Dear Sunny,

Here I am in Vancouver! It's not as nice as California, but I can still feel the West Coast vibe. Did you know that they don't allow smoking in restaurants here? That would go a long way toward reducing lung cancer. Maybe your mom should have lived here.

Love and Sunshine,

Dawn

"Did you know that there are over sixty-thousand animals that live at the Vancouver Aquarium?" asked Mary Anne as we stood in line to enter. She was reading some travel guide that she had picked up. That's what Mary Anne does on vacation, when she's not busy getting sunburned. Lucky for me, I have a perfect California tan that looks great with my long long blonde hair and blue eyes. I noticed that my step-sister was looking a little jetlagged. Fortunately, after flying across the country so often, flights have become so commonplace that I don't feel so exhausted when I land. Being bicoastal is hard, but being immune to jetlag is a big advantage to that lifestyle.

"Don't you think that's kind of cruel to the animals?" I asked her. I'm a vegetarian, and I also like to consider myself an animal activist. None of my East Coast friends really understand. Sometimes it's more difficult being an individual than it is being bicoastal.

"Fish have the attention span of Alan Gray" said Stacey. "I don't think it matters one way or the other."

I glared at Stacey. What did she know about animal rights or the environment? She was wearing a leather belt, and enough hairspray to start her own hole in the ozone layer right over Stoneybrook.

"Dawn is suspicious about keeping animals cooped up" said Abby. I almost had respect for her until she made one of the awful puns that she's known for. "She thinks there's something fishy about the aquarium."

Nobody thought it was funny, except for Jessi who snorted. Sometimes eleven year olds can be so immature.

Once we were in the aquarium, things weren't much better. Mary Anne was exclaiming over all of the "cute" animals.

"If by 'cute', you mean 'oppressed'" I muttered under my breath. Jessi nodded in agreement. She knows all about oppression.

I sulked a little by a tank filled with manta rays while Abby and Mary Anne went into a gift shop outside the Children's Zone. I thought about the sad lives the rays must live, trapped inside that glass tank.

"The noble manta ray" said a voice behind me. "Taken from its natural habitat and forced to be a sideshow."

I turned and locked eyes with a boy about fifteen years old, with sandy blonde hair. It wasn't California blonde, but it was still nice.

"I sometimes wonder how we as people can consider other animals to be inferior, and keep them caged" he continued.

"I completely agree with you" I said. "By the way, I'm Dawn Schafer."

"Cameron Milne" he said, shaking my hand.

I was feeling flirtatious. "It's always good to meet someone who is on the side of the animals."

"Actually, I'm the president of a local animal rights group called Lobster Liberation," he told me. "We go to grocery stores and free live animals from the death tanks. We're always looking for like-minded people to help." As Claudia would say, oh my Lord. A cute activist was trying to pick me up. Before I could answer though, a voice spoke up from nearby.

"I'd love to" said Stacey. "Lobsters deserve to be free."

"Excuse me," I said to Cameron from between gritted teeth. "Stacey, I need to use the washroom. Will you come with me, because girls always go to the washroom together?" I hoped she got the hint. She did. Jessi came along, too.

"I'll meet you back here" Cameron called out to me.

We passed through the gift shop on our way to the washroom, and Mary Anne and Abby joined us. They had bought hand puppets, and were showing them off to Jessi.

"Isn't mine cute?" Mary Anne said of her otter. "I'm going to name him Oscar the Otter."

Abby used her alligator puppet to poke me in the belly. "Num num, California roll!" she said. I was offended. My stomach is flatter than hers. A vegetarian diet would definitely help Abby take off those extra pounds.

Once we were in the washroom, Stacey asked me a question that offended my activist and vegetarian sensibilities. "You could teach me how to be a vegetarian so I can get a date with Cameron. I think this might be LUV."

I decided to set Stacey straight. "No way, he's mine. Besides, you aren't an animal activist. I've seen you eat lobster!"

Stacey shrugged. "I'm a diabetic. There aren't many things that I can eat, and lobster is one of those things."

"I wish you'd stop using your diabetes as an excuse" I said to her.

"I could die!" she yelled, a bit too dramatically.

"Because giving up lobster would make your blood sugar plummet, and put you in a coma" I hollered snidely.

"Whatever," said Stacey. "You can have Cameron. I'm going to go downtown and find the shopping district, so I can meet a guy who is sophisticated. Activists smell. That rock salt deodorant isn't doing you any favors, Dawn. And you might want to shave your armpits as well," she added, before flouncing out of the bathroom.

"What are you crying about?" I asked Mary Anne, although I already knew the answer. Mary Anne cries whenever anyone raises their voice.

"You and Stacey aren't friends any more" she sobbed.

I rolled my eyes. "Stacey and I never really were close friends" I tried to explain, but Mary Anne cried harder. "How would you feel if she went after Logan?" I immediately regretted saying that, because I had forgotten that Mary Anne and Logan had broken up. I didn't really pay much attention to Mary Anne on the phone when she called, it was all cute this, and baby sitting that, and talk about the house burning down. I guess I must have tuned out when she was talking about Logan.

"I miss Logan!" she cried. "I know that it was good for me to leave him, but I miss him so much!"

"I'm going to find Cameron" I said before stepping out of the washroom. I left Abby and Jessi to comfort Mary Anne. Some stepsister I am.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Cameron took me to a vegetarian café on Commercial Drive. Commercial Drive is a neat neighborhood, with plenty of vegetarian restaurants, organic groceries, and little hippie boutiques. We sat together at a picnic table and shared an order of vegan nachos. (Cameron is a vegan. Isn't he dedicated to the cause?) Cameron told me a little more about Lobster Liberation, and I definitely wanted to help even though it sounded dangerous. He gave me his phone number, and asked me to meet him again for fair-trade coffee. I noticed that it was after nine o'clock, so Cameron walked me to the bus stop and gave me directions back to Kenzo's. He gave me a big hug before I got on the bus, and I was floating on cloud nine all the way back to the condo.

When I let myself in at around ten, I could hear Stacey and Claudia arguing in the kitchen. I pressed myself against the wall, using my best ghost-hunting techniques to stay quiet and hear what they were saying.

"I saw how you went after Raj, when you noticed that I clearly liked him first" said Claudia. It was good to know that Stacey had a track record of this sort of thing.

"Claudia, I'm not going to steal boyfriends any more" Stacey said. Boy, was that a lie! "I'm filled with religion now!"

"You're filled with lies!" Claudia said bitterly. She must have taken that line from a Nancy Drew book.

I managed to sneak past the kitchen doorway and into one of the bedrooms. I didn't want to think about Stacey being a boyfriend stealer any longer. I wanted to think about how to save the lobsters, make my own vegan nachos, and win Cameron's heart.