Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  THIRTY-ONE

  There should have been a big warning sign outside the theater that said NOW ENTERING COUGARVILLE. “Where did all these women come from?” I whispered as we tried to find seats together. They were all wearing the cougar uniform, too—jeans with rhinestone detailing, skanky tops, and way too much eyeliner.

  And you could just tell from the energy in the room—they were die-hard groupies.

  “I’m kinda grossed out,” I tell Marissa.

  “He loves your mom,” she whispers back. And for some weird reason, that makes me feel a whole lot better.

  We actually get good seats about three rows from the stage by asking one person to move over one seat. And if it was even possible, I think Kip was more excited than Marissa. “I can’t wait to see him play!” he kept whispering, and it took him saying it a few times for me to realize he was talking about Marko, not Darren.

  And then something very un–rock ’n’ roll happened.

  The Troublemakers started on time.

  Christie introduced them, the curtain went up, and from the moment Marko whacked out the intro beat, the audience was on its feet.

  Cougars everywhere danced.

  And so did we!

  Kip played air drums and whistled through his fingers and was so excited that, at one point, Marissa and I looked at each other like, Who is this guy?

  But for me, it was watching Darren that was surreal. I knew his music before I knew him, but I hadn’t actually seen him play before. The way he interacted with the audience and the band … the way he got caught up in the words of a song and made you really feel them … it was easy to see why people loved him.

  He was awesome.

  Anyway, about an hour into the concert, Darren starts telling the audience, “Hope you don’t mind—we’re gonna try out a new song on you. This one’s for my daughter, Sammy.” Then he looks out through the lights and goes, “Hey, you little troublemaker, where are you?”

  I put up a hand like I’m not quite sure of an answer in Ms. Rothhammer’s class. But Kip puts his fingers to his lips and lets out a whistle, and Marissa waves like crazy with one hand while she points at me with the other and shouts, “Right here!”

  So great. Every cougar in the place turns her eyeliner on me. But then Darren goes, “Here’s ‘Nothing but Trouble,’ ” and launches into a song about a girl who’s nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble.

  “He wrote a song about you!” Marissa cries.

  “Who says he wrote it about me?” I shout back. “He just said it’s for me, not that it’s about me.”

  “Listen, you idiot!”

  And when he hits the chorus, which goes, “Brought down hard, brought down fast, by a girl full of trouble and her heart of glass,” I tell Marissa, “I don’t have a heart of glass!”

  “For someone so smart, you sure are stupid!” she yells in my ear. “That just means he knows not to break it. That you’ve been hurt before. By your other parent.”

  “You cannot get all of that out of those three words.”

  “Sure you can!” she says. “If you know the situation.” Then she pulls away from me and says, “Now shut up and listen!”

  So I do.

  And the truth is, I don’t really hear much of the end of the concert after that song. I’m too dazed by the truth behind what Marissa had said, and the thought that somehow, despite everything I’d muddled through the past few years, I’ve wound up here, on a cruise ship of all places, teary-eyed over the words of a song.

  A song written just for me.

  Backstage on a cruise ship is small. And full of cables and cases and random stuff. But Marissa and Kip thought it was amazing. Kip, especially, since we were right near the drums during the second show and he could watch every little thing Marko did.

  Darren didn’t do “Nothing but Trouble” again, and I was glad. And after their third standing ovation, the curtain came down, and Christie told the crowds about everything they could still squeeze into their night and what was on the calendar for “tomorrow’s exciting day at sea!”

  Drew and Cardillo were happy to go check out the hot spots, and took off after their gear was packed away. But Marko made Kip sit at the drum kit for a basic lesson, and after he got a boom-pow, boom-boom-pow groove down, Darren played part of a Troublemakers song with him, and we all sang along at the tops of our lungs.

  I don’t think I’ve seen a happier boy in my entire life.

  “I told you,” Marko said with a grin after they were done. “All he needed was to beat on some drums.”

  After that, Marko and Darren were only interested in one thing:

  Food!

  They didn’t want to go up to the buffet because they didn’t want to deal with any rock star stuff, so the five of us holed up in a corner at Le Petit Café on Deck 5 and ate lots of little sandwiches.

  We spent time talking about how awesome the concerts were, and then Darren asked me to fill in the holes of the whole Kensington mess.

  “And no skippy-doodlin’ around!” Marko tells us. “That whole situation is confusing enough without you skippy-doodlin’ around!”

  So we fill in the blanks the best we can, and when we’re all done, Darren shakes his head and goes, “That is one bizarre story.” Then he turns to Kip and says, “So what are you going to do, do you know?”

  “Get some drums,” he says, grinning at Marko. Then he looks back at Darren and says, “But seriously? I’ll be staying with my grandparents. It’ll be okay.” He checks the time and says, “Actually, I should get up there. Old people go to bed so early.”

  I laugh, ’cause it’s not exactly early. And not long after he’s gone, the rest of us decide to hit the hay, too.

  “I am not talking Kensingtons tomorrow,” Marissa says on our way up the stairs. “I’m going rock climbing and ice-skating and swimming and golfing and … and anything else I can squeeze into our one last day on this ship.” She gives the rest of us a stern look. “And you’re coming with me!”

  We all laugh and say we will, but when we get to Deck 8, it hits me that I still have homework and haven’t messaged Casey.

  “No!” Marissa says, when I say something about it. “NO! You can do your stupid chemistry on the ride home. You’ll have tons of time in the car.”

  Which is actually true. And, since I now know how to do the problems, doable.

  “Okay. But I’m going to message Casey. You guys go up without me. I’ll be fine.”

  But they follow me in, and the first thing we notice is that the puzzle is done.

  No Puzzle Lady, just the finished puzzle with a paperback book on top of it.

  Marissa picks up the book and admires the puzzle. “No missing pieces,” she says. Then she looks at the book and gasps, “ ‘Sue Taylor’?”

  “What about her?”

  She hands me the book, and there on the cover in big bold letters is her name. “ ‘A Bad Place to Die’?” I say, reading the title. “She’s a writer?”

  “Hey, I’ve heard of her!” Marko says, taking the book. “She’s a mystery writer!”

  “Hmm,” Marissa says, peeking around him at the book. “That would explain why she can’t leave a puzzle alone until she’s solved it!” She grins at me. “Kind of like somebody else I know …”

  Marko snickers. “This whole time she’s probably been taking notes for her next novel.”

  “What?!” Marissa and I cry, but Marko gives us a mischievous shrug and says, “I’ve heard that’s what writers do. They sit around watching people, then stick them in their twisted tales!”

  “Give that to me, man,” Darren says, and takes the book. And after he’s looked it over, he opens it to where there’s a little paper-scrap bookmark.

  “What?” I ask, because he’s grinning.

  “For you,” he says, handing it over, and when I look at the page, I see:

  For Sammy—

  Stay feisty and fearless.

  And keep your shoes on.

/>   Sue Taylor

  “Wow!” I gasp.

  Marissa reads the inscription, then takes the book from me. “You cannot be up all night reading this. One mystery per cruise is one mystery too many!”

  But then I notice that there’s a web address written on the scrap of paper. So I show it to Marissa. “I wonder what this is about.”

  She laughs, “Well, that one’s pretty easy to solve.”

  So we go over to a computer and log on, and when I type in the address, what pops up is the same picture that’s on the puzzle.

  Only it’s not a picture of a puzzle.

  It’s a picture of a book.

  Darren’s looking over my shoulder and reads, “ ‘The Gold Bug, by Edgar Allan Poe.’ ”

  “How cool is that?” Marko says. “A famous mystery writer solving a mysterious puzzle that turns out to be a mystery book by another famous mystery writer.”

  Marissa laughs, “Put me out of my mystery!” which makes Marko cry, “Get me a corn husker!” which makes all of us crack up.

  After we’re done laughing, I ask, “Do I have time to check in with Casey?” and when Darren says sure, I message him and get all happy because Casey is online. I know the others are waiting for me, though, so I pretty much just tell him that I miss him and can’t wait to see him.

  And then we just go to bed.

  I was smart enough to leave the curtain a little bit open, so I wasn’t all weirded out in the morning. And I didn’t have any bizarre dreams about numbers and letters. I actually woke up feeling great. And happy. And ready to pack in some fun!

  Trouble is, it didn’t feel like I could really forget about everything and have fun until I’d gone up to see Kate, like I’d promised. Plus Marissa had mentioned that we should invite Kip to do her fun list, so the first order of business of the day?

  Kensingtons.

  Marissa was all for getting it over with, and after we showered and got ready, we decided to let Marko and Darren sleep in and zipped up to the Royal Suite without them.

  It was only nine o’clock, but I rang the bell anyway, telling myself that old people get up early.

  Which, it turns out, they do.

  At least in this case.

  Kate answered, and when she saw it was us, she gave us a mega-carat smile. “Darlings! Come in!” We trailed along behind her, and she said, “Kip is still sleeping and John is off filling his lungs with sea air. Can I offer you something to drink?”

  Marissa and I had made a pact that we would keep the visit short, so I said, “No thanks.”

  Ginger was sitting on the white furniture, having a cup of tea. “Good morning, girls,” she calls, like the Infamous Balcony Incident never even happened.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “About … you know.”

  She chuckles. “Well, all’s well that ends well, right?” Then she switches subjects. “You two are up early.”

  Marissa jumps in, saying, “Well, this whole cruise we’ve been kind of preoccupied with the, uh, Kensington situation, so we really need to make up for lost time today. Do some rock climbing, golfing, ice-skating … that sort of thing.”

  I nod. “So we thought we’d come here first thing.”

  “Well, have a seat, won’t you?” Kate asks. “I promise we won’t keep you long.”

  Which turned out to be a total lie, ’cause after she apologized for her “deceitful ploy to resolve some family issues” and explained some of the stuff that Kip had already told us, she wanted to know every little detail of every little thing.

  Then behind us we hear a door open, and Kip sticks a groggy head out. “Hey!”

  “We’re getting breakfast and going rock climbing,” Marissa tells him. “You want to come?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute!” he says. “Don’t leave without me.”

  And since we’re stuck for a little while longer, I ask Kate, “So what’s going to happen with the family now?”

  She heaves a sigh. “A lot came out last night. I never knew how much the kids resented us for our absences.” She shakes her head and looks away. “Building a business takes commitment … but so does building a real family. We certainly gave the kids everything they ever dreamed of, but when your children all tell you they felt neglected, well, you should probably stop defending and start listening.”

  “Tell them about the hospital,” Ginger says.

  Kate nods. “Clearly, money won’t fix us. So John and I have given them a choice. Either take active roles in the building of the hospital in Africa or be disinherited.”

  My eyebrows go shooting up. “Wait—you really are going to build a hospital?”

  “You can’t imagine what it’s like over there,” she says quietly. “And John and I both feel it’s a much more fitting legacy for the family than acquiring more assets. None of the kids are suited to take over the business, and we’re ready to do something really meaningful with our wealth. So the kids can be part of it or go off in their own direction.” She eyes me. “The first requirement is to move to Africa.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I am. John and I were both poor growing up, and so we gave our children everything we never had. So they never experienced poverty or hunger or even the joy of pulling yourself up in this world.” She frowns. “I’d like to believe it’s not too late to redeem them, but it’s going to require a radical change. So John and I have decided to force them into a situation that will open their eyes—living in Africa will certainly do that. I know they’ll resent us for the first few months—”

  Ginger says, “Oh, Kate, it’s going to take longer than that.”

  “And that’s okay,” Kate says with a nod. “If being in that environment doesn’t give them a sense of perspective, if building the hospital doesn’t give them a sense of higher purpose, then nothing will.”

  “So are they going to do it?” Marissa asks.

  Kate smiles. “Knowing my children? They’ll do it for the money. I’m just praying they’ll come away with something much more valuable.”

  Kip comes hurrying out of his room, saying, “Thanks for waiting!”

  Marissa and I laugh, because he’s acting so … excited. And I guess Kate likes the change in him, because when we stand to go, she gives Marissa and me hugs. And as she pulls away from me, she holds me at arm’s length for a minute and says, “Kip told me how hard you tried to help.… How can I ever thank you?”

  I pull a little face and look at Ginger. “I think we can call it even. I did lock your sister out on the balcony.”

  Kate laughs. “I’m guessing you thought you might be the next ones to disappear?”

  “Yes!”

  “And you ransacked the place looking for me? And Kip?”

  “Yes!”

  “So see? I do owe you,” she says with a little smile. “Anything. I’m serious. Just name it.”

  I kind of eye her, because right before I fell asleep last night, there was something I was wishing for, but they definitely don’t sell it on board, and asking seems crazy.

  She studies me. “What are you thinking?”

  I just shake my head.

  “Tell me!”

  So I do.

  And I explain it.

  And she says, “Done.”

  I laugh and say, “You can’t be serious,” and Kip goes, “Oh, you don’t know my grandmother.”

  Kate gives me a smile. “I’ll have the delivery made to your room. Now run along! Go have some fun!” Then she tells Kip, “Just be back in time for formal night! Our family is starting over tonight!”

  So we jet out of there, and I’m thinking we’re going to go straight up to the buffet, but Kip stops at the stairs and asks, “What about Marko and Darren?”

  “Kind of early for rock guys to climb rocks,” I tell him.

  But Marissa agrees with Kip. “It’s our last day. They can sleep later.”

  So the three of us beat on their door, and when Marko opens with a sleepyheaded “We on fi
re?” we all laugh and tell him, “Get up! We’ve got rocks to climb!”

  “And clubs to swing!”

  “And pools to invade!”

  Marko looks worried. “Can we eat first?”

  We laugh again and tell him we’ll meet him up at the Schooner Buffet. “And no dippy-dawdlin’ around!” I call as the door swings closed.

  Up at the buffet, we spot JT sitting with his parents. “Whoa, he does not look happy,” I whisper. But from the way they’re all talking so seriously and from the huge dark cloud over JT’s head, I can tell that Kate’s right—they’re actually going to move to Africa. And it hits me how ironic it is that Kip’s grandfather brought him here to save him from a life of hunger and poverty, and now his own children are being told to move there to save them from lives of selfishness and greed.

  Marissa grabs me and drags me along. “We are not thinking about or talking to any Kensingtons except Kip, you got that?”

  So we sit as far away from JT’s family as we can, and in no time we’re joined by a couple of men in mustaches, dorky hats, and glasses. “Wow, that was quick,” I tell them.

  “Don’t want to be missin’ out,” Darren says.

  Turns out they did everything with us. From rock climbing to golf to ice-skating—which, believe me, was pretty entertaining to watch them do—to basketball and a cutthroat game of water hoops, Darren and Marko were there for every second.

  Even if their mustaches did come off in the pool.

  After that, Kip said he needed to get back because he had to figure out how to get his clothes and stuff for formal night.

  When he took off, I eyed Marissa, because I knew she had to be scheming ways to get us to go to formal night. But she just eyed me back and said, “The buffet’s fine,” which brought a round of cheers from the rest of us.

  So we just lay there, not worrying about anything, soaking in the late-day sun.

  Which felt so good.

  And relaxing.

  And I’d actually been lying there long enough to be almost asleep when I hear Darren say, “I’ve been thinking.”

  He’s in the lounger right next to mine, and sure enough, he’s talking to me. “Yeah?”