Blue Autumn Cruise (2 page)

“I don’t care,” I said. “I’ll take the top.” I knew they weren’t trying to leave me out. They had tried to include me. They were just happy to see each other. Still, I wished there was a barn somewhere I could escape to.

I
could hardly believe we were going on a cruise! And Lauren and I were going to get to be together for five whole days. I swear my hands were shaking, I was so excited. Grammy was the best grandma ever.

I knew Lauren and I had to be very careful to include Diana, and don’t think I hadn’t been thinking for weeks about how to do it. It was going to be weird. I mean, Lauren and I had been close practically since we were born. Anyway, we were not going to leave
her out, but I knew Diana, and she might just leave herself out. If she did, I hoped Daddy and Lynn would understand.

Lauren sat down on her bunk, and so when Diana said she didn’t care what bunk she got, I took the other lower bunk. I had always been a little afraid of high bunks, anyway.

“So, Steph, are you cheering again this year?” Lauren asked.

“Yeah. What about you, are you playing volleyball or soccer this fall?”

“Soccer. I’m mid.” Lauren pulled her dark hair into a ponytail, then let it fall back on her shoulders. “I’m awesome, I’m just sayin’ …”

“Modest too!” I poked her and laughed. Lauren was always like that.

“Yeah. Keeps me out of trouble. Hey, they have so much going on that I want to check out,” Lauren said, picking up one of the daily schedules that had been left on our desk. “We get to go to a show every night if we want to. They also have a thing you can sign up for where they take you back into the kitchens. We can watch them making three hundred key lime pies or whatever. And they demonstrate how to fold the towels like animals. And they have a scavenger hunt and a
Harry Potter
trivia contest. We should play!”

“Ooh, yeah, I want to,” I said. Lauren had always been the kind of person who liked to be doing something. She didn’t like to sit around and talk that much. In that way, she was like Diana. I worried about whether they would get along. Diana had a hard time getting along with people, period, and sometimes Lauren was bossy.

“Check this out,” Lauren said. She held up a small flip video camera. “I’m going to videotape people while we’re here.”

“Who are you going to videotape?” Diana asked. She’d chosen the bunk above my bed and was lying there with her cheek propped on her elbow. She’d been in a hurry this morning before catching our plane, so she’d barely ripped a comb through her flyaway, strawberry-blonde hair. She had that kind of hard, intense expression on her face that she got when she didn’t really understand why someone was doing something. Since I’d gotten to know her, though, I’d figured out that she wasn’t being judgmental; she was just puzzled.

“Anybody and everybody!” said Lauren, holding the camera in her lap. “It’s going to be, like, my oeuvre during the cruise. It will be my trademark. Everyone will know me as the video girl.”

“Some people won’t want to be videotaped,” Diana said. “Like me. It makes me nervous.”

Lauren picked up the camera and aimed it at her. “Really?” She gave her voice a reporter’s tone. “So … what about being videotaped bothers you?”

“Lauren!” I said with a light laugh.

“I was just kidding around,” Lauren said, putting down the camera.

Diana didn’t say anything about Lauren’s joke. She just had a scowl on her face.

“But seriously, you should get used to being videotaped because we have to document our trip,” Lauren said. “Right now we should go wander around the ship and find out where things are.”

Just then there was a knock on our door, and when we said “Come in,” a dark-haired, handsome man in a short-sleeved, white uniform pushed the door open. He had broad cheekbones and coffee-colored skin. “Hello and welcome,” he said. “I am Manuel, your cabin steward. Is everything all right so far?” When he smiled at us, he had really even white teeth.

“When do we get our luggage?” asked Lauren.

“We are working on it,” said Manuel. “The young ladies need to be patient! In a few moments you will need to go to your muster station. It is important that everyone go.”

“That’s like if we’re the Titanic,” said Lauren.

“Don’t even say that!” I said. I noticed that Manuel
was holding a key ring with a photo of children on it. “Are those your children?” I asked.

Manuel held the photo up. “Oh, yes, they are! That’s my family. If there is anything you need, please don’t be afraid to ask,” he said, and then he ducked out the door.

A minute later there was another knock on our door, and Aunt Carol, Uncle Ted, and Lauren’s brother, Luke poked their heads in.

“Hey, there, Stephanie!” My aunt and uncle both came in, and I jumped up and gave them each a big hug. Aunt Carol smelled like perfume. Uncle Ted smelled like a cigar. Luke, who is ten, with reddish hair, and small for his age, acts like a miniature little old man. He is the most serious boy ever.

“Hello,” he said, holding out his hand for us to shake.

“And, hey, Diana, we just met your mom. We’re so glad to get to meet you finally. Welcome to the family!” said Aunt Carol.

Diana sat up on her bunk, keeping her head low so she wouldn’t hit the ceiling, and swung her legs back and forth. “Nice to meet you.”

“Has Lauren already interviewed you two on video?” said Uncle Ted. He was a big man with a cheerful, booming voice, and he was wearing a striped golf shirt and khaki shorts. “She’s obsessed with that camera. You have to try to get out of the way.”

“Dad! I’m going to document our trip!”

“You need to be careful you’re not documenting people who don’t want to be documented,” said Uncle Ted.

“Dad, chill,” said Lauren.

“I don’t want to be documented,” said Luke.

“You never know about people,” said Aunt Carol. She had Daddy’s same brown eyes and wavy, dark hair. Like Mama, she wore lots of jewelry. She and Mama were still good friends, and sometimes they emailed each other. I wondered how Aunt Carol would get along with Lynn. I was always wondering about whether people were going to get along. Maybe I worried about that too much.

An announcement boomed over the loudspeaker system: “Attention, the general emergency alarm is about to be sounded. Repeat, the general emergency alarm is about to be sounded. This is the alarm you would hear in case of a real emergency, and you would be required to report with your life jackets to the muster station.”

Then the ship’s horn sounded seven short beeps and one long beep. The beeps were so loud and deep they kept reverberating inside my head.

“Attention, you have just heard the general emergency alarm. Please proceed with your life jackets to your assigned muster station.”

Aunt Carol held up her bulky, orange life jacket. “Okay, everybody, let’s go.”

Diana slid down from her bunk, and the three of us girls reached into the top of the closet and pulled down our life jackets.

“Are they going to tell us how to put these on?” Diana asked. “It’s pretty obvious.” She put her arms through the armholes, then started arranging the belt around her waist.

Lauren put the back of the life jacket on top of her head and let the armholes hang down over her ears. “Like this, right?” She started laughing. “No, you dork,” I said, laughing too. “Come on, girls. Let’s not be silly,” said Aunt Carol. “Yeah. Straighten up,” said Luke. Just then Daddy and Lynn poked their heads in. “Let’s see who can figure out where the muster station is,” said Daddy.

We studied the map on the back of our door, and in a minute or so, Lauren and I were racing down the long hall toward the elevator and stairway landings. Luke was right behind us.

“We go down one floor!” Lauren yelled, and she skidded into a landing, ready to race down the steps. Luke pulled in front of me and started to race past us. “Hold it, hold it!” said a staff person standing guard
at the landing. “We should be orderly and walk while going to the muster station, not race.”

“Oops, sorry,” I said, trying to slow down.

“Sorry!” said Lauren in a voice that didn’t sound sorry at all. And Luke kept on going.

I checked behind to see if Diana was still there. She was plodding along with her hands resting on top of her life jacket belt and a mad look on her face.

“Hurry up!” I said as I followed Lauren and Luke down the stairs.

When we got to the muster station, more of the crew members were there, and people were standing around with their life jackets on. After waiting for everyone to get there, one of the crew demonstrated how to put on the life jackets. Lauren was giggling, and one of the crew members had to tell her to be quiet and listen. Then everyone put on their life jackets. Daddy and Lynn came over to make sure Diana and I had them on right, and then the crew members came around.

While the crew members were counting us and going over the evacuation routes, Daddy put one arm over my shoulder and the other around Lynn. I don’t think he meant to leave Diana out; I guess he only had two arms! And probably she wouldn’t have wanted his arm around her, anyway.

I watched Diana standing off by herself, and for some
reason I felt guilty. I remembered a time my friend Colleen was over at the house and we asked Diana to play cards with us, and Diana was really rude when she said no. Then I told Colleen that Diana liked animals better than she liked people. Colleen had laughed. But then only a few days later, some kids started calling Diana “annn-i-mal” in the hall at school. When we switched to the high school this year, I hoped that people would forget all about it, but they were still calling her “annn-i-mal.” It really hurt her that people called her that, and I hadn’t been able to get up the courage to admit to her that it was because of something I said.

I was brought back to the present by one of the crew members, who was announcing that the musterstation meeting was over. As soon as we put our life jackets back in the room, Lauren went next door and asked her dad if we could go to the pool area and get an ice-cream sundae.

“We’re going to be leaving port shortly, and it’ll be fun to stand on one of the upper decks and watch,” said Uncle Ted, poking his head around the door to our cabin. “Let’s all go together. This is a big ship, and we wouldn’t want to get lost.”

“They can’t make us stay with them the whole time,” Lauren whispered to me.

“I don’t want to get lost,” I whispered back. Then I
noticed that Diana was watching us whisper to each other with a jealous look on her face. As soon as Uncle Ted stepped out of our room, I caught her eye.

“Lauren is just frustrated that our parents want us to stay with them the whole time. She wants us to be on our own.”

Diana looked thoughtful, as if she was considering whether I was really telling the truth, and then she nodded. She trusted me. That made me feel even worse when I thought about the “annn-i-mal” thing.

Pretty soon all of us were on the elevator on our way to the upper deck to watch the ship take off. Exploring the ship was amazing. Once we got off the elevator on the top level, we walked out onto the pool deck. People were already sitting around the pool in their bathing suits, and four boys a little younger than us were in the pool playing.

“Marco!” shouted one.

“Polo!” shouted the other three.

“It” lunged after the voice that was closest, and the others swam away, sending spirals of water soaring. We dodged away with little screams.

“Look at that giant movie screen!” Lauren said, pointing up behind the pool. The movie screen was literally as tall as a two-story house. As we were climbing up onto a deck that looked down on the pool, the ship sounded its horn again.

“Ooh, we must be leaving!” Lynn said. I suddenly noticed the deep vibration of the ship below my feet, which must have been caused by the ship’s engines, but I couldn’t remember when it had started. We ran and stood against the railing and looked down on the tiny people and vehicles below us as the ship slid out of its berth. People began to wave and yell “Bon voyage!” and we waved back. My heart was beating wildly, the sun sparkled over the water, and ship flags flapped in a stiff breeze. We began to slide by the other cruise ships that were docked in Port Everglades. Then we passed by the tall buildings of Fort Lauderdale lining the beach. A wave created by the wake from our ship rolled across the water and broke on the sand.

Then just behind us, we heard Grammy Verra’s voice. “There you are!”

We turned around, and there was Grammy Verra, in her white cruise wear, a bright purple shirt, and sunglasses. “I was afraid I’d never find you on this big ship!”

“Grammy!” I threw myself into her solid arms, and she pulled me close.

“Look at you, sweetie!”

Next she hugged Lauren. “What kind of trouble have you been getting into lately, missy?” she said with a laugh.

“No trouble, Grammy, I promise,” Lauren said, slanting her eyes at me and laughing.

Then Grammy hugged everyone else. Diana hung back, but Grammy said, “Come over here now, I’m going to hug you too!” She kept exclaiming how wonderful everyone looked and how excited she was about the trip. “I am just so glad we were able to all get together for this,” she said. I had always thought that Grammy’s voice sounded like music.

“This is going to be one heck of a birthday for you, Mom,” said Daddy.

“You bet!” said Grammy, laughing. “Diana,” she added, “are you ready for this?”

“I’m not sure,” Diana said, kind of looking at her feet.

“It’s a lot of family members to meet all at once, isn’t it?” Grammy patted Diana’s arm. “You’ll be just fine, I know it. We’ll all have a great time. And I have the three most beautiful granddaughters on the ship, that’s for sure.”

I always felt like beaming when Grammy complimented me. I liked the way she was including Diana. I hoped Diana was appreciative of how hard everyone was working to make her feel included.

“You’ll have to come see my room,” Grammy said. “I have a balcony. If anyone wants to come sit on my balcony, you’re welcome to anytime.”

“I want to!” I said. I had always liked talking with Grammy about my life. She always had good advice. I wanted to talk to her about how things were working out with me now that I was living with Daddy, Lynn, and Diana. I knew I would miss Mama, and I did … a lot. But I loved Lynn; she had been so nice to me. Diana and I fought a lot at first. I hated fighting with people, and sometimes Diana just picked fights for the fun of it. But I had to get away from Matt, my stepbrother who flunked out of college. He was so mean to me. And now Daddy, Lynn, Diana, and I were trying to feel like a family.