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There weren't a lot of clothes in here yet, but there were some, and a couple of the dresses looked like they might be okay. She picked a white one with red and pink flowers on it, and pulled it off its hanger. Then she took off the dress she was wearing, wiggling out of it, and put on the one that she had picked out. Once she had gotten it over her head, she pulled it down the rest of the way.

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After that she smoothed the fabric out with her hands. It was light, and it felt nice.

When she walked back out Leo wasn't there. She left the room to look for him and found him near the door, sitting next to his open suitcase. He was looking at two of his shirts, a blue one with a dinosaur on it and a black one with a cartoon bird.

"You should wear the blue one," said Vivi. "Since we're going to the beach."

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"What's that got to do with the beach?" said Leo.

"Dummy. It's blue, and the ocean is blue," Vivi replied. It was the most obvious thing in the world.

"That doesn't even mean anything," Leo said. "And I'm not a dummy."

"If you weren't a dummy, you would know that it does mean something. Dummy!" She stuck her tongue out at him too, but then laughed, because she was only teasing. Her brother rolled his eyes, but he was having fun too, probably.

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And they were going to have even more fun once they got to the beach.

"What do you think it'll be like?" she said. Neither of them had gone to a real beach before. They'd been swimming at a pool, but it wasn't really the same. A pool was only so big, and it was concrete all around. A beach would all be sand, but it wasn't really like a sand pit either, since there were no borders and the sand just went on and on.

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"I heard it's kind of cold," said Leo, looking at the suitcase again. "Should I bring a jacket?"

"It's summer! Who wears jackets in the summer? The sun is out and everything!" How cold could it really get, right next to the beach? "Besides, everyone wears swimsuits and stuff at the beach, so it can't be that cold."

Leo looked a bit doubtful, but he really didn't take his jacket after all. He undid the buttons on the shirt he was wearing now.

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He had to worry at them stubbornly with his fingers until they popped out, and then he pulled the whole shirt off and over his head. He hadn't agreed with what Vivi had said, but he put the blue shirt on anyway.

"Great! Now we can go," said Vivi.

"Wait," Leo said. "I don't have a swimsuit."

"I don't either, but we can just not go swimming," said Vivi. "We can play in the sand, and just put our toes in the water or something."

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Leo thought about what she said for a moment, then nodded. "Okay," he said. Vivi grinned. They were going to have a good time. And now that there was nothing else for them to prepare, it really was time for them to go.

"Hey! We're going now!" she shouted. She didn't see the man who was 'minding' them, but he had to be in the house somewhere, since that was his job. She didn't know his name either, but that wasn't important anyway.

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She could hear a toilet flushing, and she snickered into her hand as she realized where he was. There was something funny about grown-ups going to the bathroom. She wanted to mess with him a little more, so she said, "If you don't hurry, we're gonna go by ourselves! Leo, find the phone, I'm gonna call a taxi."

Leo didn't do that, but he knew that she was just kidding around anyway. If she had tried it for real, he probably wouldn't help her.

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That was because it was a 'bad' thing to do and he was always worried about getting into trouble for real. If Vivi got into trouble, he would help her get out of it, but he didn't help her get into it if he knew what they were doing was 'bad', He was sort of no fun that way.

"Hold on," said the man as he emerged from the bathroom a moment later, shaking his hands to dry them. Vivi laughed again.

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"Last one out is a rotten egg," she said, right before slapping the elevator button with all her might. But it didn't come up fast enough, and so she was left standing there waiting for it, and the man caught up to her easily.

So much for that idea... Elevators could be such a pain sometimes. But they had to have one since they lived so high up. She couldn't imagine climbing that many stairs every time they went out or came back home.

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She had read a book once -- or a maid had read it out to her, anyway -- where there was a knight trying to save a princess, and he had to go to a wizard's tower, and the tower only had stairs. He climbed and climbed and climbed, and when he got to the top he was already an old man because it had taken so much time for him to finish climbing. She wondered if this place would be like that too.

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She didn't like that part of the story very much. She couldn't imagine doing the same thing for so long that you turned old doing it. In the end it was a different knight who saved the princess, and he had a flying horse so he didn't have to climb. The elevator wasn't as cool as a flying horse, but it was definitely better than climbing for so long that she became an old lady, so she guessed she could forgive it for being a little slow.

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Sometimes when they rode elevators, they had to share it with other people, but that never happened with the elevator at their old house. She thought they probably wouldn't have to share this one with anyone either. She didn't know for sure, and she sure didn't want to ask this man anything, even though she thought he probably did know the answer if she asked. But they didn't meet a single person on their way down, so it didn't look like she was wrong yet.

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She went up to the door as the numbers got lower and lower, and when the door finally opened on the elevator, she ran out with a laugh. "Wait! Agatha---"

"La la la, I can't hear you!" Vivi shouted. She ran faster, and yelled louder than she had originally planned to, because he was calling her by the stupid name she didn't like. She told everyone not to call her that, but not everyone listened, and this man was new and maybe no one told him.

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It was funny that people were always telling each other all kinds of bad things about Vivi and her brother, but they never said anything useful, like telling the new people not to call her by the name she hated. She would be nicer to them if they said more stuff that was good.

She could hear another set of footsteps running behind her, so she ran even faster, until her legs hurt and it hurt to breathe too.