“I guess you can’t tell what you wished for when you blew out your candles,” I said teasingly.
“Oh, I don’t mind telling,” Grammy said. “I wished for God to watch over every one of you.” She crossed her legs and leaned her cheek on her hand. “So, tell me how things are going now that you’re living with your father. How did your mother take it?”
“She started crying,” I said. I thought about Mama turning her face away from me and trying to wipe away the tears without me seeing. “And she misses me. It made me feel even more awful. But, you know, Barry’s son, Matt, who flunked out of college last year, is living with them. I didn’t like living with him, and I didn’t like his friends.” I didn’t want to tell Grammy the details, about the beer they stole and drank or the Adderall pills they were selling. Sometimes it’s best not to tell older people everything.
“But your mother understood?”
“She told me she did, and she said that things were tough with Matt right now, and she wanted me to be happy. But on the weekends when I go back there to stay now, she makes special plans for us, and she always seems so sad when it’s time for me to leave. Last time I visited, she said maybe once Matt is on his own again I can move back.”
“Do you think you will?”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I’m tired of moving around. I wish I could just stay in one place,” I said honestly. “I feel like I’ve settled in at Daddy’s, and I’d like to stay there.”
“Well, then that’s what you need to say to people,” Grammy said. “What you did wasn’t easy, Stephanie, and I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself.”
“Thanks, that means a lot, Grammy.” Waves splashed faintly against the sides of the ship. A soft breeze threaded through our hair.
“What about you and Diana?” The breeze picked up a little, and Grammy pulled her wrap a bit more tightly around her.
“We’re getting along better and better,” I said. “This trip has been a challenge, though, because she and Lauren keep having fights.”
“I’m sorry to hear that!” Grammy said. “What kind of fights?”
Then I was sorry I said that. Maybe Grammy would ask for more details, and I would have to lie about the iguana. But I told her about the fight over Uncle Ted’s “the end of the day” sayings, and surprisingly, it seemed as though she already knew what had happened.
“I can see you’ve tried very hard to have a good relationship with Diana, and I’m proud of you for doing that,” Grammy said. “It’s important in life to work at our relationships. They’re everything we’ve got. That’s what I always say, Stephanie. God has given us others to love. Life is relationships and what we make of them.”
I examined my hands in my lap. I had suddenly remembered the kids at school calling Diana “annn-i-mal,” and the fact that it was because of something I had said. I couldn’t seem to forget that. And I remembered what Guy had said about taking responsibility for what I had done.
“Grammy, I did something I’m not proud of,” I said. Her face was hard to see in the dark.
“What’s that, honey?”
“I was mad at Diana one day because she was rude, and I told a friend of mine that Diana liked animals more than people. She must have told someone else about it, because a few days later, some of the people at school were calling her ‘annn-i-mal’ in really mean voices. Her feelings were so hurt about it, and I think it was because of me saying that about her.”
Grammy was silent for a minute. “Things like that can happen. That’s really unfortunate. You didn’t do it on purpose, but what you said caused damage.”
She didn’t tell me it was okay that I had done it. That’s one thing I liked about talking to Grammy. She was honest. She didn’t just try to make you feel okay about things.
“Have you apologized to her?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t even admitted that I think it was me that started it. She doesn’t know.” I hadn’t even said anything to Daddy about it. I had kept it a deep dark secret. Except for Guy.
“Well—” said Grammy.
Suddenly there was a knock on Grammy’s door. Grammy grasped the arms of her chair to get up, but I said, “That’s okay, I’ll get it,” and I jumped up and ran to the door. When I opened it, Diana was there. Her face was twisted with deep distress.
“Iggy’s gone!” she hissed.
“Oh no!”
“What’s wrong?” came Grammy’s voice.
I glanced back and saw Grammy stand up and come to the balcony entrance.
Diana came in, whispering. “I’ve looked everywhere in the room. He’s not in there. He’s either escaped or someone has taken him.”
15
DIANA
I looked at Stephanie’s shocked face and saw Grammy’s expression of confusion, and I decided I never should have come to Grammy’s room to tell Stephanie about Iggy. Now we had no choice but to tell Grammy everything.
“What’s wrong?” Grammy said again. I thought about little Iggy, wedged in a corner hiding somewhere. Or maybe whoever had smuggled him onto the ship had come into our room and found him and stolen him back. How had they found him? How would the smugglers treat him? They thought of him just as a way to make money, not as a wild creature that should be free. Maybe they would mistreat him in some way.
Stephanie looked at me, wide-eyed, with a question on her face.
“I have to go, Grammy,” Stephanie said. “We have an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?” Grammy said, crossing the room, directing her question at me.
I hesitated. I had promised Stephanie that I would tell about Iggy after Grammy’s birthday celebration.
I sat down on Grammy’s bed. “We found something,” I said. “And now we’ve lost it,” I added.
“Why don’t you tell me the whole story,” Grammy said.
So I told her everything, about finding Iggy and about hiding him for the past two days. I told her what we’d found out about blue iguanas from the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme website. I told her about taking Iggy out on the sundeck today so he could get vitamin D from sunshine.
“So, anyway,” I concluded, “someone must have smuggled him onto the ship from Grand Cayman. And they must have been looking for him while we had him. And now they’ve either taken him back or he’s escaped. Will you promise not to tell Mom and Norm?”
“No, I won’t promise!” Grammy said sternly. “This is nothing to kid around about! I’m glad you don’t have the iguana anymore. What you’ve been doing could be a criminal act. You could end up in jail.”
Stephanie and I sat next to each other on Grammy’s bed. Stephanie chewed her fingernail, which was something she did when she was nervous or upset.
“You just leave well enough alone. Don’t you get mixed up with those smugglers.”
“But Grammy,” Stephanie said, “one of them is Manuel, the steward that Lauren interviewed on the videotape. You saw what a loving father he is. He would do anything for his son.”
“Maybe that’s the key,” Grammy said. “That he would do anything for him. Even something that isn’t legal.”
Stephanie hung her head. “I guess. I just can’t think of him as a bad guy.”
She stood up. “Please don’t tell Daddy and Lynn, Grammy! We didn’t know what we were doing was wrong,” she pleaded.
My heart pounded when I realized that Stephanie had said “we.”
Grammy gave us a deep and thoughtful look. “I will leave it up to you to tell your parents about this yourselves,” she said slowly. “But if you don’t, I’ll have to.”
Stephanie and I nodded. I stretched and pretended to yawn. “Well, it’s getting late. We better get back to our room, Steph,” I said.
“All right. I’m trusting you girls now,” Grammy said. “Give me a hug good night,” she said. Stephanie let Grammy fold her into her arms and stayed there while Grammy patted her back a couple of times. I felt shyer about a hug from Gra
mmy and stood back.
“Come on, you too!” Grammy said in a bossy voice. So I stepped forward, and she wrapped me in her arms and squeezed. I felt the warmth of Grammy’s arms around me, and then her lips brushed my cheek. “There. Now you girls go and do the right thing,” she said.
As soon as we left Grammy’s room, Stephanie grabbed my arm. “What should we do?” she said.
“Let’s look for Iggy in our room once more,” I said as we ran down the narrow corridor. “If he’s not there, we’ll have to try to figure out who took him.”
We raced to the stair landing and down the stairs to our room level. As soon as we got back to the room, Lauren greeted us. Ever since our fight, Lauren and I had been getting along so much better.
“There’s no sign of him anywhere,” she said. “I’ve looked in every corner.”
Just to be safe, I looked all through my bunk and everywhere in the bathroom again. “I left him closed in the shower,” I said. “I don’t see how he could’ve gotten out. I think someone came and got him.”
“Remember the American steward we saw talking to Manuel in the employee cafeteria?” Stephanie asked. “I saw him out by the pool today after you left, Diana. He was staring at us. And then I saw him again when we were on our way back to the room. Maybe he saw Iggy and was following us to find out where we were keeping him.”
The three of us froze and were silent. I was thinking about what it might feel like to be followed.
“So after Manuel comes by our room tonight,” Lauren said, “one of us has to follow him.”
“I will,” I said. I thought about Dad then, wishing I could tell him about this cruise and the adventure we were having with the iguana. Dad would want me to be fearless and bold.
“I have a question,” Stephanie said. “If someone does something wrong or illegal in order to do something good, does that still count as doing something wrong? Do you think God would forgive Manuel for smuggling the iguana if he was doing it to get the money to help his son?”
“You mean sort of like Robin Hood, rob from the rich to give to the poor?” Lauren asked.
“Yeah,” Stephanie said. “Is it still wrong?”
“I think it is,” Lauren said. “It doesn’t change the fact that what he’s doing is against the law. What do you think, Diana?”
“I think people should have to pay for what they do,” I said honestly. But it was a hard question. And Stephanie didn’t agree with me.
“I feel like what Manuel is doing,” Stephanie said, “he’s doing out of love. When a person does something out of love, even if it’s wrong, that has to be taken into consideration,” Stephanie said.
“So you don’t think he should have to pay?” I said.
“I just think that things aren’t always black and white,” she said.
I think that Stephanie thought forgiveness was the key to relationships. Last spring, when we had been at the Outer Banks, Stephanie had talked to me about how she felt about forgiveness. She thought that I should have forgiven our friend Cody for the mistake he made. Eventually I did say good-bye to him, even though I had a hard time forgiving him.
I didn’t know whether Stephanie going back to church had to do with what she thought about forgiveness. I just knew that I was confused. If Manuel had smuggled the iguana onto the ship, then he had broken the law. How could we change that? And shouldn’t he pay for what he had done? What difference did it even make if we forgave him?
There was a soft knock on our door.
“Come in,” Stephanie said.
The door opened, and Manuel stood in the doorway with his uniform on. “I am here to do the turndown this evening. And would you girls like some mints before bed?” he asked, holding a small white tray with foil-wrapped mints. The expression on his face was unreadable. But he seemed more stiff, a little bit more defensive than he had been in the past few days.
“Sure,” Stephanie said with her most welcoming smile, glancing over at me.
I tried to imagine what he must think of us, if he had indeed come and gotten the iguana from us. I wondered where he might be keeping it, if it had room to walk around.
“Do you have our iguana?” I blurted out.
Stephanie put her hand over her mouth.
“Pardon me?” Manuel said politely, raising his eyebrows.
“We found an iguana, and we were keeping it here in our room. We think it’s a rare iguana and that someone was smuggling it from Grand Cayman to the United States. But it’s disappeared. Have you seen it?”
I watched Manuel’s face carefully. His expression changed briefly, and then his polite, distant expression returned.
“I am sorry, I do not know what you are talking about,” Manuel said. “Animals are not allowed on board ship.”
Was he lying to us, or was he telling us the truth?
“Well, we don’t have one now because someone took it. Someone came into our room this afternoon. It’s gone,” I said.
“We found out by doing research that if you smuggle an endangered species into the U.S., you can go to jail for up to five years,” Lauren said.
Manuel’s face changed for an instant, then his distant, polite expression came back, as he sighed deeply. “I am sorry. As I said before, I do not know what you are talking about.”
On past nights Manuel had asked us questions about our day on the cruise as he worked, but tonight he simply gave us our mints and emptied the trash wordlessly.
“Did you have a good day, Manuel?” Stephanie asked, a little shyly.
“It was fine,” Manuel said matter-of-factly, without a smile. “I work all day, as usual.”
“Did you get a chance to talk to your children today?” Stephanie persisted.
“No, I did not,” Manuel said. “Two of the children were feeling sick today, and my wife could not Skype.”
He neatly folded back the coverlets on our beds and then turned to the door.
“Aren’t you going to fold any towel animals tonight, Manuel?” Stephanie asked. “We love it when you do that.”
Manuel’s shoulders slumped, and he hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. Then he turned back to us. “Of course.” I thought of all that wasn’t being said tonight in our room as Manuel did his duties. Are you telling us the truth? Did you take the iguana from us? Where are you keeping it now? How much money is it worth? Are you doing it for your son?
He went into the hallway and brought back fresh towels, and while we watched, he folded two towels into an animal that could have been an alligator. But it also could have been an iguana.
He left the alligator/iguana on the desk.
“Have a nice evening, ladies,” he said.
After he shut the door, there was silence in our room for a long moment.
“Did you think he acted guilty? He was more serious than usual,” Stephanie said.
I jumped to my feet. “I’m going to follow him to his room and see if he’s telling us the truth.”
“I’ll go with you!” said Lauren, jumping up with the video camera.
“You can’t bring the video camera,” I said quickly.
“Okay, I won’t bring the camera. I just want to come,” Lauren said. She sat down heavily on the bed while Stephanie began twisting her hair nervously.
“I don’t think you should go, Diana. I think we should just forget about everything,” Stephanie said. “Pretend nothing happened.”
“But someone has Iggy! I don’t believe he could have gotten out of the shower today! And someone’s going to smuggle him! We have to save him!” I said.
I eased the door open and looked out into the hall. “Manuel’s cart is a few doors down,” I whispered. “I’m going to go hide in the supply room.”
Lauren and I stood by the door, ready to sneak out.
“Wait, don’t leave me here by myself,” Stephanie said. “I’ll come!”
“Okay, hurry up!” Lauren said.
We tiptoed around Manuel’s cart down to the su
pply room and hid behind a big hamper of used towels. A moment later he came out of the room and headed toward us down the corridor with his cart. As he stored his cart in the supply room, we remained completely still, hiding behind another cart. A minute or so after he left the supply room, the three of us sneaked into the corridor, and then raced soundlessly down the hall, stopping at the entryway where he’d turned. The entryway led to the cargo elevator.
We waited until the doors closed, then looked up to see which floor he was going to by what number was lit up above the door. Five! We ran to the stairs, then went racing down, two steps at a time, to the fifth floor. We burst out of the stairwell and back out into the corridor to see Manuel just disappearing through the set of doors that said Employees Only.
We waited a few seconds after the doors swung shut behind him, then raced through.
We kept our distance, running on tiptoe down the corridor until he turned a corner. I stopped and held a finger to my lips, then peeked around the corner. He was putting his key card into his door.
We waited until he had gone inside, then tiptoed toward the room.
“Listen,” I said. “See if we can hear anything.”
I put my ear to the door and heard muffled but rising voices inside.
“What did you do?” Manuel said. “Why did you not tell me?”
“I didn’t have time,” Ryan said.
“Did you know we could go to jail for five years?”
“That’s if you get caught. Hardly anybody gets caught!” Ryan said. “I’ll just tape it inside my sock, and then I’m off to Miami and several thousand dollars.”
“What will you feed it?”
“Who cares? Don’t worry about it. We dock in the morning.”
They weren’t going to feed Iggy! I could feel anger flashing behind my eyes.
“I care!” Manuel said. “I have changed my mind. These kids know about the iguana. They could tell the captain. I do not want to go to jail.”
“Give me that!”
We stood wide-eyed as we heard a struggle inside the room. Suddenly, with a tumbling of locks and a jerk, the door was wrenched open. The three of us jumped back as Manuel lunged through the door holding a jar. Inside the jar was Iggy, looking gray and limp.
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