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Chapter Four Lucy's face turned to thunder. "Jeez, Sean, it was only a compliment - you don't have to get all weird about it." "I'm not," I said weakly but she was already brushing past me, looking in the mirror to the right of the television screen, fiddling with her hair. "What are we doing today?" I asked. I hoped we were going to stay in the hotel. It was cool indoors - and not as bright. Surely Lucy was tired, too. It was only nine o'clock and I had already been awake for six hours. My mind thought it was midday and I wasn't about to argue with it. Half the day already gone - what was the point in doing something now? May as well wait for the next day. "We're going for a walk," Lucy said. My heart sank. "A walk?" I asked dubiously. "Yes," she said. She turned to look at me, those dark brown eyes of hers burning into me, just daring me to argue with her plans. Rolling my eyes away, I agreed. "First we're having breakfast." I groaned. "You're eating, Sean." She looked me up and down, as one might look at an enemy not a friend. "I am anyway. I'll pass out if I don't." I flirted with the idea of telling her to go down on her own. The hotel staff would scare her and then she'd stop ordering me around like one of her bloody servants. But, I reasoned, that would be a very cruel thing to do. Also, the plan would probably backfire. Getting treated badly by the hotel staff would just make Lucy be even nastier to me. So, dragging my feet, I followed her out of the room and down into the lobby. |
Breakfast in America is not the same as in Britain. They don't do anything by halves. When I read the menu, expecting to find one order of a full-cooked breakfast, a smaller option, such as scrambled egg on toast, and then the option of just toast or cereal, I found that there were only large options. Three different versions of a full-cooked breakfast. I didn't want a full-cooked breakfast and Lucy hissed the same at me. When a waiter arrived Lucy asked him if we could just have toast. The man looked at us like we were aliens and asked, "Just toast?" "Yes," Lucy said. The man looked at me and I nodded my head. "Okay," he said, half-laughing as if he thought we were playing a trick on him. "What was his problem?" Lucy asked me. I shrugged my shoulders but when I looked around the room at the other guests I saw that they were all tucking into their large breakfasts without complaint. The toast came, along with two tall glasses of orange juice. I sipped the orange juice and nibbled on the fluffy toast. Still I wasn't hungry. The fright from the day before was still working its way through my system. Lucy scowled at me. She thought I was doing it on purpose - trying to lose weight just to make her look fat. As if people really compared our weight. For a start I was a boy and she was a girl - secondly, I was white and she was black. Our bodies were so completely different. Lucy never listened to reason or sense, though. She was in a mood when we headed outside. She wouldn't speak to me. I thought she was being a little childish. It wasn't my fault I wasn't hungry. She'd been to America before. It was a huge culture shock for me. It wasn't just the shock of being so far away from home that had upset me - it was everything about the country. From the noisy traffic that whizzed up and down the very wide roads, to the grubby little buildings and harsh, slow-speaking citizens. I'd met American's before but none of them were like the ones I'd met so far in Los Angeles. It |