More than Magic: Semester Aboard (25 page)

"I really hate to say it, but that makes
sense," Charlie said.

It actually did. Learning all about magics,
and magic, really was sort of like the Spanish classes I was
taking. In fact, sometimes people asked questions that I was sure
seemed downright dumb to our professor. And in a way, it was just
as daunting.

Dani put his arm around my shoulders and
hugged me. "Don't let it get to you, ok? English drove me crazy for
ages. I'd have a good conversation or two and then get cocky. I'd
go out to a bar and I wouldn't understand a single word anybody was
saying. It got a little disheartening sometimes." He winked.
"Overwhelming in fact. I'll admit I still fumble for words once in
a while and feel like an idiot. You'll get there. Just stick with
it, alright?"

"Ok." I smiled at him. "Thanks." I felt a lot
better, although I still had one nagging worry. Learning a new
language meant starting from scratch, but I had years of
misinformation from books and movies. Asking questions, even stupid
ones, was one thing, but asking questions that might irritate
somebody was another. "Did I make Thomas mad?"

I had whispered it, but to my surprise,
Thomas turned immediately. "No!" Vampire hearing, right. I blushed;
he must have heard the entire conversation. We had just reached
where the raffles were and we moved out of the hall and into a
corner. Thomas leaned against the wall next to me and sighed.
"Don't worry, I'm not mad or anything. I'm a little stressed out
about this biter and everything and I'm...well, I'm a little
hungry. It's making me irritable. I'm sorry if I was sort of short
with you." He sighed again and lowered his voice. "There are enough
misconceptions about my kind in the world as it is. I tend to have
a low tolerance when it comes to nonsense like coffins and garlic
and bats." He shot a glare at Dani. "It doesn't help when this
idiot's favorite hobby is finding ways to annoy me."

Dani chuckled and Thomas rolled his eyes. I
was struck by the thought that Thomas and Dani might not have been
as close as I had assumed they were. In fact, I had just assumed
they were friends from the start. For all I knew they were nothing
more than co-workers and it was entirely possible that they didn't
even like each other. Dani never seemed to miss a chance to annoy
Thomas and even though Thomas didn't act genuinely mad, it had to
get on his nerves. I couldn't imagine being as old as Thomas and
not getting fed up with an immature college student constantly
teasing me.

"Shall we enter some raffles?" Charlie
asked.

"Why not?" replied Thomas. He put a hand on
my shoulder. "And hey, like Charlie said, I'd rather if you ask
questions than go around assuming things like..." He wrinkled his
nose. "Like vampires being undead or something. Ok?"

"Ok."

It took us quite a while to make our way
around the different tables with raffle offers. Instead of
splitting up to enter different contests we stayed together in
every line. Even though there were a lot of people, I could tell
that everyone was still keeping a wary eye out for the vampire.
When we were done Mariana suggested we go see the slideshow, so we
headed up to Deck Seven. Time flew by as we watched pictures and
video clips from the voyage. By the time it was over we were all
surprised to see that it was lunchtime. We went back to the dining
hall to find that lunch was just as overwhelming as breakfast had
been. We all loaded up our plates and found a strategically placed
table. Charlie mentioned something about the Atacama Desert, which
was where I was going to be in Chile.

"Are you going to Atacama too, Charlie?"

"Oh, are you? Toasty! We'll have fun."

"Where are you going?" I asked Mariana.

"Easter Island!"

"You sure you don't want me to swim you
there, calf?" Dani asked.

"I'm sure," Mariana said.

"Cause it is no trouble."

Mariana glared at him and I had a feeling
this wasn't the first time they had had this conversation. "Dani!
I'm
sure
! I'll be fine!"

"If you say so."

"God," Mariana groaned, "you're as bad as
your mother!"

Dani looked shocked. Charlie reached over and
patted his shoulder. "You can get a little overprotective you know,
Dan. But don't worry; nobody can possibly be as bad as your
mother."

Dani smiled at that. "Except for my
grandmother." Charlie made a face.

Thomas laughed. "How is your
grandmother?"

"In Greece, thank you. Which is just where I
like her." Dani arched an eyebrow at Thomas and smirked. "But I'll
be sure to send her your regards and your phone number."

"If I thought you'd actually call her, I'd be
worried," Thomas shot back. "But if she does call me I'll be sure
to let her know how much you love surprise visits."

They teased each other throughout lunch and I
wondered if I was wrong about them not being friends, and found it
almost hard to remember that Thomas was sixty-two. Out of
everything I had learned so far, that was the hardest thing to wrap
my head around. Even though I still found it hard to believe
sometimes, I really had already accepted the thought of magic and
people who weren't human. There was something about the fact that
Thomas looked and acted like a normal college student, despite
being one of the oldest people on the entire ship, that was taking
more time to sink in. Just before we finished eating we heard a
familiar
bing-bing
that signaled an announcement.

"Please excuse the interruption," came our
Dean's voice. "We've got one final surprise for everyone! Deck
Seven will be closing in an hour so that our crew can set it up for
the Sea Day Party! We're keeping the pool open late tonight, we'll
have music, a dance floor, and food at the snack bar is free!"
Everyone cheered as Dean Dave paused. "Because of the party we've
rescheduled tonight's pre-port lecture to...twenty minutes from
now. Our lecture should take about two hours and will be
immediately followed by the raffle drawing! However, anyone who
does not attend the pre-port lecture will not be allowed to
participate in the raffle!"

I wasn't surprised. The pre-port lectures
were usually fairly boring. The professors spent a little time on
history and culture, but spent most of it talking about safety,
health, and things that didn't matter if you had common sense. The
lectures usually had very low attendance, so it made sense that
they were offering incentive to be there. Nonetheless, the dining
hall filled with boos as our Dean went on to say that nobody would
be allowed in to the lecture after it started, nor would people who
left be let back in.

"Guess we're going," TS laughed.

We finished eating and followed a grumbling
crowd to the classroom. We got there early enough to find a place
near the doors and settled in. I'd never seen so many people at the
pre-port lecture. It was, as expected, fairly boring. Then the
raffle started. The lecture was worth it; all six of us won. TS and
Dani got to take a behind-the-scenes tour of the ship, and Mariana
and I both won spa gift certificates. Ten lucky people, including
Thomas, were chosen to be the first students to disembark when we
got home. Charlie, however, ended up winning one of the biggest
prizes: a private suite on Deck Five.

After the raffle we went down to our rooms to
pack for Chile. TS suggested that we check out Charlie's new room
and, assuming it was big enough, all stay there for the night to be
on the safe side. After a detour to get Charlie's key changed, we
headed for his room and found that it was more than big enough to
hold all of us. His room was more than twice the size of ours. It
had two large beds, two desks, and a table with four chairs.

"Bloody hell," TS said, "I think I'm
jealous."

"Oh my God, there's a bathtub!" Mariana cried
from the bathroom.

"Big looking window too." Dani pushed aside a
curtain and the room flooded with light. "Whoa, we have a balcony!"
He opened the door, stepped out, and leaned way over the railing.
"This might work." The balcony was so large that it held a table
and chairs with room to spare.

Thomas joined him outside. "I wish we'd
thought of this before the trip. A balcony would have solved a lot
of problems."

He glanced over his shoulder at the horizon.
"We've got less than an hour before sunset. I think we should get
up to dinner."

"Agreed," TS said.

We left our things in Charlie's room and went
to get our last meal. The day had flown by without a trace of the
vampire and I was starting to wonder if we were being overly
paranoid. Then, halfway though dinner Thomas stopped in the middle
of a sentence and, to my surprise, hissed. It wasn't anything like
the terrifying hiss I had heard the other vampire make, but he
curled back his upper lip and let out a soft snarl. I wasn't sure
if it was my imagination or not, but two of his teeth looked a bit
sharper than they normally did. Everyone fell silent and followed
his gaze across the dining hall. The biter was here. His teeth were
bared too and I felt a chill just remembering his hiss. He studied
us for a moment and then, with inhuman speed, turned and left.

"I think we've pushed our luck far enough,"
TS whispered. "Sun's about to go down."

Nobody argued. We got up and left the dining
hall, using the door furthest from the one the vampire had. We got
to Charlie's room safely and everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

Spotting the vampire seemed to have dampened
everyone's spirits. We turned on the TV and everyone was relatively
quiet. Once it was dark enough, Dani decided to practice finding
our balcony from the water. With everyone on Deck Seven the rooms
would be mostly empty and there was less chance of him being seen.
I spent quite a while watching in awe as he fearlessly dove off the
rail and then, a few minutes later, shot up out of the water and
landed again. He ended up by the wrong balcony a few times, but
eventually got comfortable enough to take Mariana fishing. By the
time they got back everyone was ready to go to sleep.

We were trying to work out the sleeping
arrangements when Mariana opened one of the closets to put her
suitcase in. It was a living room. There was a couch, twice the
size of the one in Dani and Mariana's room, and a second table and
more chairs. After that discovery it was easy to figure out where
we'd all sleep. Dani and Charlie took one bed, Mariana and I shared
the other, and Thomas took the couch. TS turned into a wolf. Even
though I knew he was a werewolf, I hadn't seen him in his wolf form
since the night I learned about magic. I almost laughed out loud
when he turned in small circles like a dog and settled down on the
floor by the couch.

He looked comfortable, but I had to ask, "Are
you going to be ok on the floor?" He answered by opening his
massive jaws and yawning. In addition to being larger than a normal
wolf, I was pretty sure that his fangs were a lot bigger too.

"He doesn't even use his bed in our room,"
Thomas said. He reached down and scratched TS behind one ear.
"You'll be fine there, right?"

"Right."

As I climbed in to bed I felt a little
awkward knowing that Thomas was right in the other room. I didn't
mind sharing the bed with Mariana; Shannon and I had tried to fit
on smaller beds than this. I'd even gotten used to Dani and Charlie
being nearby. I tried to convince myself that I only felt awkward
because Thomas was a guy and, unlike the two of them, actually
interested in girls. The problem with that theory was that I didn't
mind sharing the room with TS. Then again, I didn't have a crush on
him. I hated to admit it, but Thomas only bothered me because he
was
Thomas
.

Chapter 15

Everyone was eager to disembark in the
morning, but I had a feeling nobody else on the ship was in as much
of a hurry as we were. Every time the line moved forward past a
doorway Charlie and Thomas carefully poked their heads around to
make sure the vampire wasn't lurking behind it. We all heaved a
sigh of relief when we were safely on land. I hoped that when we
got back on the ship the vampire would be long gone. We split up to
our respective busses for our trips. Charlie and I sat down
together at the back of our bus, away from everyone else. I spotted
Dani, Thomas, and TS talking outside their bus.

"They're all going skiing, right?" I asked
him. I had heard them talking about it.

"Yeah."

Dani started laughing and Thomas punched him
in the arm. I was honestly surprised that they were going on a trip
together.

"Dani seems to love messing with Thomas," I
said.

Charlie chuckled fondly. "He loves messing
with everyone. He's got an immature streak as tall as he is. But
Thomas is his favorite target."

"Are they friends?"

"Dani and Thomas? Yeah, they're great
friends!"

"Really?" I looked out the window again.
Dani, Thomas, and TS, were all laughing now. "I feel like Thomas
would get sick of Dani teasing him."

Charlie laughed. "Nah, Thomas either ignores
him or puts up with it while he bides his time for the perfect
opportunity for revenge. And between you and me, Thomas gives as
good as he gets."

"Oh. I was worried that they didn't get along
very well," I admitted.

"You'd think so," he laughed. "They're
practically brothers. Dysfunctional, mind you, but just as close.
Honestly, in some ways Dani is closer to Thomas than he is to
me."

I looked at Charlie in surprise. "What do you
mean?"

He shrugged and looked past me out the
window. His eyes were dark and hardly flickering.
"They're...they've both been drenched down to ashes before. I think
that when that happens you gain an understanding you can only share
with someone who has been there too. They've been picking on each
other as long as I've known them, but I think they do it because
they know they can always count on each other when it matters."