Free Love Is The Beginning (Valerie Dearborn) by Caroline Hanson Page B

scent was
overpowering, cloying. He was wondering if he might sneeze when he heard a
footstep behind him. A girl, near to his own age of thirteen, was inside the
closet, looking around at the full shelves of supplies.
    “Hey, you can't be back here!” he said in English, guessing
that she spoke it. After all, she didn’t look Italian. “This is a private area. No. Guests. Allowed .” She looked him up and down, apparently unimpressed
with his stern words. When she spied the pillow mints she shot him a sidelong
glance, then quickly reached in the basket and scooped out a handful, before
running down the hallway.
    Jack ran after her. When she realized he was chasing her,
she started to laugh. Jack chased her down the hallway until the corridor dead-ended.
The girl stopped, unwrapped a mint, and popped it into her mouth.  She had very
fine blond hair and a startlingly pale face. She almost looked unwell, and he
decided she must be from somewhere cold.
    “What's your name?” he asked.
    “Ella.”
    “Are you staying at the hotel, Ella?” Jack realized that was
a stupid question.
    “Yes, we just got here a couple of hours ago.” She hadn't
looked up at him once, intent on the candy in her hands. She put another mint
into her mouth, and he heard her crunch through it.
    “Oh. My parents own the hotel.”  Ella still didn't look up,
but he saw her brows rise a fraction in feigned interest. Should he say
something about the mint stealing? Did he really care? More curious than
anything, he spoke to her again.  “Where are you from?” His eyes took in her
somber dress and tights. It was summer—her long sleeves must be hot.
    “Guess.” She unwrapped another piece, put it in her mouth,
and finally met his gaze.
    “I don't know. You don't dress like an American or look like
an Italian. Your accent is...I don't know.” Jack shrugged, slightly wrong-footed. 
“That's why I asked. I've met people from everywhere. People come in, and I can
tell where they are from.” He said this proudly and crossed his scrawny arms
across his chest.
    “Except for me, huh? That's because I'm not from anywhere. I
travel all over the world. People don't come to me, I get to go to them.” Ella
gave him a nasty little smile.
    He felt confronted and irked. Was she mocking him for not
traveling? “Well, everyone is from somewhere. When you aren’t traveling,
where do you live?”
    She gave a superior smile. “Okay, I tell you,” she said, her
accent thick. “I was in Slovenia until I was six, and then in Geneva until I
was eight, and I have been with Marion ever since.”
    Jack was shocked. “You call your mother ‘Marion’?” He could
only imagine what his mother would say if he called her by her first name. It
wouldn't be good.
    She shook her head. “She's not my mother. She's...
everything. More than one word like 'mama' or 'friend' could describe, so I
call her ‘Marion’.”
    Jack thought that was weird. “Well, my family is ‘mama’ and ‘papa’.
That's enough for them”
    Ella shrugged, and then put the last piece of candy in her
mouth. She put all the wrappers in one hand and held them out to him, waiting
for him to take them. Obligingly, he put out his hand and took them from her,
then chastised himself. What was he, a slave?
    She raised her arm to push the hair from her forehead, and
he saw a purple mark on her wrist. Unthinkingly, he grabbed her arm and pushed
up the sleeve. She had a bite mark with two puncture holes on her wrist. His
grip must have hurt because she made a pained noise and tried to pull away. He
gentled his hold. 
    “What happened?” He let her go and looked up at her face,
searching for other signs of injury. She looked fine. He thought about how
she'd run so quickly down the corridor.  She couldn't be too hurt if she could
move so quickly, but the wound looked horrible. 
    She sighed as if bored. Which was weird too, Jack decided.
He'd be bragging to everyone he knew about how he got such