Once Upon a Cruise

by Anna Staniszewski

  My eyes scan the room for Cute Dwarf again, almost as if they have a mind of their own. Finally, I spot him in the front row, hunched over his notebook, chewing on the end of his pen. Could he be any cuter?

  Mom must see me staring because she whispers, “His name is Smith.”

  I snap my gaze away. “Um, what?”

  “Prince Handsome up there? His name is Smith.”

  “Is that his first name or his last name?” Somehow, Cute Dwarf doesn’t look like a Smith, but then again, I don’t actually know anything about him.

  “I have no idea, but all the girls have been fawning over him. That’s why we cast him as the prince.”

  Wait, what?

  I realize Mom’s looking up at the stage at a guy in tights and shiny shoes with a halo of perfectly gelled curls around his head. I’m pretty sure he’s the one who let out the annoyingly loud whistle earlier to get everyone’s attention.

  “Ew, him?” I blurt out. Smith has got to be the most generically good-looking guy I’ve ever seen, like something out of a Disney movie. I bet the cruise line could get sued just for having him on board!

  Guys like Smith are so not my type. Perfection might be good for animated films, but when it comes to photography, flaws are what make people interesting and beautiful. Like Cute Dwarf’s slightly crooked ears and his green eyes that are half-squinted at his notebook as if he might need glasses.

  Mom laughs. “Sorry, Ains. I know it’s weird to talk to your mom about boys.” She glances at her watch. “Oops! I have to go meet with the captain.”

  “You mean with Captain Hook?” I say in a loud whisper.

  “Shh! I told you not to call him that!” she scolds, but she’s laughing as she rushes away.

  I go back to watching Cute Dwarf out of the corner of my eye. Maybe if I’m really sneaky, I can get a picture of him.

  After pulling my camera out of my pocket, I try to casually stroll along and get a clear shot of his face at the same time. That’s why I don’t notice the giant monster in my way until I smash right into it.

  Crash!

  My camera clatters to the floor as dozens of index cards shoot out of the beast’s claws and fall all around us.

  “Hey!” the monster roars.

  “Ah!” I cry, jumping back as its red eyes glare down at me.

  Everyone in the theater, including the people onstage, turns to stare at me. It’s only when I manage to stop having a heart attack that I realize the ferocious monster looks more like a grinning boar. In fact, it’s some guy in a hairy pig costume with a script under his arm.

  The guy pulls off his furry pig head. He looks barely older than me, but he’s scowling at me as if I’m an annoying toddler. “Do you mind? I’m trying to concentrate here.”

  “Sorry,” I say as the performers start up again. I snatch my camera off the floor and shove it into my pocket, praying it didn’t get scratched. Then I scramble to gather up some of the index cards. They’re covered in surprisingly neat handwriting on both sides.

  “It took me forever to write out all my lines,” the guy grumbles as he snatches the cards off the floor. “Do you know how long it’ll take to put these in order again?”

  “I could help you,” I offer.

  He shoots me another cold look. “I think you’ve done enough already.”

  “S-sorry,” I say again. “I was distracted by … something.”

  “Or by someone?” he says, smirking.

  Did he notice me staring at Cute Dwarf? Was I really that obvious? I try to make a getaway, but the guy grabs my shoulder with a furry claw.

  “Wait, you’re Lydia’s daughter, right?” he says.

  “Yeah, I’m Ainsley.” Will he go roar at Mom next?

  “Ian,” the guy barks at me.

  “What are you?” I can’t help asking, motioning toward his hideous costume.

  He rolls his eyes. “I was supposed to play Prince Handsome, but then some higher-up at the cruise line put in a call, and suddenly his nephew, Smith Charming, waltzes in and takes over. So now I’m playing the Pig King.”

  “What’s the Pig King?”

  “Exactly! Why can’t they just call me the Beast?” He glances up at the stage and sighs. “This show is going to be a disaster if Smith’s the lead. Do you think he even realizes he has arms?”

  I follow his gaze to where Smith is moving around the stage like a stiff marionette. The Pig King is right, but after he yelled at me, I suddenly feel myself siding with Smith. Okay, he’s not all that graceful—nothing like Cute Dwarf—but thanks to his chiseled features, he certainly looks the part. How rude of Ian to flat-out say Smith’s not good for the part.

  “I think you make a fine pig,” I tell him flatly, and then I push past him toward the door. I take one last look back, hoping to catch Cute Dwarf’s eye one more time, but he and his dwarf posse are gone.

  When I get to my cabin—or “stateroom” as the passengers call it—I spot the towel-folding book on my bed right away. It’s hard to miss since it’s bigger than my pillow. How am I supposed to learn all this stuff overnight?

  I have to practically shimmy over to the bunk beds since the cabin is so small. I’m pretty sure my closet at home is bigger than this entire room, and at least that’s all mine. Here I have to step over piles of Katy’s dangerously high heels and limbo under the millions of filmy scarves she hung around the room “for atmosphere.” If the scarves all fall down at once, I’m pretty sure we’ll drown in fabric.

  This sharing-my-personal-space thing is kind of hard to get used to. At least I got the top bunk since Katy’s afraid of heights, so when I pull the curtain closed around it, I have one tiny scarf-free oasis to myself.

  After I grab one of the towels from the bathroom, I climb up to my bunk cocoon. I leaf through the towel-folding book until I find instructions on how to make a snake. That should be easy, shouldn’t it? I get to work, but after fifteen minutes of intense concentration, I’ve only succeeded in making something that looks like a rolled-up towel. Great.

  Disgusted, I take out my camera and start flipping through the most recent pictures. Sadly, the latest one is nothing but a blurry image of the floor. If only I hadn’t smacked into Ian the Pig, I could be gazing at a picture of Cute Dwarf right now!

  I wish more than anything that I could pick up the phone and call my best friends, Alyssa and Brooke. I can imagine Brooke taking one look at Cute Dwarf and making some kind of inappropriate animal sound. One time when we saw a hot guy at the mall, she started howling at him like a monkey. Alyssa and I couldn’t stop laughing at the terrified look on the guy’s face as he ran the other way.

  Even if the ship’s phone and internet access weren’t super expensive, it wouldn’t do any good to try to contact my two best friends since they’re both away at camp for the summer. I’ll have to take as many pictures as possible so I’ll be able to tell them all about my summer when I get home. Plus, remember to take pictures of interesting moles and scars for the weird collection that Alyssa’s had going since we were in fifth grade. I think having two plastic surgeon parents has kind of messed with her brain.

  Taking pictures of passengers is technically Not Okay according to the employee handbook, but Alyssa made me promise I’d do it. “You’ll get to see thousands of people in their bathing suits this summer. It’s like my dream come true!” she said the day before I left. Then she made her eyes all round and puppyish, and I couldn’t say no. Besides, I doubt it counts as breaking the rules if I’m only taking a picture of a mole on someone’s elbow.

  I keep scrolling through my pictures and pause at the shot of the mural. The man in it stares back at me with a knowing smile as he loops yarn around his hand. I still can’t put my finger on why he looks familiar, so I keep scrolling back through my pictures—Mom and me when we first got on the ship; Brooke and Alyssa midair at a trampoline park, celebrating the last day of school; me posing next to one of my framed photos at the town library—until I get to the ones
that I know I shouldn’t look at because they make me upset. They’re of Dad and me at one of his poetry readings about six months ago. The now-familiar anger starts pulsing through me as I look at his smiling, bearded face, his arm wrapped around me as if everything is perfect. Even though only a few weeks later, he and Mom split up.

  Ugh. I really hope Cute Dwarf is not a poet.

  I shut the camera off and stuff it back in my pocket. The truth is, I’m not mad at Dad for leaving. I’m mad at him for not caring. Back when he and Mom were still together and fighting all the time, he’d tell me that everything was “just fine,” even though he was spending less and less time at home. And then one day Mom asked him if he wanted to move out, and he left the very next day—without even trying to make things right. Mom cried for weeks afterward, and I even heard her calling Dad and begging him to come home, but he didn’t. Instead, he got an apartment close to the university where he teaches and only came to see me on his designated days. And every time I tried to ask him about Mom, he would say it “wasn’t logical” for them to be together. Come on! Only a robot talks like that!

  At the end of the school year, Dad tried to convince me to come live with him for the summer, saying he didn’t get to spend any time with me anymore. He even sent me a letter—written on stationery!—but I didn’t read the whole thing. Instead, I flat-out told him no. Not only was he going to be busy working on his next book of poems the whole time, but I was still mad at him for leaving us as if he was checking out of a hotel room. So when Mom got the cruise ship job, it was actually nice to have an excuse to go with her, even if I didn’t really want to be away all summer. And the fact that I’ll finally have money at the end of the summer to buy a real, professional camera doesn’t hurt either.

  With a sigh, I pick up the towel-folding book again and start working on the snake. After a few more tries, I end up with something that looks sort of like a worm. It’ll have to do. After all, how impressive do towel sculptures for little kids have to be?

  I glance at my watch and realize it’s time to get ready for my shift at the Lost Children Dining Room. I think they were going for a Hansel and Gretel thing, but just like a lot of other places on this ship, its name is kind of terrible.

  After wrestling my food-serving uniform out of my miniscule closet, I pull my hair back and give myself a quick glance in the pea-sized mirror in the bathroom to make sure I look okay, just in case any cute dwarves happen to cross my path. For a second, I eye Katy’s makeup bag before remembering the time I tried putting on Mom’s super-waterproof mascara last year and had to go to school looking like a drowned raccoon because we didn’t have any industrial strength makeup remover in the house. No, thanks.

  Since I still have a little time before I have to go help serve dinner, I grab my camera and head out to the walking track on Deck 4, just outside the theater. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll spot some fish swimming alongside the ship. It’s not as exciting as photographing a squirrel nest, complete with baby squirrels, like I’d been planning to do over the summer before Mom took the cruise director job, but it’s something.

  Things around me are eerily quiet. Every other deck is crammed full of people, but the strong smell of fresh paint is probably keeping them away from this spot. I lean over the railing for a minute and breathe in the sea air instead. When we were still docked at Fort Lauderdale, there was a distinctly fishy stench, but now the air is fresh and clean and salty. It reminds me of home since our house isn’t that far from the ocean.

  Along the horizon, I spot a couple of birds flying in front of the clouds. That means we’re still pretty close to land, even if we can’t see it. I raise my camera, ready to snap a few pictures, when one of the doors behind me slams open.

  “You can’t be serious!” I hear a female voice saying in a posh British accent. “There is no textual evidence to suggest the prince would ever act that way!”

  I turn to see Snow White, um, I mean, Schneewittchen, standing face to face with none other than Smith Charming.

  “Of course he would,” Smith says. “He’s the hottest guy around. If the princess wasn’t interested, he’d go somewhere else. That’s why when you wake up, you should gasp when you see how hot I am so the audience will know for sure that you’re into me. Maybe you could even faint a little.”

  Schneewittchen shakes her head. “The director didn’t say anything about that. And besides, how will anyone in the audience know that I’ve fainted if none of the lines indicate it?”

  Smith grins. “Oh, people will get it. Girls faint around me all the time. I have that effect on them.” Just then, he catches me staring at him, and his grin widens. “See? This little girl can’t take her eyes off of me.”

  “Um, excuse me? I’m thirteen,” I can’t help saying. Okay, not yet, but Smith can’t be older than sixteen himself. “And this ‘little girl’ is going to be up onstage with you in the show.”

  He gives me a blank look. Clearly, he doesn’t remember me from rehearsal.

  “I’m playing Briar Rose,” I explain.

  His face lights up. “My apologies, my lady,” he says, dipping into a stiff bow. “I didn’t recognize you. Maybe you can settle this debate for us. Do you think Snow White would faint at the sight of me?”

  “She’s not called Snow White, remember?” I say, instinctively checking for nearby Spies. “And no, I doubt it. She just woke up from a coma. I don’t think the first thing she’d do is pass out again. After all that time being almost dead, she’s probably thinking about finding a bathroom.”

  Schneewittchen gives me a triumphant smile and sticks her hand out to me. “I’m Gemma. And yes, I’m from England.” Clearly, she gets asked that question all the time. “You’re Lydia’s daughter, right?”

  “Yes, I’m Ainsley. It’s nice to meet you,” I say, feeling as if I should be more formal around Gemma since she sounds so smart. “What are you reading?” The textbook tucked under her arm looks like something out of my dad’s library.

  “Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale. It’s for my dissertation. I’m about to start my PhD in Russian folklore in the fall.”

  “You should talk to my dad. He’s a literature professor. But he’s more into poetry than folktales.” Only after I say it do I remember that I’m not actually speaking to my dad these days.

  “Ooh, I love professors!” Gemma coos. “I can’t wait to be one. I thought this job would be good real-world experience, but so far …” She lowers her voice. “Honestly, I’m wondering why I’m even here.”

  “To meet me, of course,” Smith says. He waggles his eyebrows at Gemma in a way that looks straight out of a cartoon. Does he seriously think things like that work on girls, especially ones who are older than him and clearly much smarter? Maybe I should channel Brooke and start making monkey sounds at him to scare him off.

  Gemma only rolls her eyes and says, “It was nice to meet you, Ainsley.” Then she hugs her book to her chest and heads off.

  Meanwhile, Smith seems to lose all interest in her and turns back to me. “So, where are you from, Ashley?”

  “Ainsley,” I correct. I’m about to make a run for it, but then I remember what Ian the Pig said about Smith being some important person’s nephew. Maybe I should play nice, just in case word gets back to the cruise line’s higher-ups about Lydia’s unfriendly daughter. Mom is stressed enough about things going perfectly on this cruise without having to worry about me not getting along with people. “I’m from Rhode Island. How about you?”

  His face lights up, as if he’s been waiting for someone to ask him that question. Then he launches into a whole spiel about how he’s not really from one place because he’s moved around from one exotic location to the next his whole life. The way he tells it, he practically grew up on luxury yachts. I can’t tell if he wants me to be impressed or to pity his “unstable childhood.” Mostly, I try not to fall asleep as he goes on and on.

  I glance at my watch and realize that I only have a coup
le minutes to get to the Lost Children Dining Room, but when I interrupt Smith to tell him that, he says, “I’ll walk you down there,” and then keeps babbling. He jumps from surfing to weightlifting to hot dog eating, but all the topics have one thing in common: They’re all about him. Snore.

  Weirdly, as we walk around the ship, pretty much all the women we pass (and some of the guys too) stare at Smith as if he’s a god. Ugh. If they could talk to him for a second, I’m pretty sure they’d immediately get over his good looks.

  I spot Cute Dwarf coming around the corner when we get to Deck 3. He’s out of his costume and looking amazing in skinny jeans and a faded T-shirt for a band I’ve never heard of. He flashes me a small smile and then seems to notice that I’m being escorted by Smith. His smile fades, and he ducks into a stairwell. No!

  I want to run after him, but that wouldn’t exactly be subtle. Plus, I have to report for work.

  “Well, I have to go,” I say, cutting Smith off midsentence. “See you around.”

  “It was nice talking to you, Ashley.”

  “It was nice being talked at,” I can’t help saying. He just gives me a big smile as I hurry away.

  After I help a little girl who’s wandering around looking for her parents—she came to the Lost Children Dining Room thinking kids should report there if they’re separated from their families—I get into serving position behind the food counter. I’ve never been so relieved to put on a hairnet and apron. Anything is better than having to listen to Smith drone on and on about himself. But just as I dish out my first piece of chicken, Katy comes rushing over as fast as she can in her ridiculous mermaid costume.

  “Ainsley,” she says, panting, “your mom is looking for you. There’s some kind of laundry emergency.”

  Laundry?

  I stare at her for a second, sure I’ve heard wrong. Even if there is an emergency with laundry, why on earth would my mom want my help with it? But when I don’t answer, Katy grabs my arm and says, “Quick, Ainsley. She needs a huge favor!”