"Lina! We're going to market now, are you coming?"

Lina had taken her sewing outside, despite the gathering clouds blowing in from the south, and she was sitting on a tree stump at the front of the house. She looked up to see two of her little sisters, two of her big brothers, and two of her little brothers looking back at her expectantly.

"Well?" said Hob, her biggest little brother. Lina shook her head.

"I don't feel like it."

Her siblings glanced at each other.

"Are you sure?" said little Gerty. "It'll be fun!"

"I'm not in the mood for fun," Lina said. "You go without me."

They didn't need more persuading than that. Lina watched her siblings as they left, running off down the path leading to the village, the little ones laughing as they leapt up to try to touch the lower-hanging branches of the trees along the path.

"And what manner of mood would you be in, then?"

Lina sighed.

"Not the sort of mood for your nonsense, Julia."

"It's that boy, isn't it? That Adam boy."

Lina tried to stop her cheeks from revealing her thoughts, but she might as well have tried to make her grey eyes turn brown for all the good it did her. Julia smiled, that sly, secret smile of hers.

"I bet you're thinking I spied on you. I didn't, if you'll believe me. I'm just very good at noticing looks—and the looks I've seen from you over the last couple of weeks have told a pretty story."

Lina shook her head and tried to concentrate on her sewing.

"But then," Julia continued, slowly twirling a strand of her long, curly black hair around a finger as she walked around Lina, "judging from the looks Adam has given you I can make a fair guess to the ending—"

"I'm trying to sew."

"Oh, don't be down about it. Adam's just too dashing and adventurous to go for a local girl. He'll be off out of here quick as a shot once his dad finally kicks it, you can bet that. To be honest I'm surprised you went for him, I would've thought your type to be more, oh, I don't know, one of the Brians, maybe. Big and solid and dependable."

"And ordinary," said Lina.

"Yes, exactly! An ordinary boy for an ordinary girl." Julia laughed as Lila scowled at her sewing. "Oh, you needn't make that face, Lina."

"I'm not making a face. This bit of sewing's just difficult. I don't mind being ordinary."

"Really? How odd."

"It's not odd! It's just who I am, you're right, I'm an ordinary girl. That doesn't mean I only have to like ordinary boys, does it?"

"Well ... if you don't mind having your heart broken, I suppose it doesn't. Extraordinary boys don't go for ordinary girls, though. That's just a fact. You should accept it or you'll never be happy. Anyway, I'm off to market now, are you sure you won't come?"

"I'm very sure that I won't," said Lina.

"Well then, I'll leave you to your very ordinary sewing. I hope the excitement isn't too much for you."

Lina frowned at her sewing as her sister walked away. So who says ordinary girls and extraordinary boys can't be together, she thought, where's that written? Maybe that's just what an extraordinary boy needs, someone nice and ordinary to ... to...

"To weigh him down," Lina murmured, with a small sigh. What an idiot I am, she thought, to even think he might ever be interested in me. He's right and Julia's right.

But really ... what's WRONG with ordinary?