Mask on the Cruise Ship (11 page)

Chapter 13
Musical chairs on the scenic tour

M
r. Trotter put Mother in charge of the scenic tour tickets, each in an envelope labeled with a passenger's name, to be handed out at the train station. The program director had informed us, with a pointed glance at me, that he was far too stressed to hand out the tickets himself.

Not everyone had signed up for the three-hour tour to the Yukon gold fields. There were lots of shops to explore in Skagway, and friendly locals to greet you in a hearty, cowboy drawl.

It's a Skagway tradition to recite poems to visitors. I stopped and listened to a man with gold teeth intone one that started:

Skulls, skulls, in the midnight sun,
Bleached by snow, every one!

Now that was my type of poetry. None of this “I wandered lonely as a cloud” stuff that we had to memorize at school.

I grinned at the man. He grinned back, his gold teeth blinding me. I don't know about the midnight sun, but the noonday sun this far north was intense, almost white.

“Come along,” urged Mother as I shielded my eyes. “I want to get to the station before everyone else.”

She bustled me off. The man called after us:

Better get sunglasses!
Or else be fated to burn
In the Gold Rush passes.

“I wonder if he always speaks in rhymes,” said Madge, hurrying along with Jack to keep up with us. “Maybe he's got some kind of syndrome, like the one that makes people swear all the time.”

Jack finished her thought. “So instead of swear words pouring out of his mouth, you get rhyming couplets,” and they both laughed.

Madge, I saw, was looking very happy. Fresh and bright too, I noticed, glancing over my shoulder at her as Mother rushed us towards the station. Then I realized — Madge wasn't wearing any makeup. No foundation, no eyeliner, nothing. And her hair was up in a plain old ponytail. A first.

Not that Madge needed makeup. Her skin was like porcelain and her eyelashes, framing those brilliant lupine blues, were naturally long and dark.

I remembered Jack's talk with her about not having to be perfect all the time. It had paid off! My sister was finally loosening up.

Wait a minute. Madge being too happy isn't good, I thought.
Too
happy could lead to a wedding. I frowned at Madge and Jack, who were poring over a brochure with a map of the White Pass & Yukon Route train tour we were about to take.

“The White Pass summit is two thousand, eight hundred feet,” Jack observed and let out an appreciative whistle. “Hey!” he exclaimed to Madge. “You sure you're going to be all right on this trip? The train really barrels along, and on a pretty narrow track. I mean, with your, uh, your — ”

“Tendency to throw up?” Madge supplied. She smiled at him. “Know what? You've been very therapeutic for me. After we had our talk last night, I didn't throw up once.”

“I think I'm about to, though,” I muttered.

“About to what?” inquired Mother. She gave me a harried look over the shoebox full of tickets she was carrying. “Dinah, you've got this odd habit of mumbling to yourself. I'd reprimand you for it, except I know you inherited it from me. It used to drive your father crazy … Here, you keep this, dear,” she thrust the box into my hands, “and I'll check people off on this clipboard as they pick up their tickets. Yes, good plan, Suzanne,” Mother mumbled to herself.

I sat down on the bench, the shoebox on my lap. “Dah DAH dah dah DAH dah,” I sang. “The TRAIN on the TRAIN track … Hey, will Evan be on the tour?”

“No, he's staying on the ship.” Mother shrugged. “Wants to work on his song. Says he can't enjoy excursions when he's trying to think of lyrics.”

Phhht!
I ran my fingertips along the tops of the envelopes. Evan might have another reason for not going on tours. A sinister one. It had sure been suspicious the way he snuck down to Julie's door when he knew she was busy playing volleyball. Maybe he intended to prowl around some more.

“STUFF AND NONSENSE!”

I jumped. Ira Stone was beside me.

He chuckled. “Frightened you, did I? Hee-hee!”

I retorted good-naturedly, “Hee-hee, yourself.”

Mother gave me a slight frown for being uppity, as she would say, with an adult. Remembering my duties, I flipped through the envelopes to the one labeled STONE, IRA and handed it to him.

The effort of chuckling had shaken Ira's thin frame; the cane he was leaning on wobbled this way and that, as if caught in a strong wind. Concerned he'd topple, I shot out a hand to steady the cane.

Empress Marie
passengers started approaching Mother. Ira whispered to me, “Could you do me a favor, young 'un? Seat me somewhere else on the train than beside Lavinia O'Herlihy. She got Trotter to put us side by side. Thing is, I can't stand the woman — she's always nagging me about what a good wife she'd make.”

The effort of speaking was also too much for Ira. He broke into a series of racking coughs. I edged down the bench, away from him. The guy must be unleashing germs by the battalion — and he was not, I noticed in Mother-like disapproval, covering his mouth when he coughed.

Me, Mother-like! Holy Toledo. I'd better watch that.

Still, I did feel sorry for Ira. I didn't blame him for feeling annoyed, with Lavinia trailing after him all the time.

“Sure, I'll change her seat.” I flipped through the envelopes,
pfft! pfft!
“Here she is. O'HERLIHY, LAVINIA.”

The first few passengers, checked off by Mother on her list, were waiting behind Ira for their tickets. Among them: Jack and Madge.

Hmmm. Mother had arranged for all of us to sit together…

Maybe if Jack and Madge didn't spend
quite
so much time with each other, they wouldn't be thinking about the possibility of FRENCH, MADGE.

“Boo-wa-ha-ha,” I said, pleased with this, my second scathingly cunning plan of the day. Was I on a roll, or what?

Rapidly I switched Lavinia's ticket into Madge's envelope and vice versa. I winked at Ira. “Boo-wa-ha-ha.”

“Hee-hee!”

When the tickets
in the shoebox had thinned to just a few, Mother told Madge, Jack and me to go ahead and take our seats on the train. She'd be right there herself.

“I might buy some sunglasses,” Madge said, surveying a rack of them in a nearby shop. “I forgot mine on the ship, and people keep talking about how bright the snow will be out the train windows.”

She waved aside our offer to wait for her. “It'll take me a minute or two. I have to find just the right hue of frames so the glasses won't clash with my hair.”

I lifted my eyebrows at Jack. My sister was getting more relaxed about herself — but she was still fussy.

The tanned, middle-aged woman from the pool was already in her seat — right in front of Jack. “Ah,” said Jack, as her features, going red, took on the appearance of a sunburn as opposed to a tan. He remarked to her, “If I'd known you'd be close by, I'd have brought a towel.”

In the seats across the aisle from Jack, where Mother would be joining me, I snorted appreciatively.

The woman burned even redder. “I — I misunderstood about the girl you're hoping to marry. I thought she was,” the woman avoided looking at me, “much younger than you.”

Though the tanned woman wasn't including me in the conversation, I saw no reason not to jump in. After all, Madge was my sister. “No way she's much younger than Jack!” I exclaimed, reflecting that Madge was only two years Jack's junior. Incredible to believe Madge would be graduating from high school in a month. “I can't imagine being as old as she is,” I added, shaking my head.

Jack laughed. “You're making my one-and-only sound like an aged crone, Dinah. I think there's a bit of life left in the old girl.”

I airily waved a hand at the tanned woman. “Yeah, you'll see her in a minute. She'll be sitting right beside Jack.”

I stopped in horror. No, Madge
wouldn't
be sitting right beside Jack. I'd switched her ticket. It'd be Lavinia who'd plop down beside him.

“Uh-oh,” I said and put on my phony bared-teeth smile. It was the only course of action I could come up with.

Jack didn't notice. His gray eyes were twinkling with amusement. “The ‘old thing' I hope to marry some day should be along pretty soon,” he assured the tanned woman.

It was then that Lavinia O'Herlihy, frowning in puzzlement at her ticket, walked up and slid into the seat beside Jack…

Madge just made it
on in time. She was explaining to Mother that she'd had trouble choosing between brands of sunglasses when the conductor asked her to take her seat. Glancing at her ticket, he instructed, “Down there, Miss,” and pointed a dozen or so rows along to the empty seat beside Ira.

“But — but — ” Madge, Jack and Lavinia protested.

“Please, Miss,” the conductor said.

It was the kind of “please” you didn't refuse. Madge moved to the empty seat. Above her, bright brass luggage racks reflected, one after another, the burnished red of her hair.

It wouldn't be such a bad trip for Madge, I decided. Ira was snoozing, his head against the window, his mouth slightly open. Yup, I thought. It'd be a nice,
single
experience for Madge.

The train skimmed
along the banks of the roiling Skagway River. Boy! I had the feeling that if I could reach out and touch that angry current, it would slap back.

The train trundled past gorges with wide, dazzling mountains of ice. Their jagged peaks loomed so high I had to press the top of my head against the window and squint up to see. With the sun on them, the peaks sent off brilliant flashes. Even with clip-on sunglasses, my eyes hurt, but it was worth it.

“Whoa,” moaned Lavinia as we wound past a deep, surging, silver waterfall that sent up white clouds of spray. Be-neath her horn-rimmed sunglasses, Lavinia's face sagged.

“Of course, you wouldn't be trainsick if you sat farther back,” Jack advised Lavinia. “It's well known that the front seats are much harder on the stomach. Maybe we should switch you with, say, Madge.”

Ooooo, crafty.

However, Jack would have to wait a while before exchanging Lavinia for Madge. A lot of people on his side, that is, the right one, were standing to peer out the windows on my side. There was just a better view on the left. Jack wouldn't be able to escort Lavinia past for now.

I began to chuckle out my evil “Boo-wa-ha-ha” when I noticed one of the people standing nearby. Talbot St. John — holding on to the luggage rack so he could bend down to see out without falling into someone's lap. He was wearing a CD player and headphones. Huh! I bet he was the type who listened to doofus trendy bands.

He noticed me at the same time and reddened. Scowling at Talbot, I raised the current Deathstalkers comic book to block him out.

“Enjoy reading upside down, do you?”

It was Captain Heidgarten's jolly voice. I lowered the Deathstalkers, who were indeed on their heads while firing stingrays, laser guns, etc., at assorted enemies. I closed the comic book and grinned at the Captain. Talbot had edged down the aisle and out of sight. “I'm not really reading,” I assured him.

“I should hope not!” he returned, beaming. “I sign up for the White Pass & Yukon Route every time we anchor at Skagway. Never grow tired of it. Why, look at that …”

I looked. Straight down and down and —

“Whoa!” moaned Lavinia.

Captain Heidgarten said cheerfully, “We're high up, all right— a thousand feet high, as a matter of fact, on a wooden trestle bridge. Don't see too many of 'em anymore — they probably violate about three dozen safety regulations.”

The Captain and I laughed heartily. Not everyone appreciated his robust sailor's humor, though. A few people, Lavinia included, turned ashen.

However, Captain Heidgarten
soon distracted us all with the story of Jefferson “Soapy” Smith of Klondike Gold Rush fame.

Soapy got his nickname in Denver, Colorado, where he tricked people into buying expensive bars of soap. He claimed each bar had a hundred-dollar bill at the center. “Not exactly good, clean fun,” remarked Captain Heidgarten.

Soapy was attracted to the chance of fast money, so he hotfooted it to the Klondike. Only he didn't make his profits there by hunting for gold. Instead, Soapy set up a fake telegraph office. He got chummy with the successful prospectors, then presented them with phony telegrams from loved ones pleading for money.

He must've been slick as a wet bar of soap, all right. The worried prospectors shoved bags of money at Soapy. They just assumed he'd send it to their families for them. Which, of course, he didn't.

From a few seats behind me, Julie Hébert piped up. “So he was charming
and
cunning.” She saw me craning round at her and winked. “Just like the Raven.”

I felt slightly offended on the Raven's behalf. After all, the legendary bird had a nice side. It didn't sound like Jefferson “Soapy” Smith'd had so much as a nice
particle
.

On the other hand, at least Julie's spirits were picking up. Since the theft of the mask, she'd been anxious and pale.

Captain Heidgarten nodded at Julie. “Soapy was charming, cunning … and not that long-lived. Eventually some angry locals came after him and — well, let's just say that Soapy's luck went down the drain.”

The train route
included two tunnels. I like tunnels because you can gulp in your breath at the beginning and hold it till you're outside again. Mother and Madge find this gross, but the challenge is actually very fun and satisfying.

Not far into the first tunnel, a sharp, pointy object jabbed me in the side — followed by a cackle. I was startled into letting my breath out. Lavinia! The pointy object had been her elbow.