4
" Elizabeth took her first good look at her new surroundings. There wasn't much to see. In better times the room she was in might have been a living room, but now it was little more than a dingy, nearly empty space about the size of her bedroom. To her left was the front door, and against the wall in front of her was a torn, floral-print sofa. Straining her neck she caught a glimpse of a table and another chair similar to the one she was tied to, which, like the sofa, looked like Salvation Army rejects. Behind her and to the right was a stove, then an archway, which she thought probably led to the bathroom and perhaps a bedroom. The lone window on the wall next to the door was boarded over with planks of weathered wood, and the floor was worn and stained with grime. The walls were dirty, too, and there were no pictures or any kind of personal mementos that Elizabeth would have expected to see in a place someone called home. "
― Francine Pascal , Kidnapped! (Sweet Valley High, #13)
11
" Sure," Steven said good-naturedly. He walked up to his sister, who was now standing before the full-length mirror on the back of his closet door. He bent his six-foot-one body over her zipper. It took a little maneuvering, but he finally managed to zip up the dress without damaging the delicate fabric. "You had a thread caught in it," he told her. "Thank you, Steve," she said, admiring herself in the mirror. "What do you think?" Steven inspected his sister carefully. Jessica had a knack for picking out clothes that made her look her best—although even a burlap sack couldn't conceal her perfectly proportioned figure. This dress was no exception. The iridescent material matched her brilliant, blue-green eyes, and the neckline of the sleeveless dress was about as low as a sixteen-year-old could get away with. "Nice," was what Steven told her. "Nice?" she echoed bitingly. "Is that all you can say?" Steven laughed. "Oh, come on, Jess. You know you look great. Really, you do." "That's more like it." Jessica grinned. "
― Francine Pascal , Kidnapped! (Sweet Valley High, #13)
