Curse of the Arctic Star (7 page)

“Nope, we’re good, bro,” Alan told him. “We’re just on our way to play some mini golf.”

“Wonderful!” Hiro beamed at us. “Our brand-new miniature golf course is fabulous. It features a rugged Alaska theme.”

“Sounds cool, thanks.” Alan glanced at me as Hiro disappeared into the snack bar. “So what do you say, Nancy? You’re not seriously going to ditch us, are you?”

I shot my friends a look, then glanced back at Alan. Was that a hint of suspicion in his eyes?

“Um, okay,” I said. “You talked me into it.”

The mini-golf course was actually pretty cool. As Hiro had promised, it featured an Alaskan theme complete with fake glaciers, grinning totem poles, a life-size moose, and a roaring grizzly on its hind legs.

“This is awesome!” Alan exclaimed. “Who wants to go first?”

For a while we had the place to ourselves. Just as
Bess was lining up a shot at a waterfall with little fake salmon leaping out of the water, we heard voices coming our way.

“Check it out,” George said. “It’s that camera crew. They probably heard about my awesome swing and ran right up here to get it on film.”

Two burly cameramen stepped onto the course, along with a skinny young man dressed in black jeans and a gray T-shirt. Several passengers trailed in behind them.

“This way, everyone!” the skinny guy called. “Grab some clubs and we’ll get started.”

“I can’t believe I’m gonna be in pictures!” an old man with a ring of white hair around his bald head exclaimed with a grin. “I’m ready for my close-up!”

“Stop, Harold.” The woman with him rolled her eyes, rearranging her sun hat atop her tidy red curls. “You’re such a ham!”

I recognized them as part of that family reunion we’d seen at the beginning of the trip. The group had
been hard to miss at dinner last night, taking up three tables all on their own.

The thin young man spotted my friends and me and hurried over. “Good morning,” he said. “I’m Claude, the director of the film crew.” He looked me up and down. “Did anyone ever tell you that hair of yours is totally cinematic?”

I touched my hair, feeling self-conscious. “Um, I don’t think so.”

Claude glanced at the cameramen, who were already filming various parts of the mini-golf course. Establishing shots, I guessed.

“Baraz, get over here!” Claude barked. “I want to get this girl on film.”

One of the camera operators, a man with a buzz cut, stepped toward us. “Sure, boss,” he said, pointing his camera at me.

“No, not there—we need a better background.” Claude glanced around, tapping his chin. “Something to set off that hair, that all-American complexion . . .”

“How about the moose?” Alan suggested. “That might look cool.”

“Perfect!” The director clapped his hands. “The strawberry blond should really pop against the dark-brown fur.”

I stepped toward the moose. Everyone was staring at me. Well, almost everyone. Bess and Alan seemed to have taken the distraction as an opportunity for a romantic moment. They were standing close together by the moose’s side, laughing and talking softly while holding hands. But everyone else? Staring. At me.

“Is this okay?” I asked, striking a golf stance with my club near the moose obstacle.

“Closer,” the director ordered. “We need to get all of the moose in frame.”

I took a step back, glancing up at the moose’s head looming above me. “Okay, now what?”

“Just forget that we’re here,” the director said. “Pretend you’re just playing golf. Laugh and toss your hair and act normally.”

I didn’t bother to point out that I wouldn’t be acting
normally if I started tossing my hair around while I was playing mini golf. I quickly lined up my shot on the green, aiming for the hole directly underneath the towering moose.

Just as I was about to swing, I sensed something—movement right above me. Acting on instinct, I dropped my club and jumped back.

A split second later, one of the fake moose’s huge antlers came crashing down—right where I’d just been standing.

“NANCY!” BESS CRIED.“ ARE YOU OKAY?”

“Yes. I mean no.” I glanced down at my left arm, realizing that it was hurting. There was a trickle of blood on my forearm. “I mean, um, sort of.”

By now George, Claude, and various others had reached me too. “Stand back, please!” Claude ordered. “She is injured!”

“Oh, dear!” one of the older ladies watching exclaimed.

“Shall we call the medic?” the old man called out.

“Of course we should, Harold!” his wife said. “Don’t be such an old fool!”

Just then a young man in a Superstar uniform elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. It was Mike, the employee who’d helped us pick out our clubs. Hiro the youth coordinator was right behind him.

“What happened?” Mike asked. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’ll call a medic.” Hiro whipped out a cell phone.

“No, I’m okay.” I took a deep breath, willing my heartbeat to return to normal. Then I glanced at my arm. “It’s just a scrape—see? The edge of the antler must’ve caught me on its way down.”

George frowned and glanced at the moose. “How’d that happen, anyway?” she wondered. Grabbing the moose’s nose, she swung her leg up onto its knee and started climbing.

“Miss! Get down from here!” Mike warned. “Please, the medic will be here shortly.”

“I told you, I’m fine,” I insisted. “I don’t need a medic.”

George let out a cry. “Check this out!” she exclaimed. She’d climbed higher and was straddling the moose’s neck by now. “It looks like someone loosened the screws that were holding that antler in place. All it would take
is for someone to touch the moose, and
bam
! Down it would come.”

Bess went white. “Oh no!” she cried. “It was me! I leaned back against the moose’s side to get a better view of Nancy. It’s all my fault!”

“Don’t be silly.” I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “You had no way of knowing those screws were loose. Anyway, I’m fine.”

Mike looked troubled. “This mini-golf course is brand-new,” he said. “Someone must have forgotten to tighten those screws when they were putting everything together during setup.”

Hiro bit his lip and clapped his hands sharply. “Please step away from the obstacles, everyone!” he called out. “We’ll have to check them all for safety before the course can reopen. This was just an unfortunate accident, but we’re taking care of it.”

An accident? I wasn’t so sure. From what I could tell, it seemed to fit the pattern of sabotage so far.

And I’m a target again,
a little voice in my head added.

I shook off the thought. Accident or not, there was
no way the saboteur could have known I’d be the one standing beneath the moose. Was there?

Suddenly nervous, I glanced around. Two more employees had appeared and were busy herding Harold, his wife, and the other onlookers over toward the snack bar. Bess still looked distraught as she stared at my arm. Alan was next to her, murmuring into her ear. Most of the others were watching George climb down from the moose, including one of the cameramen, who was filming it.

My eyes widened as I remembered the cameras. The whole incident had been caught on tape! This could be the break we needed.

I glanced around. “Where’s the other camera guy—Baraz?” I asked Claude. “We should look at the footage he got and see if we can tell what happened.”

Claude glanced around too. “Looks like Baraz has disappeared.” He frowned and muttered, “Again.”

The other cameraman heard us and stepped forward. “I might have something,” he offered. “The moose was in the background of what I was filming. See?”

He held out the camera so Claude and I could see its little playback screen. George, Bess, Alan, Mike, and Hiro huddled behind me, peering over my shoulders.

The playback focused on Bess and Alan. It was obvious that the cameraman had been going for a cute, romantic human interest scene of the two of them. They were standing to one side of the moose, laughing and flirting. I was barely visible in one corner, first standing there stiffly, then shuffling closer to the moose and lining up my shot.

“No!” Bess exclaimed as she watched Alan put his arm around her on the monitor, the two of them leaning back against the moose’s furry side to watch my shot. “See? It really was my fault!”

“Our fault.” Alan glanced at me. “We’re so sorry, Nancy.”

I waved him off, focusing on the monitor. “Can you play it back again?” I asked the camera operator.

But it was no use. The accident was visible in the background, but it was a pretty awkward angle, and
we couldn’t see much more than we already knew. The only thing the footage confirmed was that nobody else had been close enough to tamper with the moose.

As the second playback ended, my phone buzzed. I glanced at it and saw a text from Becca:
SOMETHING ELSE JUST HAPPENED,
she wrote.
GOING 2 CHECK IT OUT. WILL UPDATE SOON.

The medic, a brisk woman in her thirties, appeared at that moment. “Step aside, please,” she ordered. “Let’s have a look.”

She was still examining my arm when Becca rushed in, breathless and pink-cheeked. “Nancy!” she exclaimed when she saw me.

I smiled weakly as we both realized at the same time that I was the “something else” she’d just texted me about. One of the employees must have called her.

“I’m okay,” I told her. I waved a hand at the medic. “This is just a precaution.”

Becca nodded, though she didn’t seem to be focused on me anymore. She was staring at Hiro, who was
kneeling down to examine the fallen antler. There was a strange expression on Becca’s face, one I couldn’t quite figure out. What did that mean?

Before I could pull her aside to ask, Marcelo arrived on the scene. “Well, now,” he exclaimed in his jovial voice. “What do we have here? Attacking mooses? Or is it meeses?” He chuckled. “I can never remember which it is.” He came over and put a hand on my shoulder. “How is she, doc?” he asked the medic.

“She’ll be fine,” the woman replied. “But I’d better take her to the clinic and clean that scrape.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I have a Band-Aid back in the suite.”

Just then Tobias stomped in, pushing past an employee who tried to stop him. “Hey!” he shouted. “When’s the stupid tour going to start again?”

Hiro looked startled, as if he’d just remembered what he was supposed to be doing. “Sorry, Tobias,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”

Tobias snorted and turned away. “Not that I care,” he announced to no one in particular. “So far it’s so
boring that I might as well be sitting in my room staring at the wall.”

Hiro shot Becca a nervous glance, then hurried after the boy. Suddenly Becca’s strange look earlier made more sense. I guessed that as assistant cruise director, she was probably Hiro’s direct supervisor. He had to feel embarrassed about getting caught abandoning his young charges, even given the unusual circumstances.

“You’ll like the next part, Tobias,” Hiro called out. “We’re going to meet Captain Peterson and see all the computers and other high-tech stuff in the control room. Won’t that be cool? I heard you’re a real computer whiz . . . .”

His voice faded as he disappeared around the corner. Meanwhile the medic poked me in the shoulder. “Come,” she said. “We’re going to the clinic. No arguing.”

Ten minutes later I was sitting on a cold plastic chair in a small but well-stocked medical clinic near the center of the ship while a nurse put a Band-Aid over my scrape. The medic was at a desk nearby, scribbling notes on some paperwork.

“Can I go now?” I called to her.

She glanced up and opened her mouth to answer. At that moment the door flew open and Wendy the blogger rushed in.

“Oh my gosh!” she cried when she spotted me. “Are you okay, Nancy? I just heard what happened!”

“News travels fast around here,” I said.

The nurse was already bustling forward. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Patients only allowed in here.”

“But I want to interview her for my blog!” Wendy protested.

“You heard her. Out,” the medic said sternly. “You can visit with your friend once she’s released.”

I didn’t bother to explain that Wendy and I weren’t exactly friends. Frankly, I was surprised she’d remembered my name.

Maybe she should be a suspect,
I thought.
It’s odd how she keeps turning up right after bad stuff happens. And wouldn’t covering a bunch of crazy cruise disasters be a big draw for her travel blog?

I was afraid Wendy might be waiting for me when
the medic finally released me from the clinic. Instead I found my friends out in the hall.

“Oh, good,” Alan joked when he saw the bandage on my arm. “We were afraid they’d have to amputate.”

“Very funny,” I said with a smile—and a flash of guilt for wishing he wasn’t there. I really wanted to talk to Bess and George about my new Wendy theory.

But that didn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon. It was lunchtime by now, and Alan dragged us off toward the café. “I’ve heard the buffet on this ship is spectacular,” he said.

“It is,” George told him. “At least breakfast was pretty amazing.”