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Vivi had never seen the ocean before, not for real. She had seen it in movies and TV shows, so she knew what it looked like, and she knew what it was, of course. She wasn't a baby, and she knew a lot of things even if she had never seen them for herself before. She knew they had flown over it when they took the plane to get here too, but she hadn't had a window seat, because she had sat between her brother and the fussy man.

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Leo had wanted the seat next to the aisle, so he didn't have to shuffle past the rest of them if he wanted to go to the bathroom. Leo didn't like to bother people if he could help it. Vivi could understand. It wasn't because he was trying to be super nice or polite, though he cared about those things too, more than Vivi did. It was because people weren't nice to them. And Leo took it harder than she did too.

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He had never talked to people much even when they were very very little, but now he almost never did, and Vivi had to do most of the talking for him when they dealt with someone else. But with Leo in the aisle seat, that meant she had to give the window seat to the man going with them, which felt pretty unfair, since she had wanted to look out the window while they flew.

But there was nothing she could really do about it.

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If she thought kicking up a tantrum would help, she would have done it, but she knew it wouldn't so she didn't.

Seeing this here made up for it though. She didn't have words for what she felt, looking down from the window at all that blue. It was so... big, she thought. But that wasn't really enough to describe it. Past all the buildings and the little strip of sand -- a beach, she remembered -- was just blue, and it looked like it went on forever.

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Neither of them said anything for a long time. They both just knelt there on the ledge and looked. Then Leo nudged her with his shoulder and pointed, and she could see a seagull flying only a little bit below them. "Wow," said Vivi. "If we open the window, do you think we could feed him?"

"What are you kids doing? Get down from there!"

The door burst open behind them, and they both turned to look at the man who had ridden with them on the plane.

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He was looking back at them with a sour look on his face. Vivi stuck her tongue out at him. She could tell that he had already made up his mind that he didn't like them as soon as they'd met, even though they had never seen him before. She was sure other people had said bad things about them to him, and he believed it. He was stupid for believing it, but if he wasn't going to be nice to them, then Vivi had no reason to make his job easier.

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"Get out of our room," she said crossly. "Don't you have something better to be doing?"

"Your mother charged me with minding the two of you," he said. He drew himself up to his full height and spoke in a stern voice, the way grown-ups did when they wanted to make you think they were in charge and you were about to get in trouble. But they were always getting in trouble anyway, and Vivi knew how money worked, so that kind of thing didn't work on her anymore.

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Sometimes it still worked on Leo, but he would learn eventually.

She stood up on the ledge and drew herself up to her own full height. It wasn't very impressive, but since she was standing on the ledge and he wasn't, she was actually almost as tall as he was. Maybe a little taller, actually. She couldn't tell for sure. She crossed her arms and said, "Oh yeah? Why don't you mind your own business instead? We're not doing anything. You can go away."

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The man's face turned a real funny color at that. Vivi had to work hard not to grin. It was so easy to make people so angry they looked stupid. She was about to say something else when she felt a hand tugging at the edge of her skirt. She looked down, and Leo was shaking his head.

She frowned, but she uncrossed her arms. Leo cast an uneasy glance at the man, and then back down to the view from the window.

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Vivi followed his gaze, then sighed. She knew what he wanted to say, more or less... She just wished she had known earlier that he was going to ask for something like this. It was sort of hard to take back what she had said already.

"Hey," she said to the man. He opened his mouth again to lecture her, but she was an expert in cutting people off. "If you really want to mind us so much, take us to the beach."

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The man blinked. He probably didn't expect her to change the subject so quickly, and didn't know what to do with himself now. But he was still mad, so he said, "Absolutely not. You just arrived. You kids should be staying put and---"

"Well we were, but you interrupted us," Vivi pointed out. She had crossed her arms again. "So if you're not going to let us mind our own business, you should at least take us somewhere fun."

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He didn't seem like he was coming around, so she rolled her eyes. "I can tell our mom you lost us three times at the airport. Or that you let Leo play around in traffic. Or that I saw you taking the DVD player with you when you left, or---"

"W-We can go to the beach," said the man. He wasn't standing so tall anymore. Vivi smirked. She knew he would come around once she had said that to him.

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Their relationship with Mother wasn't really that good, but a lot of the help didn't actually know that, especially when they were new. And Vivi got away with a lot, so they thought Mother must be spoiling them, though the real reason Vivi got away with so much was because she was very clever at it, that was all.

Leo smiled a small smile, and climbed down from the window ledge to go get his suitcase. He probably wanted to change his clothes.

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Now that she thought about it, Vivi wanted to change hers too. The dress she wore on the airplane felt uncomfortable after she had been in it for so long, and it was too much for the beach anyway.

She did have a few dresses in her suitcase, but she didn't want to go through it if she didn't have to. It was big and hard to open, and full of other things she didn't want to put away right now.

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Instead she walked around the room and opened the door to a closet. The closet was a whole other small room, just like it had been at their last house. That was nice. The closets in some of the other rooms were smaller, and not as much fun, but there were lots of places to climb and hide in here. She and Leo could play in here later.

But right now she wanted to find a dress, since they were about to go out.