It was hot out. Too hot to be walking around in the sun, and Cassie said so. Her sister Artémis rolled her eyes.
"It's not [i]that[/i] hot", she said. Cassie thought she sounded smug. "You'd know if you'd put your hair up."
"It looks better down", she retorted.
That got her another eye-roll from Artémis. "If you weren't so vain we could at least walk around without people gawking at us. You could've made your skin [i]white[/i] so your star wouldn't stand out so much. And if you were [i]smart[/i], you'd have bangs or at least a hat to cover it up."
"Blah, blah, blah..." Cassie opened and closed her hand to mimic a moving mouth. "You're just mad cause you refused my edits again, and now you're regretting it."

Papa sighed. "Stop it, you two."
"Hey", Cassie protested, "I thought you were too busy looking at the map to pay attention to us... At least that's what you said when we wanted ice cream." She and Artémis smirked complicitly at each other.

After what seemed like an eternity of walking, complaining, following Papa's grunted directions, looking around, and half-listening to his explanations about monuments and stuff they were passing, Papa finally gave the OK to stop for lunch. Artémis said something about finding a hot dog stand, since they were in America. "I don't care as long as it's food", Cassie groaned. Papa agreed, with the caveat that it also had to be affordable enough, and hot dog carts seemed to fit the bill. They quickly spotted one and made their way up the line, heads turning when people noticed Cassie's star. They made Artémis do the talking, since the Americans seemed to understand her accent the best. A busy-looking man with a mean farmer's tan handed the girls three Cokes and three hot dogs with all the trimmings while Papa fumbled with dollar bills.
"Haven't you gotten used to the money yet? We've been here for, like, three days."
"Shut up, Cass", snapped Artémis. She was always grumpy when she was hungry. Cassie grimaced at her.

They picked their way to a relatively people-free piece of lawn, shooing away the pigeons, and sat down. "Look, you can see the Washington Monument over there", pointed Papa. The girls didn't look up from their food and drinks.