Prada and Prejudice (2 page)

"Hey," I say. My hands are suddenly in need of a good washing, so I stare at the soap dispenser as I pump it five times, filling my palm with pink suds. I'm overly aware of her presence in my peripheral vision, and have to force my eyes to remain on the ultraimportant task of personal hygiene. Why is she staring at me like that?

Mindy finally walks into the bathroom stall as I switch the faucet off and reach for a few paper towels. I use them slowly, one square at a time, until she comes back out.

I toss the paper towels and pretend to fix a few strands of hair as she walks toward the sinks. She stops halfway there.

"Oh, urn, Callie?"

I perk up and turn to look at her. She's smiling at me.

This is
it!
My ticket out of the hotel.

"Um, I just wanted to, well
--
" she pauses for a second.

My heart is going crazy. I knew Mindy would come through if I gave her the chance. I just know we'd click if I could stop acting like a freak for more than five minutes.

She clears her throat. "You have toilet paper stuck to your shoe."

Chapter 2

"Huh?" I look down at my flip-flops and the giant chunk of toilet paper trailing off the toe of one of them. "Oh. Uh, thanks."

I reach down, yank off the T.P., and then rush for the door without another word.

I make it out the front of the hotel before I even know what I'm doing. I haven't had the guts to leave without a "buddy" ever since the big lecture from Mrs. Bentley yesterday when we arrived. She swore if she caught any of us out alone she'd send us home.

But if I want to get back to my room, I have to walk right through the cafe again, my flip-flops slapping against my feet to announce my arrival. I'd have to walk past Angela and her sneer and Summer and her giggles.

I can't take any more of them right now. I have to get away and clear my head and figure out how I'm going to get through this trip.

I slow down when I realize I've gone several blocks on Sloane Street without noticing. Our fancy five-star hotel is situated in the best shopping district in London, or at least that's what Angela talked about the whole flight here.

Not that she was talking to me, of course. She was sitting between Summer and Mindy, in the row in front of me. I got a window seat next to an elderly man who snored the whole flight. Even though I pretended to be reading, I eavesdropped on them the whole time. I think Angela was listing the designers in alphabetical order; I got lost after Armani, Burberry, Chanel, Coach, and Dior.

I must be on the right track, because the waif-thin girls walking past me look like models, and I think I just saw the third foreign sports car in as many minutes.

Crazy. I definitely don't see
that
every day. Our little country town is more likely to have jacked-up trucks and a Target than Ferraris and a Louis Vuitton shop.

The architecture here is gorgeous: all sorts of brick buildings, elaborate archways, stone carvings, open-air cafes, glossy store fronts
...
everything is just so
English
I feel a little sophisticated and chic just walking down this street, like I should be eating a croissant or debating the finer sides of Chaucer or something.

Maybe if I soak up a little of this...
aura,
I can act a little less classic Callie and figure out a plan to get to the club tonight.

Hyde Park and Sloane Street. That's where the club is. Maybe I can pick up some cute clothes and then go scope it out and it won't seem so intimidating. Maybe I can get thenerve to crash later. Mindy is pretty nice, after all. She could be cool with it. If I look cute and act normal, they'll get over their idea that I'm deadweight.

Still deep in thought, I pass a window filled with mannequins. One of them has a baby blue cami just like the pink one Mindy was wearing.

Yes, this could work.

Step 1: Retail Therapy.

Two hours later, my arms and feet are killing me. I'm still not sure what look I'm going for, but if I can't decide on something from the two-hundred dollars
--
er,
pounds
--
worth of clothes I've bought so far, I'm hopeless. The thing is, I don't want to seem like I'm trying too hard but I don't want to dress like a total scrub either. I have to look killer tonight.

Pulled off correctly, it will reverse my fate, and the rest of my European vacation will be spent with Mindy, having real fun.

I'm just about to turn around and head back to the hotel when I see it: a five-story brick building with huge bay windows on every floor. Fluted white casings frame the entry.

At the street level is a wall of glass, polished to such a shine I can see my own reflection staring back at me.

And hanging over my head, in shockingly simple block letters, is a single word:
PRADA.

I stare at the storefront with Angela's words ringing in my head. She knows shoes.

She knows fakes. And she knows the real thing when she sees it. What if I bought a pair of true Prada shoes and wore them to the club? Would she admire them? Would she at least say something and break the ice, and then I could say something brilliant hack, and she'd forget that she never invited me out in the first place?

Desperate times call for desperate measures. The desperate measure in this case being my Mom's credit card, which was given to me with a stern warning about "emergency usage only." In my book, this qualifies as an emergency. After all, I'm about to have a life-changing night.

Still outside, I peer farther into the store. There's a banner announcing the arrival of the summer collection, and a dozen or so pairs of heels on little acrylic perches. I spot a pair of lavender platform pumps that makes my heart jump
--
the heel is painted to look like little flowers. But then I think about what Angela would say, and I realize they're too showy.

That's when I see them: a pair of shiny red patent leather pumps with sky-high heels and a cute buckle detail. They're totally classic, and yet there's no way anyone could mistake them for another brand. My mind made up, I shove open the door and step inside. I'm not even going to try them on; they're mine.

As it turns out, I probably should have tried them on because they definitely feel too big, now that I'm actually standing in them. But I'm sure I can figure out a way to stuff some tissue in the front. It'll be fine. I just have to get back to the hotel.

Which is, unfortunately, at least a mile away, back by the Chelsea Bridge and the Thames.

I stand precariously in the tallest heels I've ever worn,determined to make it back to my room. The good thing is that by the time I get there, they'll have lost a little bit of their brand-new look, and then when Angela compliments me on them, I can be all, "Oh, these old things?"

I take a few clumsy steps, and that's when it happens: the heel snags a grate, my ankle twists, and I'm free falling. My breath catches in my throat because I know whatever happens next is going to hurt. The cement is rushing up at me so fast I can't even protect my head. The last thing I see is a well-dressed guy with salt-and-pepper hair staring at me with wide eyes as my arms fly out like chicken wings.

Pain screams in my temple as I slam to the pavement, and then the world goes black.

Chapter 3

There's a pounding inside my skull, like a jackhammer is drilling out my eyeballs.

Nausea wells up, but I sit still for a few long moments, keeping my eyes closed until it abates, and the pounding in my head fades to a drumbeat in the background.

I ease one eye open, waiting for the pounding to resume, but it doesn't. I open my other eye, but the headache is gone. Whew.

Once my eyes are open, however, a new problem presents itself: I'm sitting in dirt.

Damp, mucky dirt. My left hand, the one I'm leaning on, is sinking in it. I snap my head upward.

My pulse quickens and a scream catches in my throat.

I'm surrounded by trees. And not a few trees, like I might have been moved from the sidewalk to a nearby park
--
this is big enough to be a national forest. The sun is setting, and all I can see are tree trunks and shadows and more dirt. Some birds have the nerve to chirp, like this is just another day in their lives.

This makes no sense. None at all.

My hand shakes as I reach up to rub my eyes, sure I'm hallucinating. When I open them again, nothing has changed.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. This is wrong. All wrong.

I look around, forcing myself to take several long, slow breaths.

Do. Not. Panic.

There has to be a simple explanation for this.

My shopping bags are gone. All three of them. Have I been robbed? My purse is still gripped tightly in my hand, and a quick glance tells me the contents are still intact. So where's the rest of my stuff? I glance down at my feet and am relieved to see my four-hundred-dollar Prada shoes. Whew.

I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my forehead on them. My left temple is tender and sore where it hit the concrete.

I chew on my lip and look around again. What on earth is going on?

I bought these shoes. Took a few steps. Fell down.

And now I'm
...
in the middle of nowhere?

This can't be right. I don't remember seeing any trees like this. Maybe they were behind the shops. Maybe someone moved me out of the way of traffic.

But as I look in each direction, all I see are more trees. There must be hundreds. No, thousands. The more I see, the more I want to take off running. What the heck is going on?

How is it that I smack my head in the middle of London and wake up in the forest?

Something howls in the distance, and I scramble to my feet. Oh God. Does England have wolves? Maybe it was just a dog. But it sounded huge. Really, really huge.

I start walking briskly in the opposite direction, my heels sinking in the dirt. I have to hold my arms out to balance myself; it feels like I'm walking in quick sand. It is going to take forever to get anywhere. And the sun is already falling in the sky. That's bad. That's really bad. I don't want to be out here in the dark.

I take a deep breath, trying to calm my heart, which has gone crazy in my chest. This is the kind of bizarre thing that happens on the news. Not to me.

I trip on some tree roots and land on my knees, the mud quickly seeping through my jeans. Tears spring to my eyes as I scramble back to my feet. This is marvelous. Exactly how I wanted to spend my evening. I should be at a party, dancing and exchanging witty barbs with Angela and Mindy. But no, I'm walking around in England's National Forest. Alone. As darkness falls.

I still don't get it. Why am I here?

What if I'm not even walking in a straight line? I could be circling! I could be out here forever!

It's cold and way too silent. The canopy of the forest is blocking most of the remaining light, making it way too dark for my comfort. Did something just move? No, that was just a leaf falling. I'm being paranoid.

Ten minutes of walking, cursing England and everything in it, and I hear something.

It's like a roaring, almost like a train, except not quite as loud. And then there's a horse whinny. What the heck? That can't be good.

I duck behind a giant oak tree, well obscured by the wide trunk, and watch.
Please
don't be an ax murderer.

A carriage appears, pulled by four gray horses. Have I woken up in some kind of fairy tale? I stare as the wheels roll by and the ground shakes beneath my feet. The thundering noise quiets as the carriage rolls away, and I realize maybe I should have asked for help.

Maybe they were nice people and they could have helped me.

A sinking feeling comes over me. What if I'm really
really
far away? What if I'm lost forever? They could find my body or something, deep in the woods. And they won't know what happened to me. Because
I
don't know what happened to me.

This is so not good. So
not
good.

I have no choice. I have to keep walking. I can't see any sign of civilization, but I can't be that far from the hotel. Or at least a house and someone with a phone. I can call Mrs.
Bentley, but how am I going to explain this? She doesn't want us leaving the hotel unaccompanied, and I inexplicably end up lost in the woods? She's not going to buy that.

At least the carriage has shown me the road paralleling the path I'm walking, so I move over fifty feet and use that instead. It's only moderately better than the trees
--
there are deep ruts on both sides of the road, and no gravel, just mud and compact dirt.

Thankfully, my heels don't sink here, so I
can walk faster. The light is a little better too, so at least I'm not tripping as much.

It's incredibly silent. The only sound is my heels scraping the road, a steady noise that seems far too loud. The sun hasn't disappeared yet, but the moon is rising behind me and the stars are already glittering. The light glints across the scattered mud puddles. I try not to notice that there seem to be so many more stars than there were last night.

I walk until the sun is just a sliver on the horizon, wishing I had stopped the carriage and asked for help. My toes are blistered and the back of my feet are raw where the heel keeps rubbing on them. My head spins.

Could this be a dream? Maybe I was knocked unconscious and I'm really sitting in a hospital bed coming up with this whole crazy story. That's plausible. Sort of.

Argh! I can't believe this. Tears spring to my eyes again, only this time, I let them roll down my cheeks. This isn't fair. I didn't do anything to deserve this. Angela should be the one showcasing her survival skills.
She
made fun of
me.
Karma is supposed to catch up with things like that, not kick me when I'm down.

Today is officially the worst day of my life. Why did I have to talk my mom into letting me go to England? She was right. I wasn't ready for a foreign country. If my mom was here right now, I'd tell her that and beg her to take me home. I'd spend the rest of the summer doing my usual stuff: movies, surfing the internet, magazines, junk food. Maybe that stuff will never make up for the things I really want, but it won't get me stuck in England's wilderness either.

There's something ahead of me. I duck behind a tree again, trying to figure out what it is. I squint. There's a glowing in the distance. Lights! I must be close to someone's house! I jump out from behind the tree and scurry toward the lights, as quickly as my blister-clad toes will let me.

My shoes must be ruined by now. Four-hundred dollars down the drain. How am I going to explain
that
one to my mom? I consider ditching the heels altogether, but being barefoot doesn't seem any better, so I keep them on.

As I get within fifty feet of the lights, I realize that they're lanterns. Real, flaming, oil-filled lanterns.

But it's a house! Or at least, I can make out a rooftop amidst the shadows.

When I reach the crest of a small hill, I'm shocked to see the house that
belongs
to the rooftop. Calling it a house seems silly. It's a
castle.
It stretches out before me, perched on a grassy knoll, two big wings on either side of the main entry. Ivy is climbing up one side, its green vines covering the east wing. The entire building is made of stone, like a castle you'd imagine in a fairy tale, and in the dusk it looks both stately and scary. I stare at it for a long moment, wondering what kind of people are inside. They must be super rich. Will they help me? Or will they think I'm some crazy runaway teen or something?

With no other choice, I limp toward the front door as the rocks transition to cobblestones. My feet are pounding and I'm shivering. It had seemed so warm earlier, but the dampness from the mud has taken all that away. In the last twenty minutes, the wind has kicked up, and it's whistling through the trees. If they don't help me
...
I can't bear to think of what I'll be faced with.

I pass a big pond with a few geese paddling merrily on its surface and make my way to the entry. The door is huge
--
twice as tall as it needs to be. It's big enough to be the door to the Emerald City.