Free Up Over Down Under by Micol Ostow

the moment. If my dad found out I was ditching school, he’d go through the roof. Can we do it Friday after school? Then I’m totally free and I really want to hit the shops.”
    â€œAll right, ya piker,” Jess said. “No worries, but we’re taking you around on Friday, no excuses.”
    â€œDefinitely,” Eliza said with a grin.
    Definitely.
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    Eliza couldn’t wait for Friday to arrive and, when it did, she was bursting at the seams to get out and see the city. The last four days had consisted of going to school, mucking around in the bay (she had become strangely efficient at prying mollusks off rocks), and trying to keep the twins from tearing the house to shreds while Estelle took classes for a master’s degree two evenings a week.
    But now the weekend had come. The three o’clock bell had rung and she, Nomes, and Jess had made their way to a shopping center on Chapel Street a few minutes from school.
    You have got to be kidding me.
    I have traveled a hundred bajillion miles, spent two days sitting on planes, and have moved into another family’s home, and after all that, I am now standing in front of a…
    T.G.I. Friday’s?
    Eliza was utterly surprised to find herself in the much-hyped Jam Factory shopping center, where in front of her was the afore-mentioned T.G.I. Friday’s, and flanking it was a Virgin Megastore and a Borders.
    It was almost like being back home. Unfortunately.
    â€œReally, you brought me to see this?” she asked Jess. Next they were probably going to eat at McDonald’s. “You do know we have shopping malls back home, right? Heck, I think they were actually invented by us—and these stores, they’re all American, too.”
    â€œActually, I do believe that Virgin is British,” Jess said with panache, rolling her R to emphasize the British accent she used. “Nomes wanted a CD, then we’re going up to Brunswick Street, and you can stop your bellyaching.”
    â€œOkay. But I’m pretty sure T.G.I. Friday’s is American.” She smirked.
    â€œShut up and just come on.”
    â€œAye aye, mate .”
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    After Nomes had found her CD, they walked back to Toorak Road and waited at the tram stop.
    Eliza had come to love the trams even in the short time she had been in Australia. The Metro in D.C. was deep underground, and the long escalators creeped her out. The trams, on the other hand, cruised on tracks down just about every major avenue with arms that reached up to grab the power lines overhead. Riding them meant you got to see the city going by but, unlike with a bus, there was never any traffic to hold you up.
    The three girls boarded one of the old-fashioned trams with the wooden interiors that ran on some of the lines, found seats at the back, and gossiped their way across the city. Eliza tried to take in as much of the landscape as she could while chatting with the girls. She recognized the Royal Botanic Gardens, and the view of the Yarra River as they crossed over near Flinders Station was beautiful. The late-afternoon light sparkled on the water as the tram sped across the bridge and then whooshed up the avenue in front of Parliament.
    Twenty minutes later they exited the tram at Elgin Street in an area that looked a lot like some of what she’d seen on her way in from the airport.
    â€œIs that the university there?”
    â€œYeah, that’s uni, and those fancy-looking buildings are the residential colleges. You want to take a look? There’s the footy pitch inside there.”
    â€œCan we?” Eliza was curious. She thought “footy” probably meant soccer, and “pitch” meant “field,” but she decided to wait until she had a visual for confirmation.
    Jess checked her watch. “Yeah, but then we should hoof it if we want to get some time at Brunswick Street and still get you home for dinner.”
    They crossed the street and