“They’re not—”
“How do you know one of these girls isn’t planning to steal your identity or something?”
“I don’t,” Hugo says with a shrug.
Alfie frowns. “What’re you gonna do if Mum and Dad find out?”
“They already said I could go.”
“Right, but not with a stranger. Hard to imagine they’ll be too keen on that.”
Hugo ignores this, returning to the in-box they set up yesterday. He sifts through the emails that have come in so far, way more than he would’ve expected at all, let alone in twenty-four hours. When he gets to the most recent one—Mae Campbell from Hudson, New York—he pauses for a second, trying and failing not to be so delighted at the thought of her video. He’s saved by a new email coming in. At the dinging sound, Alfie vaults off his bed and throws himself onto Hugo’s, still in his sweaty clothes.
“What’ve we got?”
Hugo opens it to find a message from Margaret P. Campbell of Naples, Florida, who is eighty-four years old. In the picture she included, she’s on a roller coaster, her halo of stark-white hair whipped back by the wind. She’s smiling a huge, gold-capped smile.
“This is definitely the one,” Hugo says, only half joking.
“Only you,” Alfie says, “would invite an eighty-four-year-old woman on holiday with you.”
“It’s not a holiday,” Hugo says. “It’s a business arrangement. They get a ticket, and I get a train ride. Besides, she doesn’t look like the type to nick my wallet. Or my identity.”
Alfie wrinkles his nose. “What kind of snacks do you reckon she’ll bring? Prunes?”
“Stop being such an ageist,” Hugo says, shoving his brother until he tips off the bed and onto the floor with a yelp. Alfie remains sprawled there like that, staring at the ceiling, while Hugo reads the rest of Margaret P. Campbell’s email:
When I was a girl, I took the train from Florida to South Carolina with my father, and ever since then, I’ve wanted to see the rest of the country by rail. But there was school and then a job and kids and family, and then my husband died, and my own health was poor, and it seemed like I must be too old for such a thing. But then my granddaughter sent me your letter, and even though I know she probably meant it as a joke, I can’t stop thinking about it. Because why not, right? And maybe more importantly, why not now?
Why indeed, Hugo thinks.
Alfie’s voice drifts up from the floor, where he’s lying on his back, staring at the crack in the ceiling that they long ago decided was shaped like a whale. “Did you mean what you said the other night?” he asks. “About wanting some space next year?”
Hugo is quiet for a long time. “Yes,” he says eventually.
“I didn’t know,” Alfie says, propping himself up on his elbows.
“You don’t ever feel that way?” Hugo asks, twisting in the chair to face him.
Alfie considers this. “I suppose I’d prefer to have my own room, but otherwise I like having you all around. Most of the time.”
“I do too,” Hugo says. “It’s not that. It’s just…we never got a choice, did we? This is the time when most people move away from home and leave their families and start something new. But we’ve always known we’re going to Surrey together. We never really had any other options.”
“Right, because it’s free.”
“Not really. You know there are strings attached.”
“If the problem,” Alfie says, his eyes gleaming, “is that you’re worried about looking like shite next to me at the photo shoot, I’m sure you can stand next to Oscar instead.”
Hugo rolls his eyes. “Did you even read that schedule they sent? They’ve got us doing seven interviews the first weekend. Is that really how you want to start uni?”
“You mean with a live stream of us moving into the residence halls?” Alfie says with a grin. “I quite like the idea, actually. Gives me a chance to show off how much I can lift.”
“Well, I’d rather not be a spectacle, if it’s all the same.”
“It’s not all the same,” Alfie says, more serious now. “It’s part of the deal. You know that.”
“It’s like we’re circus animals.”
“Circus animals who get to go to uni for free.”
“I know,” Hugo says with a sigh. “And I realize how lucky that makes us. But haven’t you ever thought about what you’d do if things were different?”
“Sure,” Alfie says. “I’d be starting fly-half for England.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously? I don’t know. What about you?”
The question needles at something in Hugo. “I don’t know either,” he admits. “Which is why I need to take this trip.”
“To figure out what’s next?”
“No, the opposite,” Hugo says. “Because I already know what’s next.”
“And you want to see what it’s like to be on your own,” Alfie says, then grins. “Well, I can tell you this much: I won’t miss your snoring.”
Hugo tosses a pen at him, but Alfie dodges it. They’re both silent for a moment, and Hugo gives his chair a spin. When it stops again, he looks down at his brother.
“Do you think they hate me?”
“A bit,” Alfie says, picking at a patch of mud on his knee. “So do I, for the record.”
Hugo rubs his eyes, deflated. “I’m sorry. I really am. But you do realize it’s not actually about—”
“I know,” Alfie says. “And they do too. It’ll be fine. We’ll get over it eventually.”
“Even George?”
“Well,” he says, “maybe not George.”
“Brilliant,” Hugo says with a groan.
“Oh, hey!” Alfie scrambles to his feet, walking over to open his sock drawer. He pulls out a small package wrapped in newspaper. “I think I was supposed to wait on this, but…sod it.”
Hugo takes the package and unwraps it carefully. Inside is a brown leather passport case. He looks up at Alfie in surprise, his chest flooding with warmth again.
“Mum wanted to get you neon orange so you wouldn’t lose it, but then Dad pointed out that would make it easier for someone else to find it, too, and then Poppy picked out this horrid red one that you’d have been embarrassed to carry around, and then George suggested camo—camo! like you’re going off to war!—and Oscar wanted to get you a flask instead, which would’ve been cool but sort of beside the point, and then I found this one, and Isla suggested getting your initials put on”—Hugo opens the flap to see a small HTW pressed into the soft leather—“and it seemed like we were in business. Do you like it?”
Hugo runs his fingers across the smooth surface. “I love it,” he says, and there’s enough emotion in his voice that they both know what he really means, which is this: I love all of you.
Exactly one week after receiving the email from Hugo W. telling her how much he enjoyed her video but explaining that he hadn’t chosen her for the train trip, Mae gets another message with the subject line “Funny story.”
Dear Mae,
I feel a bit sheepish writing to you again, but it turns out my travel companion needs to have bunion surgery next week, which means I’ve found myself in need of a Margaret Campbell who might still be up for an adventure (and who doesn’t have bunions). I know it’s poor form to ask this of you now, when the trip is only a week away and I already passed you over once. But I sincerely loved your video, so I hope you’ll consider it.
Cheers,
Hugo
Here we go, she thinks, jangly with excitement. Though this, of course, is immediately followed by a list of all the reasons this probably isn’t the best idea: it’s impulsive and impractical and possibly unsafe; she has no interest in being anyone’s second choice; her dads would never let her travel cross-country with a stranger; and mostly—mostly—what kind of person would actually do this sort of thing?