Girl at Sea (9 page)

Her dad was coming up on the raft with Elsa and her bags.

“Come on,” he called to Clio as he pulled up. “Get in. Let’s go up to town.”

Clio stopped to help Elsa up into the boat. Martin picked up her white bag and hoisted it over the back wall. Clio stepped down into the raft. It was a lot harder to get into than to get out of. It was squishy and it kept bumping away from the boat, plus there was nothing to hold on to. Her dad didn’t seem to notice that she almost tumbled right over the side as she stepped in. It was Martin who reached over and steadied her.

“We’re going to a phone?” she asked.

“Sure,” her dad said, keeping his eye on the dock. “And we’ll get a gelato. There’s a great place up there.”

He said this a bit more loudly than was necessary. It sounded like it was for someone’s benefit.

“Dad,” she said as they puttered away from the
Sea Butterfly
.

“What
is
this?”

“Let’s go up to town,” he said again. “We’ll get an ice cream, and we’ll have a little chat.”

There was only one little chat Clio wanted to have at this point, and it wasn’t with her dad over ice cream. She had to be 68

careful when she reached Ollie. She couldn’t let her desperation make her sound crazy.

Then a new, positive thought came into her mind as she gripped the side of the raft. Maybe this little break in their as-yet-not-existent relationship had helped her. Maybe she had pushed it forward faster by making Ollie miss her. Maybe he was missing her right now. Distance was supposed to make the heart grow fonder—not that there was a lot you could do once this happpened. Because distance also makes it impossible to see the person you like.

Clio shook her head hard and looked up at the cliff. Too many thoughts bouncing around in her head. Now she just had to concentrate and get up the cliff, without (if it was possible) wanting to push her dad off it.

Just one thing at a time.

69

The Sea Rules

The town was definitely
up
. To get there, Clio and her father had to take an endless set of pedestrian steps cut into the stone.

The climb was fairly serious and took their breath away. This worked well, as it prevented them from having much of a conversation until they reached the top.

They emerged on a busy square that fed into the main street.

Every shop was open and bright. Clio scanned the signs for any that advertised computer access, but none did. This street was about shopping and eating, not getting in touch with would-be boyfriends over e-mail. She started to panic.

Just a few paces into the road, her dad stopped in front of a slender storefront with a large sculpture of an ice cream cone in front of it. The front of the store was open, revealing a long case full of astonishing colors.

“They have hundreds of flavors,” he said. “Best in town.”

He was smiling and still trying to impress, but his demeanor 70

had gotten a little distant. Whatever this talk was going to be about, he thought ice cream would buffer the impact. Her father would never get that she wasn’t little anymore and that ice cream wouldn’t fix everything. Not that it had worked then either.

Still, Clio couldn’t help but be entranced by the variety. She had a weakness for brightly colored desserts and exotic flavors.

She surveyed the offerings for five minutes until deciding to go for a cone full of jasmine gelato, just because it sounded fragrant and strange. Her father annoyed the busy woman behind the counter for a few moments by insisting that she surprise him.

She either didn’t understand the English or she didn’t want some idiot tourist to make her pick something only to have him say he didn’t like it. Or she just had better things to do than choose other people’s flavors for them. He persisted in his loud, cheerful way. He often thought that other people were having fun with him even though they
clearly
were not.

Clio decided to take matters into her own hands.

“This one,” she said, stepping forward and pointing to the metal tray that contained a light yellow ice cream with a picture of a bee on the sign. “He’ll have a medium. In a cone.”

The woman looked grateful.

“What is that?” he asked as he accepted his ice cream. “Honey?”

“Do you even care?” Clio asked. “You asked her to pick it for you.”

“No,” he said. “I guess not. Let’s walk and talk. There are some things you need to know.”

“Is this the quiet moment you’ve chosen to tell me about this Julia person?” Clio asked. It was easier to do this on her terms instead of waiting for him to get around to it, building up to it 71

with a long, heart-stoppingly awkward conversation about how adults sometimes had feelings about other adults. She had absolutely no doubt in her mind that he would present this as if she were twelve.

He stopped and gazed at her. He looked strangely young in the warm light of the street with his curly hair, his little hat, and his ice cream cone. It was disquieting.

“How did you know?” he asked. “Why am I even asking? You always know things.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I have magical powers.”

“Is there something wrong with your ear?”

Clio removed her hand, which she had automatically clapped over her ear again.

“I know this is weird for you,” he said. “If it bothers you, you know you can come and talk to me about it.”

He definitely didn’t sound like he wanted to talk about it. The words came out stiffly, like they were being read off a page by an inexperienced actor.

“What’s there to talk about?” Clio said. “You’re allowed. You don’t live with us anymore. You left. It’s all legal. You can do what you want.”

“Clio, I don’t know if your mother is—”

“And I’m not going to tell you,” Clio cut him off. “It’s fine. I just don’t want to know the gory details of your dating life, okay?

Is that too much to ask?”

Instead of laying into a complicated defense of ear love, her father simply nodded. They walked a few paces in silence. He reached into his pocket and produced a small, clip-on orange walkie-talkie. He passed this to her, then continued walking.

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“This is your com,” he said. “Everyone on board will carry one, and everyone has a number. You’re number five. Always identify yourself by your number. There’s a number list on the back.”

Clio flipped the com over. There, stuck to the back, was a small sticker with the following list printed in an extremely tiny font:

Ben Ford: 1

Martin Young: 2

Julia Woodward: 3

Aidan Cross: 4

Clio Ford: 5

Elsa Åkerlund-Woodward: 6

“What are we doing that we need these?” she asked.

They parted temporarily to let a bicycle pass between them.

“Some archeological work,” he said.

“So why the spooky secret-secret?” she asked.

“It’s just a precaution,” he said.

“A precaution against
what
?”

“Clio, all I’m asking you to do is take a com, use a number, and not to give out too much personal information. We have a nice boat with expensive things on it. That’s all. This is a perfectly common safety procedure.”

Clio seriously doubted this. Her dad always had to take things just the one step too far, to make a game out of everything.

“So why can’t I just say, ‘This is Clio, and I see a giant squid attacking the boat. Come quickly.’ What’s wrong with that?

What’s with the number? Do you just want to be called Number One, like they used to do on
Star Trek
?”

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“The numbers are easier to understand.”

“Not if I have to flip it over and see who Number Four is,” she said.

“You’ll learn the numbers.”

“But
why
?” she said. “That’s my question. I can’t walk around all summer calling myself Number Five. ‘Number Five got some sunburn today.’ ‘Number Five really liked that book you gave her.’ It’s stupid.”

“Clio,” he said, clearly running out of patience, “just follow the rules of the boat. Now, second thing you need to know. Your job. You are the official chef.”

“The
what
?”

“You love to cook,” he said.

“No, I don’t,” she said. “I’m the queen of takeout.”

Her father turned on his heel and started back in the same direction that they’d just come.

“You’re good at it,” he said. “You always were. Remember that soup you always used to make, the one with the little meatballs?

That was great! And the cooking class in Japan?”

“Just because I
can
do it doesn’t mean I
like
to do it,” she said.

“I haven’t made the meatball soup since I was ten. And the cooking class was one day. I learned how to cut a little faster.

That’s all.”

“Everybody has to do something. Running the boat, setting the course, running the equipment . . . someone has to do it all. The galley is
your
domain. I’m giving that completely to you.”

“What’s Elsa’s job?” she asked.

“Elsa is our translator.”

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“What is she going to translate?” she asked. “We all speak English.”

“Look,” he said. “Elsa is not my daughter. I can’t tell her what to do.”

“This is your way of telling me that Elsa has no job,” said Clio. “Isn’t it?”

“One last thing,” he said. “I realize that you’re . . . that age.

And that you’re going to be in close quarters with . . . a guy. But I just need you to know,
that
can’t happen, okay?”

“I guess those rules don’t apply to you, huh?” she said.

“That’s different,” he mumbled. “Clio, we’re adults, and—”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I already have someone?”

Clio went on. “And maybe I had to leave him behind to come out to this pirate-dance camp or whatever it is we’re doing on the boat? Did you ever think of that?”

“Do you?” he fumbled. “I mean, your mother didn’t say.”

“Did you ask?”

“I figured she would mention—”

“No. Did you ask
me
? Have you shown any interest in what was going on in my life when you dragged me away from home?

Do you even know who I
am
anymore?”

“Well,” he said. “Were you . . . seeing someone?”

“Whatever,” Clio said, having no idea how to answer the question. “I mean, if I’m lucky, he’ll still be there when I get back. But that’s not the point.”

This seemed to satisfy her father. The conversational arrow had whizzed by his head. The actual point had missed him entirely. As usual.

“Of course he will!” he said. “You just need to know, this is not 75

a party cruise. This is a working vacation. You have to take it seriously. You have a job. So, no drinking, no fooling around.

And the bedrooms are off-limits. You don’t go into Aidan’s room, and he doesn’t come up to yours. That’s the bottom line.”

“Whatever you say,” she said. “I’ll make sure to report myself if I’m ever having a good time. And I guess all the other usual things are out—dancing, playing cards, wearing red, smiling.”

“You know what I mean,” he said.

“No,” she answered. “I really, really don’t.”

They both stopped speaking and looked away from each other, walking until they reached the point where they had started, the gap in the cliff, the twisting steps down to the sea.

“What about my e-mail?” she asked. “Or my phone call?

Even people in prison get one phone call.” The entire time they’d been walking, she’d been looking for a sign for an Internet café but hadn’t seen one. There had to be a public phone somewhere.

“I already sent your mom a text saying that you got here safely when your plane landed in Rome. There’s supposed to be a storm during the night. We have to get back and make sure everything is secure. We’ll figure out your phone call when we get back.”

He pointed to a heavy cloud lingering over the bay. It was only a few miles away, from the looks of it, lurking around the volcano. It had a lightning storm contained within it and silently cracked pencil-thin bolts at itself.

Clio had never seen such a clear omen of trouble in all her life. But her father was right—they wouldn’t have much time to get back before it hit. Ollie would have to wait. Again.

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