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It was summer, and Vivi and her brother were in a new place.

Their mother had sent them. More specifically, she had sent them about as far as she could, a whole continent away, with an ocean between them. She said she was doing it for them, that they were going to be happier here, but Vivi didn't think so. Vivi thought their mother must have sent them here because she didn't love them at all, and now that they were so far, she never had to see them again.

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But she couldn't say that to Leo. Leo had cried and cried when Mother told them that they were going to live somewhere new, though he had held it in until after she had left, because he hadn't wanted her to see. He had known, too, that they would be going somewhere far, even before Mother had had the chance to say it. He didn't believe Vivi when she had told him, the first time, that she didn't think Mother loved them after all.

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He believed Mother when she said it was for them, and that she was doing it because she loved them very much, and not because she couldn't stand the sight of them because people kept saying bad things about them to her all the time. But even Leo had known that they would be sent away, sooner or later. Lately there had been more and more trouble, and the housekeepers were starting to get braver about the things they said to Vivi's face.

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And while Leo was kind of stubborn about the dumbest things, he wasn't stupid. After all, he was her brother, even if she was older and smarter than he was -- not that he would admit it, insisting that they were twins every time she brought it up. But Vivi was older by about ten minutes, and that meant she had ended up with a little more brains.

That was why she could understand that sometimes mothers didn't love their little babies, even if the little babies had done nothing wrong.

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That was a pretty grown-up thing to understand, and Vivi felt very proud of herself for it. It was annoying that Leo was being such a baby about it, but since he was the younger one, she supposed she would humor him a little longer. He got very sad about that kind of thing, and Vivi didn't like to see him sad. And she knew he didn't like to see her sad either, so they were even, and that made things a little easier to bear.

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The man who had taken the plane ride with him had an ugly face, and fussed over every little thing. Vivi had planned with Leo to make their escape as soon as they could. She had thought about running off right as they got out of the airport, but she didn't know if she would be able to find her way back to where they were going to live now if she hadn't even seen it once, so begrudgingly she played along with the fussy man until he took them to a tall, shiny building.

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They took the elevator all the way up, to the floor with the button that said P and not a number. It was almost too high up for Vivi to reach -- but only almost. She glowered at it, committing it to memory, before the elevator dinged and she ran out into the place that was supposed to be their new home.

It was big, with lots of windows. In a lot of ways, it was actually not that different from where they had lived before.

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There were almost too many rooms, and most of them were decorated in the way that grown-ups liked. Vivi had always thought it was kind of stupid how their house had been like that, when it was mostly her and Leo who were home, and not their mother. This felt even stupider, since now Mother didn't even live with them, so it was really just going to be Vivi and Leo by themselves. Oh, and the help would be there too, she guessed, but they weren't important.

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They just did chores because Mother paid them to do it, and sometimes they didn't even do a good job. Most of them said bad things about her and her brother when they thought she couldn't hear. It wasn't their house and they weren't nice to Vivi or Leo, so she didn't think they should have a say about anything.

"I hate it here," she announced from the top of the stairs, shouting it at the man who had ridden the plane with them.

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The man looked up at the sound of her voice, and opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, so Vivi ran off before he could. "We want a bouncy castle! Tell them to put in a bouncy castle! And make every room a play room, not all this stupid stuff." He was saying something after all, but she didn't hear it, and anyway she was going to go see the bedrooms, since that was the most important part.

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The bedrooms were going to be for Vivi and Leo, and only for them, so they had better not have made it all grown-up like the rest of the house.

"Vivi," said Leo, from somewhere behind her. Leo was always slow, because he didn't like to run inside the house, because that was one of Mother's rules and he wanted to listen, as if it would make any difference when she wasn't even around to see him do it.

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But Leo had cried the whole way to the airport when they left, and he had fallen asleep crying on the plane next to her. Vivi knew that he was really sad about going away, like really really sad about it, so she was trying to be nice to him because he seemed like he needed it. And even if it was kind of a hassle, Leo was her twin. She had to look out for him.

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They were the only ones who loved each other, so if she didn't look out for him, no one else would, and then Leo would be sad by himself and that was no good. She had taken the middle seat and made their stupid minder sit on her other side, so he couldn't fuss at Leo so much. Now she waited patiently for Leo to finish climbing up the stairs, so they could go look at their room together.

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There were lots of bedrooms in their old house, and there were probably lots of bedrooms here too. But Leo and Vivi shared a room, because they were twins. Leo couldn't sleep alone, because he would get scared,so Vivi had to stay with him. She didn't mind though, since it really was pretty weird to have to sleep apart. They had been together for so long, after all.

The first two rooms they tried were definitely not for them.

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They were decorated in the same boring grown-up style as most of the rest of the place, and Vivi didn't think even their mother would be lazy enough to have no kid rooms, when she was going to all the trouble of shipping Vivi and Leo out to this place.

And sure enough, the third door they tried opened into a big room with a big window, filled with colorful shelves and two beds, one pink and one blue.