Girl at Sea by Maureen Johnson Page B

look on her father’s face, she got the impression that this might not be a good idea.
    “When will we be back tonight?” she asked. “I was supposed to call Mom.”
    A look circulated the room.
    “We’ll talk about that at breakfast,” he said. “Or lunch. Let us know when it’s ready.”
    Clio was being dismissed. She wasn’t arguing this one, especially not in front of Aidan.
    “No problem,” she said stiffly. “I’ll get right on it.”
    The first thing she did upon getting down to the galley was make herself a little hat out of a piece of paper. She folded it up until it was like a miniature version of a fast-food hat. If her dad wanted her to play chef, she would play chef.
    There was a lot more food in the galley now than there had been the night before. The yacht was packed like a UN provision ship. Eight loaves of bread were piled in the corner. Three cardboard boxes stuffed full of vegetables sat on the floor.
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    Another two of fruit. A paper bag revealed meat. Just meat. The refrigerator had been filled with fresh fish—heads and all—
    trapped in clear plastic bags. There was something murderous about it. Like the Mafia had taken these fish out. These fish slept with the fishes.
    “Number Five does not like these fish at all,” she said to herself.
    She moved them to the back, making a wall of meat and cheese to seal them off. She could still feel their stares penetrating the food wall, even through the closed refrigerator door.
    Coffee. Her head required coffee. It took a few minutes to find the coffee itself and a few more to figure out the pot, but soon the galley was filled with the rich, roasted smell. It was too much to hope that someone had bought French vanilla creamer, Clio’s favorite substance in the world. This was probably for the best, as she had a tendency to drink it straight out of the container.
    Once she had a cup of coffee in her body and felt herself waking, her natural inclination for order and composition came out. She sorted out the various useless gadgets, like the lemon zester, the crème brûlée torch, and the candy thermometer. She arranged the fruit in a bowl, made a row of tomatoes along the windowsill, and put the bread into a more pleasing formation.
    As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Clio did like to cook.
    And these were nice, fresh ingredients. She sifted through the boxes and came up with a pile of basics. She pulled out some eggs, smoked bacon, peppers, onions, garlic, and cheese and set to work. She would make a big frittata—a big omelet cooked in the oven. That would shut everyone up.
    She beat the eggs in a bowl, fried up the bacon and let it drain and crisp, and grated the cheese in a fancy canister grater. She 101

    had just gotten to chopping up the vegetables when Aidan slipped in behind her. He didn’t say hello, or good morning, or even excuse me. He just squeezed in and started riffling through the refrigerator until he got what he wanted, which was a can of soda.
    “You complain about oysters, yet you drink soda for breakfast?” she asked. “That’s some interesting nutrition.”
    “It’s got nothing to do with nutrition,” he said, leaning against the sink and cracking open the can. “No one has ever fallen over dead from drinking a can of Coke. But raw seafood is an actual health risk. The oyster should be left alone so that it can get sand in it and get irritated enough to make a pretty, pretty pearl.”
    He had on cargo shorts and a T-shirt from some event at Yale called “Tuesdays at Mory’s.” (Clio guessed that he probably had a lot of Yale-related T-shirts.) Again, the clothes were too big.
    The hair was a little flatter today, coming down over his forehead a bit. Clio liked it better that way. He wasn’t bad-looking at all. Just a little conceited and annoying. Elsa could take care of that, though.
    “So you’d rather have a bunch of chemicals?” she asked.
    “Everything’s chemicals,” he said