Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise

  Marissa nods. “That’s what my mom and dad did with me and my brother. That’s what everyone does.” She looks at me and Marko. “You need to switch cards so you can get in the right room, but you can’t get off or back on the ship without trading back.”

  Marko’s not looking too convinced. “Sounds … complicated.”

  But Marissa snatches his card and my card and switches them. “It’s easy, really,” she says. “You’ll catch on.”

  “Marissa,” I tell her through my teeth. “You’re being kinda bossy.”

  Which makes her totally back down. “Oh!” She looks around at all of us. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry! I’m just excited. I’ll shut up now.”

  Both the guys tell her it’s all right, and then Darren says, “Port side, huh?”

  “As opposed to what?” I ask.

  “Uh, starboard side?” Marissa says.

  “Wait. So the port will always be on that side,” I say, pointing to where she’d headed, “and the stars are always on the other side? How can that be? Stars are everywhere. And what happens when the boat goes the other direction?”

  “Silly,” she laughs. “When you’re facing the bow, the left is always port and the right is always starboard. Doesn’t matter which way you’re going.”

  “Well, that’s confusing. Why would they call it the port side when the port is on the other side?”

  “Can we just find the rooms?” Darren asks, and I can tell we’re already giving him a headache.

  But Marko’s grinning. “I wonder if our rooms are fore or aft.”

  “I’m guessing forward of here,” Marissa says. “Since we’re closer to the stern than the bow.”

  I shake my head. “Please. This is already too hard. I can’t memorize a whole vocabulary list just to know where I’m going! My brain is full up with Avogadro’s number and the stupid periodic table!”

  Marissa’s eyes get huge. “Tell me you didn’t bring homework!”

  “I had to, and my brain’s already full of stuff I don’t understand, so can we please just use simple English? Forward, backward, left, right, up, and down?”

  Darren laughs. “Amen.”

  “Whatever,” Marissa says. “But you’re gonna get turned around because the signs all say fore and aft, and when the captain makes his announcements, he’ll say starboard and port, and how will you know where to dash to see the dolphins if you don’t know what he’s saying?”

  I give her a little squint. “I’ll follow everyone else?”

  We go by a big balcony view of the open area between the sets of glass elevators, and looking down makes me kinda dizzy. “Whoa.”

  “Yeah, don’t fall,” Darren says, pulling me away.

  Not that I could fall.

  Well, unless I did some climbing first, but why would I do that?

  “They’re right here!” Marko says, diagonaling to the right. And sure enough, “staterooms” 9606 and 9608 are at the very beginning of a hallway right by the elevator area.

  “Whoa,” I say again, ’cause now I can see that the hallway goes off in both directions and seems to go on forever. Suddenly the layout is feeling very disorienting. Like you could be walking down one of these long hallways and forget which direction you’re going. I look at Marissa. “Uh … which way’s the front of the ship?”

  “Forward, or fore, is that way,” Marissa says, pointing to the right.

  I nod, ’cause she’s made that easy to remember.

  “It takes you to the bow,” she says. “You bow forward, right?”

  I give her a little bow and smile because I know she’s trying super-hard to be nice about this.

  She points to the left. “That way is aft. It’s after everything else. Like your back end, right? Which on a ship is called the stern.” She rolls her eyes a little. “Don’t ask me why.”

  “So are we on the port side?”

  “Yes!” she cries.

  Like I’m her star pupil.

  Which actually makes me feel pretty good until I remember that she had said earlier that we were on the port side.

  Marko gives me a piratey look. “Arrrg! What’s this mutiny of simple English?”

  I laugh. “Don’t worry. I still know how to speak it.”

  Darren’s already opened 9608 with his sea-pass card and tells Marissa and me, “Go check out your room, then let’s eat!”

  Darren and Marko’s door is in the very corner of the elevator area, but ours is definitely in the hallway. Marissa nods at the doors across the hallway from us. “Those are interior cabins,” she whispers. “No windows. I’m glad your dad got us one with a balcony.”

  “Call him Darren,” I tell her, and it kinda bugs me that she already knows what our room is like when we’re not even inside it yet.

  Anyway, we go in and pass by a little bathroom on the left and a closet on the right, and then enter the main part of the cabin, which has two beds, a little couch, a TV, a compact armchair, and a built-in desk.

  “Check it out,” I laugh, ’cause there are white towels folded into the shape of turtles on the beds.

  “They do a different animal every day,” Marissa tells me.

  “Who does?”

  “Our steward.”

  “What’s a steward?”

  “Like a maid? Only they come in and tidy up two or three times a day.”

  “Two or three times a day?”

  “Yeah. They usually time it so you don’t see them.” She picks up a card by her towel turtle and says, “Ours is named Ellery and is from the Philippines.” She puts the card down. “A lot of them are from the Philippines. They’re away from their families for, like, a year, doing back-to-back cruises and sending their money home.”

  Now, the room has lots of mirrors that make it feel bigger than it really is, but our luggage has already been delivered and is standing in the middle of the walkway, making it feel kind of cramped.

  “Hey,” Marissa says, taking charge of the luggage, “this is Marko’s. I’m going to go swap it for yours.”

  Before I can say, Wait—I’ll get my own darn luggage! she’s on her way out the door. And since I’m feeling pretty bugged by her and cramped by her big ol’ suitcase, I escape out the sliding glass door to the balcony and, aaaah—instant relief.

  The balcony isn’t big—it’s only got a small table and two small chairs—but it’s open to the world and that changes the feel of everything.

  I take in a few deep, salty breaths, then lean over the railing just a little and check out the harbor and the seagulls and the cargo ships and giant cranes unloading seatrains. And I’m thinking how awesome it is when I hear, “Don’t fall!”

  I look to my left, and there’s Darren, peeking around the barrier between our balconies.

  The barriers between balconies are more for marking boundaries than they are for privacy. They’re frosted glass in metal frames, mounted about a foot off the ground, so they’re easy to see around and under. And since the guardrail between me and the deep blue sea comes up to my armpits, I laugh and go, “Fall? I’d have to climb on one of these chairs and—”

  “Don’t!” he says, because I’m grabbing a chair like I’m going to drag it forward.

  “I won’t!” I tell him with a laugh.

  He’s looking straight down at the water. “Don’t even joke about it.” He looks back at me. “No clowning around. You would not survive that drop, you understand that?”

  “You are way too worried!” I tell him.

  “I’ve heard stories,” he grumbles.

  “About me?”

  “Yes, about you!”

  “From?”

  “Your grandmother.”

  I think about that a minute. “Well, maybe I’ve gotten into some scrapes, but I do not have a death wish, okay?”

  Marissa’s joined me outside and throws in, “It’s not like we’re rock ’n’ rollers who are notorious for throwing things off balconies and jumping into pools from them.”


  “Yeah,” I tell him. “Maybe you’re the one we should be worried about.”

  “Come on,” he says, ducking out of view. “Let’s all unpack and explore the ship.”

  “Explore?” I call after him. “First we eat!”

  I start to follow Marissa inside, but right then I see something fluttering in the corner of my eye, and when I turn, I see something drifting down from above. It’s a deep, dark blue, and when it gets closer, I realize it’s a small scarf. I lean out and can see the bottoms of white pants on a balcony to my left, one deck up, turning to go inside. “Hey, wait!” I call as I stretch way over the railing to try and catch the scarf.

  I manage to snag it, and it turns out to be a fancy handkerchief. You know—the kind men stuff in their suit coat pocket?

  “Hey!” I call again, but the person in the white pants is gone.

  Like they didn’t even care about the scarf.

  Which is strange, ’cause it’s silk.

  And obviously expensive.

  And, I realize as I turn it over, monogrammed.

  FOUR

  When I go back inside the cabin, I find Marissa reading a blue-and-white sheet of paper. “This is the Cruzer Calendar,” she says without looking up. “There’s a new one delivered every day, and it tells you what activities are happening when.” Then she sees the handkerchief in my hand. “What’s that?” she asks, forgetting all about the Cruzer Calendar.

  “It fell down from a balcony above us.” I hand it to her. “It’s monogrammed.”

  “Wow,” she says, rubbing it between her fingers. “That’s really nice.” Then she holds it up to her nose and says, “It smells good, too!”

  I take it back and sniff, and it does have a definite scent to it. Sort of musky, but with an edge of … spice?

  The monogram is a small capital J, then a big capital K, then a small capital T. “Is the big letter for the last name?” I ask.

  She nods. “When it’s like that, yeah. When they’re all the same size—”

  Then she gets why I’m asking, and grabs it. “You’re kidding!”

  I laugh. “It’s gotta be a coincidence, right?”

  Her eyes are all wide. “But he goes by JT, and his parents said it was the Kensington family reunion!”

  I shake my head and grin. “You were hanging on every word, weren’t you?”

  “Me? What about you?”

  “I was annoyed with how they went on and on about themselves and were falling all over Darren.”

  But I can see that the wheels in her brain are gaining traction in a different direction. “This,” she says, waving the handkerchief a little, “is a great excuse to go find JT!”

  “Marissa, there’s no way a teenager has his own monogrammed handkerchief.”

  “I know.” She gives me a sly smile. “I said it’s just an excuse.”

  I laughed, because it was so Marissa. And I could tell she was excited about seeing JT again, because as she moved around the room, putting things away, she was all chatty, talking about every little thing that crossed her mind. Like about how the captain was sure to have some suave accent and about the orange life vests in the closet and how the rails on the shelves in the bathroom were there so things didn’t slide off when we started pitching around at sea.

  I’m sure I could have learned a lot if I’d completely tuned in to the Marissa Channel, but she was being so random and something about the whole scarf thing was causing major static. It felt like a kind of eerie omen. I mean, what were the odds? Like, how many people on this ship had my initials? I would be flipping out if I found a handkerchief with SJK embroidered on it.

  Or SKJ.

  Whatever.

  But maybe it was like birthdays, where you grow up thinking the day is yours and then discover that not only is it not just yours, but that you share your “special day” with about twenty million other people around the world.

  Including your boyfriend’s sister.

  Anyway, when Darren and Marko knock on the door and ask, “Ready?” I’m definitely ready to think about something else.

  Like food!

  “Yes! Starving!”

  Darren laughs, “Then let’s go!” and we grab our sea-pass cards and head out.

  Lots of people are using the elevators now, so we decide to take the stairs, which are just a few yards away. They’re not like the swoopy stairs we’d seen when we’d first gotten on board. Nobody’s going to be posing for any glamour shots on these. Basically, there are two sets of wide, rectangular stairs—one on the left side of the elevator area and one on the right. They go down half a flight to share a long, wide landing, then U-turn toward each other and join into a set of double-wide steps for another half flight.

  From the stairs there are places where you can see the glass elevator pods going up and down, so of course Marissa and I start flying down the stairs, trying to stay ahead of the elevators, which actually turns out to be easy because the elevators are stopping at almost every floor.

  Marko’s keeping up with us, but Darren’s lagging. “You need to dump those boots!” I call up at him. “Get in some high-tops!”

  “I’ve been telling him that for years,” Marko says.

  Marko’s in Vans, but okay. He’s got the right idea.

  And then we’re on Deck 4, at the monster spread of food, where people are still streaming onto the ship from the mug-shot zone. “How does this work?” I ask when we’ve got plates and silverware.

  Marissa cocks her head a little. “What do you mean?”

  I whisper, “How do we pay?” and she whispers back, “Everything’s free.”

  “What?”

  “Take anything you want. It’s all included.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  So I load up!

  Darren laughs at what I’ve got. “You’re too skinny to eat that much.”

  “Watch me!” I tell him.

  Trouble is, it turns out this monster spread is just supposed to be a little welcome snack and there aren’t many places to sit. So we wind up following Marissa up a level to an outside deck, where there are lots of chairs and a great view of the harbor with all the big industrial boats and cranes. We chow down for a while, but it’s kind of weird to be on a boat and be just parked in the water, looking at big industrial boats and cranes. So I finally ask, “When do we take off?”

  Darren chuckles. “We set sail at five-thirty.”

  Now, the way he chuckles is like he’s finding my “take off” a little, you know, bumpkin-like. So I look square at him and say, “Set sail? Do you see any sails? Do I see any sails? You’d need sails as big as Los Angeles to move this monster through the water, so don’t get all hoity-toity on me with your setting sail stuff.”

  Marko eyes Darren. “Dude. Stop with the hoity-toity.”

  “I wasn’t being hoity-toity!”

  “Pardon me,” I say in a phony British accent. “Perchance, are you aware of when we set sail?”

  “Now that’s hoity-toity,” Darren says, like he can’t believe Marko and I are ganging up on him.

  “Anyway,” Marko says. “Does anyone else want to check out the ship?” He turns to Marissa. “Is there really an ice-skating rink?”

  “I think it’s on Deck 2.”

  I blink at her. “Are you serious?”

  But Marko keeps going. “And I want to check out the venue where we’re playing Thursday night.”

  Darren nods. “The Poseidon Theater. Right. And I’m supposed to get with the entertainment director—”

  “That Archie Wolfe dude?” Marko asks.

  “That’s him.”

  “I wonder if he’s hairy,” Marko muses. “Dude, how cool would it be if he looked like the Wolfman?”

  “Hairy or not,” Darren tells him, “he wants us to check in with him before we”—he zooms in on me—“set sail!”

  “Sorry!” I laugh, ’cause he’s obviously having a little trouble letting it go. br />
  “Hoity-toity,” he mutters.

  “Uh … so what’s the plan?” Marissa asks.

  Darren looks at her. “The plan?”

  “Are we sticking together the whole time?” Everybody just kind of stares at each other, so she adds, “Usually … and I’m not saying we have to do this or anything … but usually the kids check in with the adults every few hours or whatever. Or everyone has breakfast together at a certain time and then meets up again for dinner.” Then, real fast, she adds, “But of course this is a … a different kind of situation, so … well, it’s up to you. I’m just saying you don’t have to worry about leaving us on our own while you take care of business or whatever.”

  We all look at each other like, Well? And since I don’t want Darren to feel like he has to babysit or like he’s being ditched, I shrug and say, “I’m good either way.”

  Darren doesn’t seem sure, but when Marko says, “She knows what she’s doing a lot better than we do,” he makes up his mind. “How about Marko and I take care of some band business and we meet you back at the rooms before dinner?”

  “What time?” I ask.

  “We’ve got the late seating for dinner, so how about be dressed and ready to go at quarter to eight?”

  “Dressed?” I ask, ’cause I’m not liking the way that sounded.

  “You dress up for dinners, Sammy,” Marissa tells me. “Just deal.”

  “Hoity-toity,” I grumble, which for some reason makes everyone bust up.

  So Darren and Marko go off to find the Wolfman, and Marissa leads me on a tour of the ship, taking the stairs down as far as they go, and then checking out each deck all the way back up to Deck 14.

  And I have to admit, I would have gotten completely turned around and lost if it wasn’t for Marissa. For one thing, there were two sets of those double stairs on the ship—one about a third of the way back and the other about two-thirds of the way back. So we’d go up the “fore” stairs, walk around the deck for a while, then continue up via the “aft” stairs, only I’d think they were the opposite of what they actually were and get all confused.