Getting Somewhere Read Online Free Page B

electricity on if they spent nearly half their money on just one sweater?
    Grace is talking about the soil now, and Cassie tries to listen. A marsh, Grace is saying, thousands of years ago, and Cassie closes her eyes, imagines it. She has already noticed the tiny spiraled shells scattered over the ground, used her toes to dislodge a few, furtively placed them in her pocket. She can feel them in there now, mostly white or grayish but a couple with streaks or spots of pink and brown. She sees herself walking down the hall from her room to the bathroom, rinsing the shells under a stream of water, then shivers with the thought that someone could catch her, ask her what she is doing, and she wouldn’t know what to say.
    She can’t decide which is worse, being up there, alone in that room, or out here, alone in the group. She likes the garden, the rows of growing things, the colors and textures, greens and lighter greens and burgundies in constrast with the black, black soil. She has no trouble remembering everything Grace has shown them. Absorbing information is something she does well. In fact, she now realizes, it’s the only thing she does at all, her brain crammed with facts and statistics, data and information all gleaned from the odd assortment of reading material found in Gram’s house and the books she begged Gordon to bring her from the library. That was her whole world, and now she suspects that none of it means anything. It’s like realizing that the language you’ve learned is the wrong one for the country you’re visiting, that not only will no one understand you but they will immediately recognize you as foreign, see right away that you are nothing at all but a girl dressed in someone else’s clothes.
    Cassie realizes with a start that the group has moved forward and she hurries to catch up. She stands just a little bit apart so that there is no chance someone will feel like they have to move away from her. Grace is still talking about the history of the place, and Cassie notices that Lauren is absorbed with fingering a loose thread on that stolen sweater. Cassie almost smiles to herself at the thought that she and Lauren have something in common. Cassie has stolen something, too.
    It’s a book. Stolen—or at least not taken back—from the Davis Township Library. Cassie knows it was checked out in Gordon’s name, knows he will get in trouble when it is not returned. She imagines he will probably have to pay for it, doesn’t know what else the punishment might be. She is pretty sure people don’t go to jail for failing to return a library book. She sees Gordon differently now and doesn’t care even if he has to go to jail. They will not let him pick a farm instead.
    Cassie doesn’t know what Gram liked so much about the book on Greece. She never figured out if it was the sounds of particular words or just the last kind of memory that was still available to her when all the other parts of her brain had fizzled out. Though Cassie had the entire book memorized, eventually the only section Gram would let Cassie read was the one about Corfu. Cassie can recite it easily.
The beautiful island of Corfu is large enough to contain something for everyone, small enough to be seen in its entirety in just a few wonderful days. . . .
Gram always wanted to hear about the Cavalieri Hotel with its “English-style wood-paneled bar” and the Hotel Bella Venezia with “small but tastefully furnished rooms replete with telephones and televisions.” Gram didn’t have a television herself, and it amuses Cassie to imagine traveling to Corfu to watch one. There had been a television, but when the lines got too wavy, Gordon took it away and never replaced it.
    She won’t think of Gordon, fights away the sudden sick feeling in her stomach, the spinning sensation in her head. She realizes that her hands are on her abdomen, probing the skin and muscle