Mask on the Cruise Ship (15 page)

Then Roman — I knew he was Roman because of the black R sewn on one of his sleeves — sneezed. “Uh-oh, I need a hanky,” he proclaimed. He grabbed a passing bubble. It turned into a handkerchief the size of a mini-tablecloth! And, this being the
Empress Marie
, it was a blue mini-tablecloth with a fat white ship imprinted on it.

Applause and whistles. I forgot about worrying how to find Mother, Madge and Jack and joined in. Cool, I thought, and —
Hey, Dad, you should see this
.

Which is what I always think when something really special happens, though I never, never tell anyone.

Hans and Roman bowed. Then Hans, who had a big black H on
his
sleeve, announced: “And now it's time for our famous vanishing trick!” With his wand, he gestured at a large, upright silver coffin. “One lucky member of the audience gets to disappear,
poof!
” A swirl of smoke puffed from the tip of his wand. “No more creditors, no more taxes, no more mothers-in-law … at least until we magically bring you back, that is!”

Hans roared at his joke, but then hurried on as only very weak chuckles limped from the audience. “Er, yes. Well! Let's search for a victim — why, what am I saying? I mean,
volunteer
. Searchlights, please!”

Two silver orbs began gliding slowly over the audience. Spotting an anxious-faced Mother, along with Madge and Jack, near the stage, I waved to show her I was there.

Then I realized how useless this was. I was in pitch-darkness.

People were oohing and giggling. Who would be the victim/volunteer?

Somewhere beside me, one person wasn't oohing or giggling. I recognized a familiar whine.

“I waited and waited, and my relief person never showed up. The nerve!”

Fill-In, complaining again. Brother. She couldn't even relax long enough to enjoy a Hans and Roman show.

The spotlights shifted over more tables. There were Lavinia and the long-suffering Ira. Talbot and his sharp-faced mom. Evan. Mr. Trotter. Captain Heidgarten.

One of the spotlights moved, spilling on me. Hey, now Mother, Madge and Jack would see me! I waved to attract their notice.

Fill-In ranted on. “What I'm saying is, I waited, and the guy didn't appear. I was hopping mad!”

I kept waving, all the while glancing over the people in the other pool of silver light: Lavinia, Ira, Talbot and Sharp-Face, Evan, Mr. Trotter, Captain Heidgarten …

The spotlight melted off them and fell on another group of tables.

“ … waited and waited … ”

Roman boomed, “That girl waving at the back — we have a volunteer! An enthusiastic one, too. Strange. Usually we have to force someone to — er, I mean, how wonderful! Who
wouldn't
want to vanish courtesy of Hans and Roman? Why, I believe that's the
Empress Marie
's singing sensation, Miss Dinah Galloway!”

I should have been thrilled that the famous Hans and Roman knew about me. But I was staring at the dark patch where the other spotlight had been.

Fill-In's words were echoing in my brain.
I waited and
waited and the guy didn't show. The guy didn't show.

The last frozen chunk of memory melted. I saw in my mind the Mendenhall Glacier Visitors' Center exactly the way I'd seen it through the binoculars.

And I knew,
I knew
, who Gooseberry Eyes was.

Chapter 17
Gooseberry Eyes, the less-than-ideal host

G
ooseberry Eyes wasn't traveling by land. He'd hardly spent any time on land at all during this trip.

Gooseberry Eyes was here on the
Empress Marie
. Why hadn't I realized it before? Probably, dang it, because I'd liked the guy. He'd been here all along, and he was here now, in Hans and Roman's audience.

Well, if this audience liked surprises, it was in for a treat now. I sucked in a deep breath, preparing to belt out that I'd unmasked the mask thief. The applause was dying down; this was the perfect time.

Roman beckoned to me.

I opened my mouth —

A strong arm curved round my waist and hoisted me out of the spotlight.

“Bravo!” cried people from all over the ballroom. Even Fill-In stopped whining to exclaim, “
Remote
magic! I never!”

I
never got to utter the faintest chirp. A hand muzzled my mouth, and I was whisked along the dark wall behind a row of tall, potted plants. Not that I could see the plants; I just felt their broad leaves brushing against me.

“Wait a minute,” protested Hans and Roman, but applause overwhelmed them. Making someone disappear — without bothering to use their special magic coffin! What a triumph!

Meanwhile, my abductor opened a door behind the potted plants, whose thick leaves blocked the resulting wedge of light from the audience's view.

He whisked me through the door and beyond any possibility of help.

“This is a service route,
you see,” he panted, chuckling. He bore me down a long white corridor that soon bent into an even longer downward slope. “Very busy in the daytime, don't you know. But rarely during showtime. No calls for room service — our clients are occupied with the quality acts we book. Alas, the curtain is about to come down a bit early on one of those acts. The loudest one, our singing star, Dinah Galloway.”

I'd been kicking fiercely; that hadn't deterred him. So instead I chomped down hard on the palm of his hand.

“OW!” Gratifyingly, he removed his hand and stopped to shake the feeling back into it.

“Let me just see your gooseberry eyes, Gooseberry Eyes,” I said. Reaching up with both hands, I stretched his eyelids way to the sides. A dark-tinted contact lens sprang out of each eye. I plucked off the bushy white wig, too, while I was at it.

“You're too young for Lavinia,” I observed as gooseberry eyes blinked at me in surprise from wrinkled folds of skin. Makeup-wrinkled folds of skin. Close up, I saw that now. “You should have stayed at the Happy Escapes office, Peabody Roberts, instead of sneaking aboard the
Empress Marie
in an old man's disguise. And Lavinia should have enjoyed her afternoon at Mendenhall Glacier instead of storming about, fuming, because you'd disappeared. To sneak up the trail and push me in the lake, I might add.”

Peabody Roberts gave a dry giggle, like the sound of dead leaves being stepped on and crushed. “You might, indeed!”

“And you're definitely old enough to know better than to steal,” I continued.

I didn't wait for a reply. Instead, I began to yell.

“That won't do you any good at all,” Peabody snapped. “The walls are solid — to protect our precious passengers from being disturbed by the jangle of room-service trolleys.”

I ceased yelling. It was time to breathe, anyway. “How
did
you manage to sneak aboard as Ira Stone?” I demanded.

Peabody retrieved the wig and stuffed it into my mouth. Then, clutching me closer, he resumed scuttling down the long slope. “I borrowed the passenger list from Trotter. Wanted to see who'd canceled. Whose place I could take. It was Julie's idea.”

He giggled again. “It was Julie who got me hired on as a summer student. Julie, forging her famous sister Elaine's name on the recommendation letter. Hee-hee!”

Peabody was panting again, but evidently the pleasure of bragging was worth the discomfort of talking while he hurried. And got kicked. “Ow! Now cut that out … I stayed after hours one day, logged on to Trotter's computer and, on the master passenger list, changed
Stone, Ira
from cancelled to confirmed.”

“Mmmflgtch,” I commented, and I landed a good kick on Peabody's shins.

“OWWW! C'mon now. My back is still sore from falling down along with your crummy trellis. What's the matter with your family, can't they afford decent building materials?” Peabody complained.

We reached the bottom of the slope. Peabody paused, his free hand on the doorknob. “You're probably wondering how I got Ira Stone's passport,” he smirked. “Broke into the old geezer's house. He's in the hospital — that's why he canceled out on the cruise. I got his American Express card, too!

“At the terminal, you thought I'd left — but I changed into my old-man duds in the stairwell and hobbled aboard as Ira. Sweet, huh?”

“Mmmflgtch!”

“Thank you,” Peabody said modestly. He swung the door open and we passed into a hallway with stateroom doors on both sides — but, sadly for me, with no one going in or out of them.

As Peabody had said, everyone was at the show.

Peabody stumbled into
his stateroom, or rather Ira Stone's, and sank back against the door, panting anew. I wrenched myself loose and I sprinted for the phone — but never made it. Peabody hoisted me again.

“One thing you have to say for thieves,” he smirked. “We stay in good shape.”

He bore me out to the balcony.

Balcony! I forgot to yell for the moment. I hadn't been on an
Empress
balcony before. How nice it would be to sit out here, well bundled up, of course, with a steaming mug of hot chocolate, under the glittery stars and yellow, buttery moon.

Somehow I didn't think a nice evening was what Peabody had in mind. A considerate host would not, for example, be dangling his guest over the balcony's edge. And giggling while he did so.

I was shaking all over. “You won't get away with this,” I chattered through my nervously hip-hopping teeth. A clichéd observation, to be sure, but wit and originality seemed to have fled.

“Oh yes I will,” Peabody giggled. “Julie got busted, but I'm free as a bird — ha! free as the
Raven
bird. That idiot Trotter will never get the hint about who I am. And that old hag Lavinia — I told her the only way I'd consider marrying her is if she stopped jabbering about the guy who crashed into her at the terminal. I told her if there was one thing I couldn't stand, it was a whiner. That's why Lavinia clammed up about Gooseberry Eyes. By the way, that's not a very flattering nickname,” he added, pouting.

Great. A villain with hurt feelings. “What do you want, a written apology?” I chattered.

“Hee-hee! Always with the wisecracks! But you see what I mean? Julie always said
she
was as smart as the Raven. Turns out I'm the one who is! There's no evidence against me, no evidence at all!”

He giggled yet again, a habit that was really starting to grate on me.

“
I'm
evidence,” I snapped.

Probably not the wisest remark to make, in the circumstances.

“There is no you, not anymore,” Peabody pointed out.

And dropped me into the ocean.

Chapter 18
The unexpected rescuer

C
artwheeling down, I went in left elbow first. The cold
SMACK
of the waves was so fierce that I couldn't breathe. I could only stare hopelessly up at the fat white bar of soap, which the
Empress Marie
resembled more than ever through my blurry, sopping glasses. The
Empress
was moving briskly by and would soon sail beyond me. It's at night that cruise ships pick up their speed.

I gasped hoarsely and finally took something in — a huge mouthful of icy seawater. Coughing it out, I yelled, “HELP!”

And went under. Till then, without realizing it, I'd been treading water. Round, flat, rhythmic strokes, just as Jack had taught me.

Now, panicking, I reverted to my old, pre-lessons, freaking-out ways. I chopped and thrashed at the water while gasping with fright.

And sank under a huge black wave.

Down, down it pushed me. I couldn't swim; no point in trying. I was going numb. In a second I'd see Dad again, with his black eyes bright and full of life. Maybe this time he'd actually play me a Peggy Lee song.

Because this time I knew “Is That All There Is?” was my song, all right. That's all there was going to be for me.

I saw Dad — but he wasn't smiling and reaching for an album to play. He was saying,
C'mon, you gotta try harder
than that
.
What did Jack teach you?

I pushed myself up through the waves and forced my limbs into the strokes I'd learned. Forced them pretty clumsily at first, but I bobbed into place on the water's surface. I surfed the waves instead of being rolled by them.

But the fat white bar of soap was streaming on by. Even through my watery glasses I could see the stern approaching.

Your voice, Dinah! You've got this great gift
, Dad would say to me. He'd add teasingly,
This great
LOUD
gift
. Only now, he was speaking impatiently.

Your voice, darlin'. It'll save you.

My voice had saved me in the past. Once I'd been able to summon help while trapped in a broom closet; once I'd prevented a jewel thief from escaping a crowded theater.

Three times not lucky. My throat was swollen and dry from the salt. My limbs needed all the energy I could muster to keep treading water. “I … can't,” I croaked.

The stern was almost alongside me. No one would see. No one would hear.

Sure they will, kid.

“They won't,” I croaked and started to cry. “Dad … ”

Then, incredibly, I heard my voice belting out into the night.

A face appeared
in a porthole. “Help!” I gasped. Since there was minuscule volume attached to my voice, this plea for help went nowhere. I raised an arm in a frantic wave. Which ruined my semi-smooth strokes, and I sank.

I emerged, hacking out my latest intake of salt water. The face was still there! I squinted through my blurred lenses. The face was —
it was looking down at me!

“DINAH!” bellowed Talbot St. John. “OH GOD,
DINAH!
STAY THERE — I'LL GET HELP!”

“Stay there?!”
I regarded Talbot shakily over the largest mug of hot chocolate I'd ever seen, plus folds and folds of the snug blue-and-white blankets I was wrapped in. “So you're a comedian as well as a lifesaver.”