Mask on the Cruise Ship (12 page)

As I was massaging my side, a whiff of Chanel No. 5 floated past. The train whished out of the tunnel. In the seat across from me, Madge was now sitting beside Jack.

I glanced back. Lavinia was with Ira. She was applying her sharp elbow to
his
side, to wake him up. Poor guy. I guessed he was in for another lecture about what a great wife she'd be.

“Smooth,” I congratulated Jack.

He bowed to me. “Thank you, Modom.”

Madge, though, was not taking the situation with good humor. “That horrible old man snored,” she informed me, her blue eyes several degrees colder than the ice gorge we were passing. “And he was snoring out the smell of onions. Yech!” she shuddered.

“You're responsible for this, Dinah Mary Galloway,” Madge went on. My sister was not the type to let a prank go by lightly. “Oh no, don't deny it.”

Then I forgot about Madge, who proceeded to scold Jack that there was nothing to laugh at. Outside Mother's and my window, eagles were swooping and skyrocketing. Mother and I watched them as, below, just-blossoming elderberry bushes pushed out their creamy, star-shaped flowers, and plump, chocolate-colored wolverines bent their white foreheads and bustled hastily away from the train into the woods.

At the second tunnel
, undistracted, I held my breath from beginning to end. When we emerged, my cheeks were still puffed out with the air I was holding in. Several seats ahead, Talbot was leaning on his armrest — and his cheeks were puffed out too.
He'd
been doing the same thing!

He happened to glance back, and for a second we stared at each other with our faces bloated, jellyfish-style.

Then, annoyed that somebody else was on to this holding-your- breath-in-a-tunnel routine, which I'd thought was my invention, I drew back out of sight. I let my breath out with a loud
bwwwccck
, like the deflating sound of a balloon. This was also part of the routine.

I looked across at Madge, hoping for an annoyed reaction. The
bwwwccck
was usually good for one.

Madge wasn't paying any attention. After being in the tunnel, she was rosy-cheeked and smiling. She did cast a couple of scolding frowns at Jack, but these were definitely pretend ones. Post-smooch pretend ones, in fact.

Brother, I thought.

Huh! But not brother-
in-law
, not for a long time, I vowed.

Chapter 14
The true snakewoman, revealed

F
irst thing next morning on our Internet chat line, I punched in opening remarks to Pantelli.
You wouldn't
believe what we saw yesterday on the train tour!

He cut in:
You wouldn't believe what we saw yesterday
at Lord Bithersby. Liesl the Weasel got her hair chopped!
Now she looks like a burned match — pale and skinny,
with just a bit of black at the top. You fooled her with
that phony e-mail message, Di. She's bragging to everyone
that Talbot's gonna take her out for a Belgian fries lunch
date!
HA HA HA
.

I didn't view the outcome of my prank quite so merrily as Pantelli. I foresaw a long — make that Rip Van Winkle's lifetime-long — session in the principal's office. How could Liesl have fallen for that phony e-mail? Stupidity?

No. Vanity, I decided. Only a girl as stuck-up and conceited as Liesl Dubuque would believe a twelve-year-old boy would write her such a mushy message.

I hope you didn't tell her anything
, I typed.

Me? No way! Your secret is safe with yours truly. Liesl
will never weasel out of me that you're the culprit.

Phew
, I wrote. I wished, though, that Pantelli wouldn't use the word “culprit.” It sounded so … criminal.

Yeah, all I did was walk up to Liesl, point to her hair
and laugh deafeningly.

Great, I thought. Like sharp-witted Liesl won't figure out now that I'm involved.
Thanks a lot, Pantelli,
I wrote.

You're welcome!

My face was scrunched up in dismay. “Bad news?” said Fill-In hopefully. She set down the double mocha I'd ordered. It was the first time I'd ever seen a hint of cheer, however wan, on Fill-In. I guessed other people's disappointments were the only thing that improved her spirits.

“Sort of bad,” I admitted.

I'd been right. Fill-In's pencil-thin eyebrows went up and her pinched features splintered into a crack of a smile.

Julie Hébert strolled into the Internet café. She, too, noticed my face. “I don't think I'll order what Dinah's drinking,” Julie joked to Fill-In.

I giggled. Fill-In, interpreting this as an insult, shriveled up her smile again. “I'm not appreciated. And my replacement's late again. I hate being kept waiting.” She grabbed a blue napkin with a fat white ship imprinted on it and blew her nose.

“I'll have a cappuccino, please,” Julie called to Fill-In.

Pantelli typed,
Hey, are you still there, Di?

Yeah,
I replied.
It's just that Julie Hébert showed up.

Oh, right. Julie. Turns out The Tone has seen Julie
himself. She made quite the impression on him and his
classmates.

Julie walked over to the counter to pay Fill-In. “Would you like a chocolate biscotti to go with your mocha, Dinah?” she offered, smiling. “My treat.” She gestured to a glass canister crammed with goodies. “Or maybe a chocolate fudge brownie?”

Madge may have dawdled over fashion decisions, but for me the choice of biscotti versus brownie was the difficult type. “Um,” I said, wondering if it would be rude to ask for
both
. “Ummmm … ”

More words from Pantelli flowed across the screen.
The Tone said that in the middle of a lecture at the
Roundhouse Community Center, Julie stormed in and
threw a tantrum!

I gaped at the screen.
Huh?
I typed.
That's not how I
heard it from Julie.

I realized Julie was waiting for my reply. “I think I'll have a … ”

My attention faded. I was concentrating on Pantelli's next message.

Yeah, Julie screeched at Elaine that she couldn't possibly
live on the allowance Elaine gave her. The costs of hav
ing a private trainer, plus her weekly visit to the beauty
salon, were draining all her pocket money, Julie said. Not
only that, but it was totally unfair of Elaine to buy Julie
a new car only every three years — Julie was missing out
on the latest gizmos.

“Impossible,” I said, dazed. This was Julie? My Julie?

“You'll have an ‘impossible'?” Julie questioned good-humoredly. Fill-In, tongs poised over the biscotti and brownies, gave an angry sniff.

“I … ” Slumping in my seat, I gazed stupidly at Pantelli's words. They just kept pouring out, unstoppable as toothpaste when you've squeezed the tube too hard.

The Tone says Julie then whined about having to clean
their house. “Yeah, I know I'm the one who trashed it,
but I was upset,” Julie shouted. The Tone, sitting nearby,
had to dodge her spit drops.

I responded weakly,
You mean — Julie lives with
Elaine? I thought she was suffering in some dive on
Cadwallader Avenue.

Not from what The Tone gathered. This is one weird
dame, Di. She finished by demanding a check for some
art class she wanted to take — then slammed out of the
room. Professor Hébert burst into tears. “I'm sorry,” she
sniffed. “I've — I've tried so hard with my stepsister — given
her everything.”

“Everything,” I repeated numbly.

“Everything?” Julie questioned. Her smile didn't waver. “Isn't that a teeny bit greedy, Dinah?”

What a soft voice Julie had, I thought suddenly. Not that I hadn't noticed before, but it occurred to me now just how very soft it was. Like a snake's hiss …

“I … ” I mumbled.

“Yes, Dinah?”

“I think I've lost my appetite,” I said weakly.

I wandered onto the
volleyball court. Nobody was around to play. Most passengers were heading out to Ketchikan, our port of the day. Mother, Madge and I were waiting for Jack to be off-duty at noon, and then we'd be going.

I pulled on the netting and let it bounce into place. I decided to repeat this a few times. It was kind of fun. The harder I tugged, the more fiercely the net whipped back.

I'm what you'd call one of those creative kids who can be left to their own gifted resources.

Besides, fidgeting helped my thought processes. Julie was a phony! From what The Tone said,
she
was the nasty Hébert, not Elaine. Imagine complaining because you weren't bought a new car every three years! Heck, if you were a Galloway, you got a new
used
one every fifteen years.

In my frustration at having been fooled, I yanked the netting even farther back. Quite a stretch — just like Julie's sob stories.

I thought of the cell-phone call. The one at my house, where Elaine had assumed I was Julie. And had been so nasty.

Hadn't she?

I reconsidered the conversation. Elaine had insisted Julie keep cleaning. I'd thought that was mean, especially at dinnertime — but if Julie had trashed the house, well, duh. Of course Julie ought to be tidying up.

Julie had stretched that one cleaning job into the yarn that she had to earn her keep at Elaine's as a cleaning woman.

It sure sounded like Julie was the type to chew up facts and spit them out in a twisted form. Twisted — like those snakes curling from Medusa's head.

Yech. I shuddered. The inside of Julie's mind was not a place I'd like to visit.

On the other hand, Elaine had definitely forbidden Julie to talk to people about the mask.
You know nothing
, she'd snapped over the phone.

These Hébert sisters — what a pair! I was sure glad Madge and I weren't like them. Julie and Elaine made us seem semi-normal.

I trudged off,
then stopped. Yawning at my feet were the stairs down to Julie Hébert's room.

And coming up the stairs was Evan Brander, who immediately went scarlet. “W-what are you doing here?”

He
was questioning
me
about being here? I narrowed my eyes into what I hoped were forbidding hazel slits. “What are
you
doing here?”

“L-look, Dinah. There's something I haven't been quite up-front about.” After giving his lower lip a nervous chew, Evan opened his mouth to stammer out what was doubtless a sordid confession.

Just then — “Greetings!” It was the friendly steward I'd met last time by these stairs. He bore a fresh stack of fluffy blue towels imprinted with fat white ships.

Startled, Evan fled up the stairs.

“Jittery type,” commented the steward.

“He has a guilty conscience about something,” I informed the steward darkly and then sighed. “I always have trouble with my pianists.”

I went downstairs with the steward because I didn't know what else to do. I was feeling kind of stunned. First, I'd found out that Julie was a whopping liar. Second, more proof that Evan was up to no good.

The steward knocked on doors. No one answered any of them. Nobody stays in a stateroom much on a cruise ship, unless, like Madge, they're barfing. The steward was able to pop in and distribute towels.

“Room service!” he called through Julie's door. No reply, so he unlocked it with his pass key.

“Bet she's gone ashore to Ketchikan,” he told me. “Was it something urgent?”

He assumed I wanted to speak to Julie. Ha! With what I'd found out, I'd happily stay away from the lady for several lifetimes. Our truth-stretching Julie was — let's all make like a sheep now — ba-a-a-ad news.

I was about to pooh-pooh the steward's assumption when I noticed the hairclip I'd loaned Julie on the chest of drawers. The elegant, cat-shaped hairclip Madge had made specially for me.

Hmph! Well, I'd reclaim that in no time flat. A snake-shaped hairclip — now that'd suit Julie.

“I'll just grab my hairclip, if that's okay,” I said.

The steward laughed. “You should adopt my hairdo, kid.” He pointed at his very unmessy hair — a crew cut. “No need for hairclips!”

After depositing some towels in the bathroom, the steward said, “Go ahead. Just remember to shut the door when you're through.”

He pounded on the next door down the hall. “Room service!” he yelled.

“C'mon in,” said a voice — a sort of familiar voice, but I headed into Julie's room and forgot about it.

I grabbed the hairclip
and would have left — except that Julie's painting of Medusa, now taped to the wall, caught my glance. And trapped it, as if I, like Medusa's victims, had been turned to stone. The painting was so gruesome, it was fascinating. Kind of like anchovies, if you know what I mean.

Medusa leered out at me, eyes crazed and lips shrunken back over sharp teeth. “Ewww,” I told her.

I looked more closely at that wild face and snaky hair. There was something familiar about Medusa. I couldn't quite place it…

For a closer squint at the painting, I grasped the bottom two corners, which weren't taped to the wall, and pulled them toward me. I'd seen this creepy woman before, I was sure of it!

I couldn't figure out where.

I let go of the two corners — and realized my right thumb had come away wet. I examined it. Smeared with paint! Well, I did remember Julie saying Medusa was a work-in-progress. More like a
yech
-in-progress, if you ask me.

Ideally Julie wouldn't notice a smudge in the bottom right-hand corner, where
Medusa, by Julie Hébert
had been. If Julie did notice the smudge, she'd just have to repaint it, that was all.