Girl at Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

the woman stood to greet her, as if warning her not to come any closer. Aside from that, there was one empty chair at the table with a blue messenger bag slung across the back of it. One more person was coming. This was the group.
    “Clio,” her dad began, “this is Dr. Julia Woodward of Cambridge University and her daughter, Elsa Åkerlund-Woodward.
    Julia is a professor of archeology.”
    Julia was the redhead. Elsa was the cheese goddess. And she had a different last name from her mother.
    “Hello,” Julia said politely.
    “You’re Clio!” Elsa said. “We heard so much about you!”
    Julia’s accent was crisp and English. Elsa’s was sort of English, occasionally lapsing into something Clio couldn’t quite place.
    “Have you taken care of the ordering?” her dad asked Elsa.
    “It’s all sorted. I just got you a pizza, Clio. And a Coke. I thought that would be okay.”
    There was a niceness about this girl. Clio could tell that she’d 34

    really tried to pick something that Clio would like, even though she didn’t know her yet.
    “Pizza and Coke is great, thanks,” Clio said.
    “Elsa speaks Italian,” her father said. “She handles the talking for us.”
    “I’m the translator,” Elsa said with a smile. She had large, rounded teeth. Clio could tell that she’d never had braces because her teeth were just a little unevenly spaced, a few of them slightly crooked. But they were naturally nice and real. Unwhitened.
    Unfussed with. Dairy goddess teeth.
    “We have everything we need,” her dad said, looking at Julia.
    “Translator. Artist.”
    “We don’t actually need an artist,” Julia answered. “Not that we don’t want to have one along.”
    There was something lurking at the back of this remark, something in the limp smile—something that told Clio that Julia hadn’t been too excited when she heard Clio was coming along. She was grateful when her little glass bottle of Coke arrived. It was kind of warm, and the glass that came with it only had two ice cubes in it, but it was still liquid, and it gave her something to do. She reached for it.
    “That’s quite a tattoo,” Elsa said.
    Clio winced. She hadn’t been paying attention. She was usually conscious of her tattoo and careful about how she first presented it to people. Everybody always made a big deal about it.
    Except for Ollie. He had simply admired it and moved on.
    “Oh yeah,” she said. “It’s . . . bright. I know.”
    “It’s really nice,” Elsa said. “Is it new?”
    “No. I’ve had it for a few years.”
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    “A few years?” This was Julia. It was so obvious when one parent was judging another.
    “There’s a very interesting story behind that,” Clio’s dad said.
    “Clio was in a bit of an accide—oh. What’s up?”
    He was addressing someone right behind Clio.
    “I had to stand out in the taxi lane to get wireless connection,”
    said a male voice behind them. “We’re all set to go. Everything will be waiting for us to load in at the dock.”
    A guy had appeared by the side of the table. He noticed Clio and stopped. Cold. Just stared at her. He had to have been expecting her, but her arrival seemed to startle him.
    “This is Clio,” her father explained. “Clio, this is Aidan Cross.
    He’s Julia’s assistant.”
    This was an interesting development. There was a guy in her father’s gang. He wasn’t massive, redwood-tall like Ollie. Compared to Ollie, no guy could ever really look tall again. He was just a few inches taller than Clio. All of his clothes were just a few sizes too large. His red polo shirt hung loose and free. His jeans were slightly too big at the waist and knees, and they spilled down over his ankles onto his Chuck Taylors, also red.
    He had matched his shirt and shoes, whether or not he meant to. His hair was light brown, and his haircut had either been incredibly expensive or done for free by some drunk friend with scissors and a misguided sense of his own talent. With the