Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise (9 page)

“Good idea,” I tell her, because all of a sudden I want to escape to my room the quickest way possible. Trouble is, people from the theater are swarming around the elevators and it’s taking forever, so we finally give up and head for the stairs. Only they’re really packed, too, and some of the people are both sloooooow and impossible to pass.

I guess Marissa can tell I’m dying, because we’ve only gone up two flights when she cuts out of the crowd and says, “Let’s go up the aft stairs.”

So she leads us toward the back of the ship, through
the promenade and all its shops, and we’re just getting to the swoopy stairs, which are located a little before the glamour-free stairs, when she comes skidding to a halt and cries, “The boarding pictures are out!”

“Boarding pictures?” And then I see the racks of cheesy say-cheese pictures.

Aisles and aisles and
aisles
of cheesy say-cheese pictures.

“Marissa, no. I do not want a cheesy say-cheese picture!”

“Oh, let’s just find ours and then you can decide.”

Darren says, “Sure, let’s do that,” and follows her into the Forest of Cheesy Smiles.

I give Marko a pleading look, but he distracts me with a little head nod. “Uh … aliens on aisle two?” And when I look to where he’d nodded, I see Kate and Ginger scanning the wall of pictures in front of them.

I grab Marko and we duck down the back side of the same aisle, which is also covered with pictures. “We avoiding the Diamond Dame or spying on her?” he whispers.

Now, the truth is, I hadn’t even thought about spying until he mentioned it. But since the walls are just metal mesh covered by racks of pictures and not exactly
soundproof
, I figure it won’t hurt to, you know, move down the aisle and pretend to be looking at cheesy say-cheese pictures, too.

So I give Marko a little grin, and he gives me a piratey one back, and before you know it, we’re down the aisle with our ears perked. We can barely see Kate and Ginger through the mesh—just little squares of them here and
there. But it doesn’t take too long for us to tune in and hear, “So what are you going to do?”

There’s a sigh, and then, “It has certainly not gone well so far. And it’s much harder than I’d imagined. Their reaction was … well, frankly, it was a shock.”

Marko leans in and whispers, “That’s Diamonds?” so I give him a quick nod and listen as Ginger says, “I haven’t seen a lot of tears, that’s for sure. And I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t toast him.”

“I’m telling you, as their mother—as the one who was sure they would rise to the occasion and support their father’s wishes—this is
extremely
upsetting.”

“Are you saying John was right?”

“I’m saying I don’t like the direction this has taken.”

They’re quiet for a minute, then Ginger says, “It’s hard to believe they’ve all blown through their trust funds.”

“I’m sure they always counted on there being more.”

“But how do you go through that much money?”

“Well, Bradley was convinced he had great business acumen and made some bad deals; Lucas borrowed heavily against some of his properties to buy others and is upside down on all of them. And Teresa?” Another sigh. “She refused to come up through the ranks and learn from a legitimate designer, and then self-distributed her artistic delusions with disastrous results. Did you see that blouse she was wearing tonight? No wonder nothing sold.”

We can see them moving slowly down the aisle, apparently looking at everybody’s pictures. Then they stop and Kate says, “I am not looking forward to breaking the rest
of the news to them, though. They are going to be furious. I wish John could be at my side!”

“I can’t believe none of them gave it any thought. Especially Teresa. It’s ironic, really.”

“Yes, it is. And Bradley will almost certainly try to do something about it, but he’ll get nowhere. Hammett Spade was very thorough in preparing the documents.”

“Is Hammett up to speed on … everything?”

“Oh, yes.” There’s a moment of silence as they move farther down the aisle, and then Kate says, “Look here!”

Through the mesh we can sort of see a picture move and then hear Ginger’s voice say, “Oh! That’s cute, actually.” She chuckles. “But what a motley crew, huh?”

“They were being rather wild tonight, weren’t they?”

“JT told me that that one is somebody famous. A musician?”

“Oh, well, that would explain that. The girls were polite enough up in the suite, though, did you notice?”

“I did.”

“And they’re both darling, but why those shoes?”

“Maybe Teresa could help?”

Kate chuckles. “I take it back. The shoes are perfect.”

They both bust up and then Kate says, “I could use another martini. Shall we?”

“You’re avoiding.”

Kate sighs and we can sort of see the picture slide back into place. “It’s eleven-thirty. Haven’t we had enough for one day?”

“Rip off the bandage, Kate. Get this over with.”

Another sigh. “You’re right. They’re all still up. Let’s call a meeting.”

I look at Marko like, A meeting? Now? and he looks back like, I know, huh?

Then we both beat it farther down the aisle before we get caught snooping.

I’m not sure that I’d ever snooped with an adult before. For one thing, it’s just not natural. And adults are the ones who are always telling you to mind your manners. To sit up straight and fly right.

Or whatever.

But the weird thing was that it
wasn’t
weird to be listening through a wall of pictures with Marko. Maybe because we were listening in on people way older than both of us. Or maybe because I knew that under all those years of adulthood, Marko was a spud flinger.

Or maybe because rock ’n’ rollers get old, but they never really become adults.

Whatever. The
point
is, it wasn’t weird. And after we rescued Darren and Marissa from wandering aimlessly through the Forest of Cheesy Smiles and Darren paid way too much money for the picture of the four of us in front of the fake ship backdrop, we all went up to our cabins, agreed to meet for breakfast at ten o’clock, and said good night.

I
was
tired, too, but as Marissa and I are getting ready for bed, I remember.

Homework.

“No!” Marissa cries when I mention it. “Just do it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s my birthday.”

“It’s after midnight now, so it’s already your birthday! So happy birthday. Now go to bed!”

I try to tell myself that she’s right—that it’s late and I’m on a
cruise
and who does homework on vacation anyway? But in the back of my mind I keep picturing Ms. Rothhammer’s face when I told her that I was turning over a new leaf so I could get on the college track in high school. I thought she was going to cry from happiness, and believe me, Ms. Rothhammer is not the crying kind. I also keep thinking about how she’d helped me after school the last few weeks, and how many times she’d said she was proud of me for trying so hard and “showing such discipline.”

But since Marissa’s already in bed and there’s no place in the room where I can work without keeping her awake, I go to bed, too. But that stupid word
discipline
won’t leave me alone. Plus, it doesn’t feel like my birthday yet, and the last thing I want to do on my actual birthday is chemistry problems. And if I wait until the day after, I’ll be in real trouble because in the back of my mind I’m remembering Marissa saying that the two days after my birthday are “port days,” when we’re supposed to go on land excursions or something.

The desk clock says 12:30, but since Marissa’s now
snoring
and I can’t sleep, I get up and get dressed as quietly as I can, grab my backpack and sea-pass card, ease the cabin door open, and sneak out.

I know exactly where I’m going because we’d checked out the Lido Library on Deck 8 when we’d first explored the ship, and Marissa and I had passed by it a bunch of times as we’d gone up and down the stairs near our room.

There’s a plaque on the door that says Q
UIET
Z
ONE
, and inside there’s dark wood paneling and bookcases and library tables and leather armchairs the color of dried blood. There’s also a long table of back-to-back computers and an alcove with a printer. So it’s the perfect place to do my homework, plus it’s really close to our cabin—basically, just down one flight of stairs—so I don’t have to worry about getting lost.

There’s only one other person in the room when I get there—a middle-aged woman with curly salt-and-pepper hair, who’s putting together pieces of a big puzzle that’s on one of the tables. She’s only got part of the border done, and it looks like it’s a really hard puzzle—the pieces seem small and are in big, yellowish mounds.

I smile when she looks over, then settle in at a table on the other side of the room with my work sheet, my notes, my pencils, paper, and calculator, and the infamous periodic table of the elements.

And then I just sit there, staring at the first problem.

I don’t hate math. And I don’t hate chemistry. What I hate is when the two get put together,
and
scientific words get thrown around in class before I have a really good understanding of them. It’s like reading something where you keep forgetting what certain words
mean
. Or you mix up their meanings. So you spend your time sort of scrambling to keep up, looking at your definitions, going, Oh,
right, then realizing that you’ve missed the next thing that was said and that, once again, you’re lost.

Mole
and
molar mass
and
mole ratio
are all words like that for me.

Anything with
mole
in it leaves me in the dark.

Which, yeah, seems pretty appropriate.

There’s
atomic weight
, which I get, but also confuse with
molecular weight
. Probably because
molecular weight
has the word
mole
in it.

Anyway
, Ms. Rothhammer’s work sheet has us doing equations—math—with molecules—chemistry—and the first step is to calculate the molar mass of each compound in the equation.

See?

What does that
mean
?

Anyway, there I am, up to my eyeballs in math and moles, trying to fight my way out of the darkness, when all of a sudden I hear, “You’re doing
homework
?”

Well, let me tell you: Concentration + Surprise = Heart Attack.

And the net reaction?

An explosion.

I bolt out of my chair, shouting, “Don’t
ever
sneak up on me like that again!”

“Sorry!” Kip says, stepping back. “I wasn’t sneaking.”

“Were you spying on me? Were you
following
me?” And it flashes through my mind that maybe he saw me spying on his grandmother in the Forest of Cheesy Smiles.

“No! I came down to check something on the Internet!”

“To …” I look around. The Puzzle Lady’s still there,
but other than her, it’s just him and me and a bunch of books and computers.

“Sorry,” he tells me, and he’s backing away like I’ve hit him.

“Hey,” I call after him, because now I feel really bad. “Sorry. I’m just stressed out by this stupid homework assignment.”

“Is it chemistry?” he asks from halfway across the room. And I’m thinking, Oh, yeah—Kensingtons and chemistry. Like peanut butter and jelly.

But
then
it flashes through my mind that maybe he
hates
chemistry. Maybe he’s sick to death of his granddad being Dr. Fragrance. Maybe he secretly thinks of him as being Dr. Fragrance-stein! Maybe he wants to torch the secret family formula and is embarrassed to be the nephew of the chemistry jokes guy!

So I go ahead and say it. “I hate molar conversions.”

And you know what he says?

He says, “Why?”

“Because they’re hard! And I don’t really understand them! And I’m stuck with a three-page work sheet that I have to do on my birthday cruise!”

He takes a step forward. “It’s your birthday?”

“Tomorrow is. Which I guess is already today. Never mind. The point is, I hate this.”

He takes another step forward. “You want help?”

I hesitate, then shove the paper at him. “You know how to do this?”

He looks it over and starts nodding. “Sure.”

“Sure?” I snatch the paper back.
“Sure?”

He nods. “I love that stuff.”

I just stare at him. And then, even though I hear a voice inside my head screaming DON’T! out of my mouth comes, “Could you help me with just one?”

“I don’t have much time, but sure.”

So he sits down next to me and reads the first problem out loud. “ ‘Calculate the molarity of the solution formed when seventy-five grams of magnesium chloride is dissolved in five hundred milliliters of solution.’ ” He nods and grabs one of my pencils and a piece of paper. “Piece of cake.”

So yeah. I’m sitting next to a know-it-all Kensington, feeling like a boulder brain. “More like stinky cheese, if you ask me.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

“The molarity is just moles divided by liters. But you’re not given moles here, so you have to calculate them first, then divide by liters.”

I want to tell him that I hate moles. That moles put me in a deep, dark place, and that I would much rather be calculating birds or sunflowers or one-eyed bats, for that matter. But what comes out of my mouth is “So how do I calculate moles?”

He grabs the periodic chart. “With this.” He grins. “Grandfather says this is the most elegant single sheet of knowledge ever created.” Then his face kind of falls, and he goes back to the chart. “Anyway, every square in the chart has the element’s atomic number, symbol, name, and atomic mass. For example”—he points to a
square—“phosphorus is element fifteen, has P as its symbol, and an atomic mass of 30.97.” He hands me the chart. “You try. What’s the atomic mass of gold?”

Now, it’s not like the chart’s in alphabetic order. Plus, it turns out that gold’s symbol isn’t G like phosphorus’ is P. And since there are over a hundred elements on the chart, I’m feeling miffed and tricked when I finally find it. “It’s element seventy-nine, its symbol is Au, and it has an atomic mass of 196.97.”