[crow]

Or more like they didn't get along with her. She had pretty much given up on doing anything else but ordering them around because of it.

The man minding them walked off a few steps, muttering something under his breath. She couldn't make out the words, but she was pretty sure it was an insult. Then he stepped out onto the edge of the street, and waited for a cab to come by.

It took longer than Vivi was used to.

[crow]

There were always lots of cabs where they used to live, and you could just hail one down on the street, kind of like wading into a river to catch little fish. Except the cab drivers wanted to come to you, and all you had to do was make them understand you wanted a ride somewhere, and fish ran away from you when you tried to catch them. Here they waited and waited, until Vivi grew hot and bored and frustrated.

[crow]

But this time she couldn't blame it on the man minding them, since it was obvious that he was trying to get them a cab. All she could do was blame it on the city that they were in. She had thought it might be okay if they got to go to the beach, but maybe it wasn't a good place after all. That would make sense, since their mother had sent them here. She didn't think their mother would send them someplace nice.

[crow]

Or maybe she didn't know whether it was nice or not, but she didn't care enough to find out, and sent them there anyway.

Eventually, they did manage to hail down a cab. The man talked with the driver in a language that Vivi didn't understand. The driver nodded, then shrugged, and the man opened the back door and motioned for them to get in. Vivi sprang to her feet and rushed for the car, eager to get in as fast as she could.

[crow]

It would be air conditioned in there, and she definitely wanted to get out of the heat. She didn't look behind her to see if Leo was following, because of course he was. They were going to the beach, and anyway she figured he wanted to be out of the heat almost as much as she did.

She crawled over the seat until she sat next to the window on the opposite side. Her brother crawled in after her.

[crow]

Once they were both sitting down, they sighed at the same time. Then Vivi giggled. "Jinx!" she said.

"Hey," Leo protested, but she put her hand over his mouth.

"I said jinx! You can't talk until I un-jinx you."

"Quiet back there, the driver needs to concentrate," said their minder. He really had a lot of opinions for a guy who wasn't really in charge. Vivi was too tired to pick a real fight with him, since she had been too hot for too long.

[crow]

But she stuck her tongue out at him anyway, to show that he still wasn't the boss of her. He pretended like he didn't see it, but she knew he did. He was only pretending not to.

Leo was jinxed anyway, so it wasn't as if she had anyone to talk to. Vivi stared out the window, and sometimes she closed her eyes and focused on how nice the air con felt. She had started sweating, and it felt especially nice on her face.

[crow]

She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of one hand.

The car drove past a lot of things. The buildings here really weren't as tall as the ones where they had lived before. Vivi had noticed that already when they had been looking out the window of their new room, but now that she was on the ground, it felt even more different. The shops and stuff only had two or three floors when they had floors at all.

[crow]

Most of them were just the one floor.

No wonder it was so far to get from anywhere to anywhere, if they had all their things spread out like this.

But there were also fun things to notice. If she saw a toy or candy store, she would point it out to Leo, and wordlessly he did the same. Sometimes she saw something else interesting too, like a man walking ten different dogs. Leo giggled when he saw that.

[crow]

She wondered how that man had managed to end up with ten dogs in the first place. Were all of them his? It seemed like it could be fun, but it was probably also annoying sometimes. She liked her brother, and a brother wasn't the same as a dog, but she was real glad there was only one of him a lot of the time. She couldn't imagine having ten little brothers. Or she could, but she didn't think it would be nice at all.

[Crystal Synthesis Complete]