Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise

  But still, it surprised me.

  I mean, I’m not used to adults noticing.

  Or asking.

  And it threw me enough to actually say something instead of my usual “nothing.” “We had a super-weird, blue-eyed-alien kind of evening.”

  Marko laughs, “A what?” And when Marissa growls, “I can’t believe their table is right there,” Darren says, “So what happened?”

  “Well, let’s see. Where to begin?” I look at Marissa. “The Royal Suite?”

  “As good a place as any,” she grumbles.

  I look at Darren. “Actually, you don’t even know about the handkerchief, do you?”

  “The handkerchief? What handkerchief?”

  I take a deep breath. “Well!” So I back up to snagging the handkerchief out of the air and realizing the initials were the same as JT’s, and then meeting up with JT and Kip’s family at the muster drill and getting snookered into going with them to the Royal Suite, where we discovered we were dealing with the Kensington empire, including the dead dad in an urn.

  Now, while I’m talking, a dark-haired man with a big nose comes to our table and introduces himself. “I am Doyle, your waiter,” he says in an odd sort of British accent, “and this is my assistant, Arthur.” They bring us bread and water, and explain the menu and take our orders. So there are lots of interruptions, and I can tell that Darren’s losing track of the story, but instead of telling me to cut to the punch line like most people do, he says, “Back up a minute. I know we met some of these people in line, but I don’t remember their names.”

  Marissa leans in and keeps her voice low. “Kip’s the African American. He’s the adopted son of Teresa, who’s the woman with the angled haircut.”

  I throw in, “The one who wants to design your next tour wardrobe, remember?”

  Darren pulls a little face. “Oh, right.”

  Marissa goes on, saying, “JT’s the boy with blond hair, and he’s the son of Lucas and LuAnn,” and I tack on, “The Tan Twins with the villas you’re welcome to use anytime.”

  Darren cringes and Marko asks, “You’re talking about the dude in the salmon-colored shirt?”

  I nod. “Him and his wife.”

  Marko butters a roll and says, “I don’t trust men who wear salmon.”

  Darren nods. “They’re definitely fishy.”

  They give each other bro grins, then Darren tells Marissa, “Continue with the lineup.”

  “Okay,” she says, looking back at the alien table. “Bradley’s the paunchy guy sitting next to Kate—”

  “The dame in diamonds?” Marko asks. “Or the one without?”

  Marissa laughs. “The dame in diamonds. She’s the family matriarch and wife of JT senior—”

  “—whose ashes are in an urn in the Royal Suite, which is why he couldn’t tux up for dinner tonight.” I look at Marissa and shake my head. “I can’t believe you remember all their names.”

  She shrugs. “I was paying attention.” She gives a haughty little look at a bread roll and rips it in two, saying, “And now I’m not.”

  “So who’s the diamondless dame?” Marko asks.

  And since I actually remember her name, I jump in with, “That’s Ginger.” I grin at him. “And she’s the dame in diamonds’ sister.”

  “Who also happens to be the cruise director’s mother,” Marissa adds.

  “Wait,” Darren says. “The diamondless dame is the mother of the cruise director?”

  “Right,” she tells him. “And the cruise director’s name is Noah.”

  Marko’s sipping from his water glass, but stops to sputter, “Noah?”

  I grin at him. “Some ark he’s got, huh?”

  “No kidding!”

  Darren shakes his head. “Expect me to need reminders, but go on with your story.”

  “Where was I?”

  “In the alien hive.”

  “Oh, right!” So I go back to being in the Royal Suite and Bradley walking in and how awkward that was, and then Noah’s chemistry jokes and the sail and finally escaping the hive and going to play Ping-Pong.

  And the whole time I’m talking, Doyle the waiter and Arthur the assistant bring us drinks and salads and soups, and clear all those dishes away and deliver our main courses.

  I’d ordered the scallops, and they turn out to be so delicious that I just shut up for a minute and eat. And I guess everyone else’s food is delicious, too, because our table goes totally quiet.

  And while we’re quiet, the Kensington clan starts getting loud.

  It’s not a happy loud. Or a family-reunion loud. Or even a drunk loud.

  It’s a harsh loud.

  Like a drill, boring into a cement wall, buzzy and sharp.

  Now, JT has his back to us, but Kip is on the opposite side of their table and had spotted us somewhere around our salad delivery. And since I was in the middle of talking about his family, it was kind of embarrassing to not nod back when he nodded hi across the room.

  Especially since he’d left the non-apology note.

  So I had nodded, but I’d avoided looking at his table since. But now I look again and see that he’s tearing little chunks off a roll and putting them on his plate while sharp, buzzy voices zoom all around him.

  Then Kate’s eyes flash and she stands up and commands, “Stop it. All of you.” When they all fall quiet, she forces a smile and raises a martini glass that has some kind of pale blue liquid in it and says, “To John Tyler Kensington, a brilliant man, humanitarian, and visionary.”

  Ginger lifts her wineglass high, and Kip and JT lift their water glasses about halfway, but the other glasses stay put.

  “Is that actually in his will?” Bradley asks. “He never said a word about it! And I can’t believe he’d do that to us!”

  “Your father had become convinced that his children cared more for money than family.”

  Bradley gets even redder. “He’s accusing us of that? We grew up in boarding schools so you two could travel the world in search of fragrances.”

  “Bradley …,” Kate warns. “Your father was extremely generous with all of you. And he always made time for our annual cruise, so you traveled the world, too!”

  Bradley crosses his arms. “I demand to see the will.”

  “You demand,” Kate says, and she’s sounding pretty steely all of a sudden. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  That shuts him up quick.

  “These were your father’s wishes and we will respect them,” Kate says. Then she shoots eye daggers at JT’s mom and says, “LuAnn? He was your father-in-law for almost twenty-five years, and he made it possible for you and Lucas to enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle. You don’t have the courtesy to raise a glass in his honor?”

  JT’s mom picks up her wineglass and says, “It’s just a shock, Kate.”

  “Yes, Mother, a shock,” Kip’s mom says, but she picks up her wineglass, too.

  “Bradley? Lucas?” the queen asks her pouting princes, but neither of them join the toast. Instead, Bradley pushes back from the table, throws down his napkin, and storms out.

  “Well!” Queen Kate says, watching him go. “So much for Kensington class. And he hasn’t heard the half of it.”

  “There’s more?” Kip’s mom gasps.

  Kate eyes her. “We’ll discuss the rest after Bradley cools down.” Then she turns to JT’s dad, her arm still hoisted to toast. “Do my eyes deceive me, Lucas? Or are you breaking form and siding with your brother?”

  “Dad was a lot of things, Mother, but a humanitarian? And selling the business to build a hospital? In Africa?”

  “Lucas! Raise. Your. Glass,” Kate snarls through her smile. “My arm is getting tired.”

  So Lucas frowns, picks up his wineglass, and clinks it with everyone else’s.

  “There,” Kate says, sitting down. Then she gives them all a pinched smile and sips from her blue martini.

  “A hospital in Africa?” Marissa whispers. “That would cost a fortune!?
??

  “I think that’s the point,” I whisper back. “They’re not getting the fortune; a hospital in Africa is.”

  We’re all quiet a minute, then Darren says to me, “Don’t worry, I don’t have enough to build a hospital in Africa.”

  I blink at him. “Why would I be worried? And a hospital seems like a good thing.”

  He just stares at me a minute, then looks at Marko. So I look at Marko and see him give Darren a little shrug. And since I don’t get what’s going on, I turn to Marissa.

  She gives me a hello-idiot look and says, “Uh … you’re Darren Cole’s daughter?”

  I blink at her, and when it finally sinks in, I whip around and look at Darren. “I don’t want your money!”

  “Well, you didn’t exactly get my time growing up, did you? And look how bitter they are over that.”

  “That wasn’t your fault. You didn’t even know I existed!”

  “But you knew I did.” He gives a little shrug. “I just feel bad about it.”

  “Stop it! And don’t even think about me wanting your money, ’cause I don’t!”

  We’re quiet a minute, and then Marko says, “Dude, I don’t want your money, but your pork medallions?” Then he skewers some of Darren’s dinner with his fork and announces, “Trade time!”

  Suddenly Darren’s stealing one of my scallops, and Marko’s swiping food from Marissa, and she’s going, “Hey!” and he’s saying, “You’re hanging with rock ’n’ rollers, baby, there is no safe zone,” and Marissa’s retaliating, snagging something from his plate, and Darren’s going, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is not suitable dining room behavior,” like a hoity-toity old lady, and we’re all busting up.

  Until we notice the Kensingtons watching us.

  And just like that, we all stop laughing.

  EIGHT

  They were all staring at us, so you know what I did?

  I waved.

  Waving has gotten me in more trouble than I like to think about. It’s a reflex, and sometimes after I’ve done it, I want to kick myself and go, Why did you wave?

  But in this case it turned out to be the perfect thing to do, because apparently Kensingtons don’t stare in public, either. After I waved, all the ones who’d turned around to look at the rowdy rocker table turned back, and all the ones facing us looked away.

  And since the desserts were also amazing and people were no longer staring at us, we wound up swiping from each other again, which somehow turned into us telling food-fight stories. Marissa and I had lots of them, but so did Marko and Darren.

  Which was kind of strange.

  I mean, picturing the two of them as fourth graders in a school cafeteria?

  Hearing about “the perfect fling technique for catapulting mashed potatoes”?

  Having them say they’d demonstrate, “except the spoons here are all wrong”?

  It was … surreal.

  And after learning that “the only spoon for serious spud flingers is a Quick Serve Seven” because it has a “wide mouth and barely bendy neck,” I look at Darren and say, “You’ve been faking it.”

  “Faking it?”

  “Yeah. You don’t belong in this dining room any more than I do.”

  Marko scrapes up the last lick of some raspberry chocolate drizzle on his plate and laughs, “Dude, your cover has just been blown.”

  Darren tosses down his napkin. “So let’s get out of here, huh?”

  “Wait!” Marissa says as we all start to scoot out. “Does that mean we’re not coming back? Not even for formal night?”

  “Especially not for formal night,” I tell her.

  “You can’t be serious!” she cries, chasing after us as we beat feet across the dining room.

  I look over my shoulder to tell her, You bet I’m serious! but then I notice Kip watching us go. He’s looking all bummed, and, I don’t know—I forget about telling Marissa anything and just turn around quick.

  “We are going to the show, right?” Marissa asks when we’re outside the dining room.

  “What show?” I ask

  “They have a show every night?” Her forehead’s all wrinkly. “Variety shows, comedians, Darren Cole and the Troublemakers …”

  “Hold up,” Marko says. “We are not to be put in the same sentence or even paragraph as variety show, got it?”

  “But you’re entertainment on the same cruise ship!” Marissa says.

  The rest of us just stare at her.

  She gives me a desperate look. “But they are!” Then she turns to Marko and Darren and says, “Which means the other acts must be great, too, right? So all I’m saying is, we should check them out.”

  We keep staring at her until Darren finally says, “Fine. Let’s go.”

  Marko hangs back. “Maybe I’ll just—”

  But Darren yanks him along and growls, “You’re coming, man.”

  So Marissa leads us through the promenade, past jewelry and clothes and souvenir shops, and when we get to the fore stairs, we go down them to Deck 3. “Here it is,” she says, and we merge into a sea of people flooding into the Poseidon Theater.

  Now, I don’t know what I was expecting, but from everything else on the ship, I should have known that the theater would be big. And ritzy. With velvet seats and upper-level lounges and little couples tables and a huge stage with swoopy velvet curtains.

  But I was still surprised.

  “Wow,” I gasp as we move forward toward the stage.

  “It’s cool, right?” Darren asks, like he’s not sure that it is.

  I laugh. “Seems a little clean for a rock band.”

  Marko grumbles, “I tell you, bro, they’re going to make us turn down.”

  “Look,” Darren says. “It is what it is. I get to spend time with Sammy, you get a free cruise—no, no, wait. You get paid to cruise, with me springing for an upgrade.”

  “Not complaining, dude. Seriously.”

  So we find four seats fairly close to the stage, and when the lights dim, there’s an announcement over the PA welcoming us and then telling us to “Put your hands together for the Seafarer Association’s cruise director of the year, No-ah Mar-lowe!”

  Noah bounds out of the wings, holding a microphone, smiling like he’s the happiest guy on earth. And when the applause dies down, he says, “A neutron walks into a bar and asks, ‘How much for a drink?’ The bartender replies, ‘For you, no charge.’ ”

  Behind the curtain, there’s a ka-thump on a drum.

  And nobody in the audience laughs.

  “Okay, then … What do you call a tooth in a glass of water?”

  Silence.

  “A one molar solution!”

  Ka-thump.

  “Hmm,” Noah says, looking out at the filled theater. “I told a chemistry joke today and there was no reaction.”

  Ka-thump.

  “Get it? Reaction?”

  This time there are a few chuckles.

  “Forgive me, please,” Noah says, “but these jokes are a tribute to my brilliant uncle, Dr. John Tyler Kensington, who loved them. And they’re meant to lift the spirits of his widow, my fabulous aunt Kate, who is aboard our fair vessel along with her children.” He looks around the crowd. “Any Kensingtons here tonight?”

  Silence.

  He keeps his smile plastered on. “Well, then! Let’s get on with the show!”

  “So that’s the alien nephew?” Darren whispers while Noah’s introducing the act.

  “Yup,” I whisper back.

  He slouches a little. “That is one strange family.”

  I slouch a little, too. “No kidding.”

  The show turns out to be a lot of singing and dancing and costume changes with crazy wigs and props galore.

  Not my thing.

  Or Darren’s.

  Or Marko’s.

  But Marissa thinks it’s “amazing!” and keeps grabbing me to tell me that the main guy in the show is “so talented!”

  When it’s over, Noah comes back onst
age and announces all the things that are still going on around the ship, because “It’s only eleven p.m., people! Time to get out there and boogie!” Then he launches into what’s on the agenda for “our fun-filled day at sea tomorrow!” including bingo, an art auction, and a jewelry sale. “You won’t want to miss any of it!”

  As we’re filing out, Darren’s kind of watching me, and I can tell he’s worried. “So what do you want to do tomorrow?” he asks. “Bingo in the Poseidon Theater does not seem like the way you’d want to spend your birthday.”

  “True.…” I think a minute and say, “Actually, anything’s okay. As long as it doesn’t involve me turning thirteen again.”

  “As far as I know, you’re moving on to the big one-four.”

  “As far as you know? So there is the possibility?!” I look around. “Are you saying my mother’s onboard somewhere?”

  “Not that I know of!” Then he adds, “And I sure can’t picture Lana as a stowaway.”

  I blink at him, ’cause that’s so true. “Okay, then, see? Anything else is fine with me.”

  But apparently he can’t think of anything to suggest, so after a long, awkward pause, he says, “Well … have you had enough for one day?”

  I tell him, “Yeah,” and Marissa says, “If we’re going back to our staterooms, can we take the elevator? I’m sore from all the stairs.”

  “Good idea,” I tell her, because all of a sudden I want to escape to my room the quickest way possible. Trouble is, people from the theater are swarming around the elevators and it’s taking forever, so we finally give up and head for the stairs. Only they’re really packed, too, and some of the people are both sloooooow and impossible to pass.

  I guess Marissa can tell I’m dying, because we’ve only gone up two flights when she cuts out of the crowd and says, “Let’s go up the aft stairs.”

  So she leads us toward the back of the ship, through the promenade and all its shops, and we’re just getting to the swoopy stairs, which are located a little before the glamour-free stairs, when she comes skidding to a halt and cries, “The boarding pictures are out!”

  “Boarding pictures?” And then I see the racks of cheesy say-cheese pictures.

  Aisles and aisles and aisles of cheesy say-cheese pictures.

  “Marissa, no. I do not want a cheesy say-cheese picture!”