Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise

  One’s proof.

  The other’s just the fantasy of an annoying teenager.

  And I can’t deny it—something about having a copy of the coded note is making my brain feel … electric.

  We’re late to the show, so we’re hustling to get there—I think partly because we all want to disappear for a little while. But as we’re hurrying along, we pass by the Lute Lounge, where a jazz trio is playing an upright bass, a little sparkly drum kit, and an electric guitar. And suddenly Marko and Darren are craning their necks around like a couple of kids watching the ice cream truck go by.

  “Dude!” Marko says. “That’s a sixties Ludwig black pearl four-piece!”

  Darren gasps, “And that looks like a bone-stock fifty-seven Les Paul!”

  Now, I can tell they’re dying to stay and watch the trio, but they don’t even ask. They just follow along to the Poseidon Theater.

  The theater is already packed because the show is about to begin, so it’s hard to find four seats together and we wind up sitting two and two near the back.

  Almost right away the lights come down and a woman bounds out onto the stage. “Good evening!” she says into a microphone. “I’m Christie, your assistant cruise director, and I want to know: Are you having a good time?”

  Marissa and I look at each other, and while Christie’s warming up the audience, I whisper, “So where’s Noah?”

  “Sometimes the assistant opens the show,” Marissa whispers back. “Don’t start reading stuff into it.”

  But I can’t help thinking that maybe the captain is talking to Noah at that very moment. That maybe what I’d said has gotten him in trouble. And that if it has, I’ve definitely inked myself onto Noah’s hit list.

  Music Across the Ages turns out to be a stage show with pre-recorded music and a lot of dancing. And after we’ve survived the fabulous fifties and the psychedelic sixties, I look behind me at Marko and Darren and can tell that they’re miserable.

  “Let’s go,” I whisper to Marissa, and before she can argue, I’m excusing myself down the aisle, waving Darren and Marko along.

  Marissa keeps whispering, “What? What?” like she has no idea why we’re bailing.

  Darren and Marko don’t even question it. Marko just shakes his head when we’re outside the theater and says, “Dude, we are gonna bomb tomorrow.”

  “Yup,” Darren says, and he’s looking really uncomfortable.

  “Why?” Marissa asks. “And why did we leave?”

  We all kind of stare at her. And finally I say, “Because Darren and Marko would rather be watching that jazz group—”

  “Way!” Marko cries.

  “And I’d rather be … anywhere else.”

  Marissa stares at us a minute, then says, “I thought there was an emergency.”

  Marko, Darren, and I look at each other, and at the same time we all say, “There was!” and then crack up.

  Even though the Lute Lounge is a bar, no one kicks Marissa and me out. But while Darren and Marko are acting like they’ve died and gone to heaven, it doesn’t take long for me to realize that I don’t get jazz any more than I get dorky singing and dancing.

  Plus, I can tell that Marissa is dying from boredom.

  So finally I tell Darren, “You guys stay. Marissa and I are gonna head out.”

  “Where are you going?” he asks, like he can’t believe I’m bailing on watching a guy noodle around on an old guitar.

  “To message Casey and, I don’t know—cruise around?”

  “Tomorrow’s kinda booked,” he says with an apologetic little squint. “We’ve got the band meeting at noon, then we’ve got sound check and the two shows.”

  “We’ll be fine,” I tell him.

  I can see him thinking. “How about we meet at the rooms at five tomorrow and regroup?”

  “Sure.”

  So I start to take off, but he stands up and says, “Hey, hey, hey!”

  “What?”

  He puts his arms out.

  “Seriously?”

  “You’re not getting out of here without one.”

  So I laugh and give him a hug, and he kisses the top of my head and tells me, “Have fun.” And as we’re leaving, Marko calls, “If you see the Kipster, tell him I’ve got sticks!” and waves with them.

  When we’re far enough away, Marissa gives me a big, gusting, “Thank you.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t get it, either.”

  “So, first stop, the library?”

  “Do you mind?”

  “As long as you don’t take forever!”

  I laugh. “I just want to check in with Casey and tell him Darren thought my high-tops were cool.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise!”

  Which, of course, turns out to be another promise I just can’t keep.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Our walk up the stairs to the Lido Library is quiet until we reach the Deck 7 landing, where Marissa suddenly stops and goes, “That was today?”

  I turn around to look at her. “What was today?”

  “That we went snorkeling?”

  I stop now, too, and rewind the day in my head. “Whoa.”

  “No wonder I’m so tired!” she says, catching up to me.

  And she’s right—all of a sudden, bed sounds really good.

  “I hope the Puzzle Lady’s not there,” Marissa says as we go up the last flight.

  “Me, too.”

  She eyes me. “Only because you were pretty rude to her before.”

  Which, ouch, I now can see is true. “Maaaaan.”

  She laughs. “If she’s there, just tell her you’re sorry.”

  Even thinking about doing that made me feel better. Plus, I was remembering that Marko had said he’d seen Teresa talking to her. It’d be nice to know if it had been about Kip, or if she had seen him since I’d wagged my flip-flops at her.

  Anyway, by the time we reach the library door, I’m really hoping the Puzzle Lady is there, but it turns out she’s not. And there’s no Kipster in the corner sweating over codes, either.

  “Rats,” I grumble.

  “You can apologize tomorrow,” Marissa tells me, then waves me over to the puzzle table. “Check it out.”

  The puzzle’s about three-quarters done and the picture hasn’t gotten any less weird. There’s the guy and the laughing skull in the tree, and under them are now two men digging up a treasure chest.

  At least that’s what it looks like to me. It’s actually kind of hard to say, because the puzzle is like a faded photograph. You know—one of those black-and-white pictures that’s turned a yellowy brown? And with all the little puzzle cuts, it really does look like a cracked and crinkled old photograph.

  Then I notice that the rest of the pieces are nowhere. Not on the table, not in the table drawer, not in a box, nowhere.

  “What are you looking for?” Marissa finally asks.

  “The rest of the pieces! It’s a whole section, so it’s not like all of them can be missing.”

  “She probably took them with her, don’t you think?”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want some upstart coming along and finishing it after she’s done all the work?”

  “Some upstart? Who would that be?”

  Marissa shrugs. “Oh, anyone who might come to the library at, say, midnight when the rest of the world is either in bed or having actual fun somewhere.”

  I sit at a computer and log on. “Well, I think someone who spends their whole cruise working on an ugly puzzle that isn’t even theirs and then hoards the pieces so no one else can work on it is missing more than a few pieces of her brain.”

  “Ah,” Marissa says.

  I whip around to look at her. “That was not funny.”

  “Was so,” she giggles. “Actually, it was hilarious.”

  “Whatever,” I grumble, and really, I don’t want to think about the Puzzle Lady. I want to message Casey. So I send him a quick “Are you
there?” and wait like a waggy little puppy at the back door. Trouble is, there’s nobody home. And then I just sit there, staring at the screen, not knowing where to start.

  “What’s wrong?” Marissa asks when she notices that I’m not doing anything.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know what to say to him.” And while I’m looking at her, it suddenly hits me that she’ll be moving away soon. Far away. And if I’m having this feeling of a big gap with Casey after only four days, how in the world are Marissa and I going to stay connected over years?

  How can we ever become the female version of Darren and Marko from across the country?

  Marissa snaps me back into the here and now, saying, “You don’t know what to say to him? What do you mean? You and Casey are always talking.”

  I look away. “You know how when someone asks how you are and you’re miserable and a ton of stuff has happened and you don’t know how to start, so you just say, ‘I’m fine’?”

  “Are you saying you’re miserable?”

  “No! I’m saying …”

  And that’s when it really sinks in that Darren’s right—being there’s important. There’s no, you know, substitute for being there. You can tell a person all about where you’ve been and what you’ve done, but it’s not the same thing as them being there during it. How could I explain about flip-flops and Fruity Island and “¡Ándale!” and snorkeling and dolphins and the symphony of nature? Or how I’d come to lock the cruise director and his mother out on a balcony? How could I explain about the fjishing I’d done while fjeasting with the captain? Or about finding forged notes in Bradley’s pocket?

  The whole day had been like looking for trolls in Norway.

  You just had to be there.

  “Sammy? Are you okay?”

  I look at her, and I just feel like crying. “It’s only been four days, and it already seems like there’s this big … gap.”

  She leans in a little. “Between you and Casey?”

  I nod.

  “That’s crazy!” She points to the keyboard. “Just start. Tell him about snorkeling. Tell him what Marko and Darren said about the shoes.”

  “But so much else happened today! And I have no idea what he did today.”

  “Yeah, and none of it really matters. What matters is you tell him that you miss him, stupid.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “You have such a kind and gentle way with words.”

  “Start typing. I want to go to bed.”

  So I do and I wind up putting in plenty of mush ’cause, I don’t know—I’m feeling plenty mushy. And when I’m all done and logged off, I look around for Marissa and see her over by one of the walls of books, her head cocked sideways as she reads the titles.

  “You ready?” I ask her.

  “You need to leave her a note,” she says, not looking away from the books.

  “Leave who a note?”

  “The Puzzle Lady.” She says it all matter-of-factly, then adds, “And none of this non-apology stuff. It needs to say I’m and sorry.”

  I let out a big ol’ sigh, but I know she’s right—a note is a good idea. Trouble is, when I go over to the printer station to get a piece of paper to write it on, the wastepaper basket catches my eye, and the next thing you know, I’m going through it.

  “What are you doing?” Marissa asks when she figures out that I’m not doing any writing.

  I keep looking through the pages from the top down. “I thought maybe there’d be a rough draft. Or maybe some evidence that Kip’s been here today.”

  “A rough draft of what?”

  “Of that I’m OK note.”

  She sits down nearby. “You really don’t think Kip wrote it?”

  “He’s handwritten everything else, why would he suddenly type a note?” I get back to the papers, and I’m about to pass by one that looks like a whole lot of nothing—just a bunch of blue links and ads—but then the word adoption catches my eye.

  “What’s that?” Marissa asks, because I’ve taken it out to look over.

  I check the footer. “It’s page four of four.”

  “Of what?”

  I look at the pages in the trash before and after it and say, “I’m not sure, but it’s the last page of some article, and here under RELATED ARTICLES is a whole list of links about adoption.”

  “About adoption?”

  “Yeah. Like, ‘Costs of Adoption Lawyers,’ ‘Stepparent Adoptions,’ ‘Types of Adoptions’ …”

  “You’re thinking Kip was here?”

  “I’m thinking we should go to this site,” I tell her, pointing to the tiny print in the footer.

  So we go to the nearest computer, log on, and type in the URL of the site. And a split second later we’re looking at a graphic of justice scales next to the name of the site—LegalAsk. And just below it, in bold black letters, is the title of the article that someone had taken the first three pages of: “Reversing an Adoption.”

  “Whoa!” Marissa whispers. Then she starts reading the paragraph titles. “ ‘Birth Parents Reversing an Adoption,’ ‘Adoptive Parents Reversing an Adoption,’ ‘Child/Adoptee Reversing an Adoption.’ ”

  “Let’s read that one,” I whisper, pointing to the last one. And even though we’re alone, my heart’s whacking away, and whispering seems like the only way to talk.

  So we both read the screen:

  Younger adoptees might wish to be emancipated from their adoptive parents. More commonly, though, adoptees wish to reverse their adoptions later in life due to failing personal relationships with their adoptive parents, or because they wish to inherit from their natural parents.

  “Well, I don’t think Kip would want to get unadopted for financial reasons,” Marissa whispers. “It’s more like he’s hit the jackpot.”

  “Unless he hates being in that family so much, he’s willing to give it all up to get out.” I shake my head. “But I don’t think Kip’s the one who went here. I think it was Teresa.”

  “But … if she unadopts him, where would he go? Back to Kenya?”

  I shake my head again and log off. “I have no idea how any of it works.” Then I go back to the wastepaper basket, dig down to the bottom, and come up with … nothing.

  “What are you looking for?” Marissa asks.

  “At first I thought Teresa might have been here to print out the I’m OK note, but there are no rough drafts in the trash.”

  “Sammy, who would need to practice writing I’m OK?”

  “Well, sometimes you have an idea and then when you look at it, you come up with a better idea … you know.”

  She gives a little frown. “You’re chasing wild geese again.”

  “The point is, there’s nothing in the trash that has anything to do with the note, and there’s also nothing with Kip’s writing on it.”

  “So?”

  “So I think Teresa was in here looking up information on reversing adoptions and had nothing to do with our note.”

  “So … you think it was Kip who left the note?”

  I shake my head. “I think it was Noah. He has an office backstage, remember? It has to have a computer and printer in it.”

  She stares at me a minute, then says, “I don’t like this.”

  I nod. “I don’t, either.”

  We both sit there a minute until Marissa stands up and says, “Leave a note, and let’s get out of here.”

  So I dig the pen out of my purse, rip a scrap from a sheet of mostly blank paper from the wastepaper basket, and write, I’m sorry I was rude, and sign it, Sammy.

  “That’s it?” Marissa says.

  “It’s got I’m and sorry. Meets all the requirements.”

  “How about Dear Sue? Or Dear Ms. Taylor?”

  “Because she’s not dear.” I squint at her. “I can’t believe you remember her name.”

  She gives a little shrug. “And I can’t believe you remembered Kip’s room number or parts of that crazy code.” She gives me an exasperated sigh and says, “Just
add it, would you?”

  So I pout for a minute, and finally I write, Hi, Ms. Puzzle Lady, above what I’ve already written.

  “ ‘Ms. Puzzle Lady?’ ” Marissa cries. “You don’t think that’s rude?”

  “No! I think it’s … nice.” I frown at her.

  “Nice?”

  “Yeah. Nice.” I hold out the paper, studying it. “I don’t see the word crazy anywhere on it.” Then I add, “And if it’s rude, why do you call her that?”

  “Come on,” she grumbles as she grabs me and drags me along. “I want to go to bed.”

  So I leave the note anchored under the puzzle, and when we get to our deck, I try to beat Marissa to the draw with the room key. And then remember.

  “Rats!”

  “What?”

  “I forgot to switch keys with Marko!”

  She swipes hers and laughs, “Guess you won’t be sneaking out tonight.”

  Which should have been funny, but instead was like dropping a ton of bricks on me. “Oh, nooooooo!” I groan.

  She turns around and sees that I’m serious. “What now?”

  “Ms. Rothhammer’s stupid work sheet.”

  Her eyes bug out at me. “No! I can’t believe you’re even thinking about it!”

  “Marissa, I—”

  “No! Just do it tomorrow. We’re at sea all day. You’ll have plenty of time. There’s no way I’m letting you work on that tonight.”

  And then I remember something else—Darren still had my calculator. He’d put it in his coat pocket yesterday, and I’d never gotten it back from him.

  But … he was wearing a different coat today.

  And I did have their room key.

  So I could go get it.

  Marissa zeroes in on me. “What are you thinking?”

  So I tell her.

  “No!” she cries. “N-O, no!”

  I know she’s right. And letting myself into Marko and Darren’s room seems really … wrong. Plus the idea of going back to the library in the middle of the night by myself was scary, so if I did my homework in the cabin, I’d be keeping Marissa awake. And I was really tired. I could tell because, homework aside, I didn’t even want to look at Bradley’s code sheet.

  “I’m blocking the door,” I tell Marissa, because I’m also remembering that Noah can get into anybody’s room at any time.