13 Little Blue Envelopes(46)

packing job, Ginny noticed. Every inch of the bag perfectly utilized. No overpacking.) She filled two of the four dresser drawers and then nodded to Ginny, indicating that the other two were hers. If she thought it was weird that her parents had just taken on a complete stranger for five days, she didn’t show it. In fact, Ginny quickly got the impression that this kind of thing happened to them a lot, and they simply didn’t notice it anymore. Olivia flopped on the bed, put her earphones 207

in, and stretched her legs up to the ceiling. She didn’t stir until Mrs. Knapp came and got them for dinner.

Even though she hadn’t eaten all day, food still didn’t seem like a good idea to Ginny. The Knapps tried to persuade her for a few minutes but eventually bought the “I’ve been traveling for a while and haven’t had any sleep” excuse.

When they were gone, she wasn’t even quite sure why she

hadn’t gone with them. Something in her just wanted to stay in this little room. She opened her pack and pulled out her wet clothes (waterproofing only did so much). She arranged these over the nightstand.

She went into the bathroom and took a long, scalding hot

shower. (Soap! Towels!) She made a careful effort not to scrub at her ink tattoo, which was starting to fade just a little.

She sat down on her bed, enjoying the warm flush on her

skin and the feeling of clean, and wondered what to do next.

She looked around the room. She could try to wash some

clothes in the sink. (She hadn’t washed anything since London, and it was becoming a problem.) She could go out. But then she saw them—Olivia had books and magazines and music just sitting there on her bed.

From the way Olivia had carefully set out her things, Ginny was more than a little leery of touching anything. And it wasn’t in Ginny’s nature to use something that didn’t belong to her without asking.

But what could it hurt to look at a book or listen to music a few minutes, especially since she really hadn’t had anything to listen to or read in about three weeks?

The temptation was too great.

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She locked the door and carefully studied the exact arrangement of all the items. She tried to code it all in her mind. The magazines were lined up with the third pink stripe from the bottom of the bed. The earphones were resting in a stethoscope shape, with the right one just a little below the left.

Olivia’s music choices were more edgy than Olivia herself appeared to be. Ginny listened to it all, the folky stuff and elec-tronica . . . She paged through the glossies hungrily. It was all so new, so fresh. She didn’t even read these kinds of magazines at home, but now, she was totally content examining the lip-stick ads and reading about the best bangs for her bikini buck.

There was a rattling at the door. A knocking. Ginny ripped the earphones out in a panic and fell off the bed in her haste to rearrange them on Olivia’s side as she had found them. Right earbud above left? No. Whatever . . . She threw them down and smacked the magazines next to them. She had just enough time to pull her hands away from Olivia’s stuff before the door swung open.

“What are you doing on the floor?” Olivia asked.

“Oh, I . . . fell out of bed,” Ginny said. “I was asleep. I got startled. Did you come back early . . . or what time is it?”

“My parents started talking to some people,” Olivia said, unenthused. She glanced at the things on her bed. She didn’t reg-ister any suspicion, but she kept her gaze there for a while. Ginny pulled herself up by the blanket and climbed back into her bed.

“So, OK . . .”

“Nobody calls me that,” Olivia said sharply.

“Oh.”

“Your clothes are all over the place.”

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“They got wet,” Ginny said, feeling an odd wave of guilt for being so damp. “I’m trying to dry them.”

Olivia didn’t reply. She picked up her iPod, turning it over and examining it closely. Then she stuck it in the front pocket of her bag and loudly pulled the zipper. It sounded like the angry growl of a massive bee. Then she vanished into the bathroom. Ginny rolled toward the wall and squeezed her

eyes shut.

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Life with the Knapps

“Rise and shine, porcupines!”

It took a tremendous effort for Ginny to unglue her eyelids.

She had been sleeping so peacefully, and the light was soft coming in through the little curtains. And though her bed was narrow, it was so clean and cozy.

Now a hand was on her leg, shaking her.

“Up and Adam, Miss Virginia!”

Across from her, Olivia was swinging out of bed with

robotic discipline. Ginny looked up and saw Mrs. Knapp standing over her, wielding a plastic travel mug. She put a paper on the pillow next to Ginny’s head.

“Today’s schedule,” she said. “Lots to do! So let’s get bright eyed and bushy tailed!”

She yanked the curtains open and switched on the overhead light. Ginny winced and blearily looked at the paper. The top of the page read: DAY ONE: MUSEUM DAY I. There was a chart of 211

activities and times, beginning at 6:00 a.m. (wake up) and running down to 10:00 (off to bed!). In between were at least ten separate events.

“Meet you guys downstairs in half an hour?” Mrs. Knapp

chirped.

“Yeah,” Olivia said, already halfway into their little bathroom.