Matilda and Shauna agreed to put their relationship on the back burn for a while. School had ended for them both for the summer, with Matilda only a few units short of graduating, and Shauna about to enter the 11th grade. Both of them looked forward to a summer together. If before they had been close, now they were joined at the hip. For being supposed girlfriends, though, they were remarkably reserved around each other. After the incident with the boulder they avoided even touching.

Matilda took to taking sleep pills before bed, which knocked her soundly to sleep the whole night through, but the sleep was unfulfilled at best and restless at worst. She had trouble waking up in the morning as a result and the ensuing coffee addiction had her snippy in the morning until she got her fix.

Jenny yanked the drapes open, sending a shocking blaze of light into Matilda's room.

"Uhhnnng." Matilda tried half heartedly to block the sun with her arm. When that didn't work, she rolled over and burrowed into her blankets.

"Mattie. Mattie. It's nine." Jenny said as compassionately as possible, rubbing Matilda's back to bring her awake

"Juss… nah yet. Wait…wait till ten. Yeah."

"Oh Matilda. That is something I just won't do"

Jenny was through with being Miss Nice Girl. She grabbed Matilda's blankets firmly with both hands and ripped them away from her body. Matilda squealed and curled into an embryo shape. She slept in her underclothes and did not appreciate them being seen so liberally.

Jenny blinked to see her ward curled up and cursing. She was so adorably grumpy in the morning. Matilda growled and sat up, grabbing a sheet out the bundle Jenny held and wrapping it chastely about herself before shooting an annoyed look at the smirking blond women who stood above her.

"What has you so cheerful this morning? And, more important, what does it have to do with me?"

"Lets go out."

"Where? What do you mean?"

"I don't know…. Out!" Jenny waved her hands expansively.

Matilda gaped to see her friend in such a mood.

"I'd love to, but why?"

"Do we need a reason?"

Matilda thought it through. It was a bright summers day in June. School had been out for a week. That meant that Jenny was on vacation as well. It made sense that she would be getting restless, because she had been hanging around the house all day for the last week, getting some last peaces of business together before looking forward to a two month vacation.

"No. I don't suppose we need a reason. But where do you want to go?"

It figured that when Jenny said "let's go" in such away she did not mean for a day, she meant for a week, and when she said she wanted to go "out" she did not mean out to the country, she meant out of the country.

She meant Disney Land, Los Angeles, in the US of A.

"So you're going away for a whole week?" Shauna's voice had a small whine in it.

"Yeah. I think Jenny wants to spend some time with me. We have been really busy for the last couple of months."

"Plus, from what you've said, she's never had to share you with anyone before, but now I take up half your time."

Matilda twirled the phone cord with her finger. Shauna would sometimes say things like that, insinuating that Jenny was jealous of the time Matilda spent with her. Matilda did not see it. Shauna would point out that whenever Matilda and she was in the house, Jenny would make a point to join whatever they were doing, even when it was something as teen-ish as watching MTV.

"She's not jealous, Shauna."

"Who's not jealous of what?" Jenny asked, coming into the living room. She saw Matilda sitting curled on a comfy overstuffed chair, hunched over as if she were curled in the embrace of a person, rather than the rests of an armchair, and talking into the telephone.

"Oh," Matilda looked up at Jenny and said in a casual voice, "Nobody is jealous. Shauna is only being excessively paranoid."

"I am not!"

"You are too! You're a paranoid girlfriend geek."

"Yeah but I'm your paranoid girlfriend geek."

"Yep."

"Yep."

"Yeppers."

"Yepsidoidal."

"Yepoodlediddle."

"Yeps times infinity. That beats all your yeppers combined."

Jenny felt herself going cross-eyed.

"You guys are both dorks," she accused Matilda and Shauna, who she knew could hear her through the line.

"BUT I'M NOT YOUR DORK!" Shauna shouted.

"THAT'S OK. I'M NOT YOURS EITHER!" Jenny shouted right back.

"Please don't yell in my ear." Matilda pleaded to both females.

"GOOD BYE, SHAUNA!"

"GOOD BYE, MISS HONEY!"

Matilda cowered. Jenny left the room, bringing with her the suitcase she had retrieved from a nearby closet. When Jenny had left, Matilda continued the argument.

"She is not jealous."

"All right! Maybe she is not. I'm just saying it makes sense that she would be. You guys had no one else. You saved her from a life misery. She loves you."

From her voice, she clearly knew that it was Shauna who was the jealous one. She bit her lip. Shauna was almost right, but actually all wrong. Jenny did not love her, not that way. But she, Matilda, was absolutely in love with Jenny. Asmuchas she might have saved Jenny from a live of subordination, Jenny had returned to Matilda her faith in humanity. Without Jenny's influence, she could see that she would have become a bitter child, and then a bitter reclusive adult. Instead, she had met and eventually fallen in love with one of the most caring individuals in the world. She felt an intense guilt over that. She was with Shauna; for all that she and Shauna couldn't be together right then. In fact, she often felt closer to Shauna when they talked over the phone than when they were talking face to face, especially because of the enforced restraint they upheld around each other.

"Matilda, are you packed yet?" Jenny called from the hallway.

"Almost! Shauna, I've got to go." Matilda reluctantly began to end the conversation, although she could tell that the subject would doubtlessly come up again later.

"I love you." Shauna said forcefully, suddenly.

Matilda felt a lump in her throat and could barely get through it enough to reply.

"I...I'll miss you. See you in a week."

For most of the time they were to be in Disneyland, Shauna would be busy at a family reunion.

Neither of them would have the other's number. But Matilda had resolved to call Shauna the first thing on Friday morning, when Shauna was due to return to her apartment. Then, Matilda and Jenny would fly back on Sunday.

As she packed her bags, the guilt she carried began to dissipate and she looked forward to a week in Disneyland alone with her guardian.