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a native.”
    “What an opportunity,” her husband chimed in.
    “But Dad! The bathroom is down the hall! I mean, it’s not even in the apartment!”
    Paul Johnson was chuckling once again. “It sounds just like the place your mother and I stayed in during our first trip. Remember, Louise? Our feet would be killing us from a long day of sightseeing, and then we’d come back to our hotel and find that we had to—”
    “Surely you don’t expect me to live in a place with no bathroom!” Jennifer shrieked. She was aware that the people on the street corner on which she was standing as she made this long-distance plea for help were eyeing her oddly. But she didn’t care. All she did care about, in fact, was getting her point across to her parents.
    “Oh, honey, I know it’s all new to you,” Louise Johnson was saying. “It will take some getting used to.”
    “Of course it will.” Dr. Johnson was, as usual, only too happy to agree with his wife. “But I guarantee that in a week—no, no, make that two or three days—you’ll be tripping along the streets of Paris, considering it your second home.”
    “Oh, Daddy ...”
    “Now listen, young lady, I want you to try to put all your fears aside and tackle this thing head on. Think of it as a challenge.”
    “An opportunity,” came her mother’s voice.
    “A chance to experience something brand new. We know you can do it, Jen. We love you, and we have a lot of faith in you.”
    Before she knew it, her parents had said their cheerful good-byes and hung up. Jennifer was left standing on a street corner in Paris, holding on to a dead phone.
    This, she thought, has got to be one of the low points of my life.
    But instead of simply giving up, she started rummaging through her purse, looking for the list of telephone numbers Ms. Darcy had handed out that morning. Right now, what she needed was some moral support. And the best place to find that, she knew, was in familiar territory.
    * * * *
    “I’m telling you, it’s like something out of a horror movie,” Jennifer complained loudly, tugging at a strand of her blond hair in irritation. “In the first place, the apartment is about as big as a closet. In the second place, it doesn’t even have a bathroom. In the third place—”
    “Oh, Jennifer, it sounds romantic to me,” Nina insisted. She dropped down onto one of the benches in the long main gallery of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris’s modern art museum and the place the three girls had agreed to meet on the morning of their second day in Paris. “Of course, Jacques and Isabelle Rousseau have been absolutely wonderful to me, and their town house on the Left Bank is like something out of a magazine. But they’re so anxious to brush up on their English that I actually feel guilty speaking to them in French.”
    “I know what you mean,” Kristy said, joining her on the bench. “The LeBlancs are so pleased to have someone around who can help their two daughters learn English. I feel like I owe it to them.” She made a face. “The only problem is that I’m not going to learn much French.”
    “Come on!” Jennifer wailed. “You’ve got to be kidding! Do you have any idea what it’s like having to speak French morning, noon, and night?”
    Her two friends looked at her in surprise.
    “But Jennifer!” Kristy said. “That’s what we came here for.”
    “That’s not what I came here for,” Jennifer grumbled. “Look, it’s certainly no secret that the only reason I’m here is that my parents forced me to come. And I can see that the only way I’m ever going to get through this endless summer is if you spend every free minute you have with me. I happen to need a couple of really good friends right now.”
    Nina and Kristy exchanged alarmed glances.
    “But Jen,” Kristy began.
    Nina was quick to intercede. “Jennifer, I know you’re feeling a little unsettled right now. And it’s no surprise, since we’ve only just gotten here. Everything is