More than Magic: Semester Aboard (6 page)

Dani's jaw literally dropped. Then the touch
of the deep blue I had started to associate with angry splashed in
his eyes. "You're not just something messing with us, are you?"

"What?" I asked in confusion. "No, I'm not.
Your eyes really do that!" I figured that was something he would
have known.

Dani studied me for a moment, then whistled
and hummed at the same time and looked out of the window. He looked
really bothered and I hoped I hadn't hurt his feelings or anything.
The bus stopped near the dock and Dani wordlessly fell into step
with me when I headed for the burger place. We stopped at a railing
on the dock by the restaurant and leaned against it. I watched one
of the lifeboats make its way from the dock to the ship in the
distance. A few minutes later Dani pushed himself up off of the
railing and cleared his throat.

"He's here," he said.

Chapter 4

I followed Dani's gaze across the dock but
didn't see anybody coming toward us.

"Jon!" he yelled. "Hey, Jon!"

A man turned and looked at us.
That
was Jon? Aside from the fact he was wearing a business suit he
didn't look very boss-like. As he walked over to us I noticed that
he didn't even look that much older than us. He certainly didn't
strike me as old enough to run some company. Then again, he had, in
Thomas' words, taken care of him. Thomas had acted like he viewed
Jon as a father figure more than an older brother, so he couldn't
be that close to us in age. He must have just been aging well. He
had neatly combed black hair and dark eyes.

"Danio," he said as he approached us. Even
his boss called him that? He stopped in front of us and looked at
me. "You must be Jennifer."

Thomas joined us. "How was your trip?"

Jon turned to Thomas. "It was pleasant,
we..." he trailed off and his eyes widened. "Oh my God, Thomas.
It's only been two weeks..." He started rapidly talking in a
different language.

Thomas looked embarrassed and I was surprised
when he replied in the same language. It looked like they started
arguing. Thomas was apparently fairly fluent; he spoke quickly and
never seemed to fumble for words. Jon was obviously worried about
something and from their body language it looked like Thomas was
defending himself. I looked over at Dani. He looked sort of angry.
His jaw was clenched and dark blues crashed in his eyes. I wondered
if he understood them.

"We're being rude," Thomas said suddenly in
English. He was practically glaring at Jon and I knew their
argument hadn't been resolved.

Jon looked annoyed that Thomas had ended the
conversation, but nodded. "My apologies," he said to me, holding
out his hand. "I am Jon Kiyosugi."

"Jennifer Maddox," I said. "Nice to meet
you." I took his hand and shook it. He bowed a bit as we shook
hands.

"Shall we?" he asked, gesturing to the
restaurant.

They sat us outside by the dock, overlooking
the water. Thomas and Jon sat on one side and Dani sat next to
me.

"What language was that?" I asked Thomas as
we sat down.

"Japanese." He picked up a menu and opened
it.

That was that. The three of them started
reading the menus and didn't seem in any hurry to explain things.
This was starting to get really annoying.

Then, Dani leaned forward and spoke quietly
in another language. It sounded like he was speaking Japanese too!
Thomas and Jon both looked shocked by what he was saying. Suddenly
all three of them were whispering to each other. I felt a bit
uneasy and my silly government theory seemed a bit less silly
again. It made sense that Thomas and Jon could both speak it. Jon
looked Japanese and for all I knew he had been born there. If he
was like a father to Thomas he probably would have taught him. But,
it was a bit of a stretch that Dani spoke it too. He spoke English,
and Greek, and Japanese? And TS spoke Greek. I'd met a few tri, and
even polylingual, people before. But with all the other weird
things going on the fact that all three of them were at least
bilingual, in the same language no less, was very suspicious.

Even worse, they all kept glancing at me.
They weren't talking about me, were they? TS sat down in the chair
on my other side, nodded to me, and then looked curiously at the
others. I was about to say something along the lines of ‘Annoying
when people speak languages you don't know, isn't it?’ hoping
they'd stop speaking Japanese and start explaining things to me.
Before I could TS' eyes grew wide and he started speaking it too!
This wasn't a coincidence, not if all four of them could speak it.
Maybe they all worked for a Japanese company; that would explain
things. But that seemed like pretty serious work for a bunch of
college students.

They stopped talking and all started staring
at me.

"What?" I demanded.

"Let's eat first," Jon said. "We have things
to discuss later."

Was he kidding? I had waited all this time
and he wasn't going to talk to me until we finished eating?

They all picked up a menu and I had no choice
but to do it too. The restaurant had a jungle-tiki theme and
consequently the entire menu was a big splash of greens, browns,
and reds. All of the dishes had silly names, but I noticed that it
was pretty standard burger joint food.

"You want steak?" Thomas asked.

"Please," TS said. He frowned at his menu and
then shut it. "Thanks."

Thomas nodded and studied his own menu.
"Jungle Sacrifice? Twenty-four ounce steak with fries."

TS grinned. "Perfect, thanks, Tom."

That was a bit odd, but I didn't get to think
on it for too long; Jon waved a waitress over and we all ordered.
They started up a conversation as soon as she left and kept it up
until our food arrived. They chatted about all sorts of nonsense
while we ate. Most of it was telling Jon about their time in
Mexico. TS kept complaining that his steak wasn't rare enough,
which baffled me. I like my meat sort of rare, but I didn't think
his could have been any rarer without being raw. Thomas got a huge
appetizer sampler, which to my surprise, he easily ate by himself.
TS snagged some things off of it, but Thomas ate most of it alone.
Considering how skinny he was I would have assumed he'd get a salad
or something. He couldn't possibly eat like this all the time. Dani
got a big hamburger with tons of toppings and Jon opted for some
spicy chicken. Had I not been annoyed by the fact that they weren't
being very forthcoming, I would have enjoyed my wings, fries, and
milkshake more. The food on the ship was good, but not great. The
food in the ports, so far, had been amazing, but I did miss a good
taste of home.

We were almost done when Jon said, "Fend,
let's make sure."

An adorable little black bird came out of
nowhere and landed on the table. It looked like a little
hummingbird.

"Enjoying your dinner, Jennifer?" a male
voice said.

I looked around for the source of the voice.
"Who said that?" I asked. It hadn't been nearly deep enough for TS
and was a bit higher than Thomas and Jon too.

"Me! Right here!" The little bird hopped up
and down.

For a moment, I just stared at it. The bird
was talking. No, no that was impossible. It must have been a prank
of some kind. "Wow," I said. "That's impressive."

"What is?" Jon asked.

"The ventriloquist act." I hadn't seen any of
their mouths move, but that was the only explanation. "And the
trained bird. What is it, a hummingbird?" I hadn't realized
hummingbirds could be trained.

"I'm a raven," the voice said
indignantly.

"Right," I laughed. "You could almost
convince me the bird is talking, but I'm not so gullible that I'll
believe it's a raven."

They all exchanged a look. Jon said something
softly in Japanese and they all nodded. Once again, before I could
demand my answers, the waitress appeared. Jon took the check
without hesitation.

"I can pay," I said.

"No no, I invited you here," he said calmly.
He paid for all of us without batting an eye. Then, he stood and
bowed to me. "Pleasure to meet you, Jennifer. I hope to see you
again. Thomas, a moment?" With that, he walked away. Thomas got up
and followed him.

For a moment I just sat in shock. He hoped to
see me again? He sounded like he was just going to walk away
without giving me any answers. I started to get up when Dani
grabbed my arm.

"Relax. You'll get a better explanation than
you ever dreamed." He let go and I had to rub my arm to warm it
back up; his hand had been freezing.

I heard a growl and looked up in surprise. TS
was glaring in the direction that Jon and Thomas had gone and was
literally growling softly. He got up and Dani stood and blocked his
way.

"He's fine, let Jon talk," Dani said. He
didn't seem at all concerned that TS could probably have crushed
him. I noticed for the first time that he was actually just a bit
taller than TS was. He sighed. "You know I agree with what he's
probably saying to Thomas."

TS bit his lip and hung his head. "I do too,"
he whispered, like it was almost painful to admit. "Tom's really
getting..." He hesitated, glanced at me, and then switched to
Japanese.

Dani looked concerned and answered. Strangely
enough, as they spoke, TS sounded like he was using Japanese and
Dani seemed to be speaking Greek.

"Are you both speaking different languages?"
I finally demanded.

They exchanged one last worried look, and
then both laughed. "My Japanese listening comprehension is a lot
better than my speaking skills are," Dani said.

"Same with my Greek," TS said. "I'm sure it
sounds insane, but it works."

"How many languages do you two speak?"

"I speak seven," TS said. "But my Greek is
sort of shaky."

"Four," Dani said. "Japanese is my weakest,
but that's just because I'm lazy. English was harder to learn."

"English is your second language?" I was
pleased that I had guessed that.

"Third. Panth was my first."

I frowned, I had never heard of that one.
"What is that?"

Dani and TS glanced at each other.
"Panthalassish," Dani said. "I'll explain later."

More secrets. I was intrigued, but annoyed at
yet another promise of ‘later.’ I noticed they were both looking
past me and turned to see Thomas was back, without Jon.

"Right," he said. "I'm going out. Shouldn't
take more than an hour, Jon found some er..." he glanced at me and
said something in Japanese. Oh this was getting very frustrating.
"I'll meet you back on the boat."

"Ship," Dani said. Thomas tried to punch him
and Dani snapped up his hand, caught Thomas’ wrist, and twisted it
away. His smug look faded instantly and he frowned. He looked
concerned.

Thomas yanked his hand free and looked away,
like he was almost embarrassed. He cleared his throat, and then
turned to me. "Come to my room on the ship in an hour. We'll
explain everything."

Wait, he was putting it off again? "That's
what you've been saying! How do I know you'll really explain things
this time?"

"Trust me," he said. He looked off to the
side and sighed. "I better go. See you in an hour." He turned and
left the restaurant.

Dani called his name, but Thomas ignored
him.

"Don't worry, I'm going to go with him," TS
said. "Jen, we're in room 3120." He and Thomas were roommates? I
sighed; things just keep getting more and more interesting.

"Tethys," Dani called. "Make sure he gets
enough, I'm worried about him."

"You know I will, Danio," TS said.

"Back to the ship?" Dani asked me when TS
jogged off.

"I suppose."

We walked down to the dock in silence and
stood to wait for the lifeboat. It was just leaving the ship and
would probably take ten minutes to get to us.

"Are you really going to explain things?" I
asked after a moment.

"We will, I promise," Dani said. He looked
around. "You know what, I'm going to go see if I can bother
Charlie. I'm regretting not signing up for that sunset canal
transit trip."

I looked around; the sun was already going
down. "His trip has probably already left."

"Well, with any luck it's not in a lock yet."
Dani paused in thought. "I could always...hmm no, Charlie would
kill me if I tried to swim the canal."

"Swim the canal?" I asked skeptically. "As
in, swim through the locks?"

"Yeah. But, I won't. I am going to try and
catch up with that trip though. Maybe I can sneak on. I'll see you
in an hour in Thomas' room."

Dani glanced around, then dove right off the
dock and into the water. Even though I knew that he had swum here
from somewhere out in the ocean, my jaw dropped in shock. I looked
around, waiting for him to surface, but he didn't. It almost made
me panic, but I had a feeling that he could probably hold his
breath for a long time. For an insane second, I wondered if he even
needed to breathe at all, but quickly discarded the idea. As cool
as it would be if there really were something supernatural going
on, I knew it wouldn't be anything that neat.

I still hadn't seen any sign of Dani when the
lifeboat arrived and I accepted that he really had been serious
about going to find the boat Charlie was on. After getting back on
the ship I went back to my room and tried to pass the hour with a
textbook, but just couldn't concentrate. I ended up going out on
deck to where Dani had first gone overboard. I had a great view of
the port and could see the lights from the canal in the
distance.

"Pretty, huh?"

I turned to see Dani had joined me.

"Yeah," I said. "What happened to finding
Charlie?"

"Too late. The boat was already in the lock."
He shrugged. "Probably better that I stay here anyway."

"To explain things?"