Uncrashable Dakota Read Free Page B

boy handed the steward the pile of cards in his hand. “Please arrange these carefully on my night table.”
    “Yes, sir.” The steward sighed and clicked his heels together before pocketing the cards and rushing off to attend to the boy’s parents.
    “He really does seem like a wonderful magician, that one,” Rob said.
    “The true young master of this voyage,” Hollis agreed. “So what time’s our first class supposed to be?”
    “Dakota, you can’t be serious.”
    “I am serious. Except…”
    “Ah. I knew you’d come around.”
    “We do have to meet up with Delia.”
    “ Delia! ” Rob exclaimed, as if he’d just now remembered the name of their friend. “So I’m not worth it, but when Delia enters the picture, you’ve once again conveniently forgotten the location of the classroom.”
    “I have that stuff she wanted me to bring her,” Hollis said.
    “What stuff?”
    “Electrics. Wires. Junk. I don’t know.”
    “For a bomb.”
    “Not for a bomb, Rob.”
    “She’s an anarchist. I always suspected.”
    “She is not. She’s just, you know, Delia.”
    “Either way,” Rob said. “It’s yes sir, no sir until after lunch, right? All P s and Q s. Then we accidentally get lost on the way to lessons.”
    An immaculately groomed hound sniffed its way across the deck, clearing the lane for a young couple and their twin daughters. Dr. and Mrs. Jacob Wellspring . Hollis was proud of himself for the speed of his face-to-name association. And their children … but before he could think of the girls’ names, his mother was calling out, “Junie! Jessie! How wonderful of you to join us!”
    One of the girls ran over and curtsied. Hollis watched his mother oooh and ahhh at the stupid bow in Junie or Jessie’s hair, air-kiss her pudgy cheeks, and make a theatrical fuss over how pretty and grown-up she looked. Jefferson Castor beamed, placing a hand on his wife’s waist. Their eyes met. Hollis was struck by something he had never considered: his mother could be planning to have a child with Castor. A new baby to unite their fractured families. His collar suddenly felt like it was choking him. He took a deep breath and tried to reassure himself. She’s still Lucy Dakota. She kept my father’s name.
    The other twin hung back, making some kind of inscrutable face.
    “She looks like a little schemer,” Rob said.
    The girl pulled a toy pig from her pocket and twisted its curlicue tail until a tinny melody filled the air: “Pop Goes the Weasel.”
    Hollis shuddered inwardly. He didn’t like that toy one bit, although he would have been hard-pressed to explain why. Voices of the boarding passengers seemed to rise in pitch, an onslaught of nonsense syllables grating against his nerves.
    “You ever seen a mulberry bush?” Rob asked.
    Hollis and the little girl locked eyes for a moment.
    “I wish she’d quit it with that pig.”
    *   *   *
    LATER, AS THE SUN crept past its highest point, the boarding ramps were withdrawn into the empty sky-dock. Hollis watched the last of the first-class passengers—a group of single men who’d made a big show of waiting until women, elderly folks, and families were aboard—cross the deck and disappear down the Grand Staircase beyond the bar. From there, they would disperse into a labyrinth of thickly carpeted corridors and funnel into their staterooms, where they would remain until the ship had safely launched.
    Hollis and Rob followed their parents through the shade of the overhanging sundeck in time to see the final passenger make his way down, ushered by a patient steward. They rested for a moment, silently basking in the splendor of the Grand Staircase, which had been designed to evoke the sumptuous interior of an Italian prince’s villa. De’Medici , Hollis thought. Or maybe da Vinci . His brain was scrambled from the day’s forced chatter. It was a prince who favored solid gold, at any rate—the railings alone looked as if they weighed several tons.