S.O.S. Titanic by Eve Bunting Page B

laughter of someone below. Music drifted. Music always drifted from somewhere on the
Titanic,
music and perfume.
    "It will be all right, sweetheart," Mr. Bensonhurst said. "Jocelyn will love you. How could she not, when you love her so much? This bad time will pass."
    "Yes," Barry said, and the thought of his own mother came like the jab of a knife. "I know it will be hard for you," his mother had said in her last letter, "but we love you so much and we want you with us."
    "Yes," he said again. "It will be all right."
    Mrs. Adair's smile was warm, her eyes steady. "Thank you. You know, you could have had two cups of that cinnamon cocoa while we kept you here, talking." She put up a hand and touched his cheek. "Is this a new bruise on your face? How on earth did you get another one?"
    "Really?" Barry felt where she'd touched. "It's sore, all right," he said. "My mother's going to think I've been in the wars when she sees me." How strange. He hadn't even known that one of Frank Flynn's punches had landed. At least this one wouldn't need stitches.
    "Good-night, then, old chap," Mr. Bensonhurst said. The words sounded so English and so wrong in that American accent that Barry had to smile.
    "Good-night."
    "I wanted you to know," Mrs. Adair said softly. "I didn't like it that you thought me a monster."
    "I never thought that," Barry said. He watched them go together down the wide staircase, and he was glad for them and glad for Jocelyn. It might be a long way to go, but in the end they'd be a family. Wasn't that something his own mother had said, too?
    He turned and looked again at the swinging doors to the deck. The thought that Pegeen might come had crept far into the back of his head. Just because by now she'd have read the letter, what made him think she would come right away up onto the cold deck? Why had he ever thought she would? And how long had he been standing here talking to Mrs. Adair and Mr. Bensonhurst? Five minutes. Maybe ten.
    It was what Father Dooley in Mullinmore would have called an act of blind faith, but a fool action for all of that, that made him push open the door and go out again into the cold to wait.
But,
he told himself,
just in case.
    He thought he'd waited a long time, but maybe it only seemed long with the cold sinking through him and his ears nervous at every sound, at every creak and twitch of the ship. Easy to tell himself the fighting Flynns wouldn't be after him tonight, but his muscles didn't seem to believe him. They jerked and tightened and his fingers fumbled around till they found the little knife in his pocket.
    He'd never seen stars so hard and sharp edged. He'd never seen a sea so calm, like a mirror of glass.
    Then she was there. She had wrapped herself again in the shawl. It hid her hair and turned her into a shapeless bundle of black. The silver pin at her neck gleamed through the weave of the wool.
    "Jonnie brought the life jackets," she said. "Thank you. But I thought maybe there was more you wanted to say to me."
    "There is." His mouth was so numbed with cold that the words wouldn't come. He wished she'd worn the long black coat that came almost to her ankles, because the cold was desperate, sinking through flesh and bones, turning the marrow inside them to ice.
    "Let's go inside," he muttered.
    Pegeen pulled away. "Och, no. What if one of the stewards saw me and sent me back to my rightful place? I'd die of shame."
    She would, he knew. But it was so cold.
    "We could go down to steerage, then," he said. "We can't be out here—you can't."
    "No, Frank and Jonnie might be around."
    Well, he didn't want that either. The whistle might not save him next time.
    "Just tell me fast what it is you want," Pegeen said.
    Everything jumbled in his head. The danger to the ship, if there was danger. That she should be ready if anything happened.
    He stared at her, not knowing where to begin or how to make sense. Did she know that he liked her? Which was daft. Did she know?
    "It was mosdy the life