Finding Abbey Road by Kevin Emerson Page A

after he makes the conversion and extracts a convenience fee, we are handed back a pile of notes and coins that is just over four hundred pounds.
    â€œIs that enough for the week?” Val asks as we walk back to the gift shop. “I’ve heard London is expensive.”
    I shrug. “We’re going to have to make it last,” I say. “I have my parents’ emergency credit card but if I use that, it might as well be for a plane ticket to Nepal, since they would kill me.”
    â€œAren’t they already going to kill you?” Val asks. “I’m not saying you should use it . . .”
    â€œI just . . .” Somehow the idea of using that card seemslike a huge betrayal. As if coming here wasn’t enough of one. “Let’s just get to the youth hostel and pay for our nights, then we’ll split up the rest of the money and eat cheap.”
    We get our supplies and make our way to the Tube. It takes us an hour to get to London proper, on a train filled mostly with arriving tourists. There are locals, I think, too, and if my senses weren’t like a smooth-sanded stone right now I would probably be noticing interesting details about this new world, but mainly I’m staring blankly at the ads on the walls.
    â€œHow are you doing?” I ask Caleb.
    He shrugs. “Somewhere between fine and completely losing my head,” he says.
    â€œDo you want to go to Eli’s apartment tonight?” Val asks. “The hostel is pretty close.”
    â€œNo,” says Caleb. “Let’s sleep. I couldn’t handle that tonight.”
    We get off the train at Piccadilly Circus and make our way up to the street. London bustles around us, its streets arcing away in irregular curves. Throngs of people cross the wide plaza at all angles. Black taxis whir by, and we see our first actual double-decker bus, wonderfully historical and yet sleek and modern. The night swirls with the lights, and the horns, and voices.
    It takes us a few wrong turns to get oriented, and it is immediately obvious that compass directions will be of little use here. Caleb is buried in our little map, using his phoneflashlight. “I think if we turn right . . . maybe?”
    We walk in exactly the wrong direction for a while, but eventually we make it to the hostel. The guy at the front desk is named Teddy. He’s a couple years older than us, with bleached hair and excellent tattoos. He takes twenty-two pounds per person per night, and shows us to the single-sex dorm rooms. We get a quick look at the spare metal-frame beds, hear the snores already droning away, and decide we need a few more hours to wind down.
    â€œThere’s some food left down in the café,” Teddy tells us. “Stew. Free of charge as it’s been sitting on the counter for a few hours. Still perfectly good though. I’ll get you some?”
    â€œDefinitely,” I say. We follow him to the kitchen and sit at a long table. It’s just us and a quartet of girls slightly older than us. They are at the table behind us, drinking tea and talking loudly with a map between them.
    â€œI just felt like,” says one of the girls, “when we were in the Globe, I don’t know . . . it’s like I was Juliet, Helena, Ophelia. It was so . . . intoxicating.”
    I glance at Val and she rolls her eyes.
    â€œHere we are,” says Teddy. “Stew and bread. You want pints with that?”
    I glance at Caleb and Val.
    â€œYes,” says Caleb immediately, “yes we do.”
    â€œI’m good, thanks,” Val adds, frowning. When Teddy leaves, she adds, “Don’t enjoy those too much in front of me, okay?”
    We sip our beers and eat stew. With each bite, I feel sleep dragging me down.
    Behind us, the girls chatter on.
    â€œI think Shakespeare would have been a very attentive lover.”
    The girls burst into wild laughter. One of them catches me glancing back. “Sorry,”