First published in the United States in 2020

by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books,

a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York,

New York 10019, USA

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Electric Monkey,

part of Egmont Books

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

Text copyright © 2020 by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

ISBN 978 1 4052 9989 3

Ebook ISBN 978 0 7555 0156 4

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

www.egmontbooks.co.uk

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To all the readers who’ve made pilgrimages to the Strand

1  one: DASH

2  two: LILY

3  three: DASH

4  four: LILY

5  five: DASH

6  six: LILY

7  seven: DASH

8  eight: LILY

9  nine: DASH

10  ten: LILY

11  eleven: DASH

12  twelve: LILY

13  thirteen: DASH

14  fourteen: LILY

15  fifteen: LILY

16  sixteen: LILY

17  seventeen: LILY

18  eighteen: LILY

19  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

20  Back series promotional page

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

one: LILY

two: DASH

three: LILY

four: DASH

five: LILY

six: DASH

seven: LILY

eight: DASH

nine: LILY

ten: DASH

eleven: LILY

twelve: DASH

thirteen: LILY

fourteen: DASH

fifteen: LILY

sixteen DASH

seventeen: LILY

eighteen: DASH

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Back series promotional page

December 21st

I can’t be happy unless Dash is miserable at Christmas. It’s like it’s my job to turn his holiday scowl into a smile.

A happy-looking face doesn’t come naturally to Dash. Things that I think should provoke a grin, like a great dog, or cute toddler twins stumbling around a sandbox like drunken pirates, or a rained-on person finally hailing a cab, won’t turn his frown upside down. Things that will: a hipster Instagramming their walk through the park and then slipping on that great dog’s poo; toddler twins using their yogurt tubes for a sword match that quickly escalates into a not-so-cute food fight involving a lot of sand and angry parents; or a cab discharging an arrogant Wall Streeter directly into an ankle-deep puddle of water.

I don’t want to seem like a needy girlfriend, but I kind of live for those rare moments of Dash’s smile. It’s so pure, maybe because it’s so unexpected, and never forced. Dare I say, it could light a whole Christmas tree. (If he heard me say that, it would instantly disappear and threaten never to come back.)

I am determined to bring him some smiles this Christmas. It’s too long since I’ve seen his face, in any expression! He had two great choices last spring before we both graduated high school. He got into Columbia, which would have kept him in New York City and made me very happy, and he got into Oxford University, which, as an Anglophile and a book lover, made him very happy, with the ocean’s distance from his parents a big bonus. (They’re nice, I guess. But complicated. Not in the fun way.)

Dash and I have been together two years, and although I’m not usually selfless when it comes to letting go of the people or animals I love, I actually encouraged him to go to Oxford. It had always been his dream – he should live it! I deferred admission to Barnard College so I could take a gap year and focus on my dog-walking business and volunteer at my grandpa’s assisted living facility. The big bonus for me – for us – and what made the separation feel okay at the time of the big decisions was that I’d have more free time to travel to England to visit Dash since I wasn’t in school.

That’s how it was supposed to work out, at least. My business grew beyond my wildest expectations and occupied more time than I ever imagined. I haven’t seen Dash in person since August. I want to run my hands through his mop of hair, which has grown even longer since he’s been studying so hard he hasn’t bothered to get it cut. He also hasn’t bothered much with shaving. I never thought an unkempt look was my guy type, and it’s not just how hard I’ve been missing Dash – I like it. I can’t wait to kiss his scruff.

His new life in England is not what Dash expected, either. I’ve gotten the sense he doesn’t like it as much as he thought he would. Or maybe it’s Oxford, with all its rules and traditions. Dash is vague about it, but I’m his girlfriend. I sense these things. (His mumbling that maybe he’ll look into transferring elsewhere next year was also a clue. I’m not a clairvoyant. I’d like to be, though!)

I figured we’d talk about it more when he came home for Christmas, but a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, he dropped a bomb on me. He called me for a ‘talk.’ The kind that required a text announcing the ‘talk’ ahead of time, so I knew it wasn’t going to be a good ‘talk.’ Luckily, it turned out not to be the kind of talk that one of our favorite singers, Robyn, suggests some boys have with their girlfriends. Or the ‘maybe we should see other people’ talk. Instead, Dash dropped a Christmas bomb. The I’M GOING TO STAY AT MY GRANDMOTHER’S IN LONDON OVER CHRISTMAS INSTEAD OF GO HOME TO NEW YORK TO BE WITH YOU bomb.

Trigger warning: full-on Lily meltdown.

Deep breaths. Cleansing breaths. Eating feelings.

That’s how I kept it together. When I emerged from the shock, I saw that I had two choices. One, I could rationally accept his decision and spend Christmas at home with my family like every other year, which is the joy of my life, although there would be a lot of missing Dash this year.

I hate being rational.

Or two, I could –

‘This was a terrible idea, Lily Bear,’ my cousin Mark said as we both looked with concern at the wall clock behind his cash register. It was 6:10 in the p.m., or 18:10 as they say in England because I don’t know why they talk in military time. ‘This is not the kind of surprise a boyfriend wants. Especially a snarly one. I shouldn’t have said you could crash with us while you waited to spring this on him.’

Or two, I could just show up in London as a surprise!

It was a last-minute, spontaneous decision that required a lot of schedule juggling and angry-texting with my mother, whose pre-Christmas plans did not include me sabotaging her expectation that I’d be available round-the-clock to help with cooking, cleaning, and shopping preparations for the big day. But she may have been as relieved as me to get a break from each other. Ever since I decided to put off college for a year, Mom’s made it her mission to remind me that my gap year is ‘just a temporary gap, Lily.’ You’d think she would applaud me for cultivating a successful dog-walking business and social media presence – and now spinning those off with a collection of dog crafts that people are actually buying. But Mom thinks my entrepreneurial efforts are a ‘distraction.’ She won’t let go of reminding me that getting a college degree should be my priority. ‘Accumulating likes and knitting sweaters for Chihuahuas won’t prepare you for how to think, Lily.’

I don’t just think she’s wrong. I know it.

I definitely thought I needed to see my boyfriend, sooner rather than later! Escaping my mother and what lately feels like our very, very small apartment was a bonus.

‘He’ll be here,’ I said to Mark, although I was starting to get concerned. ‘And please don’t call me Lily Bear in a foreign country. I get to be a new person here, not the family baby.’ I couldn’t believe I was in London! I’d never traveled so far abroad and already I was enamored. The Tube! The accents! The Cadbury chocolates! Of course, I’d experienced a lifetime of public transportation, the English language, and quality treats, but in London, they all felt exotic and new. I loved when the subway conductors told passengers getting on and off the train cars to ‘Mind the gap.’ Every time I heard the conductor’s ‘Mind the gap’ announcement, I felt like it was a secret nod to my gap year, and a secret acknowledgment that maybe London would be the place I’d figure out what I’d do once that gap period was over. Not what everyone else wanted me to do – what I wanted. Mind that gap, Mom.

The event was supposed to start at 6:00 p.m., I mean 18:00, I think? Too much math! Mark assured me that bookstore events never start on time, but the room was filled with people expecting it to start, and Dash was nowhere in sight, despite my very specific invitation in that day’s Advent calendar gift from me to him. It was, simply, a note:

Daunt Books/Marylebone, 6PM, 21 December.

For the pure thrill of unreluctant desire.

How could Dash resist? He loves a treasure hunt, especially if it’s a literary one. Our relationship started because of clues we left each other in a red Moleskine notebook at the Strand Bookstore during the Christmas season two years ago. This year, I decided to continue that tradition, but with a British spin. Just after Thanksgiving, I mailed Dash a handmade Advent calendar. There’s little I love more than adding a new Christmas tradition, and I love the British for their Advent calendars, which begin on December 1 and end on December 24, to herald the days till Christmas. It was quite a project, as there are infinite ways to make an Advent calendar. Thanks, Pinterest – I literally lost a week of my life to researching craft ideas. But I loved the final result.

The Advent calendar I made for Dash was crafted out of a wooden book storage box. The cover opened to reveal twenty-four custom-crafted little boxes within, each having a window to open on the designated day, revealing a little gift inside. Most of these presents were of the stocking-stuffer variety, like Christmas socks, teas, and chocolates, but others were more personal, like:

December 1 – a £50 gift card for Pret a Manger, Dash’s favorite English lunch haunt. He’s obsessed with their cheddar and chutney sandwiches and says they’re far superior to the ones Pret sells at their locations in NYC.

December 5 – a ticket to see this season’s Christmas blockbuster movie, Cyborg Santa, in 3-D. Dash’s review of the movie: ‘Die Harder, Santa.’

December 8 – a gift certificate for infinite CuddleBucks. I knew he’d never redeem such a corny gift but just imagining him squirm at the sight of it gave me a good giggle.

December 14 – my personal favorite, a mini-USB stick that has a photo series I personally wrangled (and by wrangled, I mean wrangled) of my dog, Boris, a giant bullmastiff who does not like being dressed up in Christmas decorations and ‘posing’ in front of some of Dash’s favorite New York locations, like the Strand, the Prospect Park Bandshell, and the New York Public Library.

December 17 – a Lego minifigure of Truman Capote.

Today – the invitation to Daunt Books. When I originally sent the Advent calendar with this day’s gift, my intention was to beckon Dash to a London event I knew about through my cousin Mark that I thought Dash would enjoy. I hadn’t known then that Dash’s real gift for the day would be me showing up in person!

6:15 p.m.

Mark’s new wife, Julia, joined us at the cash register station. ‘I think I should start soon,’ she said.

‘Please can we wait a few more minutes?’ I asked her. ‘I know he’ll be here soon.’

‘Maybe there’s a delay on the Tube,’ Julia said, trying to be kind. ‘I’ll give it a few more minutes.’

Her voice was hesitant, which I thought unusual for someone so confident. I knew she was nervous, but not because of whether or not Dash showed up. When I’d arrived at her and Mark’s flat the night before, she’d gone through all the details of how this literary scavenger hunt she’d masterminded would work, and after hearing it? Yes, I’d be nervous, too.

My cousin Mark, who used to work at the Strand Bookstore in New York, took a vacation to England a year ago, and one of his destinations in London was Daunt Books, a bookstore that had been recommended to him as being particularly enchanting. For him, indeed it was. At Daunt’s Marylebone location, in an Edwardian three-level store with oak balconies, blue-green walls, a conservatory ceiling, and stained-glass windows, he met Julia Gordon, a Jamaican-Jewish Londoner who had just taken a marketing job at Daunt after finishing her PhD in English literature at Cambridge. We still can’t believe she got Mark to move to London or that Mark got her to marry him.

Julia dreams of starting a literary tour business, and she was looking for ways to promote the bookstore at the holidays, so she created this first-ever Daunt Books Bibliophile Cup Challenge, which Dash would learn about if he showed up when the Advent calendar told him to show. It wasn’t my jet lag bewildering me about whether Julia’s plan could work. I was more concerned she was one of those people who are brilliant but with no practical sense. I’m from a family of academics – I know these people. When she’d explained how the hunt would work, I could see there were details she hadn’t thought through. Like, is there a foreign dignitary visiting who would cause traffic problems or massive protests? Is there a Santa convention that’s going to cause foot traffic to get out of hand? Fickle customers. WEATHER. I’m a dog-walker in New York. I always have to think about these practical things. Julia lives inside books. She doesn’t have to deal with reality as frequently as the rest of us. But I supported her entrepreneurial ambition and wanted to encourage it the way I wish my mom did for mine.

‘Good turnout,’ Mark said proudly to his new wife, looking relieved. Julia had spread the word through social media, but who knew if people would really show up to chase book clues right before Christmas?

There were probably twenty people gathered in the center of the store, at the designated meeting area. Then my heart dropped. And it wasn’t because Dash wasn’t there yet. It was because of who was there. I spied a young couple. I wasn’t sure they were indeed who I thought they were until the girl – she wore a lovely, emerald-colored silk hijab just like one I’d seen in Oxford photos Dash had sent me from university – said to the guy, ‘Olivier, Team Brasenose for the win, right?’ And the Olivier guy smiled at her in a way Dash never smiles at me, with a fierce sense of entitlement, and said, ‘Azra. Darling. It’s done.’

Fa la la la FROCKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!

It was Olivier Wythe-Jones and Azra Khatun, two of his classmates at Oxford. He associates them with everything he dislikes about Oxford.

British universities are very different from American ones. You don’t major in a subject, you ‘read’ it. You ‘sit’ for exams (while wearing academic robes!) rather than ‘take’ exams. Freshmen are ‘freshers.’ You only study one subject at school and nothing else. Instead of semesters, there are three eight-week terms with funny-sounding names: Michaelmas, Hilary, and Trinity. (I know, it makes as much sense as how Brits tell time or why they refer to their money in terms of weight.) Universities are actually a collection of different colleges, each with their own unique identity, like Hogwarts houses, which is very cool of them. At Oxford, Dash applied to ‘read’ classics and literature at Brasenose College specifically because the rooms there are singles. While he didn’t get a roommate, he still shared too-close proximity with students he had no desire to befriend. The power couple of Brasenose were this Olivier Wythe-Jones and Azra Khatun duo – or, as Dash described them, ‘Like if Draco Malfoy was dating Fleur Delacour.’

I was almost starting to hope Dash didn’t show up.

But I was getting irritated as well. No one knows Dash better than me, or so I thought. He would never not accept a literary challenge. He’s that much of a nerd. It’s why I love him so much. And we’ve been together for two years. Shouldn’t he, like, sense that I was nearby? Shouldn’t he sense how much his beloved had sacrificed to give him this great Christmas surprise? I walked away from dog-walking at the busiest time of year! I allowed my brother to cover my job while I’m away! I gave Langston as much training as possible, but I was worried. Would I have dog-walking clients to return to when I got home to New York?

A bald man wearing a raincoat who looked well into his middle age came up to me. He said, ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but could I get a picture with you?’

My overprotective cousin Mark eyed him warily. ‘Why do you need a picture with her?’

The man said, ‘You’re Lily the dog-walker, right?’

I nodded. It happens sometimes now; I get recognized. Ever since that huge, dog-loving social media personality highlighted my account on Instagram, my follower numbers have exploded. Also, I was named one of the Top Ten Dogfluencers to Watch in the latest issue of Dog People magazine, a copy of which the man had in his hand. I even started selling dog crafts through my site. To my surprise, people bought my products! Like, a lot of them.

Mark grudgingly took a photo of me with the man, who asked me, ‘Are you in town for the Canine Supporters World Education Conference?’

‘I wish,’ I said. My ticket home was for very early the morning of December 26. Even if the week before Christmas was one of my busiest workweeks, I could still eke out escaping to London for it. But the week between Christmas and New Year’s is the highest of high seasons for dog-walkers. I couldn’t be away for that, which was when the GOADC (Greatest of All Dog Conferences) in London was taking place.

It was all I could do not to blurt out what I hadn’t even yet told Dash, or my parents. The organization that sponsored the conference, Pembroke Canine Facilitator Institute (PCFI), was the very learning institution that had offered me admission for next term! PCFI is like the Harvard of dog education schools, and if I hadn’t told anyone yet, it was because I wanted to see how I’d like London first – and also my parents will kill me. They were super not into me deferring Barnard for a year and they will see the PCFI program as me trying to stall college, if not outright kill that prospect.

They’d be right.

6:20 p.m.

‘I need to start, Lily,’ said Julia. ‘Sorry.’

Where was he? ‘I understand,’ I said, frustrated. I’d put so much expectation into this moment of Dash discovering me here at this event. And he hadn’t bothered to show. I was determined not to ruin the moment of surprise by texting him: Where ARE you?

Julia spoke into a microphone to the gathered crowd. ‘Thank you for coming, everybody! I’m Julia Gordon, the marketing manager here at Daunt, and this is our first-ever, hopefully annual, Daunt Books Bibliophile Cup Challenge!’

No one said anything. ‘Why aren’t people cheering?’ I whispered to Mark.

‘British people don’t cheer. That’s so American.’

‘But what about soccer?’

‘Okay, they cheer then. But there’s usually a lot of beer first.’

Julia continued, holding up an iPad. ‘I have your team names collected here. When your team name is called, please send a representative up for your first clue. You’ll get points for finding each destination, with bonus points awarded to members who answer trivia questions at each spot. Once you complete each clue, another one will be emailed to your team leader. The last clues will be emailed the morning of the twenty-third. I’ll be tallying your scores here on my iPad based on my team members’ evaluations at each destination. On Christmas Eve, the two highest- scoring teams will receive Daunt gift cards commensurate with their tallied points. Good luck, everyone! And thank you for participating.’

Mark called out, ‘And that other thing!’

Julia sighed ever so slightly. ‘Yes. My American husband insists there must be an actual prize for people to show off, so . . .’

Mark pulled something from beneath a table of mystery books and brought it to where Julia was addressing the crowd. It was a giant trophy, taller than my very large dog, shaped like a stack of books instead of a more typical trophy cup. ‘The Daunt Books Bibliophile Cup!’ said Mark, to no one’s applause.

Mentally, I was cheering Mark on, like, Yes, a trophy! But I could see the British crowd was unimpressed. Or if they were impressed, they bloody well weren’t going to show it.

Julia handed out envelopes with the first clues to each team as Mark returned to where I was standing, holding the envelope meant for me and Dash. We were supposed to be Team Strand. ‘Guess it’s going to be you and me on this hunt, kid,’ Mark said.

He opened the envelope and we read the first clue:

Near the heath

Where the bathers find their ponds

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

‘Too easy,’ said Mark.

‘You’re right,’ I said. I didn’t think the clue was easy at all; I had no idea what it meant. I meant Mark had been right about Dash. ‘I shouldn’t have tried to surprise him.’

I love my cousin. But I traveled all this way for a treasure hunt with my boyfriend, not Mark.

I’d waited so long. I wanted to see Dash’s scruffy hair and beard. His scowl. His skinny black jeans and whatever excellent sweater he favored at the moment. I assured myself, Christmas is not ruined. It’s no big deal. I’ll find Dash and it’s all a big mistake and –

Suddenly the front door of the store swung open and in walked an older lady wearing a fancy suit, walking a cat on a leash. Ugh. Cat people. ‘Are we late?’ she asked loudly in a regal British accent, but like the kind that possibly could be a fake accent adopted by someone who is really from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. A gentleman dressed in an elegant suit with a top hat followed behind her. He took off his hat with a flourish and tipped it in her direction. ‘Never, my dear,’ he told her. ‘The world waits for you.’

The gentleman was Dash. DASH! My sweetheart! His long hair was gone, and his face was clean-shaven. Looking cheerful. Smiling.

And suddenly I realized: That person I thought I knew best? I didn’t know him at all.

December 21st

This is the story of a boy who lost something, then found something, then had to figure out what to do next.

It starts off, strangely enough, with a sweatshirt, child’s- size medium.

I was seven, maybe eight. I got home from school, went to the kitchen for a snack, and found a box waiting on the kitchen table, covered in stamps that featured a woman I vaguely recognized as a queen. Even though she’d been postmarked and run a little ragged from the journey, her regal countenance didn’t waver. I admired that, and studied the package further, realizing with a shock and a thrill that my name was on it, which meant that it was for me.

‘It’s from your grandmother,’ my mother said when she caught me examining it. She said this with much more shock than thrill.

Immediately my young mind sizzled a connection, and for at least a few years after that, my mental image of my grandmother matched the face on the stamp. This was my father’s mother, a woman I couldn’t remember meeting in person. The things my parents said about her were not things I could fathom, starting with the fact that she’d left my grandfather because she’d fallen in love with a stone. I heard my mother explain this to her friends when my father wasn’t around; my grandmother had landed in England because she’d fallen in love with a stone. She hadn’t ended up with this stone (this made more sense to me), but it had been the reason for her to move to London, to start what my mother called ‘a new life.’ People always asked my mother which stone, and she said she wasn’t sure, that this had happened long before she came into the picture. It was only when I overheard one of these conversations later in life, in my early teens, that I understood what had happened. It wasn’t a stone she was chasing, but a member of the Rolling Stones.

She called every year for my father’s birthday. He answered dutifully, not enthusiastically. The phone would get passed to my mother, then to me. My grandmother always seemed to talk to me, but I never knew what to say.

She had sent toys and stuffed animals when I’d been born, and later I would uncover a photo of her holding my bundled baby body in her arms. This photo was not on display in our apartment; I had to dig into a baby book to find it, just like I had to dig into my parents’ wedding album to find another photo of her, beaming in a pink paisley dress as she gave my father away. (My grandfather and his new wife had skipped the wedding because of extensive golfing plans and a vague distrust of my father’s ability to choose wisely.)

I’d never received a package from her before, and its timing (nowhere near my birthday) made it extra tantalizing. She’d been overly generous with the packing tape, so there was no way for me to open the box without the intervention of my mother’s knife. The fact that the package had traveled over an ocean made it seem even more magical, and its contents did not disappoint – which means, I suppose, that they appointed. There were Cadbury chocolates, the likes of which I’d never experienced before. There were paperback editions of Roald Dahl with covers entirely unlike the American ones. There was a toy truck whose name I believed to be Laurie until my mother explained it was spelled a different way. Wrapped in the arts section from the Sunday Guardian, there was a piece of red felt that was revealed to be the northernmost tip of Paddington Bear. And then, at the bottom of the box, there was a sweatshirt with the Oxford University crest. I put it on immediately, and it fit perfectly.

Pinned to the sweatshirt was a short note.

I thought you might like these.

Consider it a gift for no reason.

Love, Grandmum

I was enchanted.

My father, when he came home, was more acerbic. ‘Are you kidding me?’ was his reaction when told about the package.

My mother insisted that I write a thank-you note, and I mustered up my finest penmanship to do so. Thus began a pattern that lasted for more than a decade: Out of the blue, my grandmother would send me a package, always with Cadbury chocolates and always with books, and I would reply with a thank-you note that gave her the slimmest of glimpses into my life alongside much more voluminous reactions to the books she had sent. This was how we corresponded. The relationship didn’t require much more than that, which suited both of us well.

In the meantime, my fantasy of Oxford set in. It was my literary utopia, a beacon of erudition in a world that seemed to increasingly despise the learned. Anytime a classmate disdained me or derided me, I imagined there were plenty of people at Oxford who would understand exactly what I meant. Every time my father or mother looked at me as if to say How did our merged DNA conjure this pedantic cypher?, I would picture a kind Oxford professor who would admire my inquisitiveness rather than be mystified by it or feel betrayed by it.

The downside of knowing this better place existed was the nagging, constant doubt that I would ever be good enough to be admitted through its gates. What if what I intended as profound insight was revealed to be mere bloviation? What if I read all the right books and surveyed all the right thinkers but couldn’t manage to string together the right words myself? There’s a thin, unpredictable line between aspirant and pretender, and it shifted so often in my mind that I never knew where I stood. As the application process began, it felt like the worst kind of reckoning – I could endure my schoolmates calling me pretentious or weird if my own idiosyncratic self-education came to be respected by the people I actually respected. But if Oxford said I didn’t pass muster? It would be devastating – and that was exactly what I was expecting in my dark, insecure heart.

Then, much to my surprise, they let me in.

My mother was with me when I found out, and she and I hugged and cried and felt as close as we’d ever been. Hours later, it hit her how far away I was going to be, which tinged her excitement with a certain eau d’empty nest. I waited two days to tell my father and only did so because there was no way of getting around it. He had his own life now, away from my mother and mostly away from me. I interrupted from time to time, to witness his foolhardy attempts at fatherishness. When I told him I’d been admitted to Oxford, he congratulated me – not with a hug, but with that simple word, congratulations. Then, almost in the same breath, he asked me how much it was going to cost. When I told him, he murmured something noncommittal, then asked me where else I’d applied. I’d given him the full list the previous time we’d dined, but I repeated it again, making the other options as lifeless as possible so my position would be clear.

Luckily for me, my father’s friends must have been impressed when he told them his son had gotten into Oxford; whereas I imagined a bastion of poets wrestling with their own despondency as a way of pulling the world out of its mire, my father and his friends saw a breeding ground for Future Leaders. Understanding the entitled direction that wind was blowing, I made my prime ministrations to my father along Future Leader lines, and after some cutthroat negotiations that got far more personal than they objectively needed to be, my parents worked out the tuition question.

It was only then, when I knew the dream was in fact coming true, that I told Lily. We had been assuming we’d both be staying in the New York area – she’d been admitted to Barnard and I’d been admitted to Columbia. Now I was mucking that up, and wanted to be sure I wasn’t mucking up our future as well.

I took her to Elephant & Castle to break the news over scones and tea. Perhaps because I had chosen a British-themed establishment for the delivery scene, she didn’t seem particularly surprised. It was incredible, really: She knew how much Oxford meant to me, and was thrilled on my behalf in a way that nobody else in my life had managed to muster.

‘But what about us being together in the city?’ I asked.

‘We can work it out,’ she promised. And I believed her in a way I’d never believe in myself. Because Lily always keeps her promises, even if she has to shoulder the world and bend time in order to do so.

We knew long distance would be hard, especially considering my disinclination toward the digital tether. I didn’t want to rely on texting and FaceTiming and writing witty, sweet comments under each other’s posts as a way of keeping the kindling under our love.

‘My favorite things about you are in-person things,’ I told Lily, and it was true. I promised to write her letters and to figure out a way for us to travel to Europe together before she started Barnard and I started my second year. I wasn’t going to be tempted to play the field or sow my oats; for me, Lily was the field, and she could have all of my oats. She didn’t fit perfectly into my new life, but the beauty of our relationship is that she hadn’t fit perfectly into my old life, either. Love teaches you that fitting is overrated; what you need to do is change the shape of your life to make the connection. We’d done it before; we’d do it again.

It was hard at first. I’d sit in my room and listen to Death Cab for Cutie’s ‘Transatlanticism’ (the song, not the album) on repeat.

I need you so much closer . . .

I’d write her letters on the backs of Oxford postcards.

I need you so much closer . . .

I’d call her to hear her voice, to hear what she had to say, to experience the reassurance of her hearing me.

This was during the first two weeks of school. Then, fiercely and relentlessly, Oxford took over my life.

The scenes on those postcards were the scenes I’d carried in my head ever since the sweatshirt had caused my curiosity to bloom. Verdant lawns and sophisticated cathedrals of learning. Gargoyle guardians keeping watch beneath cornices. Iron gates older than most of the books we’d read. Blackwell’s bookstore and the Bodleian Library, opening their shelves to the whims of genius and the genius of whims. The hallowed ground felt wide open, the citadel of knowledge entered at last. That was my postcard version.

The problem was that the postcards tended to show empty lawns, empty buildings. I hadn’t taken into account that there would be other people walking on these paths, crowding these gateways, pulling books from the shelves, talking loudly into their phones, and texting laboriously as if their minds and communication skills had been fully outsourced to Apple.

I had thought Oxford students would be more sophisticated, more intellectually grounded, more literarily impassioned than anyone else.

But it ended up that they were teenagers just like everyone else.

I hadn’t escaped the world after all. Instead, the world had infiltrated my ideal. I found some friends – kind and generous and bookish friends, for sure. But we were surrounded by petty, cliquish, self-entitled, self-branding, status-obsessed, neurotic, insecure, egomaniacal, interpersonally political, emotionally haphazard, academically specious, conversationally tedious humblebraggarts as well.

In other words, I had gotten to my dream place, and it only left me glum.

The university made rigorous demands, and I liked to think I was up to the tasks. I reveled in a poetry class I was taking and tried to muster my way elsewhere. When I got out of class, I wanted to go back to my dorm room to read; I would have been happy to spend the whole night reading. But my next-door neighbor, a future cabinet minister named John, was dedicated to inviting people over for lager and pontification. I played along, didn’t want to be the killjoy even if it meant sacrificing my own joy on the altar of alcohol and keeping face.

I started to sleep later and later, as if my body was willing itself back to New York time. I was honest with Lily about how hard it was, but I also made sure to tell my surroundings to her as if they were an interesting story, with compelling characters and narrative thrust. The fact that I myself didn’t feel this thrust? I tried to chalk it up to first-year jitters, even if that chalk was easily washed away under the sponge of any scrutiny.

I wasn’t rising to the heights I had expected. Nobody else around me seemed to be doing so, either – but for whatever reason, they didn’t seem to care.

I had sent my grandmother a rare non-thank-you note when I’d solidified my Oxford plans, to let her know we’d soon be sharing a country code. She’d called immediately after receiving the note, telling me I had to drop by her flat in Waterloo whenever I wanted.

‘Consider it your home away from your home away from home,’ she said in an accent that was mostly posh, but with traces of American charm underneath.

I’d thought I’d wait for a break to head Londonward, but after three weeks of Oxford, I phoned her and said I needed a brief escape; she told me she needed a little more warning for Saturday night plans, but that her Sunday was entirely free. I took the bus into ‘town’ and made my way to Roupell Street, a short walk from Waterloo Station along the South Bank. It was my first time in the city, and I got turned around repeatedly. Without my phone’s guidance, I probably would have ended up in the Thames. I was fifteen minutes late, but when my grandmother answered her red door on her quiet lane, she didn’t seem perturbed.

In person, she was not at all like the stamp version of the Queen. If anything, she looked like another kind of Queen, the type that could get into a rhapsodic tizzy over being bohemian. Her hair was a stylish shag, her clothes still in the same bright vocabulary as the pink paisley she’d worn to my parents’ wedding. The most striking thing, though, was how much she looked like me. We actually appeared more like each other than either of us appeared like my father. It was uncanny.

‘Oh, wow,’ she said after opening the door. ‘Would you look at that?’

Speakers throughout the flat were releasing the sound of George Harrison into every room. She bade me put down my bag in the hallway and immediately launched into a tour of the two floors, highlighting the guest room as mine for the duration of my time in the United Kingdom. Where I would have had shelves of books, she had shelves of vinyl. Her décor was very mod – she even had a chair that dropped from the ceiling in its own orb, hovering beside a lime-green couch.

Instead of sitting in the sitting room, she took me to the kitchen, where a late breakfast awaited us on an old wood table. As we sipped tea (hers ‘flavored’ with a ‘dab’ of whisky) and ate pastries, we caught up on the past nineteen years of my life without mentioning my parents in anything other than passing. When I felt I was talking too much about myself, I’d steer the conversation her way; she’d dole out a fact or two (she worked in the arts; she wasn’t seeing anyone in particular at the moment but had a few suitors), and then she’d steer the conversation back to me. I told her what I really thought about Oxford, and she didn’t scold me for ingratitude or tell me to get over myself. Instead she said, ‘Well, Oxford can only give you one part of your education; we’ll have to work on the rest.’

We stayed talking in her kitchen for hours. She told me she liked Lily, from the sound of her. And she told me she didn’t like my neighbor John, from the sound of him. Then, lastly, when we came to a natural pause, she told me, ‘I have to say, I like you very much, Dash. I’m so glad our paths have unfolded in this way.’

I felt glad; I felt grateful.

I returned to Oxford with an open invitation to London, and as the weeks passed and the walls of my dorm room seemed to close in on me more and more, I took my grandmother up on it frequently. She introduced me to her friends and took me to art exhibits, concerts at the Royal Albert, and theater on the West End. She told me to call her Gem, like her friends did; since I’d never really called her Grandmum out loud, it was an easy enough transition to make. When we met her friends or acquaintances, she always introduced me as her grandson, which didn’t particularly take my notice until Carl, one of her painter friends, said, ‘You have to understand how much that means; it’s the closest to acknowledging her age that I’ve ever seen Gem go.’

Gem and I never talked about my father, and I certainly never told him that I was seeing so much of his mother. When my own mother came to visit over Thanksgiving (since she had a break and I didn’t), I debated whether or not to take her to London. But Gem insisted (‘I always liked your mother, even if I questioned her taste in men,’ she quipped), and miraculously, Gem won over my mother as well. Before Thanksgiving, when Gem had told me, ‘You simply must stay for Christmas,’ I had thought, Yes, I simply must. Now my mother, who often went away for the holidays herself, understood my reasoning.

Lily didn’t take it as well. I called her, because I knew it would be something that required conversation, not the noël cowardice of a text or email. She didn’t try to hide her disappointment, and I appreciated that – we were still being entirely honest with each other, and all the long- distance trust was built on that. I offered to fly her over, but she said she needed to be with her family, and I couldn’t argue with that.

I missed her so much. The fact that I was staying for Christmas didn’t contradict that. I told her this, and told her I just needed to get my footing here. Oxford was battering my soul to a pulp, and London was the only balm I had for that. New York would have brought me Lily, but it also would have brought me a hundred other obligations. She said she understood.

A few days later, a homemade Advent calendar arrived in the mail. Her way of being here, and of helping me through.

Hallmate John and his Oxford cohort – led by Azra, Queen of Snide; Olivier, King of Glide – thought the Advent calendar was ‘cute’ . . . an adjective I sensed they usually reserved for animals that fit into a teacup. This cohort partied far harder than it studied, and they managed to be impressing the tutors far more than I was.

I refused to let them make me feel bad about Lily’s creation (though I did hide the gift certificate for cuddling far, far in the back of my sock drawer). I remembered that first box that Gem had sent me and decided to re-create it for Lily. I bought Cadbury chocolates, a toy lorry, some childhood-favorite tomes in their British dressings, and an Oxford sweatshirt. Not a gift for no reason but a gift for reason. I wrapped it in brown paper, tied it in string, and sent it across the ocean.

Then I stared down the hardest exams I’d ever faced. And instead of staring them into submission, I blinked. And blinked. And blinked some more. By the end of it, I felt like I was all eyelid and no pupil. And I must have looked gutted as well, because when I showed up on Gem’s doorstep immediately after my final exam, she took one look at me and said, ‘Oh, dear.’

‘I think I need to sleep for a few weeks,’ I told her. ‘Can you wake me up when it’s midnight on New Year’s, and then let me go back to sleep?’

‘You have four hours to nap,’ she replied, ‘and then I’ll wake you up with a plan.’

Precisely four hours later, there was a knock on my door. I was still too sleepy to know whether I called out ‘Come in’ or just thought about doing so. Either way, she came in.

She said, ‘I’ve looked into my crystal ball’ (this is what she called her smartphone), ‘and I believe I’ve found an event that will put the bubbles back in your champagne.’

‘Does it involve other people?’ I grumbled.

‘Certainly.’

‘Nooooooo,’ I replied, mostly to the pillow I was pulling over my face.

‘Dash,’ my grandmother said in her most leveling voice, ‘you must come to grips with the fact that you’d make a very inept monk. Tonight you get to be the dandy and I get to be the wayward contessa. And instead of teaming up to solve country-house crimes, we’ll go on a literary escapade. If that’s not a tonic for your ills, I don’t know what is.’

Even in my world-weary, sleep-deprived state, I had to admit that, put in those terms, it sounded like a pretty good plan.

‘You sound like Mrs. Basil E.,’ I mumbled, referring to Lily’s great-aunt, who also liked a proper turn of phrase.

‘Groovy,’ Gem said, dispelling any aura of Mrs. Basil E. that might have gathered, since I doubted highly that Mrs. Basil E. would have used that word even at the height of its innovation. ‘Now let’s get going.’

I groaned my agreement and peeked out from under the pillow to see my grandmother gripped by a fervor she usually saved for her love of Eric Clapton and David Thewlis and her loathing of Damien Hirst and the Tories.

‘Lovely!’ she chirped. ‘I’ll gather the accoutrements.’

Soon the Red Hot + Blue album – a favorite of hers – filled the air. I got out of bed and walked over to Lily’s Advent calendar, which had been the first thing I’d unpacked before my nap collapse. I looked at the doorway that led to today’s gift and felt I didn’t yet deserve to open it; this was the drawback of an Advent calendar, because I felt that I actually needed to have done something on that day to be worthy of whatever small piece of affection Lily had packed inside. I figured I still had a few hours left and could open it when I got home.

Next I went into the bathroom and made the grave mistake of (a) turning on the light and (b) looking in the mirror. I knew, intellectually, that my aversion to finding an Oxford barber and my inability to find time for a haircut had led to a certain follicular expansiveness. But now I realized that I had veered from Bright Young Thing territory straight into the land of Robinson Crusoe.

‘It’s time for a lather and a shave!’ I called out to Gem.

‘And how about a snip and a style when you’re through?’ she called back. (This was how I found out she’d worked for three years as a hairdresser at a posh salon.)

Two hours later, I bore a better resemblance to an older me, the one my university self had bamboozled, bedraggled, and balderdashed. Gem’s wardrobe included a few upscale suits that fit me beautifully. (This was how I found out she’d worked as a consultant to Liberty for two years.) She even had a top hat on reserve, left behind by a not-quite- gentleman who’d left her behind as well.

I went into my room and put on my duds; when I emerged, I found Gem in a similar suit of a much more flamboyant color.

‘Aren’t we just the pair?’ she said with a smile.

‘Swellegant, for sure,’ I parlayed.

If school had become a dirge, this was a blast of sonata. I half expected a carriage to be waiting for us when Gem opened the front door. But instead we rode on the Tube, reveling in the bemused looks we got from The General Population. I took a picture of us to send to Lily but didn’t have reception underground. I imagined Gem pulling out a third suit for Lily to wear and the three of us taking the town together. It could happen.

We got off at Marylebone and paraded to Daunt Books. I had spent a good amount of time at Waterstones Piccadilly, which looked like a flagship that had sailed in from the Jazz Age. Daunt, meanwhile, looked like a place where Jane Austen and Charles Dickens would have hung out to thumb- wrestle or brood on the state of the novel, such as it was.

‘Who’s reading tonight?’ I asked as we approached, still in the dark.

‘Not a reading. Something else,’ Gem replied. Then: ‘Oh, look at that.’

A few steps away from us, a cat was walking without an owner attached to its leash.

As Gem stooped over to check the cat for a tag, I asked, ‘Is that a British thing, to keep a cat on a leash?’

‘No more or no less than anywhere else.’ Gem shook her head. ‘No identification. So careless. Perhaps she belongs to someone inside – it’s cruel to keep her out here, so let’s take her in.’

As we walked into the store, we saw that we were catching the evening’s activity in medias res. All eyes turned our way – perhaps because of the cat? – and Gem made the most of the moment, drolly asking, ‘Are we late?’ To which I replied, ‘Never, my dear. The world waits for you.’

After the dread of exam season, the dark cloud of wondering if I really belonged at Oxford, I felt such delight in the dialogue, delirium in our flight of fancy. I still had no idea what we were doing here, but I instinctively knew that whatever it was would be far better than a night of stress and sensibility in my dorm room. I honestly didn’t think things could get any better – and then I scanned the crowd and saw Lily’s face looking back at me.

At first I thought: This can’t be possible. I must still be napping.

Then I thought: This must be Gem’s surprise. She is a magician.

If it wasn’t a dream, it must have been planned. But if it had been planned, why did Lily look so confused?

I headed straight to her and wrapped her in an embrace.

‘I can’t believe it!’ I said. ‘You’re here!’

‘I’m here,’ she said, hugging me back, sounding (yes) a little confused. Then, when we pulled apart a little, she added, ‘I thought you had a beard? And long hair?’

Gem’s voice came from over my shoulder. ‘A momentary lapse that shan’t be repeated.’

I smiled at her. ‘How did you do this? How did you get Lily here without telling me?’

Gem’s eyes grew wider. ‘This is Lily?! Well, that explains a lot.’

‘I got here myself,’ Lily said. ‘Who’s this?’

‘This is my grandmother!’ I told her. ‘Gem, meet Lily. Lily, meet Gem. This is too amazing – two of my favorite people in the world in one place!’

Neither of their smiles seemed to match my own.

I felt something startling against my leg, then realized it was just the cat.

‘Is she yours?’ Lily asked.

‘Just a foundling,’ I said. ‘We should probably see if anyone here claims her as their own.’

But nobody made any move to take the leash. The mood had quickly shifted from curiosity to impatience. Another familiar face came into view – that of Lily’s disputatious cousin Mark. I’d forgotten he’d moved to London.

‘He isn’t going to be on our team, is he?’ Mark asked, cordial as ever.

‘We’d love to be on your team, Lily,’ Gem said, swatting at Mark’s gnat-like words.

‘Oh,’ Lily said.

I reached out and took her hand.

But still, it took a few seconds for her to reach her decision.

December 21st

I wanted Dash to be on my team, of course. That’s why I came to London.

But this Gem person?

Not so sure.

I should have been happy for Dash that he finally had a family member he genuinely liked, not just someone he loved (Mom) or tolerated (Dad) out of obligation. But it required a complete shift in my perspective of Dash to see him getting on so well with his grandmother. Dash is someone who avoids family members. That’s who he is. It’s how I under- stand him. That’s why he evolved into such a book person from childhood. Books were his escape from them.

‘You look very fancy,’ I told Dash, admiring his posh clothes and clean-shaven face, while also missing his now-shorn scruff.

He tipped his hat to me. ‘Thank you.’

Gem put her arm around me like we’d known each other for years, not minutes. ‘You are an impossible sausage of adorable,’ she pronounced.

I wouldn’t . . . I wouldn’t . . . I wouldn’t . . . I couldn’t help it! I was immediately falling into potential deep dislike of Dash’s beloved grandmother. Who doesn’t like a senior lady who used to be a very cool groupie who now carted her grandson to literary challenges? Who is that evil and unkind? Possibly me.

Also, who brings a cat on a leash into a bookstore?

‘There you are, Moriarty!’ said Julia, who had found her way over to our group. She picked up the cat, who swatted Julia’s face in protest but then nestled his head into the crook of her neck with great affection, a very feline game of love me/love me not. ‘He belongs to the bookstore owner. I left him in the office an hour ago. I don’t know how he got out.’

‘Open window?’ I suggested.

‘Probably,’ she said, unconcerned that her error could have caused CAT-astrophic consequences for Moriarty if he’d slipped out the window and then gotten hit by a car.

‘Why does he have a leash?’ I asked.

‘A leash?’ Julia looked confused.

‘A lead,’ Mark said. ‘That’s what they call a leash here.’

Calling a leash a ‘lead’? Now that was an impossible sausage of adorable.

‘I guess I left his lead on after taking him for his walk,’ Julia said, again unconcerned by the inconvenience she’d caused to the cat, both left to fend for himself on the streets of London, and with an unattended leash attached to his neck that could cause any number of problems. Humans. I don’t understand them. So many of them don’t think things through when it comes to our fur friends.

‘Is he the house cat here at the bookstore?’ Gem asked, leaning in for a pet on Moriarty, which was greeted by another swat. I was starting to really like this Moriarty.

‘Our best employee,’ said Julia. ‘Keeps the rodents at bay and keeps the boss calm.’

Mark said, ‘Are we ready to hit the streets, Team Strand?’

I wasn’t ready, especially not after Gem said, ‘I was so excited when I read about this literary challenge. I knew it was exactly what Dash would love to do.’

Wait. Gem thought bringing Dash here was her idea?

‘Did you open today’s Advent calendar box?’ I asked Dash.

‘Not yet,’ he said cheerfully.

That was the box that contained the message directing him here. So he was here because Gem brought him, not me. He didn’t seem concerned at all that he’d neglected my day’s Advent gift to him.

I wouldn’t . . . I wouldn’t . . . I couldn’t help it. I was jealous and enraged. I traveled thousands of miles across an ocean and left my dog-walking business in the care of my brother, who doesn’t even like dogs that much, so I could take Dash on this literary adventure. Not so Gem could think it was her idea!

I imagined biting into a delightful piece of chocolate cake baked by British grande dame baker Mary Berry herself to avoid a sourpuss expression appearing on my face. Dash looked so happy. I didn’t want to ruin it.

I didn’t have to. The couple I’d been worried about Dash noticing now made themselves noticeable, coming over to greet our group.

‘Dash, old fellow! You look inappropriately dapper,’ said Dash’s classmate. I remembered how Dash had told me he cringed every time Olivier called him ‘old fellow,’ because he suspected Olivier said it only so he would sound like the aristocratic British prick stereotype he expected Americans wanted to hear.

Dash didn’t exactly frown, but his eyebrows furrowed, in a way I knew to express displeasure, as if someone served him green tea when he is strictly a black-tea-only old fellow.

‘Hello, Olivier,’ said Dash. ‘Hello, Azra.’ His voice sounded a bit dead. He gestured to me and then to Gem. ‘This is my girlfriend, Lily. And my grandmother Gem.’

‘And I’m Lily’s cousin Mark,’ my cousin Mark added. ‘I’m Dash’s favorite of Lily’s relatives.’

He’s not, of course. Insulting or annoying Dash is usually my brother’s favored sport, but when he’s not available, Mark is always keen to step in. I’d feel bad for Dash except I think he expects them to give him a hard time and would be disappointed if they didn’t. Langston and Mark are like the brothers Dash never had and never wanted. It’s a relationship that works for them, so I stay out of it.

Dash ignored Mark and told Gem, ‘Olivier and Azra are my classmates at Brasenose.’

‘Marvelous!’ said Gem. ‘Are you playing the Daunt Books Bibliophile Cup Challenge also?’

‘We are,’ said Azra.

‘And we intend to win,’ said Olivier.

‘How predictably overcompetitive of you, Olivier,’ said Dash.

‘I had no idea a bibliophile challenge could be so fraught with tension,’ said Mark. He nodded to Olivier and Azra. ‘Team Strand will crush you, of course.’

‘Team Brasenose is not concerned,’ said Olivier.

I could feel Azra staring at me. She was so effortlessly chic and smart-looking that I felt intimidated, like I wanted Team Brasenose to win because she was so innately cooler than me, and I had no idea why. Finally, she said, ‘Are you . . . Lily Dogcrafts?’

‘Yes!’ I said, too eager to impress her.

Azra said, ‘My little sister is obsessed with your dog crafts page. She’s not going to believe I’ve met you. Might I snap a selfie of us?’

‘Sure!’ I said.

As she snapped our photo, she said, ‘I bought her the Lily Dogcrafts raincoat for her birthday. It was at the top of her wish list.’

‘The raincoat with the interior lining of pockets for treats and poo bags?’ It cost twenty dollars more than the regular raincoat but was a worthwhile investment, in my opinion.

‘Indeed,’ said Azra. ‘In pink.’

‘That’s the best of all the colors! I personally chose the fabric from a wholesaler that specializes in textiles for rainwear. They customized the pink option to my exact specification. I’m really proud of it.’

‘My sister loved it,’ said Azra. She turned to Dash, looking at him with what I thought might be a newfound respect. ‘Why didn’t you tell me your girlfriend was famous?’

Olivier said, ‘To be honest, we didn’t really believe Dash had a girlfriend back in New York.’

Mark said, ‘To be honest, that’s what her family back in New York would also like to believe.’

Finally, Dash laughed, at ease. Being insulted by Mark or my brother probably feels like home to him. But it was more than that. To see Dash in a bookstore is to see Dash in the most content version of himself. Even being playfully insulted.

I wrapped my arms around Dash, both protective and proud of him. ‘My family adores you,’ I assured him.

Dash said, ‘Your family is so big that even if only ten percent of them like me, that’s more people who like me than in my own family.’

‘I’m a family member that’s rather fond of you,’ said Gem to Dash.

‘That’s why you’re the one that matters,’ Dash told her.

‘Americans,’ said Olivier contemptuously.

‘I have no great affection for Dash,’ Mark assured Olivier.

Suddenly Moriarty leapt out of Julia’s arms and sprinted toward the bookstore’s front door. Immediately I sprang into action, practically mowing down several bookstore browsers as I sped after the cat. Dash knows how to handle bookstores and my relatives. I know how to handle animals taking unauthorized expeditions. Just as Moriarty was about to glide out of the open front door, I whooshed down to pick him up.

‘I respect you for trying,’ I told Moriarty. He tried to wiggle out of my arms, but no such luck. I make a living out of these situations. I kicked the door shut and said to Julia, ‘Shall we return Moriarty to the safety of the office? Without his leash on? I mean, his lead?’ I didn’t want to scold Julia, but I couldn’t help but tell her, ‘If you’re not walking him on the lead, the lead really should be taken off, so it doesn’t get caught on something that could hurt him.’

‘Of course,’ Julia said, not interested at all in my wisdom. She took Moriarty from my arms. ‘I’ll return him to the office now. Team Strand and Team Brasenose – get to work!’

She left with the cat. Gem said to me, ‘I don’t think she needs pet advice, my dear. If the cat wants to wander, let him!’

Grrrr.

Dash knows how little I like having my pet care advice challenged, so before I could give Gem a piece of my mind – and some badly needed animal education – he diverted the conversation. ‘Our first clue! Any ideas?’ He read the clue aloud.

Near the heath

Where the bathers find their ponds

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

Mark had said it was too easy, so I turned to him to decipher the clue, but he shook his head. ‘I have insider information on this one. I’m going to have to insist that Master Brasenose give it a go. Don’t cheat by using your phone.’

Dash said, ‘Don’t have to, Master Took-Six-Years-to- Finish-His-Undergraduate-Degree. Here lies one whose name was writ in water. It’s what Keats asked to have carved on his gravestone. As last words go . . . rather epic.’

‘Aren’t you a genius, Dash!’ said Gem. A customer passed by her carrying a stack of books toward the cash register. ‘He goes to Oxford,’ she told the uninterested customer. Then she mused aloud. ‘Keats . . . Keats . . . heath . . . bathers . . . ponds.’ She paused a moment, then: ‘I’ve got it! The first clue is probably for the Keats House museum, near the Hampstead Heath bathing ponds!’

‘You are the genius,’ Dash told her.

‘And there’s a marvelous Indian restaurant just around the corner from the museum. I’ve been craving a good dosa. You?’ said Gem.

‘You’re even more of a genius,’ Dash said to Gem.

I’d pretty much lost my appetite. I hate Indian food. At least, today I did.

Before we could exit the store, Olivier and Azra breezed past us toward the front door. As Olivier opened the door to leave, he called to Dash. ‘We’ll wave to you from the winner’s circle, old fellow.’

Dash waved his two middle fingers to Olivier, who laughed and then left.

‘Tube or taxi?’ Mark asked Team Strand.

‘Tube,’ Dash said.

‘Taxi it is,’ said Mark.

We stepped outside. It had started raining but Mark was able to flag down a taxi quickly. My first London taxi! I loved the expanse of the backseat, which sat two rows of passengers facing each other. Mark and I sat next to each other, with Dash and Gem opposite us.

‘Where to?’ the driver asked. He had a Cockney accent straight out of Mary Poppins. I was so excited.

Mark gave him the address. Then I added, ‘Pip pip, guvnah,’ in my best Mary Poppins imitation accent.

Gem said, ‘They hate that here, darling Lily. Don’t do an accent.’

I felt my face redden, humiliated. I hadn’t meant to offend.

I hadn’t meant to really not like Gem, but I did. Who was she to scold my tourist enthusiasm?

Mark unzipped his briefcase. ‘Julia assigned these to the team captains to hand out.’ He took out Daunt notebooks and pens. ‘We’re to write our letters to Father Christmas.’

‘To be burned up in the chimney?’ Gem asked. ‘One of my favorite British traditions.’

I’d have liked to burn up all her ideas in a chimney.

There probably wouldn’t be any presents for me under the tree this year. I was a naughty, naughty girl, resentful of her boyfriend’s grandmother. Seriously regretting the airfare I’d spent to come here. I didn’t deserve presents.

‘I don’t write letters to Santa,’ said Dash.

Mark tossed a notebook to Dash. ‘Now you do.’

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