Mask on the Cruise Ship (3 page)

I scraped what little fingernails I owned over the mouthpiece. Nothing wrong with creating a little static. What a creep this Elaine was! It was surprising Julie had any self-confidence left at all.

“Sorry, can't hear you,” I said and powered off.

Chapter 3
Attack of the brussels sprouts

M
other insisted Mr. Wellman and Julie stay for dinner. She asked Mr. Wellman if he'd like to phone his wife and invite her, too, but it turned out she was visiting friends in San Diego. “So you've saved me from a frozen dinner,” my agent thanked Mother. “And, given my kitchen comprehension skills, frozen dinners tend to remain frozen, even after I've heated them up.”

“Oh dear,” fretted Mother, not recognizing yet another of Mr. Wellman's lame jokes. Like Madge, she was pretty, though in a softened, middle-aged kind of way, and dreamy to the point of being somewhat dotty. “How hungry you must be, then! … And you, Julie, is there anyone, um, a partner or family member you'd like to call — ”

“Thanks, but I'm alone in the world except for my stepsister,” Julie smiled. “And I don't see her much; she's so busy with her teaching and public speaking.”

And with being nasty, I thought. I didn't tell Julie about Elaine's call. I was sure Julie got enough of her stepsister as it was.

Pantelli dropped by in time to join us for dinner, something he did often. Pantelli had already eaten, but, like mine, his appetite was endless. Unlike me, irritatingly, he stayed as skinny as the twigs he liked to examine through his magnifying glass.

He immediately applied the magnifying glass to the Raven. “Cool,” he breathed.

“Yes, the mask combines the Raven's mischief and majesty all at once,” Julie said.

Pantelli looked up, his brown eyes puzzled beneath his untidy black curls. “Huh? I meant the
wood
,” he clarified. “It's yellow cedar. Very resistant to decay. Interestingly, the inner side of a yellow cedar's bark smells like potatoes.”

“Er … speaking of potatoes, why don't we have some,” Mother suggested to Julie, who seemed rather baffled. Pantelli took some getting used to. Like, years.

Over roast beef, garlic mashed potatoes and, much less pleasantly, brussels sprouts, Julie told us how she'd once visited a lecture of Elaine's.

“It was at the Vancouver Roundhouse Community Center. I tried to slip into the lecture room unseen — and knocked over a chair. Unluckily, Elaine had stacked books and papers on the chair. These went flying! What a commotion.

“Elaine was furious. Claimed I'd deliberately ruined the speech she was giving to these high school kids.”

“Wow,” said Pantelli. “You sound like Dinah. Impossible for Di to make a quiet entrance.”

“I'm sure the lecture wasn't ruined,” Mother reassured her as I glared at Pantelli. “Here, have some brussels sprouts, Dinah,” and she ladled a mini-mountain of them onto my plate.

Mother then politely concentrated on Julie, who began talking about her art. These brussels sprouts have to go, I was thinking. I tipped my plate, emptying the mini-mountain into the napkin on my lap.

Madge eyed me with distaste. She was the type who took a good helping of vegetables and only dainty portions of mashed potatoes and beef. Sick, in my view. “Sometimes it's not only
step
sisters who are vastly, even frighteningly, different,” she remarked.

This got her odd looks from Mother, Julie, Mr. Wellman and Pantelli, but I didn't think Madge was planning to give me away. Madge didn't tattletale when she was in a good mood.

Which she was, this week, because a) she was going on a cruise ship packed with clothing boutiques, and b) even better, Mr. Wellman had wangled a job for her boyfriend, Jack French, on the
Empress Marie
as a swimming instructor.

Jack was very athletic, with all kinds of Red Cross and Royal This-And-That badges and certificates. A regrettable side to an otherwise nice guy.

I'd guessed right about my sister, for, glowing with girlfriendly pride, she began to tell Julie about Jack: “He took a year off after high school to volunteer with an anti-smoking group, but this fall he starts university. He plans to become a teacher.”

The rest of us smiled encouragingly. My smile was my phony, bared-teeth one, though. Not that I didn't admire Jack. I did, wholeheartedly.

However, my mind was on getting rid of the brussels sprouts.

Rolling up the
brussels sprouts-stuffed napkin, I tucked it under my arm and mumbled an excuse about needing to go to the washroom. No one batted an eye. Smooth, or what?

I was being honest. I did need a washroom — so I could flush the sprouts down the toilet. If the yechy green things were so nutritious, let the city sewers be healthy.

By the upstairs bathroom, I paused to unroll the napkin. Beside me was Madge's room; the door to her balcony, which faced on to the street, was open. Madge had been leaving it open, even in the chilliest weather, since reading in one of her fashion magazines that too much indoor air stifled the complexion.

Right.

Now, through the balcony door, I heard a boy's voice say: “Yup, LOUD is the word for Dinah Galloway.”

Huh? Still clutching the brussels sprouts-filled napkin, I went through Madge's room to the balcony and stepped out. The balcony railing was covered with wisteria that we let grow wild, much to our neighbors' disapproval. The advantage to us was that all those rampant leaves acted as a privacy screen.

Crouching below the railing, I peered through the leaves at the boy who'd just dissed me.

It was the new boy in my grade seven class. Talbot St. John.

There's a twerpy name for you. Imagine naming a kid “Talbot” if he was already stuck with “St. John.”

The twerpish sound of it had not, however, prevented several girls in my class from going gaga over him. I suppose because he was tall — well, tall for a grade seven — with dark hair that drooped in a soulful lock over deep blue eyes.

Maybe it was the late-birthday thing again, but, soulful lock or not, I failed to understand why the girls stood around at recess in limp clumps, drained of any energy, and certainly of any personality, gazing with hopeless adoration at him.

It was one of the gaga girls he was talking to on the sidewalk: Liesl Dubuque, our neighbors' niece. Liesl was staying with them for a year while her parents traveled.

Liesl had a white, sharp face framed by wedge-cut black hair. She was always tugging on the back of her hair, the wedge part. I'd overheard her say she wanted to grow her hair out to — get this — impress Talbot.

As well as sharp features, Liesl had a sharp, scornful laugh, which she erupted into now.

“ ‘LOUD' doesn't express it, Talbot. When Dinah opens her mouth, there's no point in anyone else trying to speak. Ms. Boom-Boom deafens us all.”

“Talk about breaking the sound barrier,” Talbot began — and Liesl's laugh sliced through the air again.

I'd had enough. Grabbing brussels sprouts, I started hurling them at the sidewalk duo. I had good aim, too, so —
splat! splat!
— the round green blobs smashed against their heads.

“AT LEAST I HAVE A PERSONALITY, YOU TWO TWERPS,” I bellowed. “THEY'D HAVE TO SEND OUT A SEARCH PARTY TO FIND
YOURS
!”

Down to one brussels sprout, I crouched behind the wisteria-thick railing again. After all, you never knew. Talbot and Liesl might be packing eggs or tomatoes.

It was then that I noticed something.

Wisteria wasn't all that was gripping the balcony rails. At the side, two black-gloved hands were as well.

My mouth dropped into an elongated O. Amid the wisteria leaves, a black-balaclava-covered face stared back at me. I was able, at least, to see the eyes. They were a pale, and at this moment rather shocked, gooseberry color.

A burglar! He'd climbed the wisteria-laden trellis. He'd intended to break in by way of the balcony.

If I thought
my
jaw had plummeted, his had practically hit Australia. Frantic ideas about screaming or running for help fled my mind. I knew exactly what to do.

I took the last brussels sprout and shoved it through the railing into his wide-open mouth.

Wrenching away in
reaction to the brussels sprout, the masked man yanked too hard on the trellis. Along with the sound of splitting wood, there was an “AAAGGH!” as the man fell back, back … into one of the firs separating our yard from the neighbors'.

I saw the man was dressed head-to-toe in black, including turtleneck, pants and hiking boots.

The evergreen he smashed backward against buckled under his weight. Then the tree trampolined him forward again. He slid straight down to thump in a painful heap on Mother's snapdragons.

There were voices behind me, on the stairs.

“What the — ?” Mr. Wellman erupted.

“Property destruction?” came Pantelli's admiring voice. “Cool, Dinah.”

From Mother, in an apologetic tone to Julie, “Somehow a household with Dinah in it is never quiet, if you know what I mean.”

“It's not my fault,” I objected, as the others joined me on the balcony. I pointed to the masked man, who was picking himself up with difficulty from the flattened snapdragons. “Bet it's your inept thief again, Julie.”

Julie could only moan.

Deciding to be a bit more practical, I started to charge downstairs after the thief — but Mother and Madge held me back. “No tangling with criminals,” Mother warned. “We leave on our cruise tomorrow.”

Mr. Wellman punched in 911 on his cell phone. He had to plug a finger into his free ear and retreat inside the house to make the call, though, because at that moment our beefy neighbor stomped outside.

“WHO'S BEEN ATTACKING MY TREE?” yelled Liesl's uncle, Mr. Dubuque. He waved a hairy, white-knuckled fist at the fir tree.

He had a point. The tree was now bent slightly back, out of line with the orderly row of the rest of the trees. The Dubuques, I knew, did like to be orderly.

“You'll need a gigantic splint for the tree,” Pantelli called down helpfully. “And don't forget to talk to the tree while you prop it back into place. Trees
hear
, you know.”

Doubtless Pantelli meant well, but Mr. Dubuque only grew angrier. He spluttered out some words that Madge and I had always been strictly forbidden to use.

Meanwhile, the masked burglar was hobbling into the Dubuques' backyard.

“Him!” Mother, Madge and I shouted, pointing along the side of our house at the burglar.

“Her!” shouted Liesl, pointing at me.

In fairness, from where she stood, Liesl probably hadn't seen the burglar. But there was nothing fair in her expression. In Liesl's sharp white face, her dark eyes glittered with malicious pleasure.

What was worse, Talbot then laughed.

“I might have known,” wailed Mr. Dubuque, glowering up at me.

“Don't be silly, Albert,” said Mother, a rare impatient note in her voice. “Dinah isn't Hercules. She's not able to twist trees out of shape.”

Trust Mother, in a crisis, to respond with a literary reference. Mother loved books — in fact, she was finishing her last course before getting her library science degree.

However, the reference was lost in the approaching wail of police sirens. The masked burglar hobbled out the Dubuques' back gate into the alley.

I glared at Talbot — and at Liesl, who, smirking at all the commotion, was pulling at her wedge.

Chapter 4
A simply smashing launch

P
ULL ONLY IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.

I studied the sign over the glass-encased, red fire alarm on the
Empress Marie
's deck. One of her decks, to be precise. There were eleven on the 91,000-ton ship that had initially reminded me of a fat white bar of soap. Some bar of soap. Steel, glass and marble a thousand feet long, with a beam (that's nautical for width at a ship's very widest part) of 105 feet wide.

“There won't be any emergency, small fry,” Jack assured me, his gray eyes amused. “Not with Mr. Trotter around, running the
Empress
like a drill sergeant.”

We'd already seen the program manager. He'd fluttered by us, patting his waxed mustache agitatedly and snapping out orders to every ship's steward he passed. Such as: “Make sure the Helpful Hints suggestion box is polished every day!”

“What if Julie's masked burglar follows her on board?” I demanded.

I leaned on the railing and surveyed the two thousand or so people sardined into Vancouver's cruise ship terminal below. Being a performer, I'd got to board early, bringing Mother and Madge with me. Like Jack, for this one week I was a member of the Happy Escapes Cruise Lines staff.

The regular passengers faced a longer wait, what with checking in their luggage and getting through U.S. customs. I could tell they were growing impatient; a lot of the faces below me were scrunched into grimaces.

But was the masked burglar anywhere among those faces? All I knew about him was that he was slight, about five nine — and had gooseberry-colored eyes.

And that he loathed brussels sprouts.

After showing up at our house, the police had found one witness, the next block over, who'd spotted a man in black hobbling into a battered Volkswagen van. The man had, the witness said, been chewing something — with his mouth pursed in utter distaste.

Okay, so his taste buds were normal even if his morals weren't, I thought. I scanned the crowd, admittedly a useless exercise since I couldn't see eye color from here.

“That and the sea air will soon put our masked trellis-breaker out of your mind,” Mother was saying — not without a certain pleading note in her voice. She knew me too well.

I hadn't heard the first part of what she'd said. “
What
and the sea air?” I demanded.