Free Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise by Wendelin Van Draanen

do you want to dotomorrow?” he asks. “Bingo in the Poseidon Theater does not seem like the way you’d want to spend your birthday.”
    “True.…” I think a minute and say, “Actually, anything’s okay. As long as it doesn’t involve me turning thirteen
again
.”
    “As far as I know, you’re moving on to the big one-four.”
    “As far as you know? So there
is
the possibility?!” I look around. “Are you saying my mother’s onboard somewhere?”
    “Not that I know of!” Then he adds, “And I sure can’t picture Lana as a stowaway.”
    I blink at him, ’cause that’s so true. “Okay, then, see? Anything else is fine with me.”
    But apparently he can’t think of anything to suggest, so after a long, awkward pause, he says, “Well … have you had enough for one day?”
    I tell him, “Yeah,” and Marissa says, “If we’re going back to our staterooms, can we take the elevator? I’m sore from all the stairs.”
    “Good idea,” I tell her, because all of a sudden I want to escape to my room the quickest way possible. Trouble is, people from the theater are swarming around the elevators and it’s taking forever, so we finally give up and head for the stairs. Only they’re really packed, too, and some of the people are both sloooooow and impossible to pass.
    I guess Marissa can tell I’m dying, because we’ve only gone up two flights when she cuts out of the crowd and says, “Let’s go up the aft stairs.”
    So she leads us toward the back of the ship, throughthe promenade and all its shops, and we’re just getting to the swoopy stairs, which are located a little before the glamour-free stairs, when she comes skidding to a halt and cries, “The boarding pictures are out!”
    “Boarding pictures?” And then I see the racks of cheesy say-cheese pictures.
    Aisles and aisles and
aisles
of cheesy say-cheese pictures.
    “Marissa, no. I do not want a cheesy say-cheese picture!”
    “Oh, let’s just find ours and then you can decide.”
    Darren says, “Sure, let’s do that,” and follows her into the Forest of Cheesy Smiles.
    I give Marko a pleading look, but he distracts me with a little head nod. “Uh … aliens on aisle two?” And when I look to where he’d nodded, I see Kate and Ginger scanning the wall of pictures in front of them.
    I grab Marko and we duck down the back side of the same aisle, which is also covered with pictures. “We avoiding the Diamond Dame or spying on her?” he whispers.
    Now, the truth is, I hadn’t even thought about spying until he mentioned it. But since the walls are just metal mesh covered by racks of pictures and not exactly
soundproof
, I figure it won’t hurt to, you know, move down the aisle and pretend to be looking at cheesy say-cheese pictures, too.
    So I give Marko a little grin, and he gives me a piratey one back, and before you know it, we’re down the aisle with our ears perked. We can barely see Kate and Ginger through the mesh—just little squares of them here andthere. But it doesn’t take too long for us to tune in and hear, “So what are you going to do?”
    There’s a sigh, and then, “It has certainly not gone well so far. And it’s much harder than I’d imagined. Their reaction was … well, frankly, it was a shock.”
    Marko leans in and whispers, “That’s Diamonds?” so I give him a quick nod and listen as Ginger says, “I haven’t seen a lot of tears, that’s for sure. And I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t toast him.”
    “I’m telling you, as their mother—as the one who was sure they would rise to the occasion and support their father’s wishes—this is
extremely
upsetting.”
    “Are you saying John was right?”
    “I’m saying I don’t like the direction this has taken.”
    They’re quiet for a minute, then Ginger says, “It’s hard to believe they’ve all blown through their trust funds.”
    “I’m sure they always counted on there being more.”
    “But how do you go through that much