No stars. Mist is hanging in the street. Frost is glittering. “IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE SPRING!” I want to yell. “SO GET LOST, FROST!” An owl hoots, from the direction of Mr. Myers’s house. It hoots again, and something hoots in answer. Owls. I feel so close to them. I share a home with them. “Good night, owls,” I whisper. “I’ll write your story tomorrow.” Hoot. Hoot hoot hoot. Mina’s mother’s father was a seaman. Ever since he was a young man, he had sailed the world. He had been everywhere, to so many exotic-sounding places with such exotic-sounding names: Santiago, San Francisco, Cairo, Casablanca, Java, Buenos Aires, Fiji, Honduras, Tokyo, Reykjavik, Manila, Singapore, Bangkok, Abu Dhabi, Hanoi … The list could go on forever – or for as long as a list of exotic places could last. Mina remembered getting postcards from those places when she was a tiny girl. Her grandpa traveled so much that Mina only met him a few times. She remembered a busy and funny man with a big laugh and skin the color of hazelnuts.
