Four Things My Geeky-Jock-of-a-Best-Friend Must Do in Europe (7 page)

So, after that intellectually stimulating conversation, and after Tatyana wrote a long e-mail to her granddad in Lebanon, we wandered out on the deck. There was a noisy crowd at one end, and it turned out to be a bunch of people from the party. Apparently, the evening tournament had shifted from ring-the-sea-god to shuffleboard. I wanted to play, but Tatyana dragged me to the other end of the boat to stargaze. Which turned out to be very illuminating (hehe), because THERE, standing at the rail—aglow in starshine, like Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio—were Noori and AJ. And they were in the middle of a MAJOR KISS. (And I don’t mean “keep it simple, stupid.”)

When I saw them, I thought: Noori must be a GREAT dancer. And then I felt an odd “pang.” I wondered if it might be a raging hormone trying to confuse me about whether or not it was a good idea to let the nice Texas boy go. But, NO, it turned out to be Tatyana poking me in the ribs.

“Let’s leave them alone,” she mouthed, pulling me off to stargaze somewhere else.

Okay. You’re all caught up on my adventures, and I’ve got to get ready to go. I have to figure out what top will go with my new skirt. (And, no, I WON’T pick a shirt with any numbers on it—I KNOW how to dress up, Delia. I think.)

I need to take a shower, too, which is something I’m not looking forward to. Delia, you would NOT BELIEVE how small the shower stall is. I swear it’s no more than ten inches square. I’m TOTALLY afraid of getting stuck in it.

(Oh, BE quiet.)

Wednesday morning

Dear Delia,

We are now in the French Riviera, my extremely jealous friend. And, believe it or not, I am wearing the bikini with NO shirt over it! Aren’t you IMPRESSED?

Okay, I haven’t left my stateroom, but it’s still a BIG step for me, because I’m so self-conscious about all this that I feel exposed even with no humans around. Or my mother, for that matter, who is in the shower preparing for another day ashore. I asked her if we could PLEASE hang out on the boat longer this morning, but she’s not having it. I could hide out on the power-walking deck, but I’m too exhausted to slog my way up there.

It’s not just Barcelona that has me worn out. It’s also the party last night, which, basically, went on until 1:30 in the morning. Everyone was pretty hyper from the chocolate, I guess. There was a scale model of the cruise ship in white chocolate, anchored in a sea of dark chocolate. I am personally responsible for eating three chocolate deck chairs and two chocolate life jackets. Lahn ate an entire smokestack, Tatyana and Noori did in the chocolate hot tub, and AJ snarfed down all of deck nine, I think.

After that, Noori and AJ (who are still wearing their blue wristbands and STILL into PDAs, let me tell you) disappeared, and we only ran into them one other time during the party. It was at the beginning of Gilligan’s “Treasure of the Sea Hunt,” which was—as you can probably guess—incredibly dumb. He was ALL EXCITED about it, though, and had written little clues, but after about a minute of explaining the rules to everyone over the speakers in the lounge, one of the gamers yelled, “TOURNAMENT!” and EVERYONE shot over to the foosball tables again. Gilligan was left standing there, all pathetic-like, so we took one of his clues and went off on the little treasure hunt (like complete dorks).

Tatyana read out the first clue: “Go to the place where the ceiling is space and look under the chair that is covered with hair.”

We decided to go to deck ten—since that’s the top of the boat—which turned out to be right, since we are so smart (and the clue was so stupid). There, we walked around the deck until we found a fur blanket (I hope faux) over one of the lounge chairs. And that’s where we ran into Noori and AJ. They had crawled under it. (The blanket, not the chair.) Tatyana and I tiptoed away, while Lahn pulled a piece of paper out from under the leg of the chair. When we got about a half-deck away, Lahn opened it and seemed to be reading it, then said something to Tatyana in French.

“Lahn thinks the next clue is at the Roman Ruins Pool, because this clue says, ‘Where the Romans fell, find a bell.’”

“Lahn read that?” I asked. “I thought he didn’t know English.”

He shrugged, then said something to Tatyana again.

“He says he knows English, but doesn’t like speaking it because he thinks his accent isn’t good,” she said.

“So, he’s understood everything we’ve said?” I asked.

Tatyana nodded.

“Like, at the pool party, when you were telling me how I would attract Euro-hotties if I wore my bikini?” I asked.

Tatyana nodded.

Lahn seemed to take up stargazing at that moment.

In an effort to shift the orbit of the conversation JUST a bit, I said to Tatyana, “Okay, wow! That’s COOL that he can speak two languages—and YOU know three! You guys are awesome.”

Lahn said something else in French, and Tatyana turned to me and said, “He knows Vietnamese, too.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding (in that whole-body sort of way).

“And, actually, I know four languages,” she said, looking at me kindly.

(It’s embarrassing being with these people. I wish you were here, Delia, because you are so simple.)

At the Roman Ruins Pool, the “bell” was not immediately apparent, so we divided the area into three sections and split up. I was given the pool itself, but since I was fully dressed, I couldn’t exactly jump in to look for anything. So I walked slowly around the edge, gazing through the water. There were just a few people swimming, so I quickly determined there was no bell at the bottom of the pool. You may remember, though, that there is a statue of Neptune/Poseidon in the middle of this pool, and THAT is where I spied the bell—a copper cow bell at the base of the statue.

This presented a problem, since there was no way to the statue except through the water. There was, however, a guy treading water very near the statue, so I figured I’d just call out to him and ask him to look under the bell and bring the clue to me. The guy was blond. Very blond—like a Swedish person. He also appeared to be very CUTE. So, of course, thinking I might have inadvertently stumbled upon a Euro-hottie, I took the opportunity to: PANIC.

Luckily (or so I thought), Tatyana appeared at that moment, and I pointed out the bell and the potential Eurohottie and asked her to please communicate with him for me. She took the opportunity to: Tell me to FORGET IT.

“This could be your code-red Euro-hottie, Brady,” she said. “Just do it.”

I stood there, just doing nothing.

“Or I’ll push you in the water,” she added.

(Delia, did you SEND this person to me?)

Since I had chosen a white top to wear with my skirt and didn’t want to look like I had participated in a wet T-shirt contest, I thought it best to do as I was told.

“Hello there!” I called out.

No response.

“Maybe he has earplugs in,” she said.

“HELLO THERE!” I said, louder.

Slowly, he moved his head in our direction, but still didn’t say anything.

“Do you speak English?” I called out.

He swam a little closer to us, but still didn’t answer.

“Whoa,” Tatyana whispered in my ear. “He is REALLY cute.”

“Swedish?” I called out.

He shook his head and swam to the edge, right where we were standing.

“German?” I asked.

“No,” he said, pulling himself out of the water at my feet.

“Uh, so, uh, then, uh, you, uh—” I said. (Very eloquently, don’t you think?)

“I am Klingon,” he announced.

Which was weird. But only slightly weirder than where he had positioned himself, which was VERY close and DIRECTLY in front of me, with his eyes fixed STRAIGHT ahead. And since—as it turns out—he is about eight inches shorter than I am, he was staring RIGHT at my, uh, basooma. I was afraid to move for fear of inadvertently knocking him back into the pool.

(This ISN’T funny, Delia.)

“Klingon?” Tatyana asked. “Is that in Europe?”

“Kling,” he said, speaking directly into my shirt. “M-class planet, second in the Klingon Star System.”

There was silence for a moment, during which time I hoped madly that Klingons are not possessed with X-ray vision. Then I took a careful step backward, but he just moved along with me.

“Aren’t we REALLY late, Tatyana, for, you know, SOMETHING?” I asked.

Ignoring me, and apparently OBLIVIOUS to my mounting emergency situation, she said to him, “Is there a Klingon language?”

“Da pa pa pa go,” he said, his head still not budging from its location in my frontage.

“Cool! What does that mean?” she asked.

“Targeting coordinates,” he answered.

“Say something else,” she said, obviously finding all this very entertaining.

“Sho pee-eh shuha.”

“And that means . . . ,” she said.

“Disengage cloaking device.”

“Okay, 911!” I yelled, stepping in one direction and then another, TRYING to shed this guy who seemed STUCK to me by some invisible webbing device. FINALLY, I managed to free myself by—yes—FALLING in the pool.

(You are enjoying this, Delia, aren’t you?)

He started to jump in after me, but I said, “STAY!” and you know what? He DID. And then he stood there at the edge of the pool, all lined up with Tatyana and Lahn (who had turned up at some point during all the commotion), LOOKING at me. I stood in the water, my Parisian skirt billowing around my legs, and my shirt filling with water.

“So, why are you so fixated on Brady, anyway?” Tatyana asked Klingon Boy as the three of them gazed down at me.

“She appears to be my type,” he said.

“What type would that be?” she asked.

“Geek,” he said.

(You will be SO DEAD when I get home.)

“She’s not really a geek,” Tatyana told him.

“THANK YOU,” I said.

“What’s your name?” Tatyana asked him.

“Gorkon,” he said.

“Neat,” she said. “And you say you’re from another planet?”

I wondered: WHY is she encouraging him?

“He’s a TREKKIE,” I said.

She looked confused, and I realized—TOUCHÉ!—that I’d FINALLY found something I knew more about than she did. (Okay, it’s a really DUMB thing, but I’ll take it.)

“Star Trek—a TV show,” I said. “There are people who are REALLY into it.”

“I am lonely for Kling,” Gorkon said.

“Oooh,” Tatyana said, in an oh-poor-Gorkon sort of way.

“Do you want to come with us on our treasure hunt?”

Then I wondered (while coughing very loudly): HAS SHE GONE COMPLETELY CRAZY?

“But you have to give Brady some distance, Gorky,” she told him.

He nodded, mechanically, never looking up into Tatyana’s face.

Then Lahn said something to Tatyana and pointed at the bell in the middle of the pool.

“And THAT’S how all this started,” I said, swimming out to the statue and pulling a clue out from under the bell.

Lame clue #3 read: “Up and down it goes, at the bottom find a rose.”

So we went on our merry way to the elevator, joined now by this new traveling mate we had picked up on our journey. I felt as if I had wandered onto the set of a REALLY BAD remake of
The Wizard of Oz.

I would tell you the rest of the clues, but there were SO many of them, and they were SO idiotic that you’d probably throw yourself out the nearest open window if you had to read them all. Gorkon didn’t stick with the hunt for very long—perhaps he needed charging—so there’s nothing more to tell about him, either. So I’ll just say that the clues eventually led us back to the teen lounge, where there were prizes waiting for us: CD cases. Very nice. And Gilligan had set out Twister boards, so we amused ourselves with those for a while.

(He DOES try.)

The shower has just turned off, which means ma mere (French, now—pronounced “mah mair,” spoken through the nose) will be making me get up and go to Nice (pronounced neece). So THIS is IT! I’m DOING it! I’m WEARING THE BIKINI ON THE BEACH TODAY! And it’s NOT to please YOU, it’s to—well, actually it IS to please you. Oh, why aren’t you here? This is going to be SO hard! I need an incentive to get out and do it. Like the threat of being beaten up by my best friend, for instance.

Hold on. My mother is saying something. It is, “We’re behind schedule, let’s go, Brady. And PUT something over the bikini top. It’s inappropriate for walking around town.”

All right, MOM! You DID it! The much needed incentive! A purpose for my bikini-wearing: rebellion! I’m obligated now, as a respectable teenager, to wear this bikini top in public ALL DAY, just to drive you CRAZY! I will proudly get up now and SALUTE my commanding officer! SIR!

Au revoir! (Pronounced o-vwah, and I hope you know what it means, because everyone else in the world does.)