Vacations From Hell by Claudia Gray, Cassandra Clare, Maureen Johnson, Libba Bray, Sarah Mlynowski

or whatever else they needed. Claude had indicated he would be bringing all these things just as soon as he could get here, so all we had to do was “relax”—which, as everyone knows, is another way of saying “sit around and wait and feel the creeping hand of time run its fingers up your back.” I couldn’t stand it, all woody and quiet and smelling of rosemary and thyme. It was like being in a spice rack.
    We walked around outside, but the smallness of the frogs freaked Marylou out a lot, mostly because they kept jumping across the path when we were least expecting it, and she stepped on one by accident, andshe went through all five stages of grief about it. Marylou is famous for her squeamishness and her nonviolent nature. Spiders, silverfish, roaches, even flies…she’s helpless against them. At home she would make someone else, often me, come and deal with the problem. So killing a frog almost did her in. The rest of the afternoon was spent calming her down. That night we had dinner, read all the books we’d brought, and waited.
    Two days went by like this. Erique came every afternoon and brought us delicious and rustic-looking French groceries and looked at us helplessly, sometimes pointing at the clock or shaking a bottle of milk in a meaningful way. We never had any idea what he was trying to say. The only time we could ever understand was when he showed us a tiny dead scorpion, laughed, then took off his shoe, and shook it. This baffled us at first, but since he did it every time he left us, we slowly began to realize that we had to shake out our shoes before we stepped into them because they might be filled with scorpions.
    We were safe and well fed and generally looked after, but slowly going crazy. Or so Marylou thought, from the number of times she diagnosed me from the rocking chair in our bedroom. Over those days and nights I had: generalized anxiety disorder, ADHD, body dysmorphic disorder, adjustment disorder, and borderline kleptomania (because I kept using her brush).
    And then I was depressed. Now you’re all caught up. This was day three.
    “You aren’t enjoying this either,” I said. “So I guess either we’re both abnormal or we’re both depressed. And why’d you bring that with you? That’s not exactly vacation reading.”
    “It is if you want a four point oh. And what else is there to do?”
    She had a good point. I was staring at an issue of French Vogue from 1984. I mean, it was fun looking at the big hair, but you can only do that for so long. I set it aside and picked up the useless little pay-as-you-go French cell phone Claude had gotten us (because our American ones didn’t work right and would have cost about a million dollars a second if they had).
    “Maybe it’s the house that’s messing up the phone,” I said, not believing that for a second. The last time I had seen a signal, we were at the train station, ten or more miles away. “There’s got to be somewhere around here where a cell phone works. I have to find out.”
    “Feel free,” Marylou said, flicking her hand but not looking up. “Go try.”
    “Doesn’t this freak you out at all?” I said. “Three days. He said it would take him, like, one.”
    “He never said that. He said he’d be here as soon as he could. He has someone bringing us food twice a day—really good food—and we’re in a beautiful house….”
    “Beautiful?” I repeated.
    “…we’re in a house in the middle of the French countryside. It’s important to try to adapt to a different way of life, a different pace. Quiet is good.”
    I shuddered.
    “I hate quiet,” I said.
    She flipped a page, to whatever disorder it is that is characterized by a hatred of being in quiet, remote places.
    “Why don’t you come?” I asked.
    “Frogs,” she said. “I’m fine here.”
    I went outside and sat down on the path with my legs out in front of me and let the little frogs jump over my ankles. They really seemed to like this. My ankles