Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise (5 page)

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.

“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.

Plus, I wouldn’t have known that I could go up to Deck 11 and serve myself frozen yogurt anytime.

Yum!

There was also so much to take in, and really, a lot of it was unbelievable. Outside, on the upper decks, there was a full basketball court, a rock-climbing wall, a miniature golf course, a roller rink, Ping-Pong tables, swimming pools with miles of loungers, Jacuzzis, and a jogging track. Inside, mostly on Decks 3, 4, and 5, there were theaters, game rooms, a huge arcade, a casino, a bunch of loungey places with different themes, including a karaoke lounge, and an entire
mall
of stores.

I was actually kinda sore and tired from going up and down so many stairs and racing around each deck, and I was looking around for a place where we could maybe rest for a minute, when all of a sudden an announcement blasts from a speaker right above us.

“Good afternoon! This is Captain Harald. We are looking forward to setting sail shortly, but first we must conduct our muster drill!”

“Oh!” Marissa says. “I forgot!”

“What’s a mustard drill?”

“It’s
muster
,” she tells me. “No
D
.”

Then Captain Harald’s voice gives me an actual answer: “We are required by law to conduct this safe-evacuation drill before departure, so please, follow along with the instructions you will be given. We will begin momentarily, so at this time proceed to your staterooms and await further instruction.”

“Come on,” Marissa says. “There’s no getting out of this.”

“What do we do?”

“Make like lemmings.” She looks over her shoulder at me. “It’s like a fire drill.”

We’re barely back at our cabin when announcements start about getting to the muster stations. I knock on Darren’s door, but no one answers, and when a really loud air horn blasts, Marissa shouts, “Come on! Let’s go!” and we head out toward the stairwells.

Marissa’s right about the lemming thing. People are flooding in from all the hallways, and they’re all funneling toward the stairs. “Hey!” we hear from behind us. “Sammy! Marissa!” And when we turn around, there’s Kip, sort of jostling around people to get to us.

“Hey!” I call back, and then something clicks in my head. “Wait—your cabin’s on this floor?”

“Yeah.” He points down our hallway. “We’re in 9584. About midship.”

As we merge in with other people going down the
steps, Marissa asks, “Where’s JT?” and then real quick she adds, “We have something that might belong to him.”

“To JT? What is it?”

“I’ll show you later,” she says, which she pulls off okay because we’re hurrying downstairs, and who says she has the handkerchief on her anyway? But I know that she does and that she wants to show JT, not Kip.

And maybe he’s just being helpful or maybe he’s got good intuition, but he volunteers, “He’ll be here.”

“Where?” Marissa asks a little too fast.

He gives her a little smile. “At the muster station. His family’s in 9582, right next to us.”

All of a sudden, I can tell Marissa’s wishing she’d brushed her hair.

And checked her teeth.

And changed her clothes.

JT and his golfy parents and Kip’s fashionista mom are already at our muster station—which turns out to be just some random deck space under life rafts. “There you are!” Kip’s mom says, and she’s not looking too happy with him.

“Sorry!” Kip tells her, then we all file into the little rows that have formed.

JT greets Marissa with a kinda sly grin, which makes Marissa totally blush. And since we’re supposed to stay quiet during the drill, she waits until the all-clear horn blasts before pulling out the monogrammed handkerchief. “Hey,” she says to JT. “Check it out.”

“Whoa,” JT says, taking it. “How’d you get this?”

Marissa turns to me, so I give a little shrug and say, “I was on our balcony and saw it fluttering down, so I reached out and snagged it.” I kinda squint at him and ask, “It’s not actually yours, is it?” because he’s looking like he recognizes it, but if his cabin is on the same deck as ours, how can it be his?

Then Kip’s spiral-cut mom says, “How on earth …?” and she turns to JT’s dad and says, “Lucas, that’s Daddy’s pocket square.”

JT’s dad takes it in his super-tan hand and zeroes his blue eyes in on me. “Where did you say you got this?”

So I explain all over again, and this time I add, “We’re not trying to keep it. We just recognized the initials and thought—”

“Oh, sweetheart, no,” he says. “I’m not accusing you of anything. Thank you
very
much for making the connection.” Then he turns to Kip’s mom, who also has those amazing blue eyes. “Why would …?”

His voice just trails off, but apparently his sister understands what he’s asking. “Maybe it was symbolic of letting him go?” she says. “You know how attached they were.”

JT’s dad frowns. “Or maybe Bradley had it. Mom said they’re in the suite next to her.”

“Of course they are,” the Fashionista grumbles.

“It’s just a room,” JT’s dad tells her quietly.

“I
hate
the way he works her!” she says through her teeth.

JT’s dad can tell we’re listening, so he clears his throat and says, “You know …”

Now, you can practically see his thoughts jumping on
a turbo golf cart and racing around in his head. And after some silent conversation with Kip’s mom, which involves blue eyeballs, blond eyebrows, and little shoulder shrugs, he turns to Marissa and me and says, “How would you two like to see the sail from the Royal Suite? That’s where the boys’ grandmother is staying, and I’m sure she would love to meet her grandsons’ new friends.”

Then JT’s mother says, “Grandma Kate is very nice.”

“And she’d be fascinated to hear the story of your daring rescue!” JT’s dad adds with a super-sparkly smile.

I blink at them. “My daring … it wasn’t
daring
.”

JT’s dad gives me a wink and a grin. “I’m sure you could make it
sound
daring, hmm?”

So okay. Going up to some granny’s “Royal Suite” with a bunch of people I don’t know and turning a simple hanky snatch into some wild, daring rescue was not what I wanted to do.

What was the big deal anyway?

But Marissa’s giving me a wild-eyed look, which is a combination of Please, please, please, and I can’t believe this is happening! so I finally give in and say, “Sure.”

And that was the turning point.

We’d just been sucked into the mad, mad world of Kensingtons.

The “Royal Suite” turned out to be a stateroom even Marissa didn’t know existed. It was on Deck 10, very near the elevators and on the same side of the ship as our room, and instead of a room number, there was a brass plaque with a crown that said R
OYAL
S
UITE
.

It was
huge
. I’m talking grand-piano huge. It had a big sitting area with white couches and a black marble wet bar and Roman pillars and gold-plated fixtures and … space. Even with all the Kensingtons gathering inside it, there was
space
.

The minute we walked in, I felt totally awkward. Let’s just say scribbled-on high-tops and worn jeans totally clash with Royal Suite décor.

“Grandma Kate,” on the other hand, definitely belonged. She was wearing a coral-colored top, a string of pearls, an
enormous
diamond ring, and … white slacks.

My mind flashed back to catching the handkerchief, and I tried to picture where our room was compared to the Royal Suite. We were one deck down, and basing on where the elevators were, about two doors closer to the front of the ship.

Or maybe just one, seeing how the room sizes were so different.

What that meant was that I was probably looking at the same white pants I’d seen earlier, which for some reason made me feel even more uncomfortable.

But Marissa was too impressed with the suite to worry about not belonging in it. “A grand piano?” she whispers. “This is unbelievable!” But in between taking in the ritz of the suite, her eyes keep flicking back to JT.

“What are we
doing
here?” I whisper back, because I’m starting to feel like I’ve been sucked onto some alien ship and that any minute all these blond-haired, blue-eyed people will transform into fangy monsters and I’ll never outlive being thirteen.

Marissa’s obviously not feeling the alien vibe. “We’re here because we were invited!” she gushes.

“But why?” I eye Grandma Kate as she’s hugging JT and Kip. “They’re having a family reunion—we don’t belong here!”

A voice behind me whispers, “Please stay,” and when I whip around, there’s JT’s mom. Her mouth twitches to one side like she’s either trying to smile or hide the pain of a toothache, and I’m clueless about why she’s whispering or twitching or wanting us to stay. Her eyes are
brown
, though, and for some reason that makes me feel a little less weirded out. Like, okay, I’m trapped in a room with a bunch of blond-haired, blue-eyed aliens, but one of them’s an imposter who
also
might be looking for a way out.

And then all of a sudden we’re being waved over by
JT’s dad. “Sammy! Marissa! Come meet Kate and tell her about the pocket square.”

I hesitate, but JT’s mother gives us a little nudge and says, “Kate loves kids. Go on.”

So we go over to the sitting area, where nobody’s sitting.

Well, except Kip, who’s off by himself on a stool at the wet bar.

Now, JT’s golfy parents and Kip’s spiral-cut mother look like they’re forty-five or fifty, so Kate has to be older than Grams, but while Grams’ face looks soft and has wrinkles, Kate’s looks very … polished. Like someone buffed her cheeks smooth and anchored the corners of her mouth up a little into a permanent, pleasant smile.