Lost in London Read online

  Sam was NOT fat, but the detail added to the picture of his allegedly psycho mother. I had to clap a hand over my mouth to keep myself from giggling.

  He continued. “But sometimes I can’t help myself. They have the best tarts.”

  Hamlet patted his chubby stomach. “Don’t I know it.”

  “Can I get it? The wallet, not a tart. I promise, no tarts.”

  “Sorry, lad. I can’t let anyone in after closing. Rules. But wait out here, and I’ll take a look at Lively’s. If I see it, I’ll bring it out, eh?”

  Sam shivered more. “Oh, okay, thanks.” He gave his teeth a chatter.

  Hamlet stood aside. “Come in and stand here and wait. Don’t move.” He eyed Sam carefully. “I mean it.”

  Sam stepped inside and stood in front of the unlocked door. As soon as Hamlet was out of sight, we would all dash through the unlocked door.

  Hamlet tried to reach around Sam to get to the locks. Sam kept going in the wrong direction and getting in the way. The two of them sidestepped in an awkward dance in which Sam was always in the wrong place.

  “Step aside, lad,” Hamlet finally said. He released the key ring from his belt, and just as he was about to twist the locks, Ellie came running up to the door.

  “Wait,” she called, raising her arms like she was protesting.

  “We’re closed,” Hamlet said through the glass door.

  “That’s my brother.” She pointed at Sam. “And . . . and . . . ummm . . . I cannot let you . . . umm . . . You can’t kidnap him!” she said, her voice rising about thirteen octaves.

  “Kidnap?”

  “Yes, that’s what I said. Kidnap. Now let him go or I’ll call the police right now.” She held up her phone.

  Ham pushed the door open. “No one’s kidnapping anyone.”

  She made an act of calming herself down. “Oh, okay, then. As long as that’s settled.” She looked at him and searched for something else to say. “Nice keys. Do you lock all the doors?”

  She was being so totally obvious.

  “Yeah. That’s my job. Now you and your brother, neither of which I am kidnapping, clear off. I’ll check for your wallet, but only if you get out right now. Otherwise you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  They stepped outside. Ellie casually left her toe in the door, keeping it open just a smidge. Did she really think that was going to work?

  Hamlet released the bulky key ring for a third time and reached for the highest lock. He immediately saw the crack in the door. Looking down, he noticed Ellie’s foot. “Do you mind?”

  She pulled it out. “Not at all,” she said.

  Hamlet twisted the locks and walked away, turning occasionally to watch them argue on the sidewalk.

  Not surprisingly, a few minutes later Hamlet returned empty-handed, and with a slight hint of powdered sugar around his mouth. I turned off the flash and took a picture of the man. I figured that if I was going to photo-document this trip, I might as well start with Hamlet.

  Without unlocking the glass doors, he yelled, “No wallet!” He turned away, and his squeaky shoes took him back toward the Hall of Gourmets. My stomach sank.

  Sam and Ellie walked away, heads down. Drenched.

  Caroline’s phone vibrated. She showed me a text from Sam. “Fail. You’re stuck.”

  Caroline didn’t send a reply.

  “What are we gonna do?” I asked. If my mom found out that I was locked in a department store on my first night in London, she’d make me come home right away. My whole trip would be blown.

  She exhaled. “There’s only one thing we can do.”

  “Turn ourselves in to Hamlet?”

  “Um, no. Think again.”

  No escape? No turn-in?

  She tapped a few texts. Then she snapped her phone shut and put it in her purse. “Stepmum and Dad think we’re sleeping at Ellie’s. Ellie, Gordo, and Sam know the cover story and they’ll meet us in the morning.” Caroline headed for the escalator. “If we’re locked in here all night, we’re going to SHOP!”

  9

  Finally! I can get my new look after all!

  “What about Hamlet?” I asked to the back of her head.

  “There are eighteen floors. We’ll just have to stay a few behind him as he does his rounds.”

  “What about the security cameras?” I pointed to one mounted on a wall in a corner.

  “J.J., this may be the luckiest day ever, because those cameras are not on. There is usually a little green blinking light. Perhaps when the electricity is out, the cameras go out too.”

  “I guess that is lucky,” I said, staring at the camera. She was right; nothing was blinking.

  We walked up the escalator and stopped when we heard Hamlet humming “A Spoonful of Sugar” from Mary Poppins.

  Caroline said, “We canNOT get caught. That would ruin my life. Got it?”

  Caroline and I stayed a floor behind Hamlet, so we would know where he was. While he did his security thing on the floor above us, we stopped at Cosmetics and Jewelry.

  Just enough light from the moon and a few emergency bulbs allowed us to see. We wandered over to one of the counters, and Caroline found a white smock and a palette of colors. “Might as well give you a makeover.”

  Maybe Caroline’s sixth sense was better than Sam’s, because it was like she was reading my mind. Or maybe I really looked like I needed a makeover, which sort of hurt my feelings, even if it was the same thing I’d been thinking all along.

  “You could use a bit more color around your eyes,” she said, and proceeded to brush powders onto my eyelids. Her art project continued with liner, mascara, fat brushes of bronzer and blush, and finally lipstick.

  Before I looked in the mirror, I told myself this was the first glimpse of the new me. I could wash it off if I hated it. I just really wanted to love it. She spun the stool around. “Voilà,” she said.

  I opened my eyes. “Wow!”

  “I know, eh? There was, like, this totally cute person just waiting to come out.”

  Well, she didn’t say that right, but maybe a compliment was hidden in there. The colors she’d chosen were natural. They brightened everything—my eyes, my skin. It looked really good.

  “Wait till we get to the salon and I can do something with your hair.”

  That definitely didn’t sound nice. I’d always liked my hair, but now I thought it could use a refresh to go with this face.

  We spritzed the perfume testers as we walked by. We got back on the frozen escalators and walked up until we heard Hamlet humming on the floor above Shoes.

  Caroline was drawn to the Shoe Department like a cat to a bowl of warm milk—which reminded me of how hungry I was.

  She tried on several shoes that were on display, then approached a door behind the cash register.

  With a display boot in her hand, she said, “The stuff in the back is always the be-all. Come on.”

  I wasn’t sure about “be-all,” but I think she meant that the shoes in the back were really good.

  She turned the doorknob, and we went in. She did something on her phone, and it let out a strong glow. “Flashlight app,” she explained. The light revealed towers and towers of shoe boxes. She grinned. “Hello there, my darlings. I’m here, and I’m going to try you all on. All you size thirty-sevens, that is.”

  Thirty-sevens? Clearly they had different sizing in England than we did.

  She showed me how to find the style number on the display shoe and then on the box. The boxes were well organized, so finding what we were looking for was easy.

  Moments later I was strolling around in brown flats.

  Caroline looked at the shoes I’d chosen. “I’ll pick some for you. Do you usually wear jeans like that?”

  “Sometimes I wear leggings.”

  “Of course,” she said, like leggings were not the be-all.

  I found a mirror and studied my made-up face while I waited. Maybe I’d buy some makeup.

  Caroline returned with th
ree boxes. “Try these.”

  I opened one, then the others. “These are all heels. I wear jeans.”

  “Who says you can’t wear heels with jeans? It’s not like they’re stilettos.”

  I hesitated, but I tried on the peepy-toed shoes. (I think that’s what they’re called.) I walked a bit. They weren’t bad. In fact, they were easier to walk in than I thought they’d be. My legs felt longer. I looked in the mirror. Heels looked good with jeans. Who knew?

  I guess Caroline did, since I actually liked all three pairs that she had picked out for me.

  Caroline tried on really outrageous boots, like with glitter. Somehow they worked for her. After trying a few more on, she came back into the room with a big paper shopping bag. “They look really good. You should take those.”

  “What? Steal them? No. No way.”

  “No. Not steal. There’s no need to nick. We have an account here. We can just set everything aside and ring it all up in the morning when the store opens.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Quite.” We continued to try on shoes—lots of them. I even snapped some pictures so that I’d remember the ones I liked but had left behind. I also shot a short video of our feet in different shoes walking up and down the aisle between the towers of shoes.

  • • •

  We continued to stay far enough from Hamlet as he went about his rounds. We made another stop in Teen Fashions. Caroline picked out all kinds of clothes for me. I stayed in the dressing room, and she threw stuff over the top.

  I paraded around like a runway model, feeling transformed. One shirt didn’t have straps (none!), another had swinging fringes, some pants were tight to the ankles, others swayed while I walked. I felt glamorous. Pretty. Totally un-boring.

  After an hour of mixing and matching, I decided to wear a new pair of skinny jeans, a long tank top, and a wide belt that rested just below my waist. I added a pair of boots I’d just gotten. They were high—like horseback riding boots. I loved this outfit too much to take it off. Caroline managed to snip the tags and gathered them in a small bag, so that we could pay for it all later and get the security tags removed.

  After a little while I’d filled two more shopping bags and taken another video of myself by holding my camera out and trying to capture the outfit.

  Finally we were at the salon. Caroline added the flashlight app to my phone, so we had two. I sat in a beautician’s chair and spun around in it. She held up a device that looked like a small sandwich maker. “This is a flat iron. It should be your best friend.”

  She took a section of my hair and put it between two pieces of flat metal, then clamped them shut, sandwiching my hair in between. Then she pulled gently and the iron slid from the crown of my head to the tips of the hair.

  “If you do that at home, it will come out pencil straight. Of course, it’s not hot now because we don’t have electricity.” I thought my hair was straight already. She brushed it out and sprayed it with some stuff that made it look supershiny.

  Then Caroline took a small piece of my hair and rubbed a stinky-smelling cream on it.

  I stiffened. “What is that? Chemicals?” I’d never had any chemicals in my hair. What if she didn’t know what she was doing?

  “Relax. I’ve watched my stylist do this a hundred times.” She held up a jar of hair lotion that clearly said “blond” on it. “If you don’t like it, you can always put the color back in.”

  “What? You’re taking color out?” Maybe I wasn’t meant to handle un-boring. My heart pounded.

  “It’s all the rage. Trust me on this. I know what I’m talking about.”

  A minute later she washed the small section of my hair in the sink and combed it out. I had a streak of blond hair. I couldn’t stop staring at it, because I didn’t believe it. . . . It looked fantastic, red-carpet fantastic. I never felt this glam. And I liked the way it felt. She put in a couple of bobby pins, and the hairstyle looked even better.

  On our way out Caroline took a flat iron and added it to my bag. That’s when we heard something.

  Someone was humming “New York, New York.”

  We froze.

  10

  With no time to hide, we clicked off the flashlight apps and stood perfectly still. Perfectly.

  Hamlet was an older man. He shuffled along without stopping at the salon, steadily proceeding to the next escalator, which he was forced to walk up, since it wasn’t moving. Once he was past us, Caroline said, “Do you know what that means?”

  “What?”

  “He has already checked all the floors above us. We can go all around now and not worry about getting caught.”

  “Don’t you think he’ll come back?”

  “Why would he? He’s done his thing. It’s not like people are just going to materialize and gallivant around dressing up and making over.”

  “It isn’t?”

  She laughed. “No. Now, let’s go to the Dress-Up Department and gallivant.”

  “Like in dresses?” I asked.

  “Not in any ordinary dresses. Wait until you see this.”

  I followed her up another floor, to Formal Wear. The landing area was set up like a prom with a disco ball, and mannequins in tuxedos and glittery gowns. We ran past the racks of dresses until we got to a back corner that was a medieval castle. It wasn’t decorated to look like a palace; it actually was a palace built inside the store. Mannequins of knights stood guard.

  Caroline walked over a bridge and into the palace. It was packed with trunks of crowns, necklaces, scarves, and scepters. Shelves of Styrofoam heads wore wigs: straight red hair, blond braids, jet-black pixie cut.

  Along the walls were hanging displays of every kind of gown you could imagine. Some were bustled and bunched up at the back, while others had long trains draped behind them. There were also costumes for boys and men: a British policeman uniform; a yeoman uniform, which was a one-piece black kilt with red trim and an embroidered red crown on the chest; and a royal guard with a red jacket, black pants, and a hat that looked like a giant black Q-tip.

  This palace was like the biggest box of dress-up clothes imaginable.

  I chose a wig that was a half mile high in tight brown curls, and a velvet gown suitable for a coronation, then disappeared behind a pretty white screen with little pink flowers painted all over it.

  Caroline grabbed a tight, red satin dress with spaghetti straps and a hot pink wig. She played music on her mobile and we changed, and then we danced around in our fancy outfits.

  I put my phone on a ledge and set it to video-record us dancing around. But the ledge was low, so I probably cut our heads off. I didn’t care. It wasn’t like this would go into the montage. I was having the best time of my life and I wanted it photo-documented. “I love this place,” I said.

  “If you think this rocks, I can show you something even more fab.”

  “No way. Better than this?”

  “Follow me.” She went toward the Hole and paused. “Shh.”

  I stood silently.

  She listened. “No humming. No squeaky shoes. The coast is clear. Let’s move on.” She ran up the escalator.

  I tugged up my dress and followed her toward the Children’s Department. I couldn’t imagine what we were going to do there until I saw it: a trampoline the size of my backyard. It was surrounded by an enchanted garden.

  Caroline kicked off her shoes, climbed on, and started bouncing. I joined her, jumping higher and higher. Finally I held my breath and gathered the layers of my gown in one hand and flipped backward, landing triumphantly on my feet.

  “Wow! How did you learn to do that?” she asked.

  “Gym class, I guess.” I plopped on my butt and popped up. “Try that.”

  She did, and she giggled the whole time.

  I tried to get some real action videos with my phone, but with all the bouncing and wig hair, I’m not sure what I got.

  I bounced myself sweaty and eventually flopped onto the springy floor, flat on my
back as I tried to catch my breath.

  “Something wrong?” Caroline asked.

  “I’m pooped.”

  “I’m a bit zonked myself,” she said. “I know where we can crash for the night . . . like real princesses.”

  “Really?”

  “The Furniture Department is just one floor up.”

  “And they have beds?”

  “Big, beautiful beds.”

  “I’m there,” I said.

  A few minutes later we were back in our regular clothes and tucked into side-by-side king beds. We chose two that couldn’t be seen with a quick glance from the hallway. And for a little extra insurance, we took a wooden screen like would be used to separate a room into two parts and relocated it to shield the beds.

  I sank my head onto a feather pillow and almost fell asleep instantly, thinking about my first day in London. I had set out for an experience to change my life, but got so much more. I was changing my life and my image. This trip had become an adventure. It had been a wonderful day, trapped-in-a-mega-department-store-slash-carnival wonderful.

  Caroline had started out not liking me, but now I thought she was my friend. “I had a great time today,” I said. “Thanks.”

  She said nothing.

  I turned to look at her. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply.

  I started falling into a dream about The Wizard of Oz, when I realized I wasn’t dreaming. Someone was humming “Over the Rainbow.”

  11

  I peeked under the oriental screen and saw Hamlet’s wet shoes making their way over to us. Apparently he didn’t go to sleep. He did go through his rounds a second time.

  I grabbed a few big pillows and covered Caroline with them as my heart climbed into my throat. I did a good job, because I couldn’t even tell she was in the bed.

  His steps got closer, and my panic rose higher in my stomach. I pulled the comforter back up so my bed would look made, and then I got down on my belly and crawled under it.

  Hamlet came right up to the screen and switched songs to “Tomorrow” from Annie. I held my breath and prayed Caroline wouldn’t move or snore. I could see the thick soles of his squeaky orthopedic shoes come behind the wooden screen. A few more steps, and I could reach out and touch his toes.