Girl at Sea by Maureen Johnson

day of blows, and she had no fight left in her. She was going to have to start coping now . She took a deep breath, then popped open her suitcase and looked at her own clothes. Without even realizing it, she had packed standard artist issue. There were a half-dozen vintage T-shirts that she had cut apart and resewn herself, turning them into tank tops or lace-ups. A massive stack of pajama bottoms, her favorite summer item—all oversized and all loudly patterned with things like polka dots and skulls and crossbones. All of her jeans had paint on them. All of them. She had one skirt.
    They each unpacked for a few minutes, Elsa randomly stuffing handfuls of little lacy things in the dresser drawers, piling clothes into the wardrobe. Clio was more methodical—
    stacking and folding, figuring out where things should go.
    Elsa suddenly flopped in front of her on the bed.
    “All right,” she admitted with a laugh. “It’s a bit awful. Even if it is the nice room. Let’s just both say it. We’ll feel better. This is rubbish !”
    “It sucks,” Clio said, her face breaking into a smile. And at 78

    that moment, she didn’t even mean it. Elsa’ s demeanor lifted her spirits.
    “I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit tetchy today,” Elsa said “I’ve been in a mood for a while, and I wasn’t very happy about this trip. I just wanted to apologize.”
    Clio couldn’t hide the look of confusion she felt spreading over her face. Why was Elsa apologizing for being weird? She wondered if she had been acting so badly that Elsa was apologizing as a way of getting Clio to apologize.
    No. That was way too convoluted and insane. Clearly, the jet lag was settling down on her brain.
    “You haven’t been,” Clio said.
    “I have,” Elsa insisted, getting up off the bed and rummaging through her bag. “But I plan on making up for it. Here. I picked this up in the airport in Rome.”
    She pulled two bottles out of a plastic airport shopping bag.
    “It’s just a cheap sparkling wine,” she said. “But we’ll say it’s champagne. Close enough. And it’s warm. Let’s chill it and drink it.”
    Clio’s drinking experience consisted mostly of one very angry period after her parents’ separation when she systematically downed everything in the house over a matter of weeks. No one noticed until one night she went a little too far and drank almost an entire bottle of pre-mixed margarita, warm, right out of the bottle, over the course of one afternoon. The vomiting that ensued had lasted for a day. Everyone had overreacted about it, but it had pretty much cured her of the drinking bug. It had never been an issue since.
    But now seemed a good time to reconsider the option. It was 79

such a beautiful opportunity to flout her father’s new command.
    And she was in Italy, after all.
    “I’ll go get the glasses and ice,” she said.
    Clio’s dad was floating around in the living room. She dipped into the galley. There were heavy wineglasses in the cabinet, but Clio grabbed two chunky mugs instead. She found a plug-in teakettle shoved into the corner of the counter. That would work for the ice. She banged around, switching on the faucet in the dark, making it sound like she was actually using the kettle. Her father swung his head around the doorway.
    “We could use a hand bringing in the food,” he said.
    “Elsa needs a cup of tea,” Clio answered, making as serious a face as she could, pointing at the kettle. “She has cramps.”
    “Oh,” he said quickly. “Okay. You do that. I’ll get Aidan to give us a hand.”
    The one good thing about getting your period: it was dad conversation kryptonite. Clio smiled, though she wondered if she hadn’t used that one too soon. She stuffed the kettle full of ice cubes and took it upstairs with the mugs.
    They plugged the drain in one of the magnificent bathroom sinks and poured in the ice.
    “Well done,” Elsa said, nestling the bottles into the cold bath.
    “We’ll leave that for a