by Lisa Doan
“What just happened?” Charlie asked.
“We got bamboozled by the old devil,” Gunter said. “That’s what happened.”
* * *
Chef Mickey appeared to have a deep love for eggs. They’d had egg sandwiches for breakfast and now had a choice of egg salad or an omelet for dinner. They hadn’t had anything but eggs since a hot dog the first night and the sandwich morsel on the beach. Olive stared down at her omelet and said, “Why is that Mickey Mouser killing so many baby birds?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “But don’t complain about it.”
“I can complain if I want to.”
“I know you can, but don’t,” Charlie said. “Everybody is still blaming you for the sharks.”
“I’m six, I can’t be blamed,” Olive said proudly, as if the defense that her mother had floated on the beach could be trotted out for any and all occasions.
“They’re not blaming you out loud,” Charlie said, “but everybody is secretly blaming you. They’re blaming you in their minds.”
“In their minds?” Olive said softly.
Charlie guessed this might have been the first moment that it had occurred to Olive that other people had thoughts she didn’t know about.
Olive jumped up and stood on her chair. She shouted, “Stop blaming me in your minds!”
Mrs. Pennypacker’s head snapped up, always on the alert for incoming meltdowns. Charlie shook his head to let her know it was a false alarm and pulled his sister down from her podium.
“I’m gonna keep blaming you in my mind,” Gunter said to Olive.
The twins pointed at Olive and screeched.
Claire giggled and said, “Hashtag: Blaming!”
“Everybody stop talking!” Olive said.
Cinderalla slid into a chair and looked glumly at her egg salad. She picked up a limp dill pickle and said, “Livin’ the high life.”
Gunter leaned across the table and said, “We didn’t dock at Nassau because those same guys were there. How come they’re after the captain? What did he do?”
Cinderalla shrugged and took a bite of pickle. She grimaced like she’d never tasted one before.
Olive said, “I know, right? Who even invented pickles? Why?”
Charlie decided to try the good cop strategy. “Listen, Cinderalla, I want to help you. I can’t help you unless I know the truth.”
Cinderalla laid down her pickle and looked Charlie straight in the eye. “You want to help me, do you? How about you get me off this tin can and onto Norwegian Cruise Line as a beloved lounge singer? And hey, if you want to be a regular Santa Claus, how ’bout you set me up a retirement fund so I’m not workin’ a job like this when I’m ninety?”
“He don’t got a lot of money,” Olive said, hooking her thumb at Charlie. “My dad only gives him five dollars a week, and sometimes I go in his room and take some. But only the new quarters because they’re shiny. I got a whole collection of shiny quarters.”
Charlie whipped his head around to his sister. “I knew you were stealing from me. I knew it was you.”
“I guess the cat’s out of the bag on that one,” Cinderalla said.
Olive shrugged. “I can’t be blamed,” she said.
“You can too be blamed,” Charlie said. Then he paused. He was getting off track. Olive’s thievery would have to wait. “Seriously,” he said to Cinderalla, “what did the captain do to make those guys so mad?”
“Yeah,” Gunter said. “We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way, but I want answers.”
Cinderalla reached over and squeezed Gunter’s cheeks together, making his lips pop out like a duck’s bill. “What do you want?” she asked him.
Gunter attempted to speak, but Charlie couldn’t really understand him through the duck bill.
“Hey, you could smack him,” Olive said to Cinderalla. “I’ll say it was me ’cause I can’t be blamed.”
Cinderalla paused to consider Olive’s generous offer. Then she let go of Gunter and went to smoke near the porthole.
“I don’t think she knows anything,” Gunter said, rubbing his face.
“Probably not,” Charlie said. “I had another idea, though. There might be things happening when everybody is asleep. Cinderalla might not know anything, but other people might be part of whatever is going on. If we sleep on deck, we might overhear a secret meeting or see somebody doing something suspicious.”
“Could be,” Gunter said. “It might even be a guest. We can’t rule anybody out.”
“We don’t have ‘sleeping on deck’ in the agreement, so we’ll have to add a rider.”
“What’s a rider?”
“An amendment to the agreement,” Charlie said. He usually didn’t listen to his mom when she went off on her lawyer stories, but he must have been around it so much that it had just seeped into his brain. He even sounded like a lawyer.
“Why do we need a rider?” Gunter asked.
“Because we’ll be on the deck overnight and anything could happen. What if a rogue wave takes me over the side? I need to have it in writing that you’ll pull me out and not just give me a thumbs-up as I drift into the darkness.”
Gunter snorted. It was exactly the kind of thing the guy would find funny.
“I’m telling mommy that you’re gonna sleep outside,” Olive said. “I bet you’re not allowed.”
Charlie silently swore. He’d forgotten she was there. He would have to go to the nuclear option to keep her quiet. He had helped Olive hide many, many crimes and had kept a strict record of them for future use.
He leaned over to his sister and said softly, “If you tell, I will tell mom about the glass figurine you broke, the cabinet handle you broke, the remote control you broke, the toilet you broke when you flushed down a handful of Shopkins because you wanted them to swim in waves. Oh, and the sheets that have magic marker all over them that I helped you hide in the back of your closet.”
Olive considered this list of unexplained mysteries that had occurred in the Pennypacker household. In a guttural, demon-like voice, she said, “I will cook you like a French fry.”
“Uh-huh,” Charlie said. “But you won’t tell.”
* * *
The captain finally dropped the anchor after ten o’clock. Charlie had been checking since eight, waiting for the captain to turn the boat over to Mickey Mouser for night watch. The crew took shifts when the boat was anchored, to make sure they didn’t accidentally float away and wake up just as coral was ripping through the hull and the boat was sinking like the Titanic.
Charlie took his blanket and a water bottle up on deck. He planned to put together a makeshift bed on one of the sturdier deck chairs. Gunter was right behind him. He glanced at Charlie’s blanket and water, then went below and brought up a bottle of water and two blankets.
Charlie sighed. He guessed the two blankets were supposed to be superior to his one blanket. Even a simple thing like what to bring on deck was a competition for Gunter Hwang. If Kyle were there, he would have just asked Charlie ahead of time what he should bring and would have congratulated Charlie on his foresight and planning.
Charlie paused. If he really thought about it, Kyle would have been too scared to sleep on deck. As great a friend as Kyle was, he was kind of a worrier. Kyle was still convinced that there was a beehive somewhere in Charlie’s house, because he had seen a bee in the kitchen last year. Every time he came over, Charlie saw him scan each room, listening for telltale buzzing. If Kyle were informed that the mob was after him, he might spontaneously combust.
The deck was eerily dark. The moon had passed behind the clouds, and it was hard to see where the railings were. Charlie thought the only way he would even know he was on a boat was the gentle rocking of the waves and the quiet splashing of water against the hull. He shivered at the thought of accidentally going over the side. He would plunge into the inky water and be dragged away by the current. Rider or no, he really had to wonder how fast Gunter would th
row him a rope or sound the alarm. Charlie imagined the lights on the boat drifting farther away until they disappeared and he was alone, waiting for some nightmare beast to rise from the deep and cut him in half. All that would be left of him would be his wallet floating along with the current, eventually found by a retired couple walking their dog on the beach.
Gunter shoved his arm. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Thinking about what it would be like to go overboard,” Charlie said quietly.
“That wasn’t the plan,” Gunter said, “but if you’re determined, it’s your funeral. Enjoy your swim.”
“We should watch both sides of the boat,” Charlie said, ignoring Gunter’s snide remark. “I’ll take starboard and you take port.”
“Maybe I should take starboard,” Gunter said.
“Does it really matter?” Charlie asked.
“No, not really,” Gunter said.
Charlie lay carefully on his deck chair, listening for ripping fabric before he put his whole weight on it. He settled in and gazed up at the stars. With the boat in darkness, it looked as if the sky had somehow lowered itself. Like the stars were way closer than they usually were.
He could just see the lights of Eleuthera in the distance and could hear the waves rolling over the reef. He’d never heard of Eleuthera, so maybe the Mafia wouldn’t even know where it was. After all, they weren’t exactly a seafaring people—gritty backstreets were their neighborhood, not the Caribbean.
“How’s Kyle?” Gunter said from across the deck.
Charlie stiffened. Why was Gunter Hwang asking about his friend Kyle? “He’s fine,” he said.
There was a long silence. Charlie felt like he was expected to say something back. “Who are you hanging out with these days?”
“A lot of people and nobody in particular,” Gunter said. “My dad says Americans are jerks and you have to keep them at arm’s length.”
“You’re American,” Charlie said.
“I’m half Korean, which is the part my dad focuses on. My mom focuses on the German half. Neither of them focus on the American part.”
“Why does he think Americans are jerks?” Charlie asked. He shouldn’t have been surprised; Charlie had always felt Mr. Hwang looked down on him. Especially since Mr. Hwang had once looked down at Charlie and said, “You are not as good as my son. At anything.”
“I don’t know,” Gunter said. “Just jerky stuff he’s heard about.”
Jerky stuff he’d heard about? Charlie got a sinking feeling that some of the jerky stuff Mr. Hwang had heard about had to do with him. Mr. Hwang would only have heard Gunter’s side, which would have been filled with outlandish exaggerations to make Gunter look like a blameless angel. Maybe he should write a letter to Mr. Hwang to set the record straight.
But why should he care what Mr. Hwang thought? Mr. Hwang had paid Mr. Pennypacker thirty dollars a day to pawn off Gunter. Mr. Hwang’s opinions should mean nothing to Charlie.
Still, bringing up anything that had to do with why he and Gunter weren’t friends anymore gave him a queasy feeling.
Charlie rolled over and tried to sleep, but Mr. Hwang and his hatred of Americans kept surfacing in his mind like a buoy in steep waves.
Chapter Nine
Charlie had dozed on and off. Sleeping on deck had been a bust. It was uncomfortable, and he had not seen or heard anything. Now it was just before dawn; the sky was not yet pink, but the stars had gone. Charlie stretched.
He heard footsteps across the deck. Charlie pulled the blanket over his head and peeked out.
The captain was jogging up the steps to the bridge with a cup of coffee in his hand. He passed a staggering Mickey Mouser. No wonder Mickey’s food was so terrible—the guy never had time to sleep.
After the door to the bridge closed behind the captain and Mickey Mouser had gone down the stairs, Charlie threw off his blanket and stood up. Gunter was still asleep, which Charlie was glad about. He really did not want to have any more conversations that started with “How’s Kyle?” He could work with Gunter, but it had to be all business. There was no reason why they should have conversations about their personal lives. Or the past. Or who was friends with who.
The island was straight ahead. It looked very long, but not wide. Then, Charlie noticed they weren’t the only boat waiting for sunrise. There was a small sailboat to their left, and a bright blue vessel, twice the size of the Aladdin’s Dream, on their right. The hulking ship was named the Sea Wind.
“That boat is huge. It must have rich people on it,” Gunter said.
Charlie jumped. The guy was a cat! Just when you thought you knew where he was, he turned up somewhere else without a sound.
“They’re probably one-percenters—they have so much money they just throw it at anything,” Gunter said.
“Yup,” Charlie said. “They probably have to pay ten thousand dollars a day.”
“Hey, maybe I could tell your dad that your mom made reservations on it, just to see if he would faint.”
Charlie snorted before he could stop himself. Years ago, they’d had a game called “Make Mr. Pennypacker Fall Down,” consisting solely of telling Charlie’s dad about ways he could lose all his money.
“Wait a minute,” Gunter said, pushing past him. “Did you see that?”
“What?” Charlie asked.
He pointed at the Sea Wind. “That.”
Charlie looked over at the Sea Wind. The mobsters. They stood at the rails, staring intently at the Aladdin’s Dream.
“Uh-oh,” Charlie said. “I bet that boat is owned by the crime boss!”
As he said it, more and more people appeared on the deck of the massive boat and looked over the rails. They were dressed in shorts and T-shirts and looked nothing like mobsters. All of them were peering at the island. It was only the men in suits staring at the Aladdin’s Dream.
“No,” Gunter said. “They bought tickets. That’s a ferry.”
“We better tell the captain,” Charlie said. “And this time, we demand answers.”
Before Charlie could demand answers, the door to the bridge opened. The captain stood at the top of the stairs, staring at the Sea Wind.
The men ducked out of sight. The captain shook his fist in the air, went back to the bridge, and slammed the door shut.
“And one … two … three,” Gunter said, counting on his fingers.
At three, the engines roared on and the anchor came up with a clatter. The boat reversed and turned toward the open sea.
Charlie looked back at the Sea Wind. The men in suits stood up again. Charlie could just make out their furious expressions as the captain pushed the throttle and steered the boat away from land.
“Let’s go have a chat with the captain,” he said.
Charlie tried the door to the bridge. It was locked. He knocked on it but there was no answer. “Captain, we know you’re in there and we know who those men are. We know you’re on the run. Open up, we demand answers.”
“Sorry,” the captain said, “I can’t hear through this locked door.”
“You can hear us,” Gunter said, “or you wouldn’t have answered us.”
“What?” the captain said.
“He can’t stay in there forever,” Charlie said. “Sooner or later he’ll have to tell us what’s going on.”
The sun began to rise as the Aladdin’s Dream sped away from the island of Eleuthera and the ferry headed toward it. They had bought some time, but Charlie was not so sure how much time. It didn’t look like those guys were going to give up easily.
Charlie smelled the familiar scent of frying eggs coming from the galley and made his way below deck. The corridor was crowded with passengers still in their pajamas, asking each other questions.
“I can see right out of my porthole that we’re going away from an island, not toward it.”
“Why? Where are we going?”
The loudspeaker crackled. “Good morning, good morning, good morning, folks! It’s anot
her beautiful day in the Caribbean! What a fun-filled day we have in store for … wait! What’s that? It can’t be! Folks, I’m getting an emergency transmission up here. There has been a military coup on the island of Eleuthera. Armed rebels have taken over. Well, I say, I won’t have any part of that! When I hear military coup, I say ‘not on my watch.’ We here at Wisney Cruises are committed to fun, and if there is anything fun about a military coup, I would like to know about it. No, folks, we are steering well clear of that. We shall chart our course to the Turks and Caicos, which is fantastically coup-free. Enjoy your eggs!”
“Did you hear that?” Mr. Pennypacker asked his wife. “A military coup. Think what might have happened! That big boat that was next to us is heading right into it. Exactly like we would have been if we were on some oversized Disney ship. Whew! We are nimble!”
Mrs. Pennypacker didn’t answer. She knew only too well that the military coup would go right on the list of why not spending money was wise.
Other passengers did not seem as convinced of imminent danger as Mr. Pennypacker.
“First cholera, now a military coup?”
“What kind of operation is this?”
“I just wonder what’s next.”
Charlie wondered the very same thing. What next?
* * *
At breakfast, the military coup faded as a topic when a protest was launched by Jimmy Jenkins’s parents over the egg situation. They claimed their young son was losing weight because of the absence of cereal, and Mickey Mouser was forced to produce a box of Cap’n Crunch. This was met with a round of applause. Poor Jimmy probably wished he never complained about the eggs after Olive launched herself at his face and then informed him that they would kiss and have cereal together for the rest of their lives.
The budding romance, or hostage situation, was interrupted by the loudspeaker. Captain Wisner came on and said, “Crew meeting on the bridge in five, over and out.”
“Crew meeting,” Gunter said.
“Exactly,” Charlie said. “That’s how we’ll get some real information.”
