The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

my lap.”
    “I just want you to know what to expect from this trip,” Keith said, folding the seat back up into a driving position. “Pain. Not nearly as much as you deserve, but we will try our best.”
    “I already worked it out,” Ellis said, holding up both a map and her phone. “We take the M20 to Folkestone, then from there we get the train to France. The trip to Paris should take about five and a half hours, total, so we’ll be there by dinnertime.”
    “I’ll tell you the rest when we’re closer to Paris,” Oliver said coldly.
    “‘I’ll tell you the rest when we’re closer to Paris,’” Keith repeated, in an exact copy of Oliver’s voice. He could do other types of English accents very well, at least to Ginny’s ear. “Posh boy speaks posh. Bet you went away to school. You a public school boy? Sent away from home at a young age? Is that why you’re so well-adjusted?”
    “Yes,” Oliver said. “That’s why. Can we go now?”

The Talking Letter
    Most of the route to Folkestone was a highway—so the next two hours were mostly spent looking at the backs of flatbed lorries, vans, other cars, and the many sheep and horses that seemed to graze along England’s major traffic arteries.
    Keith’s car, never a prize, was even worse in the winter, in the backseat. It was thin and poorly insulated. The heater was a concept joke that was probably funnier closer to the vents in the dashboard. Ginny huddled inside of her jacket and zipped it up over her chin, breathing hot air back on herself. In the front, Keith and Ellis were talking, but Ginny could just about hear them over the terrible noise of the engine. Oliver had his headphones in the whole time. She was in a little bubble, all on her own.
    Once they got to Folkestone, they made their way into a long line of cars at a dock, where they sat for half an hour. Then a man in a glowing yellow-green jacket was waving them along a train platform to a series of wide doors and directly onto the train. This was an odd experience, being in a car on a train. All the cars trundled along through the silver train compartments. There were ads on the walls, and everything was bathed in a soft yellow light. Then another man in a vest flagged for them to stop. Doors closed and a heavy metal grate dropped down, locking them in. There were no windows around, not that there would be anything to see. They were going through a tunnel, passing under the English Channel—a kind of very long, sideways elevator ride.
    Oliver tried to stretch a bit, accidentally digging his elbow into Ginny’s ribs. She pushed it back.
    “So,” she said. “Are you going to show me the letter now so we know where we’re going?”
    “There’s nothing to see,” Oliver said. “I don’t have it with me.”
    On that, Keith and Ellis swiveled around.
    “You don’t have the letter ?” Ginny said. “You forgot it?”
    “I memorized it.”
    “You are joking,” Keith said. “I realize that you are not like the other children, but you are joking about that.”
    In reply, Oliver tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and began to recite.
    “ ‘Oh, you’re still reading. Good! All right, Gin. You’re in Greece. Greece is a fine place to be. . . .’ ”
    Okay, so he wasn’t joking. This was weird, listening to Aunt Peg channeled in a deep male English voice. This was like a horrible séance. In a car, on a train, under the English Channel.
    “ ‘Have you ever seen water like this? Felt sun like this? Is it any wonder that the Greeks were among the first to really start asking questions about the nature of beauty and art and life itself? This is the birthplace of Western thought. This is where the Big Questions were forged out of the stuff that had been eating at mankind’s collective brain for millennia—the big What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? has been the central question of my life.
    “ ‘Sometimes I’m asking it in a big sense. Sometimes I mean it in