caroline and Ellie nodded and slurped with their straws.

  “Okay,” said Ellie. “But for the record I have no respect for a place that ends with an i. It’s like they couldn’t decide between the i-e or the y. No respect at all.”

  Gordo whispered to Sam, “Duli is on the fifth floor behind the Persian rugs.”

  “Thanks. I can read a store map,” Sam whispered back.

  To me Gordo said, “Don’t fill up on lemon tarts. There’s lots of fish and chips to ingest. Cheers!”

  “Cheers!” I echoed back. Fish and chips didn’t sound good to me. I stuck with the usual stuff like burgers (no cheese), spaghetti (no sauce), and pretzels.

  When they left, Sam said, “Don’t like fish and chips, eh?”

  “I love ’em. I can’t wait for a dish of fish,” I lied again. The un-boring of Jordan Jacoby would now include new foods too!

  I followed him across the pretty lacquered floors, and he glanced back at me as we went deeper into the store. “You didn’t look like you wanted to shop.”

  “I didn’t?” Of course I want to shop. How am I going to get a new look without shopping?

  “It’s a gift I have. Like a sixth sense. Freaky, eh?” He grinned, and I realized he had dimples, really cute dimples.

  “A little, I guess. But maybe it’s not working well today, because I kinda would like to shop.”

  “Huh? Really? Strange. It’s never not worked before. You don’t look like a shopper.”

  I hope the translation of that didn’t mean: “That ugly outfit looks like a hand-me-down.”

  • • •

  I smelled it before I could see it: cinnamon and chocolate, cakes and pies baking. The scent entranced me and drew me deeper into the store. But the sight was even better.

  It was an absolutely incredible scene, like Willy Wonka incredible. The Hall of Gourmets (kind of like a fancy food court, inside Daphne’s) was dedicated solely to sweets. The display went way beyond candy to every type of baked treat you could imagine. A kiosk of bouquets made of cookies stood in the center; another kiosk specialized in cakes stacked five layers high. One cake was a replica of the store, with incredible detail right down to the brick front and windows showcasing dresses, sporting equipment, and toys. One area was floor to ceiling tubes of gummies. A tall ladder on wheels held a man who filled the tubes from the tops. Kids opened the bottom and let the candy pieces fall into their bags.

  At the end of the hall I saw letters in glittery lights: Lively’s.

  It took me a minute to absorb the variety of desserts around me, during which I lost sight of Sam. I turned in every direction but couldn’t find him in his red long-sleeved oxford, untucked from his baggy jeans.

  Someone tugged on my backpack, and I twisted around, then finally looked down. Sam was crouched
down behind a potted plant.

  5

  “What are you doing?” I whispered to Sam.

  “Hiding from Sebastian. He’s there, working the counters. The short redheaded kid in the pink apron. If he sees me, I’m a goner.”

  I couldn’t decide if it was better to crouch down or just keep talking, because it probably looked like I was chatting up a giant fern. “Goner? Really?”

  “Fine, the Drama Police called, and they said maybe I’m not a goner, but I won’t get a tart, which is pretty much the same thing. My blood sugar is low.”

  “Do you even know what low blood sugar is?” I didn’t mention that he’d just pounded a ton of jelly beans.

  “No. But mine is probably low, and that can’t be a good thing.”

  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.