Chapter 2
Twelve Weeks Ago
Nick and Sophie rang our buzzer the next morning while I was scavenging a breakfast of jam and a leftover baguette. I’d thought I’d be by myself for the two days until Dad got back, but our new housekeeper had shown up half an hour after my adventure with the code box, just when Dad had asked her to. If I hadn’t been so jet-lagged, I’d have remembered that my flight had arrived early and not panicked about her not being there.
“Hi!” Sophie said when I opened the door. Nick grinned and waved. In the fog of yesterday, all I’d really noticed about him were his eyes, his skill with a code box, and his friendliness. Now I took in his height—almost a foot above my five feet and three inches—his adorably messy dark hair, and the warm smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. And then I remembered what I was wearing. Dad went to U ofOregon—go Ducks!—and I have a large and embarrassing collection of duck-themed clothing.
“Hi,” I said, hiding as much of my yellow-and-green T-shirt as I could behind the door and trying to keep my mouth closed because I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet.
“Mom said we could invite you and your dad over for dinner. Can you come tonight?” Like Nick, Sophie was dark-haired and brown-eyed, but her hair was straight, cut in a chin-length bob, and pushed back with a yellow-and-black polka-dot headband that matched her capris.
I smiled at her enthusiasm. “My dad doesn’t get here till tomorrow. Can I tell you what day would work for us when he gets home?”
She made a “tchu” sound. “Just text him, silly, and you can tell us now.”
“That’s rude,” Nick told her. She frowned at him.
“I don’t have a French SIM card for my phone yet or I would,” I said.
“We can help you get one. Right, Nick?”
He nodded. “Absolutely.”
“Wow, that’d be excellent,” I said. “I can’t do anything without my phone. I’m about to lose my mind.”
“Okay, but we have to go to school now.” Sophie took Nick’s hand and pulled him toward the elevator.
“Hang on,” Nick told her, turning back to me.
“You have school?” I stepped out from behind the door. Sophie giggled.
Nick gave me a smile and an eye roll. “The French believe in the maximum-torture method of education. We’ve got three more weeks.”
“Ouch.”
“We can help you after school,” Sophie said. She leaned close to me and stage-whispered, “Do you have a shirt that doesn’t have ducks on it that you can wear?”
“Sophie,” Nick said. “That’s rude.”
I laughed. “It’s okay. This is just for at home. I would never go out into Paris looking like this. There’s probably a law against it.”
One corner of Nick’s mouth quirked upward. “Decree number 177 of 22 April 1693. It is forbidden upon pain of death to go forth into the streets, avenues, boulevards, passages, alleys, byways, or other ways paved or unpaved wearing clothing upon which humorous waterfowl are emblazoned.”
I snorted out a laugh, and he grinned at me.
Sophie tugged his hand. “We’re gonna be late.”
“Just a sec,” he told her. Then, to me: “Is after school today okay? Like a little after five?”
“They make you go to school till five p.m.?”
Nick’s face went tired and serious for a moment. “Like I said, torture is a curriculum component here.”
“Wow. Okay. Yeah, a little after five sounds great.”
—
At sixp.m., we were having Cokes in a sidewalk café with a red awning on a busy, tree-lined boulevard. My phone worked, I had a booklet of Métro tickets, and Nick and Sophie had shown me how to navigate the closest station. I took a photo of them and texted it to Dad over the caption, “Nick and Sophie—our neighbors who helped me get my phone working and figure out the Métro.”
