Blue Autumn Cruise

by Lisa Williams Kline

  It was early, only 8:30, and hardly any people were there. One of the staff members stood at the door wearing a black T-shirt and pants. He looked like he was in his twenties.

  On one side of the room sat a group of girls who were definitely older than us, and they were laughing and making fun of the place. On the other side of the room stood boys who looked like they might be our age. One was skinny with very short dark hair that looked almost military. His clothes looked like his mother had ironed them. The other was less skinny and had a long shock of brown hair that he kept flipping off his forehead. They were both kind of cute, especially the one with the longer hair.

  “Hey, I’m Josh,” said the staff member at the door. “How old are you girls? This is the teen club, and it’s for kids ages thirteen to seventeen.”

  “We’re fourteen and fifteen, all freshmen in high school,” Lauren said.

  “This is the place for you, then!” He turned to Daddy. “We’re just about to start a game.”

  “What kind of game?” Lauren asked. “I could get into a game!”

  “We’re going to play a getting-to-know-you game, and then later we’re going to play karaoke,” said Josh. “You can also shoot and edit videos. At the end of the cruise, we’re going to broadcast some of the teen videos on the ship’s TV channel.”

  “Ooh, really? I have my own video camera, but I don’t have that many features on it,” Lauren said. “Editing would be really cool.”

  “Well, you can try it out in a bit,” said Josh.

  Daddy and Uncle Ted waved good-bye to us. “We’ll see you girls later,” Daddy said. “Can you find your way back to your room?”

  “Absolutely!” said Lauren excitedly.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “We expect you back in your rooms by eleven. Check in with us when you get back. We hope you have a good time, at the end of the day!” said Uncle Ted.

  Lauren laughed. “At the end of the day, we will!”

  “Let’s get started with this game!” Josh sat on the floor, and the three of us joined him. Slowly, the two boys came over. The older girls said they didn’t want to play.

  “No problem, that’s cool,” said Josh. “What we’re going to do is you’re each going to introduce yourself and tell us three things about yourself. Two of those things will be true. One of those things will not be true. We’re going to try to guess which thing each person says is not true. I’ll start. My name is Josh. I’m from California, and I played middle linebacker on my high-school football team.”

  We were all silent for a minute.

  “You didn’t play middle linebacker for the football team,” said the skinny guy with the supershort military hair and neatly ironed clothes. “You’re not big enough to play middle linebacker.”

  “Ding, ding, ding! That is correct!” said Josh. “Okay, next?”

  “I’ll go!” Lauren waved her hand. “My name is Stephanie Verra, and I’m fourteen and I love to flirt with boys.”

  I could feel my face turning hot. I felt like saying, “Lauren!” But I didn’t say anything. Did Lauren really think that I loved to flirt with boys?

  The two boys glanced at each other and laughed. “I believe that you love to flirt,” said the one with the shock of brown hair falling on his forehead. He had a habit of tossing his head to the side to throw back his hair. “So I think that’s true.”

  “So you think either her name or her age isn’t true?” said Josh. “Hmm. What do you think?”

  “I think you are fourteen. So Stephanie’s not your real name,” said the skinny guy to Lauren.

  “Ding, ding. Correct!” said Lauren.

  “So, what is your name?” Josh asked.

  “Lauren. My cousin is the one whose name is Stephanie.”

  Diana was supposed to be next, but she said she didn’t want to play.

  “We’ll come back to you later,” said Josh. “Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

  The skinny guy said his name was Evan, that he was fifteen, and that he had once been hit by lightning.

  “You’ve never been hit by lightning,” Lauren said, laughing. “You wouldn’t be here.”

  “Or else I would have, like, smoke coming out of my ears or something. Anyway, you’re correct,” said Evan. He turned to his friend. “Okay, your turn, dude.”

  “My name is Guy,” said the boy with brown hair. “I’m a diabetic, and I won the national science fair when I was in fourth grade.”

  “Hmm,” I said to Guy. He was really cute. “I’m going to guess … that you did not win the national science fair.”

  Guy gave a quick toss of his head to get his hair out of his eyes. “Right.”

  “So … you’re diabetic?”

  Guy nodded. He showed us the small pump he used to deliver insulin. It was attached around his waist and looked like a little cell phone. A tiny line led from it to an injection site to the right of his belly button.

  “You wear that all the time?” I asked.

  “Yep,” he said. “It delivers insulin continuously to my body.”

  At that point more kids came in, and Josh had to leave to greet them and talk to their parents. Then he started giving out glow-in-the-dark necklaces and turned up the music.

  “In about ten minutes we’ll start the karaoke!” he said.

  The five of us sat in a circle for a few minutes, and then Lauren got up and went over to the video-editing booth. “I want to learn how to work this,” she said.

  “Me too,” said Evan, following her.

  Pretty soon Lauren had her video camera out.

  I started talking to Guy about how he found out he had diabetes, and Diana sat there listening to us. While we were talking, Lauren must have figured out how to show the footage from her camera on the system in the club, because suddenly during a lull in the noise, on the big screen on the wall came up a video clip of Diana skipping around the room and singing “Aweemaway” at the top of her lungs. Everyone in the club burst out laughing, including the three older girls who hadn’t wanted to play the game with us.

  Lauren looked over at Diana with a look of triumph on her face. Diana’s face turned completely white, and her mouth dropped open.

  I couldn’t believe Lauren had done that. But I knew she’d done it to get back at Diana for telling on us at dinner.

  5

  DIANA

  Oh, I couldn’t believe it! How could she have done that? Why did I let her tape me singing that song, anyway? That was so stupid.

  I was so mad, I couldn’t even stay at the club for another minute. I jumped to my feet, listening to all the laughter, then I ran out the door and jammed the elevator button with my thumb. Anything to get out of there in the fastest way possible.

  Lauren was so mean! I wished we’d never come on this cruise. I wished Mom had never married Norm. I wished I’d never met Stephanie.

  Why couldn’t we just go back to the way things were before? Before we’d gone to the Outer Banks last spring I’d thought if things got bad with Mom, I could just go live with Dad, but now I knew that really wasn’t possible. Dad didn’t want me to live with him. That was pretty obvious. But how could I stand things like this?

  There were already kids at school who made fun of me. They would growl at me and call me “annn-i-MAL” when they walked by in the hall. Every time it happened, it was like someone stabbing me in the heart.

  The elevator came, and I jumped in and hit the button to close the door. That minute I saw Stephanie and the boy named Guy running out of the club toward me. I hit the Close Door button about five more times, and the doors started to close.

  But Stephanie raced across the lobby and stuck her hand between the doors just as they were closing. They started to open up again.

  “Diana! Don’t! I can’t believe she did that. I’ll talk to her! Don’t leave, okay?”

  “Leave me alone!” I said. “People make fun of me at school. And now they make fun of me in the middle of the ocean too
! I am not staying here anymore, with everyone in there laughing their heads off at me.”

  “I didn’t laugh,” Stephanie said.

  “I didn’t laugh either,” Guy said. “I make it a policy not to make fun of people.”

  I punched the Close Door button again, and the doors started to move together.

  Stephanie jumped forward again and stopped the doors. “Come on, Diana. It’s not that big a deal. We were just singing and having fun. Nobody thinks anything of it.”

  “Just leave me alone!” I said again.

  As the doors closed a final time, she said, “What if I get her to apologize?”

  I didn’t answer. The elevator headed down to another floor, and then I realized I hadn’t punched the deck number for our room yet. I punched in fourteen.

  I stood in front of the doors, my stomach feeling queasy as the elevator dropped, and I realized I was shaking. I thought about what Dr. Shrink had told me. Take deep breaths. Moronic Mood-o-Meter at two.

  The doors opened. I was on deck fourteen. I stepped out of the elevator but didn’t know which way to go. I checked my jean pocket for my room card. I had it. But it didn’t have the room number written on it. I wasn’t sure I could remember the room number.

  I looked at the map of the ship on the wall to try to figure out which hall to walk down and which way to go. I had gotten turned around and couldn’t remember whether I had to go toward the back of the ship or the front.

  I thought I chose the right direction and started heading down the narrow corridor. My heart was still beating wildly, and I could feel the flush on my cheeks. I wouldn’t speak to Lauren for the rest of the trip, that was for sure. How could Stephanie ever have thought she was “awesome.” She was so mean!

  Pretty soon it seemed like the numbers on the doors weren’t going in the right direction and so I turned around and went the other way down the corridor. I passed a few people, and they smiled and said hello.

  Maybe Lauren was getting back at me for telling that they were making fun of the way Uncle Ted said “at the end of the day.” I could tell she was mad about that. But so what. She and Stephanie had been making fun of him. It wasn’t my job to keep their secret.

  I looked at the numbers on the doors again. I’d gotten to another section of rooms. What was our room number? I had kind of forgotten.

  I wondered where Mom was right now. She and Aunt Carol had stayed in the dining room when we left with Norm and Uncle Ted. Maybe all the grown-ups were still sitting there. I didn’t want to see them really, but since I couldn’t remember our room number, I probably needed to find them.

  I wasn’t going back to the teen club, that was for sure.

  I stood in the hallway, undecided.

  “Diana?”

  I turned around and saw Grammy Verra walking down the hallway.

  “Hi.”

  “Are you lost? This is my deck.”

  “Your deck?” I must have accidentally remembered Grammy’s deck number instead of ours. “I can’t remember my room number.”

  “We just finished talking and having coffee in the restaurant, and I was on my way back to my room,” said Grammy. “I thought you girls were going to spend the evening in the teen club.”

  “Not me,” I said. I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice.

  “Oh,” Grammy said, giving me a close look. “Come on, want to see my room? I have all the room numbers written down on a notepad. And you can go out on my balcony if you want to.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t know Grammy Verra very well. But I didn’t know where my room was, and I didn’t know where Mom was. “Okay,” I said.

  I followed Grammy down the narrow corridor, then Grammy swiped her key card, and I followed her into her room. It was bigger than ours, with a king-size bed and a sliding-glass door that opened onto a balcony. A novel with a bookmark in it lay on the bedside table, and a pink satin robe lay across the bed.

  “Check out my balcony. I’ll find out your room number.”

  I pushed open the glass door and walked out onto the balcony, into the cool night air. The lights of the ship shone all around, and I could see people just below me, on a bigger balcony, sitting at a table drinking wine. Sounds of music from somewhere else on the ship wafted up. I could see the choppy waves down below in the cones of light cast from the ship. A rushing sound came from the movement of the ocean. Farther out to sea was blackness.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” came Grammy Verra’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “It would be nice to sit out here and talk,” said Grammy. “We talk on the phone but I haven’t really had a chance to get to know you so well in person, Diana.” She sat in one of the two chairs arranged on the balcony and gestured for me to sit in the other one.

  “There’s not much to know about me.”

  “Oh, I bet that’s not true,” Grammy said. “Everyone has their own story.”

  I started to say, “I have to go,” but for some reason I slid down into the other chair.

  “Where did you grow up, Diana?”

  “Mom and Dad and I used to live outside Washington, D.C.” It made me feel sad to say it. “I lived there until I was in second grade, when they got divorced. Then Dad moved to Florida and Mom and I moved to Charlotte. And then, you know, Mom met Norm.”

  “And I’m so glad they did. Your mother has made my son very happy.”

  That was weird to think about. Norm was her son, like I was Mom’s daughter.

  “What do you think about living in the South?” she asked.

  “I think people are too polite down here. They never say what they mean.”

  “That’s an interesting observation. I like people to be direct too.”

  “And they move too slow.”

  Grammy Verra laughed. “Maybe you’re right. The southern way of doing things. Maybe you’ll just have to start taking your time more.” She hesitated. “Do you have a close relationship with your grandparents?”

  “On my dad’s side, no. He doesn’t get along with them. They live in Florida, but I’ve only seen them once or twice. It’s always awkward.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Sure it does. That’s two people who could love you, and you could love them. What about your mom’s side?”

  “Neither of my grandparents are still alive.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Grammy hesitated. I could see her glasses glinting in the lights from the ship, but mostly her face was in darkness. “Well, three can be a crowd when it comes to girls. How are you and Lauren and Stephanie getting along?”

  “We’re not.”

  “What do you mean? Did something happen?”

  I hesitated. I wasn’t sure I trusted her. But the fact that I couldn’t really see Grammy’s face made it easier for me to talk. So I told Grammy Verra what had happened with Lauren.

  “I never should have let them talk me into singing that stupid song,” I finished.

  “But you had fun singing the song, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Not really.” I knew I wasn’t telling the truth, but I stubbornly stuck to my story. I had wanted to be part of what they were doing. And it had felt really good to be included.

  But before that, they had talked about all of Uncle Ted’s sayings, and I’d felt left out.

  “Why did you tell at the dinner table about the girls making fun of Uncle Ted’s sayings?”

  “Well, they did it,” I said.

  “But you had to have known they didn’t want Uncle Ted to know.”

  “Well, if they were doing it, he should know.”

  “How do you think they felt when you told?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Embarrassed.”

  “And do you think that’s what Lauren was doing—to get back at you and embarrass you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She
was saying that part of this was my own fault. It was starting to feel like one of my sessions with Dr. Shrink.

  “Okay,” said Grammy Verra. “I just wanted you to see that Lauren was doing the same thing you did. Not that either one of you was right. But when you lash out at another person, you might expect that some of the time that person will strike back and try to hurt you as much as you hurt them.”

  We sat in silence for a little while. My heart was beating hard. She was going to tell me to apologize, I knew it.

  “As it turns out, Uncle Ted wasn’t hurt, and he doesn’t mind a little teasing. There’s nothing wrong with a little light-spirited teasing.”

  “I’m not apologizing,” I blurted out.

  Grammy Verra was silent. “We have four more days together. It would be a shame if you girls keep on feuding and ruin your time on the cruise.”

  “I’ll hang out with Luke,” I said impulsively.

  “I think he’s met a couple of boys to play with.”

  The silence drew out between us. I could hear the movement of the water down below. I wondered what Grammy Verra thought of me. She probably thought I was a spoiled brat.

  “I better get back to my room,” I said. “Did you find the room numbers?”

  “Yes.” Grammy Verra got up and went back inside. I followed her into the room, where she gave me my room number and told me how to get there.

  She stood in her doorway as I headed out. Even though she had been kind of hard on me, something made me want to hug her. But I held back and didn’t.

  6

  STEPHANIE

  You embarrassed her, Lauren,” I said, sliding into the chair next to her at the video-editing console. “Why can’t you just apologize?”

  Lauren was busy editing some of the footage she’d shot of Manuel when he had been folding towel animals in our room earlier. “She embarrassed me, talking about my dad’s sayings right in front of him. She embarrassed you too, Steph!”

  “Your dad didn’t really seem to mind. He kind of made a joke out of it.” The chairs were swivel chairs, and I nervously turned myself around. “I just want everyone to get along.”