Lost in London by Cindy Callaghan Read Free Book Online Page B

bit into it with an “Mmmm.”
    I took one too. I had to agree. It was like dessert-for-breakfast good. Caroline threw a big white box at me. “Fill that.”
    “Really?”
    “For as long as he’s been withholding these awesome treats from us, yes. Fill it.”
    I took my backpack off so that I could reach inside the case. I chose a mix of different pastries so that it wouldn’t be obvious that we’d ransacked the shelves.
    Caroline took out my phone and made a video of me half inside the case. She narrated a pretend documentary, “Desperate for carbs after a long night of mischief while locked inside Daphne’s, the creature snatches countless pastries—”
    An overhead light came on and surprised her.
    “Ohmigod the power’s back on. Get your bum out of there,” she whispered. “We gotta hide from the security cameras.”
    I removed myself from the case and followed Caroline to a hiding place that was not in front of a mirror but behind a stone statue of a naked man with leaves covering the . . . essentials.
    It was a half hour until opening, and the store workers filed in to prepare the Hall of Gourmets for the day.
    I thought for sure a worker would spot us and know we’d been there all night, but nobody came to our little corner behind the naked statue. We hung out for another twenty or thirty minutes after the store finally opened and customers entered. Then, very calmly, as if we’d just done some early-morning shopping, Caroline casuallywalked to a register and paid for the items we’d accumulated throughout the night.
    Sam, Ellie, and Gordo were waiting for us on the sidewalk.
    “You survived?” Ellie asked. “How was it? What did you do? Ohmigosh. I have majorly good news—I found my turtle earring that I thought I’d lost.” She pointed to her ear. “I was getting out of the shower and—POW!—I saw it on the floor in the corner. I mean, what are the odds of that? And—”
    Caroline cut her off. “It was a nightmare being locked in the nirvana of shopping all night, but we survived.”
    Gordo said, “Now, that’s good news.”
    Ellie said, “J.J., I love your hair like that.”
    My cheeks warmed. “Thanks,” I said, shrugging like it was no big deal. At least it was dry now. And I could try out that flat iron when we got back to Caroline’s house. In fact, I was psyched to try it. “We had a ton of time to kill.”
    I caught Sam staring at me. Self-consciously my hands went to my newly-dyed hair. “Something wrong?”
    “No,” he said. “Um, how did you make out? You . . . look . . . look different.”
    “ Good different?”
    “Um, there was nothing wrong before, but yeah,good.” This time he turned his head, allowing longish hairs to cover his face.
    My insides jumped up and yelled, Yay! I had no idea what it would feel like to get a compliment like that from a boy. A cute British boy. And it felt—well, it “took the biscuit.” They say that, right?
    I said to Sam, “You look good too.” He did in an untucked, crisply ironed oxford.
    I held up the Lively’s box. “I got something for you. No spit.”
    “Aces!” He took the box and popped a lemon square into his mouth.
    I asked him, “What is that sound? Is that the Hungry Club calling?”
    Sam laughed at my impersonation of him.
    Ellie and Caroline slowly inched themselves away from us and talked in whispers. I was a little bummed that I wasn’t included in their secret chat.
    I figured since I had just had an incredible night with Caroline, we were friends, right? And rather than standing with the boys, I could move over to the girls’ area and see what was going on, right?
    I could be like: “Hey, guys, latte?”
    Or maybe: “What’s up, girlfriends?”
    Perhaps: “That was so awesome, eh?”
    I decided I’d go with: “It’s gonna be hard to find something to top that today, huh?”
    I took a step closer to the whispers and was ready to give my line, when I heard Caroline saying, “It was soooo