S.O.S. Titanic by Eve Bunting

read something that was meant for me?"
    "I didn't read it. I took it, that's true. But I never read a word."
    Pegeen held out her hand. "Give it to me." Not once had she looked at Barry. Not once.
    "It's under my pillow. I was going to give it to you when we were safely landed."
    "You did the right thing, Mary girl," Jonnie Flynn said. "You give it to Frank and me, not to her at all."
    The stewardess interrupted. "The important question is, Where are the young ladies' life jackets? It is a serious offense to remove life jackets from a cabin."
    "We gave them to Jonnie and Frank," Pegeen began guiltily.
    "This is not permitted. Who has the life jackets?"
    Frank Flynn elbowed his brother. "The O'Neill fellow was that worried about our sister he had to come down here himself in person."
    "Too bad him and his didn't worry about us back in Mullinmore. There wouldn't be a Flynn here if it wasn't for him and his kind, always whining about—no, lamenting—if we looked sideways at them."
    "You did a lot more than look sideways," Barry began.
    A cabin door opened and an angry voice shouted, "Are you going to gab all night? Will you let a woman get her sleep?"
    "Exacdy," Miss Acheson said. "You two young ladies go in your cabin. Mr. O'Neill, leave. You others go, and return with Miss Flynn's and Miss Kelly's life jackets. Give them to me."
    For the first time Pegeen looked at Barry. Her black dress had the square silver brooch at the high neck and her fingers nervously traced and retraced its outline. "The message? It was to tell me about the life jackets? That was the holy all of it?"
    Barry bit his lip. He looked quickly around at the half circle of glowering feces. "There was something else," he said.
    "Oh, he's the fly one. 'There was something else,'" Jonnie Flynn said in a mincing English voice. "Telling her he loved her, likely. Oh, the boyo has the nerve of Brian Boru, so he does."
    "Get the letter, Pegeen, and give it to us," Frank said.
    "Frank Flynn!" Pegeen's voice was as angry as the brothers'. "Don't tell me what to do. I'm my own person, I am."
    "I'm telling yez all to shut up," someone else shouted from farther along the corridor. An angry thump on a cabin wall.
    "I'm not going to say it again," Miss Acheson ordered. "Go."
    "Aye, go!" the cabin voice shouted.
    Miss Acheson pushed them. "Go."
    "Don't be letting him near her, then!" Jonnie Flynn shouted back over his shoulder. "I'm putting you in charge. You keep him away from her, or the captain will hear about it."
    Mary had her hand on the cabin doorknob. "Twenty-nine G," Barry read. He was glad he knew, and not sure why he was glad.
    "I'll read the letter," Pegeen said, looking right at him, and then she was gone.
    "Good-night, Mr. O'Neill," the stewardess said firmly.
    "Good-night."
    Barry went back the way he had come, the knife ready in his pocket, the whistle dangling where he could reach it in a second. It would be hard for them to throw him overboard from here. They'd have to carry him up like an old sack of coal, but they could jump him, the whole holy bunch of them. They could be waiting.

Chapter 10
    And they were. He heard their breathing before he saw them bunched around the corner at the bottom of the stairs.
    "Get him, boys!" Jonnie Flynn shouted.
    One on one, or two on one, he might have had a chance, but not five on one; and the boy big as a horse had something in his hand ... A water carafe? A lemonade bottle? There was no time to see. They were lunging toward him.
    Barry pulled the whistle from under his scarf and blew with all his breath. The high, shrill scream of it almost took his head off.
    Doors opened everywhere. Voices called. He thought one of the voices belonged to Miss Thelma Acheson.
    In a daze of sound and confusion he saw the Flynns and their friends stumbling over each other and running along the corridor, their hands clasped to their ears. And he was running himself, racing up the stairs, the whistle jumping against him at every step,