four new books. Why come down here to help babysit strangers’ kids? She liked Amanda and felt sorry for her, but Amanda was getting paid. Taylor was supposed to be on summer vacation.
She turned down the angled deck way and saw three men leaving the room marked FIRST AID, twenty feet from her. One man was tall and thin, the other guy thick and muscular, with close-shaven hair. She’d seen the shaven man earlier, when they had boarded, standing outside a door at the end of the hall, and for some reason had felt a trickle of fear when his bloodshot eyes had passed over her. The shaven man had winked at her, and she had turned away and forced herself to walk, not run, back to her room.
The third man was not much taller than she was but very fat, his bald head gleaming in the hallway lights. Doc Perle. The shaven man’s hand was clamped above the doctor’s elbow. Doc Perle was protesting the grip but unable to break it. The shaven man didn’t seem to pay the doctor’s protests any mind, just kept steering him down the hallway.
There was something going on, something . . . urgent. Yes, that was the word. They had come for the doctor because something urgent was happening.
Maybe someone was hurt.
Maybe someone had been killed.
Or maybe . . . maybe the ship was being attacked, like that movie with the Somali pirates, and she would need to help free the captain and there would be—she wasn’t sure—maybe there would be a boy, eleven or twelve, who would help her. A smart boy but strong, too, who was scared of the pirates but more scared they’d hurt Taylor and so they would do brave things together....
She paused in the hallway. Ideas entered her mind and then split and ran in different directions, sometimes all at once, like lightning forking into the night sky. Her parents knew this, had her tested, and didn’t find anything bad; her grandma diagnosed her as a scatterbrain, pure and simple. Grandma was always getting hushed by Taylor’s mother, but Taylor figured she was right.
Still, she wasn’t scatterbrained all the time.
The door to First Aid was locked, the room dark inside the rectangle of glass in the door. She could either wait here, go back to the stinky day-care room, or follow Doc Perle. Taylor shifted from one foot to the other, biting on her lower lip. Maybe they were just taking him to dinner, and they held his arm like that because he had a bad leg. The shaven man, maybe he wasn’t as bad as he looked, he was one of those guys that was only scary on the outside. Maybe he had saved Doc Perle’s life when a horse had fallen on his leg during a military raid, and now they were best friends, and ate dinner together every night while they plotted ways to avenge those who had wronged them. She would approach their dinner table and quietly ask for the Anbesol. They would question her, suspicious she might be a spy for the other side, but soon they would see her obvious intelligence and admit her into their circle. Later, they would take her to the horse farm in Kentucky where they raised Arabian stallions that were as smart as a person and tell her she was destined to be a Freedom Rider.
She took a deep breath. Okay, her mind was in overdrive, even worse than normal. The cause was simple: too much downtime, followed by the day care and three hours of immersion in First Reader books. Also, the realization, not quite formed or coherent, that she was done being Mommy and Daddy’s perfect little girl.
She started after the men, thinking “Freedom Riders” would make a good story for next year’s English class.
* * *
Frankie stood at the edge of the bar, nursing a whiskey-water, just enough booze to feel in the back of his throat. It was almost eleven o’clock, and Latham and Prower were deep into the poker game.
Latham handled his cards slowly, careful not to bend the edges. He was sweating, little streams running down his face. It obviously wasn’t from the game, Frankie thought; Latham had
She turned down the angled deck way and saw three men leaving the room marked FIRST AID, twenty feet from her. One man was tall and thin, the other guy thick and muscular, with close-shaven hair. She’d seen the shaven man earlier, when they had boarded, standing outside a door at the end of the hall, and for some reason had felt a trickle of fear when his bloodshot eyes had passed over her. The shaven man had winked at her, and she had turned away and forced herself to walk, not run, back to her room.
The third man was not much taller than she was but very fat, his bald head gleaming in the hallway lights. Doc Perle. The shaven man’s hand was clamped above the doctor’s elbow. Doc Perle was protesting the grip but unable to break it. The shaven man didn’t seem to pay the doctor’s protests any mind, just kept steering him down the hallway.
There was something going on, something . . . urgent. Yes, that was the word. They had come for the doctor because something urgent was happening.
Maybe someone was hurt.
Maybe someone had been killed.
Or maybe . . . maybe the ship was being attacked, like that movie with the Somali pirates, and she would need to help free the captain and there would be—she wasn’t sure—maybe there would be a boy, eleven or twelve, who would help her. A smart boy but strong, too, who was scared of the pirates but more scared they’d hurt Taylor and so they would do brave things together....
She paused in the hallway. Ideas entered her mind and then split and ran in different directions, sometimes all at once, like lightning forking into the night sky. Her parents knew this, had her tested, and didn’t find anything bad; her grandma diagnosed her as a scatterbrain, pure and simple. Grandma was always getting hushed by Taylor’s mother, but Taylor figured she was right.
Still, she wasn’t scatterbrained all the time.
The door to First Aid was locked, the room dark inside the rectangle of glass in the door. She could either wait here, go back to the stinky day-care room, or follow Doc Perle. Taylor shifted from one foot to the other, biting on her lower lip. Maybe they were just taking him to dinner, and they held his arm like that because he had a bad leg. The shaven man, maybe he wasn’t as bad as he looked, he was one of those guys that was only scary on the outside. Maybe he had saved Doc Perle’s life when a horse had fallen on his leg during a military raid, and now they were best friends, and ate dinner together every night while they plotted ways to avenge those who had wronged them. She would approach their dinner table and quietly ask for the Anbesol. They would question her, suspicious she might be a spy for the other side, but soon they would see her obvious intelligence and admit her into their circle. Later, they would take her to the horse farm in Kentucky where they raised Arabian stallions that were as smart as a person and tell her she was destined to be a Freedom Rider.
She took a deep breath. Okay, her mind was in overdrive, even worse than normal. The cause was simple: too much downtime, followed by the day care and three hours of immersion in First Reader books. Also, the realization, not quite formed or coherent, that she was done being Mommy and Daddy’s perfect little girl.
She started after the men, thinking “Freedom Riders” would make a good story for next year’s English class.
* * *
Frankie stood at the edge of the bar, nursing a whiskey-water, just enough booze to feel in the back of his throat. It was almost eleven o’clock, and Latham and Prower were deep into the poker game.
Latham handled his cards slowly, careful not to bend the edges. He was sweating, little streams running down his face. It obviously wasn’t from the game, Frankie thought; Latham had
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