Antsy Floats

by Neal Shusterman

  “Well,” he said, “that’s what’s happening right now, isn’t it?”

  I guess it was. I knew the media was having a field day with all of this.

  “The fact that our illustrious captain got our flagship stuck on a sandbar could have been the worst negative publicity we’ve had in years,” Ericsson said, and the captain shifted uncomfortably, “but thanks to you, no one’s even talking about the sandbar anymore.”

  Then he told the captain to call for my parents.

  “Do we have to do that?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Will you at least repeat that part about me being a saint? Because then my mother might not disown me.”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, and by the way, I saw your father’s Viking ship. I think it’s really cool.”

  A pause on the other end. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ericsson said in a cold, flat voice. “There is no Viking ship hidden within the Plethora of the Deep. To even suggest such a thing would be a violation of my father’s last wishes.”

  “My mistake,” I said. “I never saw a thing. Nice Viking ship, though.”

  • • •

  My parents were already shell-shocked by all of this, so hearing news of the world and of my freshly trending meme was like pouring salt in a wound that was already brain dead. They just kinda “dealt.” They talked calmly on the phone to the cruise lawyers and spin doctors, giving brief little sound bites about me that could be used to my benefit and would make the cruise line look good, too. They did decline to do a satellite interview with Vanderbilt Hooper, though.

  “I’m far too sunburned to be on TV,” my mother said, although I knew the real reason was that it was simply too much to take. Now she kept looking at me like she had never seen me before—and sometimes she simply couldn’t look at me at all.

  “I honestly don’t know whether to be proud or ashamed of you, Antsy,” she told me, a little teary-eyed.

  “Maybe you could be part of the ten percent undecided,” I told her.

  My father just stared at the news coverage there on the bridge, trying to wrap his head around it. I was worried on account of I didn’t want to give him another heart attack, but this time it seemed more likely he’d have a stroke. I’m not sure which is worse.

  “Can you believe this?” he said. “There are people out there calling you a criminal and saying you should forfeit your citizenship. I oughta give them a piece of my mind!”

  “Do you think I’ll lose my citizenship?” I asked my father.

  He shook his head. “People like to talk out of their behinds,” he said. “They’ll say anything if it gets them in the spotlight, too.”

  “Are you mad at me?” I asked, and immediately regretted asking. “Stupid question. Of course you’re mad at me.”

  But he didn’t answer right away. He thought about it, and then he said, “Remember that time Frankie got drunk and drove his new car into the duck pond?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well,” he said, gesturing out to the Caribbean Sea, “this is your duck pond.”

  CHAPTER 26

  BOARD GAMES, BOOMERANGS, AND A BAG OF BODY PARTS

  MY PARENTS STAYED ON THE BRIDGE WITH THE captain, and I was returned to the suite, where my missing suitcase was waiting at the door. There was a pre-printed note on it that said To our valued guest: Your luggage has been located. We apologize for the inconvenience. I brought it in and pretended for a moment that I was starting this cruise all over, that I could rewind it to day one and just have a normal trouble-free vacation.

  My sister, who had been anxiously awaiting my return, began nagging to interview me on her iPhone. “I can’t believe you went to Howie to do your video! I won my school’s junior journalist award! You should have come to me!”

  But I think it was a good thing that just this once, I kept Howie connected to what currently substituted for my life. Because right then Howie was about as disconnected as Mr. Potato Head with all his parts still in the Ziploc bag that accidently got shoved in the Trivial Pursuit box, so good luck finding it.

  Howie was out on the balcony sitting by himself, fiddling with a boomerang that he had engraved his name on. Something about it made me sad, and I didn’t know why.

  “Hey,” I said. But he didn’t say “hey” back. I wondered if he was mad at me or maybe just freaked out about what I had done. It had not yet occurred to my steel trap of a mind that this wasn’t about me at all.

  “Why do I do this stuff?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know—what stuff are we talking about?”

  He still wouldn’t look at me. “Everyone at home’s gonna make fun of my hair. And I got no pants anymore on account of I cut ’em all short. And then there’s the tattoo I got in Jamaica.”

  “Tattoo?” I looked him over but saw no visible sign of it. “Where is it?”

  “You don’t wanna know.”

  We looked out over the sea for a few moments, because looking out over the sea makes you feel wise rather than just awkward. Wise enough to think you got ahold of the bag with all your friend’s missing pieces . . . until you discover that it’s not in with Trivial Pursuit at all. Instead, it’s Boggle.

  “I get it,” I told Howie, thinking I had him all figured out. “You got all obsessed with the Australian survivalist, and you want to impress him, or be him, or both, but then you realize he couldn’t care less, he’s just some loser collecting a paycheck, so you end up like two ships that pass in the night. Or don’t pass, considering our current sandbar situation.”

  “Yes and no,” Howie said. “See, Antsy, here’s the thing . . . Remember that time you made me hold your hand so Tilde wouldn’t know you actually liked her?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well . . . I kinda sorta . . . didn’t hate it.”

  This I was not expecting.

  “So . . . do you mean my hand in particular or just the general concept?”

  “Nah, your hand was clammy. Just the concept.”

  I looked out at the sea again, trying to find more wisdom, but all I got was an ocean of WTF. See, the thing you need to know about Howie is that he’s always been predictable. I mean, even when he says stuff that comes out of left field, we totally expect it, because left field is where Howie lives, although he usually forgets his mitt.

  “So, what are you saying, dude?” I think this was the first time I’d ever used the word “dude” when talking to Howie. But somehow that high level of formality felt necessary here.

  “I don’t know,” he said, all frustrated. “I don’t know what I’m saying. That’s the whole thing. See, Antsy, it’s been a really confusing year. What with my dad in prison and my mom failing anger management and our cat being diagnosed with feline obsessive-compulsive disorder and now this hand-holding thing. It’s all kinda topsy-turvy, you know?”

  I didn’t know what to say except, “Sorry about your cat,” which was the only Howie-related drama I had not heard. I thought back to the time Lance told me I should talk to him, but did I? No. Instead, I pretended like nothing was going on, because I didn’t want to be bothered with it.

  Now I started to get mad. Not at Howie, but at myself. If I was half the man Enzo Benini was, I would have checked in with Howie sooner rather than just checking out on him.

  Howie saw the look on my face, and he read me all wrong.

  “You hate me now, don’t you?” he said, looking away. “I knew it!”

  So I reached out and put my hands firmly on both of his shoulders so he couldn’t turn away. “Howie, listen to me—because with all that’s going on, I don’t know if I’m going to get a chance to say this again, so I want you to hear it now. I really don’t care who you like holding hands with, okay?”

  I could see his eyes getting a little teary, which
was making my eyes get teary, too.

  “I was afraid you’d think I was an idiot, and you wouldn’t be my friend no more.”

  “Gimme a break,” I told him. “I’ll always be your friend, and I already think you’re an idiot. I promise you, those two things are never gonna change.”

  He smiled, immensely relieved. “Thanks, Antsy. You don’t know how much that means to me. Unless you got telepathic abilities.”

  I took the boomerang from him and looked at it. Although it said “Made in China,” it couldn’t have been more Howie if he had cut down the tree and carved it himself. “So,” I said, maybe getting the slightest handle on some of the stuff going on in Howie’s head. “Lance has quite the thighs, doesn’t he?”

  “Don’t get me started.”

  We laughed—and for once I was laughing with him rather than at him—which I think was a weirder experience for both of us than holding hands. Until today, I had thought the extent of Howie’s inner struggles maxed out at “paper or plastic.” It was actually good to know there was something more going on in there.

  I handed Howie back the boomerang. He looked at it, then out toward the horizon. For a second I thought he might hurl it into the sea the way Lexie hurled her flute, but he didn’t. I suspect he’ll be pondering that boomerang for a long time before he ever throws it.

  “Howie, I’ll make a deal with you,” I told him. “You got my express permission to be confused about stuff for as long as you want as long as you promise to tell me what’s up once you get it all figured out.”

  “You’ll be the first to know.”

  “Honestly, I’d rather be the second or third.”

  “Deal.” He held out his hand and I shook it, then I pulled him into a spontaneous hug because I knew it would make him feel better and maybe me, too.

  After our non-traditional bonding moment, I felt a little bit better about this “duck pond” I had driven my life into. Yeah, the world was crashing down, but I had this protective layer of mildly tweaked people around me who cared enough to keep on caring no matter what happened. Thinking about that brought back some of the conscience and confidence my aunt Mona accused me of having.

  “There’s somewhere I need to go,” I told Howie. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  “Where we going?”

  Then I whispered “. . . To visit the ghost of Jorgen Ericsson. . . .”

  • • •

  As it turns out, the guard at our suite door was not authorized to physically restrain me if I tried to leave the room. All he could do was intimidate me with mean looks. Frankly, I’d seen meaner looks on Don’t Walk signs. When Howie and I left, wheeling my suitcase with us, the guard tattled on us into his earpiece and yelled about all the trouble we’d be in—but in the end, all he could do was follow us like a dog, calling it “close personal surveillance.”

  We reached the captain’s quarters, where Tilde’s guard gave me another round of mean looks. I knocked on the door anyway, and Tilde let me in.

  She was alone, since her father was still on the bridge with my parents, trying to beat my brouhaha into submission while also trying to get the ship off the sandbar, maybe by mental levitation, because I didn’t see any anti-sandbar equipment at work all day.

  “My father won’t talk to me!” Tilde said furiously, beginning to take out her frustration on me. “I don’t know anything that’s happening.”

  I gave her the gist, and that just made her angrier. “You made everything worse! I should never have involved you.”

  And then Howie stepped forward. “Excuse me,” he said, matching her tone, “but this is your screwup, and you’re lucky you have Antsy to fix it for you!”

  I got between them before it could escalate. “I’m not here to argue. I’m here because we gotta bring food and water to the Caribbean Nine if they’re gonna survive the rest of this voyage.”

  She turned to her guard, who was still standing at the open door. “I know! I would do it myself, but this pendejo won’t let me go!”

  I approached her guard, who actually looked like he might physically restrain us if glares failed. “If the Caribbean Nine drop dead of starvation, it won’t look good for the cruise line,” I told him. “Or for you.”

  Now he looked a little worried.

  He did some talking into his earpiece, strings were pulled, and room service, who did not quite grasp the concept of feeding fugitives, sent us appetizer trays and nine bottles of Perrier.

  Our guards carried the trays and bottles down with us to the narrow winding hallway that led to Jorgen Ericsson’s star-filled alternate universe while I tugged my suitcase behind me.

  At last we found ourselves in front of the unremarkable iron door. The guards looked worried. This was beyond their security perimeter.

  “So,” asked Howie, “what are we gonna see?”

  “Best if I don’t tell you.”

  Tilde punched in the code and pulled open the door. The lights were already on, because people were moving, which relieved Tilde because it meant they hadn’t suffocated.

  “Hola,” Tilde called out. “Todos están bien?”

  Jorge stood up and looked over the railing of the Viking ship. “What about English only?”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” Tilde told him. “And neither do the passports.”

  Now everyone was looking over the edge of the Viking ship, waiting for an explanation and concerned by the strange sight of security guards holding platters of mini-quiches and sparkling water.

  “Better tell them what’s going on,” I whispered to Tilde. So she gave them the bad news. All of it, from the bleated video, to the media frenzy, to my public crucifixion, as if I had anything in common with Christ beyond the occasional bad hair day.

  After hearing the whole story, the nine mumbled to one another, troubled.

  “So we’re going back?” asked Beto.

  “Maybe yes, maybe no,” Tilde told him.

  Jorge smashed his fist onto a railing. “I knew this wouldn’t work.”

  “Careful,” I told him. “That wood’s like a thousand years old.”

  Meanwhile, Howie and the guards just stared at the Viking ship. “Oh, wow,” was all Howie could say. “Oh, wow.”

  “It’s Jorgen Ericsson’s tomb,” I told him. “He’s buried in it. But you can’t tell anyone.”

  “So it’s true!” said one of the guards, looking less intimidating than before as he passed around his tray of quiches to the hungry stowaways.

  While everyone ate and drank, I opened my suitcase. Inside I saw a neatly packed miniature version of my life. I held the image in my mind for just a moment, and then I started to give everything away. “Here,” I told the Nine, “wherever you’re going, at least you’ll have clean clothes.”

  Beto looked dejected and scared, so I gave him my iPod, and I whispered to him, “Here’s a secret. If everyone’s really, really still, the lights in the room go out, and you can see the stars.”

  When there was nothing left to give out, I handed my empty suitcase to the woman who had to leave hers behind.

  “I don’t understand,” said Jorge. “If they know about us, why are we still here? Why haven’t they taken us away?”

  “It’s complicated,” I told him. Although he didn’t want to accept that, I didn’t want to give him any more.

  Howie, meanwhile, was looking for a way to pry open Jorgen Ericsson’s coffin.

  “I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” I told him.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Maybe not.”

  “I’m sorry, Enzo,” said Tilde as we were about to leave. “I think I have ruined your life.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it,” I told her. Because maybe the ruins of my life could be cool, like Tulum.

  Just then the entire Viking ship began to rum
ble. The lights flickered, the wood of the old ship creaked, what was left of the mast quivered back and forth, and the steel hull of the Plethora let out a ghostly moan so loud, it could have been the end of the world.

  “It’s him!” shouted Howie. “It’s Jorgen Ericsson’s ghost! We raided his tomb, and now we’re cursed!”

  Then the door to the chamber—which we had left ajar—swung open, and standing silhouetted in the open hatchway was a nasty, gnarled figure—the very shadow of death itself, and Howie and I both screamed like little girls . . .

  . . . Until the figure stepped through the hatchway, and said—

  “What’s all this about? It’s still my birthday, why aren’t we celebrating, and why is there a Viking ship down here?”

  I recovered from the scream fest, and the moan in the ship around us faded into echoes. “Your birthday was yesterday,” I reminded Crawley.

  “I’ve extended it,” he said. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  The passengers of the Viking ship were chattering among themselves, laughing a little bit from their own panic at the Plethora’s great metallic complaint. Crawley took in the scene. “So this is the Caribbean Nine?”

  “Yeah, that’s them,” I told him.

  “And what’s with the old boat?”

  “Jorgen Ericsson’s tomb.”

  He glared at me, then said, “And people think I’m eccentric.”

  I felt a gentle rocking motion that I hadn’t felt for more than a day, and I suddenly realized what all that noise had been about.

  “We just got off the sandbar!” Tilde said, realizing it the same moment I did.

  “I guess we’re going home,” said Howie, kind of disappointed by the thought.

  Tilde and I told the Caribbean Nine that we’d be back for them and not to worry, even though there was plenty of reason to worry, but worrying makes you want to eat, and the quiches were already gone.

  As we left, I turned back to take a wide look at the scene again and realized something. This is probably the same kind of boat that Leif Ericsson sailed when he discovered America. So maybe the Caribbean Nine would get there after all.