Fiona glanced around, too, perhaps sensing the same unease he felt.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Hang on a sec.” Eliot tightened the strap of his canvas backpack. Inside were pencils, notebooks, Cee’s lunch, and a battered violin case (sticking slightly out of the top of the pack), which contained his most prized possession: the violin Lady Dawn. He shifted his shoulders inside his too-big Paxington jacket. No luck there-it still looked all wrong. “Okay,” he told her. “Let’s go.”

Fiona unfolded their map, got oriented, and then pointed. “That way to Lombard Street.” She marched ahead and Eliot followed. She was in her figure-it-out mode, and nothing got in Fiona’s way when she was like that.

For several blocks they tromped in silence and then turned onto Lombard.

A nonstop stream of cars and trucks rolled by. Eliot and Fiona took a step back. The scents of coffee and freshly baked bread drifted with the odors of exhaust. People queued in line for coffee from latte carts.

“All we have to do is follow this street west,” she told him. “That’ll get us there.” She scrutinized the map but looked unconvinced.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

Eliot knew it was something, but before he could get it out of his sister, she started walking.

Why did she always do that? Leave him behind, thinking she got to lead. Eliot had half a mind to go his own way. . but then, Fiona might get lost and never find the place by herself.

So he followed. For her sake.

One day, though, she was going to find out just how much she needed him.

They passed shoe stores and a Taco Bell and one store that sold nothing but globes and maps. Fiona paused to admire a massive world that levitated magnetically on its pedestal. She checked the building’s street number and then compared it to the address on their welcome letter.