Asking for Trouble: 1 (London Confidential)

by Sandra Byrd

  Maybe if I got the column. . . . My mind wandered. I could see it now. I’d be delivering the paper and Penny would tell them that, believe it or not, I was the journalist on the Cousin Savvy beat—yes, that’s right, Savvy was short for Savannah. Were they dull? Why hadn’t they gotten that? And then their tight, closed circle would open and they’d welcome me in, and every weekend would be busy with parties and clubs.

  “Oh, oof, excuse me!” The bubble in my imagination popped as I ran into one of the most popular boys on campus. I backed away, glad that I hadn’t bumped into him so hard that either of us had fallen down.

  “Carry on,” he said, brushing off his sleeves. His tone of voice was formal, and his face was hard. I was too afraid to turn around to see if Penny and the Aristocats were still there. I just didn’t want to know.

  Chapter 23

  When I got home on Friday afternoon Dad’s car was in the driveway. Uh-oh. Was another marital spat under way? I kicked off my shoes by the front door and walked in. Instead of frowns and loud voices, I was met with smiles—and two suitcases.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “We have to take Dad into London for the night—he’s got an overnight conference.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But do we all need to take him?”

  Mom nodded. “Good family togetherness time,” she said.

  Louanne bounded down the steps. “Want me to deliver your invitations before we go?”

  “Sure, you can both go.”

  “Mom!” I protested. I did not want to be Postman Patty. My social life was already in the tube—and I didn’t mean the London Underground.

  “Just stand nearby and watch Louanne,” Mom said. “But I’ll take an invitation to Vivienne next door.” Mom handed the packet to Louanne. “Take one to each house on the street, and make sure you ask them to give it to the lady of the house.”

  I slipped my feet back into my school shoes and rolled my eyes as we walked back into the November drizzle. Every house was made of brick and looked exactly like the next—except for the tiny planted gardens in front, now sleeping till spring, and the color of the doors. Some were a demure brown, others a bright blue or a hopeful yellow. Ours was spicy red. Appropriate, I thought, for a house on Cinnamon Street. Some houses had names that were listed on plaques affixed near the door—names like Thimble Cottage or Swan Lodge. I stood on the tidy sidewalk as Louanne knocked on each door, looking like a Girl Scout selling cookies. I guess, in a way, she was.

  She knocked on the first door, and a woman about my mom’s age in an apron took the invitation from her, looked at it politely, and then firmly closed the door.

  House number two was manned—literally—by a big guy scratching a huge beer belly, which was not well hidden by his too-small white T-shirt. He seemed friendly enough but pushed the invitation back to Louanne and shook his head, his jowls quivering as he did.

  “No wife,” she said to me as she headed toward door number three. Which was much the same as doors four, five, and six. From what I could tell, most of the people who answered the door looked puzzled, took the invitation, and closed the door as quickly and politely as possible.

  “No one is answering here, Savvy,” Louanne called back to me at the last house. I gestured for her to stick the invitation in the doorjamb, and we headed back home. On the way in the door, we could see Mom talking with Vivienne next door.

  Please, Lord, let Vivienne be positive about the party, I prayed. But I didn’t want to look like a lurker, so I headed into our house.

  “Come on, Giggle,” Louanne called and took the dog out for one last potty break. After crating him, we all got in the little car and tootled away.

  I have to admit, I still closed my eyes half the time when we were driving. It was just so weird to be on the left side of the road! I kept imagining that someone was going to come around the corner and smash right into us and we’d all be dead.

  I do want to see You face-to-face, Jesus, I thought. But not today. I had a lot of important things to do first. Like buy some black patent zip-up boots at Topshop. Have afternoon tea at Claridge’s, an extremely swanky hotel. And be a wildly successful journalist with my own byline. So no car crashes yet.

  Mom popped a praise music CD into the car’s player—one of my favorite mixes with “Blessed Be Your Name.” But while the Matt Redman music was great, it did make me a little sad. We still hadn’t found a church. If all of this great praise music was coming out of London, which is where Redman was from, where were all the good churches?

  We drove through the spiderweb of paved streets that made up Wexburg and then through the damp green hills of the Kent countryside. The wind blew a little, and in the dusk it looked like the limbs of the naked trees waved us on our way to London.

  Half an hour later we pulled up in front of a hotel. “Here we are,” Dad said as he got out of the car. He leaned over and kissed Mom, then blew a kiss to both of us in the back.

  “Have fun,” Louanne called out as he shut the door.

  He poked his head back in through the open window. “No, you have fun!” And then he winked at both of us.

  “What was he talking about?” I asked my mom as she started the car and took off—in the wrong direction!

  “Mom, you’re going the wrong way. You’re heading toward London, not toward Wexburg,” I said. What was next? She’d be driving on the right side of the road and then I could kiss the black zip-up boots good-bye.

  “I’m not going the wrong way,” Mom said. “We’re going to London for the night.”

  “What? Really?”

  “Hooray!” Louanne piped up. Of course she would be happy. Unlike me, she’d already changed out of her school uniform.

  “It’s a surprise. I looked at that list your friend Penny gave you and chose a couple of things for us to do tonight and tomorrow.”

  “Seriously?” I could feel the excitement rising in me.

  “Seriously,” Mom said. “Why should Dad have all the fun?”

  “Exactly!” Louanne reached her hand out for a high five, and I smacked her palm back. “But what about Giggle?” she sounded panicked.

  “Vivienne will let him out tonight and in the morning. I’ve got you covered. I even brought a change of clothes for you, Savvy,” Mom said, keeping her eyes on the road.

  Well, no matter what she’d picked out, it had to be better than my uniform. Nothing was going to spoil this—my first delicious taste of downtown London.

  Chapter 24

  First we got to check into this amazingly cool hotel, the Renaissance Chancery Court. Even the name oozed London! We pulled up in front of a tall white building, kind of like a palace—more what I’d expected the Houses of Parliament to look like. Certainly not like anything in Seattle!

  We drove through a stone arch to get to the doors, and when we did, three men with long black coats and tall black top hats came to each of our car doors and opened them for us. The one who opened my mom’s door took the car keys from her and then opened the trunk and took out our suitcase.

  “Thank you,” Mom said.

  “You’re quite welcome, madam,” he replied.

  “Ooh, madam,” we teased her as we walked into the luxurious hotel.

  I hope Mom packed my makeup and straightener. The damp British air did a number on my hair by the end of the day. We walked through some rotating brass and glass doors into a stately lobby with wall-to-wall Turkish carpets and a gleaming white marble staircase twisting up the center. Mom checked in and we took the lift—that’s elevator for us Americans—to the third floor. After unlocking the door, Mom pushed it open and we walked in. Cool!

  Louanne ran in and flopped on the bed like a fish on the beach. I walked in a bit more slowly, took in the marble countertops in the bathroom and the neat cupboards hidden behind smooth wood paneling and decided, oh yeah, this would do.

  Mom looked at her watch. “We need to change quickly!” she said. “Dinner and then . . . the show.”<
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  After a quick dinner at the hotel dining room, we took a cab across the River Thames and pulled up in front of a large, round theater. Its exterior was white stucco, but it had broad planks of wood crisscrossing it, just like hundreds of years ago. My excitement built as Louanne read the sign: “Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre!”

  “Really?” I turned my head and looked. It was true! For a girl like me who loved to read and write, nothing in London could be more exciting. Well, except the shopping. Maybe they were tied.

  The cab dropped us off, and Mom went up to the ticket booth and got our tickets. “Benches or groundlings?” the ticket agent asked. Louanne looked to me, but I didn’t know what he meant either, so I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Benches,” Mom said, and then paid extra for three seat cushions. She also got the playbills and handed them to me. I looked at the cover and couldn’t believe the play we were about to see. My favorite. One that might be predicting my future in London. Without the dying part, that is.

  We made our way through the theater—a swirl of gold and brown wood. It was kind of in the shape of a seashell, but with the stage in front. I looked up at the sky, clear on this autumn night, and I was glad, because if it had been raining it would have come down right into the open-air theater . . . and onto the groundlings. “The groundlings are people who are standing to watch,” Mom whispered. “Just like the poor in Shakespeare’s time.”

  Too totally cool. I was still glad we had seats on the bench—and that Mom had sprung the extra money for the bench pads.

  The play was so, so great. Juliet was gorgeous, and her thick velvet costume with ruffled cuffs was to die for. “Do you think I’d look good in that?” I whispered to Louanne.

  “I think they’d throw you in the loony bin if you showed up anywhere other than a Halloween party looking like that,” she said.

  I frowned. I could make it work. Somewhere.

  Romeo was extremely good looking. And of course he was a teenager. Which meant he could be a possibility . . . right? Afterward we headed over to the gift shop, and I bought the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack and music to try to play on my guitar. I’d never played medieval music before.

  Mom, Louanne, and I took a sleek black cab back to the hotel. “Visiting London then, is you?” The cabby seemed pretty friendly. “From the States, then?”

  “We live in Kent now,” Mom said, proud, I think, not to be 100 percent tourist.

  “Well, then, you’re a regular Britisher now, isn’t you?” He laughed the thick, cough-syrupy laugh of someone who smoked too much, but it was infectious, and we laughed with him.

  We drove through the streets of London. Amazingly, holiday decorations were already going up. “But it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!” I pointed out to my mom as we passed some lit wreaths and a sign promising the appearance of Father Christmas.

  “They don’t have Thanksgiving, Savvy,” Mom reminded me. Oh yeah. This was England.

  “Can I see Father Christmas?” Louanne asked, face pressed to the cold window.

  Mom and I laughed, but I noticed she made no promises.

  That night we got our pj’s on and ate warm chocolate chip cookies in bed—delivered by room service, of course.

  “Thanks for everything, Mom,” I said, visions of Shakespeare still playing in my mind.

  “Jack, Jack, wherefore art thou, Jack?” Louanne mimicked in a high-pitched voice. I threw a pillow at her, and she broke into giggles. I did too.

  The next morning we pulled on some warmer clothes. “Best wear your jumper,” Mom teased, and we all laughed. When we’d first read over our uniform list for school, we’d wondered why we’d need something to start the car when the battery died. But it turned out that jumpers were sweaters, and we dutifully pulled them on today. Mine was green, pink, and black plaid. I thought it looked rather smart.

  “Can we take the Underground?” I asked. I’d been dying to ride it. Most of the people at school rode it regularly. Even Hazelle. But my parents wouldn’t let me ride it alone.

  Mom nodded, and we walked to the station with the big red and white bull’s-eye and the word Underground in white on blue across it. We hopped on the shiny aluminum escalator that swept us underground.

  Even though the waiting area was sleek with clean, modern tile, you could hear the trains rumbling every which way in the distance, like ogres shaking deep under the city. I also smelled the grease on the tracks, kind of like an auto repair shop smell. The walls trembled. Now that I was here, I wasn’t sure.

  “Have I ever been claustrophobic?” I asked Mom.

  She laughed. “No. And you’re not now.”

  We got on and shot across town. When we got off, we were just a few blocks from Buckingham Palace.

  “We can’t take the tour, because the Queen is in residence,” Mom said. “But I thought it would be fun to walk by.”

  I held my breath. The Queen is in residence! I loved being an American—go USA! But how absolutely cool—“extraordinary,” as the Brits would say—to have a queen. A queen whose family had perched on this particular throne for a thousand years.

  We got a coffee at Starbucks, which we still drank to ward off homesickness, and then walked by the palace.

  Its smooth beige stones reached toward the sky. There were statues dotted here and there and capped with real gold.

  “If I were a journalist, maybe I could get an interview with the Queen sometime,” I said.

  “Or Prince Harry,” Louanne teased.

  I cuffed her on the side of the head. “Be careful, or I’m going to feed you to the bears.” I pointed at the red-coated, bear-hatted guards standing at attention in front of the palace gates.

  “Let me take your picture with one of them,” Mom said. Louanne went on one side of the soldier, and I stood on the other. He looked straight ahead, not wavering. Not blinking or moving at all.

  It’s a tradition that tourists to London are supposed to try to crack the calm of the palace guards. What could I try? I thought back to my dad, winking at us as we got out of the car yesterday. I looked at the guard, and although he didn’t meet my gaze, I thought I saw his eyes flicker a little. In a flash, I winked.

  He didn’t twitch, but my journalistic powers of observation were dialed to high, and I thought I saw a little pink flush up from his tightly starched collar. I grinned.

  I hoped that pink neck showed in the picture.

  Chapter 25

  Once I’d turned in my answers for the advice column contest, the whole next week was practically a washout as far as schoolwork was concerned. And at home it was even worse, because there weren’t even any teachers to keep me on track. I tried to concentrate—really! But I knew that Jack and Julia were reading the sample columns this week. Jack said he would tell everyone privately—since the submissions were private. I just didn’t know how I’d find out.

  So here’s how my week went.

  Monday. The week started off okay. My stomach was a little queasy from fried clams at Fishcoteque, but I had only myself to blame for that. I talked with Gwennie and Jill. I used every last ounce of concentration not to mess up the science experiment, because I figured I had nine friendship lives with them and I’d already used up eight. Or seven, at least. When I got home that day, my chore was laundry.

  I was thinking all about how the Dear Cousin Savvy column could be formatted and threw everything into the wash at once—hot water. So much for my green-black-pink jumper. I went to take it out of the washer and was horrified to find that the body had shrunk to doll size while the arms looked like long snakes. I buried it, and Mom’s ruined blue silk shirt, deep in the garbage and hoped nobody would notice.

  Tuesday. I was called in front of the maths class for chewing gum. I knew we weren’t supposed to have gum, and normally I don’t, but I’d forgotten to swallow it on the way to school that morning. As I walked up the row to throw it in the dustbin, I heard this creepy guy who had stared at me all semester whisper an old playgro
und poem. “The gum-chewing girl and the cud-chewing cow are so alike, yet different somehow. Ah yes, I see the difference now. It’s the intelligent look on the face of the cow!”

  “Clever,” I whispered to him with as stinging a look as I could force as I passed him on my way back to my seat. I saw Hazelle grinning behind her grid paper notebook—not with me, but with him. He smiled at her and she blushed. Aha! The Ice Maiden had a crush. I didn’t really want to be known as the Cud Chewer.

  Wednesday. It was my turn to water the houseplants, and my mother insisted I do it outside—even though it was freezing out. She didn’t want the water dripping and warping Aunt Maude’s floors. So I hauled out the fern, the ficus, and the crazy yucca plant and set them on the small patio. I put on my iPod and watered each plant. I waited two full songs to make sure no more water was going to drip out of the bottom of the pots and ruin Aunt Maude’s floors. Then I hauled them all in.

  A few minutes later I was getting ready to kick back on the sofa and watch a little telly when something smelled bad, and I mean really bad, like only one thing could. I looked to my left. There was Growl, lying like a little angel on a rug. He opened one eye and looked at me, then stretched and went back to sleep. I looked at the bottom of my shoe—my brand-new imitation leather moccasins. Gross! Dog doo! I gave myself a minute to be completely sicked out before I ran to the kitchen and got some cleaning stuff to take care of it. I can’t imagine what my mother would think of that on Aunt Maude’s floors. I worked fast.

  Thursday. First, it was raining out, so by the time I’d delivered the papers all the way around campus, my hair was completely frizzy and I looked kind of like Hazelle’s secret sister. I ran into the loo (they don’t call them bathrooms here) and tried to fix it up. Number one item on my Christmas list: battery-operated hair straightener. If I had a friend here, I could share her electric one. But the plugs for hair straighteners were always taken by girls who had been here a long time. Namely, the Aristocats and their barnacles.