When I wake up, light is slipping in through the closed blinds, slicing yellow lines into the carpet just below the window. I squint at them, the lines, and then at the clock on my bedside table. The red letters read eleven-o-four.
"We weren't supposed to fall asleep, Rosalie. We were supposed to just be pretending." I push myself up and shake my head around, getting the sleepiness out of my brain. "We'll watch the telly now, though, won't we? Daddy said I could. He'd say to keep sleeping right now, though." Vampires, or close-to-being vampires, never get up this early. "But he's not here to say that, because he and Mummy left me alone. So let's watch the telly, Rosalie."
I find the remote on top of a table in the corner, and it's right when I press the ON button that my tummy rumbles and I realize, as suddenly as a lightning strike, that I'm starving. The last thing I ate was a granola bar and that was hours and hours ago, in the middle of the night. Daddy usually makes sure I have more than that, but he didn't even bring it up before he tucked me in. He was too busy thinking about his and Mummy's grown-up things. I put my hand over my tummy and feel it twist in on itself as it rumbles again.
Daddy said he wouldn't be back until the afternoon. Probably around three or four, if I had to guess, and that's a long ways away for someone whose hungry, but I bite my lip and flip through the channels, because I can be patient. I've done it before.
Every channel, though, or close to every channel, is showing something like a burger with fries or a chef chopping meat or a group of people at a restaurant with a table full of delicious things. Humans are obsessed with food, Daddy's told me before, and Americans especially. He's not wrong much.
Finally I find a channel with no food, just kids a little older than me in what I think is a school. I pull Rosalie onto my lap and watch two girls and a boy talk about someone cheating on a test and why it's wrong, all the while walking down a hallway lined with what look like lots of cupboards, like you would see in a kitchen or bathroom, except these are painted green. I don't know why. Maybe that's normal for schools. I've never been to one. Daddy says I'm being homeschooled instead, and that I should be glad about it.
The boy in the show steps to the side of the hall and gives money to a vending machine. So much for no food.
A vending machine.
There was one of those in the little building I followed Daddy into when we first got to this motel, the little building where Daddy checked us in and got our room keys. The vending machine, it had four different types of chips but no Skittles – I looked, because I like Skittles. But right now, I would be fine with chips, or a candy bar, or maybe pretzels –
Daddy forgot to make sure I ate last night. He wouldn't want me to be hungry because of that, because of him forgetting. And I have money in my new suitcase, because Daddy gives me his change sometimes. I'm sure I have at least a dollar. That's usually what you have to give vending machines. And it would be far better, surely, for me to run over to the other building for only a moment than to interrupt Mummy and Daddy when they're doing grown-up things.
My tummy rumbles again, louder now, almost sounding angry, and I make up my mind, jump off the bed, and go to my suitcase.
A few minutes later, dressed in one of my new dresses and clutching four quarters in my hand, I lock the motel door behind me and set off down the hall on tip-toe. There's a white door with a small window at the end of the hallway, and that's what I'm creeping towards, because I remember it from last night. I hold my breath passing Mummy and Daddy's bedroom. I hear her laughing, but I make it past without them springing out and catching me. Daddy wouldn't want me to go hungry, that's true, but it's still probably better if he just never knows about this.
Opening the door with the window is kind of a chore, because it wants to be loud, but I have to just hope that if Mummy and Daddy hear it creak they'll think it's just some stranger staying here, too. I slip out onto a sidewalk, and the door falls loudly shut behind me. I wince, but then nearly forget about the risk when the sunlight really seeps into me. I have a whole gravel parking lot to cross, but I put that off for a moment and just hang my head back to take in the sunshine, the blue, clear sky. I'm not supposed to like the daytime, but I kind of do. I can't help it.
I keep my eyes on the shabby brick building I'm heading for as I dart across the gravel lot. I don't want to see any strangers like I accidentally saw Jesse Lowe. We're supposed to keep a low profile until we leave the country, that's what Daddy told me.
I tug open a flimsy door with a crooked OPEN sign and walk into a room with a big desk and nobody behind it. Behind the desk is an open door, but from where I am, I can't see inside it. I can hear a simple song made up of little chimes, but I don't hear anyone speaking. And the vending machine is on the other side of the room, sitting between a rusty water fountain and an overflowing trash can, just waiting for me. I move towards it, tip-toeing again, just to be extra-careful.
I have to stretch to be able to fit my coins into the right slot, but I do, dropping them one by one, ching ching ching ching. I decide to get roasted peanuts, after a moment's thought, and press the buttons and watch as the bag is pushed slowly to the edge of its little shelf and then right off. It lands too loudly – I jump – and I crouch to get it, and when I stand, my snack safe in hand, I feel a tingling on the back of my neck and turn, fast. There's a boy in between me and the door.
I think he's my age. His hair is blonde, but not like Daddy's hair is blonde – this boy's hair is darker, and messier, not slicked back like Daddy wears his. He has a blue stain around his mouth and a blue sucker in his hand. "Hi," he says.
"Hi," I say, to be polite.
He pops his sucker in his mouth, twirls it around for a moment, and then pops it back out. "You a guest?"
"Yeah." I need to go. I only came in here because I was so hungry and because it would just take a minute. Every extra second I stay here makes my leaving the room a worse and worse thing.
This boy doesn't know that. "When'd you get here?"
I should ignore him and walk around him and out the door. Make a beeline for my room. I mean to, I really do, but somehow I don't, no, somehow my mouth opens and I tell him, "This morning."
He takes another moment to suck on his sucker before saying, "Why do you talk funny?"
"Because I'm English and sophisticated."
"What does sophisticated mean?"
"Never you mind."
That's not a very good answer, because I don't have a very good answer, but I suppose the boy doesn't mind or care. He says, "Kids don't stay here much. My mom works here, or else I wouldn't be here. It's boring. But she let me bring my Nintendo to play in the office while she's cleaning the rooms. Wanna see?"
And I do want to see.
You can't always get what you want, Daddy would say. And then something about doing what he says. What he wants.
That's not always fair, though.
Daddy won't be up for hours.
And anyway, says a little voice inside me, a naughty voice that makes me feel guilty and angry all at once, If Daddy really didn't want you to leave the motel room, he wouldn't have left you alone.
In in the end, I follow this strange boy behind the big desk and into the room with the Nintendo. Just for a quick peek.
And I never get to talk to other kids, anyway.
