CHAPTER I

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Delivery Service
Present Day

My Sweet Jenny,

Be a dear and deliver this letter for Pa. It's very important that you should deliver this by hand to Mr. Dente. I promise I'll give you more of your favorite licorice when you return. And I won't tell your sister.

Pa will see you soon.

I stared at the white envelope on the table, my heart about to drum out of my chest.
Pa! I wanted to yell at him. I missed my important accounting lecture because of this? Pa had left a message for me to come home as soon as possible. It was an emergency. That was what the message had said. I'd thought he had an accident or something, so, I was rushing to get here.
I didn't know which was my left or right foot as I stumbled and fell, trying to reach home in time. But what did I find when I got here? A note on the table, beside the white envelope that contained that letter. What was he thinking?

At the rate I was going, I wouldn't even pass the first year of university if Pa kept calling me out to do errands for him like this. Use the post office for once, Pa. Surely he could just drop this letter off at the post office and be done with it. Why use me?

Then again, why did I bother to ask this silly question? It was because I wasn't good at anything else except for errands like this. I wasn't beautiful, so no one really took a second look at me, unlike my sister Amelia, who was the star of her Arts school. In fact, I could blend in with the furniture very well.

Sometimes, Pa and Amelia couldn't even tell the difference between me and the couch. Despite all these negative comments about my appearance, though, I'd never been bothered by this. Brown hair with a dusting of freckles on my nose and green catlike eyes, I considered myself to be quite cute.
But back to Pa, though. I wondered where he was right then. I'd definitely give him an earful when I saw him. I went to search the house. It was empty, no one inside, not Pa or Amelia. Where had they gone? At this hour, Pa should have been in his office, and Amelia should have been home doing the cooking. She didn't have class until late this afternoon.

I picked the letter up in my hand, dismissing Pa's absence for now. I examined the address. Upper East Side, Manhattan. It didn't look familiar to me. Maybe I should put a few stamps on it and slot it in the postbox. That'd save me time. I recalled some stamps stashed away in my backpack somewhere. But Pa did say to deliver this letter by hand. And there was also the case of the licorice.

It was tempting me next to the envelope. "Humph!" I huffed to myself. Who does he think he is, bribing me with candy? It's not like I'm five years old anymore. I can live without candy. Especially licorice.

I was now walking along the streets of Islington Hill,chewing the licorice. How could I resist a bribe such as this licorice Pa bought for me? He knew it was my one weakness and he used it to his full advantage.
I was surprised my teeth weren't covered with holes yet, what with the amounts of sweets I ate. But then again, my oral hygiene skills were spectacular. After the initial shock, I took the bus and walked to deliver this letter. I was sure whatever contents were in the envelope, they must be something important. Maybe Pa doesn't trust the post because it might go missing. A sense of pride filled my chest.

"All right, Jenny. Let's deliver this letter for Pa and make him proud." Cory Mansion, as stated on the address, was part of a well-established suburb in Upper East Side, Manhattan. If it weren't for the naked Adonis statue sitting in front of the huge fountain, with only a loincloth covering his private part, I was sure I'd have missed it altogether.

Adonis really is beautiful, even though he's made out of white marble. But imagine seeing a real live man that looks like Adonis. He'd be the god of all passion, a person that would totally captivate my heart.

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