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I run into the street The cars honk at , as if even they speak another language I spin around, having absolutely no idea where I a to be home Home in my bed Safe

The tears make it hard to see, but somehow I stu fro me But this time I am scared

I run for several blocks, up a bunch of stairs and onto a square of sorts, with a rack of those gray-white bicycles, a real estate agency, a pharmacy, and a café, in front of which is a phone booth Melanie! I can call Melanie I take some deep breaths, s et the international operator But the call goes straight to voice mail Of course it does She left the phone off to avoid calls from my mother

An operator coe because the call is collect I start to cry The operator asks me if she should call the police for me I hiccup out a no, and she asks if perhaps there is soht call And that’s when I remember Ms Foley’s business card

She picks up with a brisk "Pat Foley" The operator has to ask her if she’ll accept the collect call three ti harder the minute she answers, so she can’t hear the request

"Allyson Allyson What’s the matter? Are you hurt?" she asks over the line

I’m too scared, too numb to be hurt That will come later

"No," I say in the tiniest of voices "I need help"

Ms Foley es to pull the basics out of me That I went to Paris with a boy I met on the train That I’m stuck here, lost, with noher "I just want to go holand, shall we?" she says calhtand pull out my passport The ticket is still folded neatly inside "I think so," I tell Ms Foley in a quivery voice

"When is the return booked for?"

I look at it The nuether "I can’t tell"

"Top left corner It’ll be in military time The twenty-four-hour clock"

And there I see it "Thirteen-thirty"

"Thirteen-thirty," Ms Foley says in that coly efficient voice of hers "Excellent That’s one-thirty It’s just past noon now in Paris, so you have tiet yourself to the train station? Or to a Metro?"

I have no idea how And no money "No"

"How about a taxi? Take a taxi to the Gare du Nord?"

I shake my head I don’t have any euros to pay for a taxi I tell Ms Foley that I can hear the disapproval in her silence As if nothing I’ve told her before has loweredto Paris without sufficient funds? She sighs "I can order you a taxi fro you to the train station"

"You can do that?"

"Just tell me where you are"

"I don’t knohere I am," I bellow I paid absolutely no attention to where Willem took me yesterday I surrendered

"Allyson!" Her voice is a slap across the face, and it has just the intended effect It stops"Calo write down the nearest intersection"

I reach intofor my pen, but it’s not there I put the phone down and memorize the street names "I’m at Avenue Si the pronunciation "In front of a pharmacy"

Ms Foley repeats back the information, then tells me not to move, that a car will be there within a half hour and that I’m to call her back if one doesn’t arrive That if she doesn’t hear from me, she will assume that I will be on the one-thirty train to St Pancras, and she will e of the platform at two forty-five I’m not to leave the train station without her

Fifteen minutes later, a black Mercedes cruises up to the corner The driver holds a sign, and when I see my name--Allyson Healey--I feel both relieved and bereft Lulu, wherever she caone now

I slide into the backseat, and we take off for what turns out to be all of a ten-ed for the driver to take ht where to board I’h the station, and it’s only when I ah the aisles that I realize that I’ve left my suitcase at the club All my clothes and all the souvenirs from the trip are in there And I don’t even care I have lost soether until the train goes into the Tunnel And then maybe it’s the safety of the darkness or theloose, but once we leave Calais and the s darken, I again start to quietly sob, h

At St Pancras, Ms Foley escorts me to a café, stations rows cold in its cup I tell her everything now: The underground Shakespeare play in Stratford-upon-Avon Meeting Willem on the train The trip to Paris The perfect day Histhat I still do not understand My panicked flight

I expect her to be stern--disapproving, for deceiving her, for being such a not-good girl--but instead she is sympathetic

"Oh, Allyson," she says

"I just don’t knohat could’ve happened to hiot so scared I panicked I don’t know, er"

"You could’ve waited until next Christood," Ms Foley says