Mask on the Cruise Ship

by Melanie Jackson

  “And congratulations to you, too, young man,” the Captain said to Jack and shook his hand. “Everyone’s telling me what a hero you were today. When we return to Vancouver, I intend to recommend you for a Royal Lifesaving Medal.”

  “Aw, no,” mumbled Jack, blushing to the roots of his sandy hair.

  The Captain clapped him on the back. “Be assured, there’s a job for you on our Happy Escapes fleet whenever you want it.”

  “No!” choked Mr. Trotter. “That is,” he coughed, as the Captain turned an inquiring gaze on him, “no doubt about it.”

  Captain Heidgarten smiled at me again. “So, my dear. I wanted to invite you and your family to dine with me this evening. Afterwards, I thought we might take in a show together. Hans and Roman, the famous magicians, are performing one of their now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t extravaganzas. But it all depends on whether you’ve recovered.”

  Hans and Roman! I’d seen them on TV. Wouldn’t miss out on this evening for anything. “That’d be great,” I exclaimed. “Don’t worry, that brief dip in the lake was … ” I shrugged to indicate how laughably insignificant my near-drowning had been. “Nope, I feel just fine.”

  And then I fainted.

  Forget Hans and Roman. I had my own magic act: now you see Dinah, now you don’t.

  I tried to say this out loud. After all, I was dining with the ship’s captain, so I should come equipped with wisecracks. Everyone at the table — Captain Heidgarten, Mother, Jack, Julie, Evan — stared at me expectantly.

  “What was that, Dinah?” Madge asked.

  I tried again. “ … You … see … Dinah … ”

  “Of course I see you,” Madge returned, sounding irritable. “These staterooms are small. It’d be hard to miss a red-headed lump in the bedclothes.”

  The faces and the dinner table evaporated. Dang, and there’d been grilled potato wedges, along with cheddar cheese-sprinkled sour cream to dip them in. I’d been about to reach for a particularly fat wedge …

  I forced my sleepy eyelids partway open. I was in bed, all right. Those blurry surroundings would be our stateroom. That blurry auburn-haired girl over there on the chair would be my sister Madge.

  “Why aren’t you at dinner with the Captain?” I mumbled.

  “Why do you think?” Madge asked bitterly. She staggered into the bathroom. Retching noises echoed back to me.

  My eyelids were pretty heavy, so I let them fall again. Mother was right. The icy lake had taken a lot out of me. Like a few dozen degrees of body temperature, for starters. Mothers were always right, weren’t they?

  … Couldn’t ever tell them that, though…

  … There’d … be … no … standing … them…

  Dozing off, I remembered how, from the tiny woods, I’d spotted Mother through the binoculars. How anxious and motherly she’d looked.

  Then had come the shove…

  I jolted awake again. Wait a minute. From the woods, yes, I’d been watching Mother through the binoculars. But I’d been watching the people around her, too.

  Now I remembered. Something had been wrong with the scene I’d — pardon the pun — seen.

  What was the something?

  It was no use. My plunge into Mendenhall Lake had frozen my memory.

  Chapter 11

  Dinah’s doom-and-groom attitude

  Jack, you should go back upstairs and enjoy Hans and Herman.”

  “Hans and Roman, Madge. Anyhow, I needed a break. How many rabbits do I need to see pulled out of hats? Besides, all that fur was making my allergies act up.” “

  “Jack, you don’t have allergies. Now, I want you to leave before I get seasick again, or that really will be it for us. I mean it.”

  Their voices woke me. I’d been having one of those cool dreams about flying. The Lord Bithersby playground had been far below. Liesl Dubuque had gaped up at me enviously while tugging on that back wedge of hair she was so eager to grow.

  By squinting I could just bring Madge and Jack into view. He’d pulled up the other of the two chairs in our stateroom and was sitting beside her. I guessed they’d reached in impasse in their discussion, because they were just looking at each other now. Even though Madge was annoyed, it was one of those mutual gazes neither of them seemed to want to break.

  Teen love. YECH.

  “Uh-oh,” Madge said in alarm. “I knew this would happen — ”

  Jack grabbed the fat-white-ship-on-blue-background ice bucket off the desk and held it under her chin.

  BLEEEUUUCKK.

  Madge covered her face with her hands. Not because she was suffering. I mean, she’d been heaving for two days straight, so she had to be used to it. Nope, it was because she was humiliated.

  Wide-awake now — who wouldn’t be, after that BLEEEUUUCKK — I was about to assure my sister that she vomited with admirable flair.

  But then Jack murmured to her, “Don’t you know that I love you when you’re imperfect as well as perfect? Maybe more so. It’s human beings that people love, not goddesses.”

  Madge peeked through her fingers. The human side of her was peeking, I thought suddenly. Checking to see if it was all right to venture out.

  “Dinah’s right about me,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands. “Since we lost Dad, I’ve kept trying to smooth everything over. To keep appearances — my appearance included — perfect. I’ve polished the surface of my life again and again so the rough memories underneath wouldn’t show.”

  She removed her hands and smiled, her face teary, splotchy and very un-Madge-ly. “I’ve been such a tidy, well-ordered person,” she said.

  Another one of those unbreakable gazes. Then, “You could try being messy and disordered sometimes,” Jack suggested.

  “I will try,” Madge said. She grimaced. “If I could just stop throwing up. That’s a little too messy and disordered.”

  Jack laughed. He went into the bathroom to empty the ice bucket in the toilet and rinse it out under the faucet. “Granted, we might not opt for a cruise on our honeymoon.”

  Honeymoon! I thought. HONEYMOON???

  In a rare discreet impulse, I’d been staying quiet all this while. But with Jack talking about marriage — c’mon, I fumed. This was supposed to be teen love.

  Okay, so Jack was nineteen. I didn’t care. He still qualified. Marriage was out.

  See, Mother, Madge, Wilfred the cat and I were, well, we were a unit. A foursome. It’d been the four of us together against the world since Dad died.

  Okay, so not against the world, exactly. More like against the rough memories Madge had been describing. We’d been a foursome for ages in our house on Wisteria Street on Vancouver’s Grandview hill. Madge couldn’t leave, not yet. It’d be like detaching one of the walls of the house.

  I was about to sit up and blurt out a series of indignant objections when Madge spoke.

  “Honeymoon?!” she exclaimed.

  That’s it, Madge, I thought with satisfaction. Really let him have it.

  “Honeymoon,” she repeated softly, in a very un-let-him-have-it voice.

  Jack sat down beside her again. “Is it wrong to talk about marriage?” he asked gently. “It doesn’t feel wrong to me. But if you’re uncomfortable, I can yearn in silence for a few more months. Years, if you prefer. Decades, I might utter a few peeps of protest at.”

  “Well … ” Madge sounded uncertain. To my dismay, however, not horrified. “Right now I’m only seventeen.”

  “Juliet was fourteen.”

  Juliet, I thought grimly. As in Romeo and, no doubt. Great. Ideas about marriage weren’t bad enough. Now Jack had to copy Mother and get into literary references.

  I re-squinted at them over the covers. Yet another of those unbearable gazes was going on between them. Madge was looking pink and pleased; Jack, tender.

  I HATE tender.

  I sat up so fast the covers flew off me in a tornado, the top ones tumbling on the floor. At full volume I shouted: “IN MY OPINION, JULIET WAS A WIENER
!”

  At that moment Mother opened the door.

  “Why, Dinah,” she said, blinking in bewilderment. “I’m — well, I know I’ve often encouraged you to develop an interest in classical literature. I just never thought you’d be so … intense about it.”

  People are getting married older, if at all. Don’t Madge and Jack read the newspaper?

  Dinah, I didn’t know YOU read the newspaper.

  I was exchanging comments with Pantelli on an Internet chat line. Well, Pantelli had got me on that one. I’d seen a headline about marriage stats on the back of a newspaper someone was holding up at the breakfast buffet a short while ago. I hadn’t actually read the story.

  I hesitated before punching in a reply on one of the computers in the Empress Marie’s dollar-a-minute Internet café. Pantelli would keep me from charging up too many minutes, or rather his schedule would. He had to leave for school in a short while. We’d agreed that each day at breakfast time we’d check in with each other.

  I’m going to sabotage Madge and Jack, I wrote. A little time apart would be good for ’em. Sober ’em up.

  Yeah? How?

  Dunno yet. Meanwhile, today we go into Skagway.We’re booked on the White Pass & Yukon train. Get to see the Klondike, where the Gold Rush was!

  Cool McCool.

  That was one of Pantelli’s expressions. It occurred to me that I was being kind of mean to tell him about the day’s, er, Cool McCool sightseeing. By contrast, Pantelli would be heading off to boring old Lord Bithersby. I switched topics.

  Have met some interesting people on the cruise. There’s Evan, the pianist, who has this amazing tune, dah DAH dah dah DAH dah, that he can’t think of lyrics for. I’m not sure about Evan, though: he might be trying to break into Julie Hébert’s room … Speaking of Julie! You remember her: a cute little thing with spiky hair. Sister of Professor Elaine Hébert, a famous expert on First Nations culture. Well, Elaine may be famous, but she’s nasty. Dumps all over Julie, all the time. Squashes Julie’s self-confidence!

  Pantelli’s reply streamed back to me: I should ask The Tone about Elaine. He’s heard her speak. He was telling us about it at breakfast one day. Or was it dinner?

  The Tone — that is, Pantelli’s older brother — Tony, was a high school senior.

  Must’ve been breakfast. I seem to remember eggs Benedict.

  I typed back, My name isn’t Benedict. Anyhow, forget about your family meals, Pantelli. The Raven’s been stolen! The thief, I added, punching the keys extra hard for emphasis, not that Pantelli could tell this, is gooseberry-eyed.

  Well, sounds like Jack is starry-eyed over Madge if he’s planning to get hitched to her. HA HA HA.

  Scowling at the screen, I bashed the keys loudly for a snide sign-off: Enjoy school.

  Clicks echoed in the café. Just how loudly had I been typing? Hold on. I wasn’t the only customer. The top of a head showed over the computer on the other side of mine.

  A head of crisp, dark hair — I rose in my seat — with a soulful lock straying over the forehead.

  Talbot St. John.

  Feeling a pair of wide, displeased eyes on him, Talbot looked up. We gaped at each other.

  His face burned brick-red. Punching in a final key, Talbot gave me a pained grimace of a smile and strode out of the café.

  “I like that!” announced the young woman behind the counter, in a tone that said plainly she didn’t like it at all.

  It was the pinch-faced sales clerk from the perfume boutique. “Oh yes,” she nodded, recognizing me too, “you’ll find me filling in at shops and restaurants all over the ship. They wouldn’t give me a job of my own,” the young woman added bitterly. “I’m a fill-in.”

  I thought of how I’d got this weeklong singing job on the Empress. “I’m a fill-in too,” I said. “It’s not that bad. You get a free cruise out of it.”

  And instantly I felt guilty about having written the snide enjoy school to Pantelli.

  “It’s fine for you,” the fill-in woman sniffed. “You get applauded. I get snubbed. See?” She shoved a huge, chocolate-sprinkled, whipped-cream-crowned mug across the counter. “Kid orders a triple mocha — and walks out.”

  She was fixing me with an accusing stare, as if I, also being a kid, bore responsibility for what Talbot had done. Well, I supposed in a way I did.

  I stammered, “Oh … um, I guess … sure. I would love to drink it. Num. I mean, look how cleverly you’ve sprinkled the chocolate on.” Anything to coax that wounded self-pity off her face.

  I wandered round the café, wondering what I was going to do with the triple mocha. I was already stuffed from the breakfast buffet. Maybe there was a plant I could pour the mocha into.

  It wasn’t a plant my eyes lit on, but the computer Talbot had been using. Whatever key he’d punched, in his hurry to leave, hadn’t been an exit command, though I was sure he’d intended it to be. His Hotmail account was still open.

  I was about to do the responsible thing and close it for him. Then I noticed the names on his Inbox messages. Most of the names belonged to boys in our class.

  One didn’t. To me it stood out as if in neon lights. Sickly, garish neon lights.

  Liesl Dubuque.

  The subject line read: You’ll laugh about that tree freak Pantelli …

  I clicked on the message. Liesl ranted on and on about how Pantelli had been late in from recess because he’d got immersed in studying the bark of a maple tree through his magnifying glass. What an idiot! Liesl scoffed.

  This wasn’t a surprise to me. I knew Liesl sneered at Pantelli for being fascinated with trees. Just like she sneered at me for being loud.

  There was just something horrid about seeing her contempt for my buddy set down in print.

  Who was Liesl to find other people weird? So Pantelli’s hobby was studying trees. Liesl’s was twisting and tugging at her wedge of hair. Like, come on.

  The responsible thing would have been to adopt a stiff upper lip and shut down the Hotmail on Talbot’s behalf.

  I wiggled my upper lip. Nope, nothing stiff about it. Besides, I was hatching a scathingly cunning plan.

  “Boo-wa-ha-ha,” I said, in imitation of an evil laugh. “A plan, Liesl the Weasel. And I’m going to carry it out.”

  The fill-in woman caught the last part. “You can’t carry that triple mocha out,” she said, peeved. “I put it in an Empress Marie mug. No one told me this was a take-out order.”

  Eyes welling with tears, Fill-In clip-clopped up to me in very high, very spindly heels. She was clutching a drawstring purse with a plump, smiling kitten embroidered on it. A skinny, miserable kitten, I thought unkindly, would have suited her personality far better.

  “I don’t have time to put the triple mocha in a Styrofoam cup for you,” Fill-In complained. “I’m due at the perfume boutique. Maybe you could hang in here till my relief arrives. He’s late, as usual.”

  She clip-clopped out. I hardly noticed. I was putting my creative powers to work. Sneer at Pantelli, would she! I’d show Liesl.

  Hi Liesl, I replied on Talbot’s Hotmail. Y’know what I fancy? A girl with close-cropped hair. A short do that doesn’t compete with my own soulful lock tumbling down my forehead.

  I paused to giggle appreciatively at my wit, then continued: Yup. A girl with close-cropped hair — well, I’d ask her out to lunch at the Belgian fries place.

  The Belgian fries place was just up the street from our school, on Commercial Drive. You could get fat, spicy wedge fries with all kinds of toppings. The ideal lunch. And perfect for a first date.

  Hope you’ll consider it, I added. Yours, Talbot.

  “Boo-wa-ha-ha,” I said and pressed SEND.

  From my own Hotmail account I sent a message to Pantelli detailing my little prank. There’s nothing like sharing good entertainment with a friend.

  Okay, so “good” was probably not the word my principal, Ms. Chen, would use to describe what I’d just done.

  My phony e-mail to
Liesl could well end up in Ms. Chen’s office, I reflected. Being a weasel, Liesl would immediately tattle on me when she figured out the message was phony.

  It would be more when than if. Liesl was smart, in her weaselly way.

  I might as well start practicing my apology now. I sauntered out to the deck. Fill-In’s relief person, a cheerful guy with freckles, had assured me I could drink my triple mocha outside the café, Empress mug or not. I intended to empty the mocha over the side. I was still too stuffed to want it.

  There was nobody around. I opened my mouth to begin practicing — when Fill-In’s whiny voice floated to me.

  “Can you believe it? My relief person wasn’t even there. And I was waiting.”

  Fill-In must be on the deck above me. The Empress Marie had several layers of decks, each one wider than the one above. Like a pile of scalloped potatoes, you might say.

  Somebody else, another Empress Marie staff member, murmured in sympathy.

  “I was so irritated,” Fill-In complained.

  Irritated … I paused, my hand above the railing, ready to pour out the now-tepid triple mocha. A chunk of frozen memory was thawing.

  I’d been looking through the binoculars at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitors’ Center — and I’d seen someone wearing an irritated, baleful expression. Someone who otherwise didn’t appear that way at all.

  But who, and why? That part of my memory hadn’t thawed yet.

  “I should find a job somewhere else,” Fill-In was sniffling. “Someplace where I’m appreciated.”

  Realizing it was about time for me to go meet Jack, I tipped the mug.

  “Someplace where people don’t rain on my parade!”

  Splattering sounds and “AAGGGHHH!” screamed Fill-In.

  Uh-oh. I’d assumed I was on the lowest deck and she was on the one above. Apparently I’d got that reversed.