I don't know if it was the whispers or the squeaking bedsprings, but something made me open my eyes at exactly 12:13 a.m. Staring at the red digits, I felt that where-am-I? you get when you wake up in the middle of the night in a bed that isn't yours in a place that doesn't smell like home.

Musty, with a hint of ocean.

Oh yeah. I remembered.

Once I figured out where I was, I knew the voices and squeaks had to be coming from a certain bed across the room. Or maybe what woke me up was my little sister Emmy talking in her sleep. She does that a lot at home, too. What she said, just as I was coming to, was "Paul," which was weird, because I was pretty sure that the person on the bed with the girl across the room-who could only be Beka because it was her bed-was a guy named Paul.

from My Not-So-Terrible Time at the Hippie Hotel (Puffin 0142403032)