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  * Taken from actual postings on the Alice website. To read more, visit ALICEMCKINLEY.COM.

  It’s easy to feel a little lost at sea the summer after graduating from high school.

  Everything Alice has ever known is about to change—from where she sleeps at night to how close her closest friends will be. So Alice is meeting that seasick feeling head-on by setting sail as staff on a Chesapeake Bay cruise ship. And like any last great adventure before starting college, Alice knows she’ll need sunblock, an open mind, and … oh yeah, all her best girlfriends. It’s the perfect summer job.

  Perfect, that is, when things are going perfectly. But when they’re not, Alice has to figure out how to weather unexpected storms of all sorts. Which could be perfect after all—perfect training for her next big adventure—college.

  Phyllis Reynolds Naylor includes many of her own growing-up experiences in the Alice books. She writes for both children and adults and is the author of more than one hundred and thirty-five books, including the Alice series, which Entertainment Weekly has called “tender” and “wonderful.” In 1992 her novel Shiloh won the Newbery Medal. She lives with her husband, Rex, in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Visit Phyllis online at alicemckinley.com.

  PHOTOGRAPH OF GIRL COPYRIGHT © 2012 BY MICHAEL FROST

  PHOTOGRAPH OF SEASCAPE COPYRIGHT © 2012 BY THINKSTOCK/GOODSHOOT

  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  SIMON & SCHUSTER • NEW YORK

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  ALICE ON BOARD

  BOOKS BY PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR

  Shiloh Books

  Shiloh

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  The Alice Books

  Starting with Alice

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  Lovingly Alice

  The Agony of Alice

  Alice in Rapture, Sort Of

  Reluctantly Alice

  All But Alice

  Alice in April

  Alice In-Between

  Alice the Brave

  Alice in Lace

  Outrageously Alice

  Achingly Alice

  Alice on the Outside

  The Grooming of Alice

  Alice Alone

  Simply Alice

  Patiently Alice

  Including Alice

  Alice on Her Way

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  Dangerously Alice

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  Send No Blessings

  Ice

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  For Grace and Tess Meis, who love books

  With special thanks to Drew Godfrey

  for his help and nautical knowledge

  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used

  fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  The text for this book is set in Berkeley Oldstyle Book.

  First Edition

  CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4424-4588-8 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-6160-4 (eBook)

  Contents

  One: The Seascape and the Spellbound

  Two: Pushing Off

  Three: Mitch

  Four: Sinbad

  Five: A Forgettable Friday

  Six: Connections

  Seven: Awards Night

  Eight: Storm

  Nine: Passion Petal

  Te
n: Stateroom 303

  Eleven: Homeboy

  Twelve: The Guests

  Thirteen: Unbelievable

  Fourteen: Ghost Story

  Fifteen: Missing

  Sixteen: Changes

  Seventeen: Under a Cloudless Sky

  Eighteen: End of the Line

  Nineteen: Housekeeping

  Twenty: Being Professional

  Twenty-one: Breaking Away

  1

  THE SEASCAPE AND THE SPELLBOUND

  The ship was beautiful.

  Of course, since none of us had been on one before, almost any ship would do. But this one, three stories of white against the blue of a Baltimore sky, practically had our names on it. And since it would be our home for the next ten weeks, we stood mesmerized for a moment before we walked on down toward the gangway, duffel bags over our shoulders. The early June breeze tossed our hair and fluttered the flags on the boats that dotted the waterfront.

  This might possibly be our last summer together, but no one said that aloud. We were so excited, we almost sizzled. Like if we put out a finger and touched each other, we’d spark. We needed this calm before college, this adventure at sea.

  Pamela had received a half-scholarship to a theater school in New York; Liz was officially accepted at Bennington; Yolanda was undecided; and Gwen and I would be going to Maryland. But right now the only future we were thinking about was that wide span of open water ahead of us.

  “Which deck do you suppose we’ll be on?” asked Liz in her whites. She looked like a sailor already.

  “Ha!” said Gwen, the only one of us whose feet remotely touched the ground. “Dream on. I don’t think we’ll even have portholes. We’re probably down next to the engine room.”

  “What?” exclaimed Yolanda, coming to a dead stop.

  “Relax,” Gwen said, giving her arm a tug. “We’re not paying customers, remember. Besides, the only thing you do in crew quarters is sleep. The rest of the time you’re working or hanging out with the gang.”

  “With guys!” said Pamela, and that got Yolanda moving again.

  It’s a wonder we were still breathing. Five hours earlier, four of us had been marching down an aisle at Constitutional Hall for graduation. And when picture-taking was over afterward, we had stripped off our slinky dresses and heels and caps and gowns, pulled on our shorts and T-shirts, and piled into Yolanda’s uncle’s minivan, which had been prepacked that morning for the mad dash to Baltimore Harbor. The deadline for sign-in was three o’clock. Yolanda had graduated the day before from a different school, so she was in charge of logistics.

  It wasn’t a new ship. Completely refurbished, our printout had read. But it was a new cruise line with two ships—the Seascape and the Spellbound, though the Spellbound wouldn’t be ready till fall. The line sailed from Baltimore to Norfolk, with ports in between. The only reason all five of us were hired, we figured, was that we got our applications in early. That, and the fact that when we compared the pay to other small cruise lines along the East Coast, this line offered absolutely the lowest of the low. But, hey! Ten weeks on a cruise ship—a pretty glamorous end to our high school years!

  A guy in a white uniform was standing with legs apart on the pier, twirling a pen in the fingers of his left hand. A clipboard rested on the folding chair beside him. The frames of his sunglasses curled around his head so that it was impossible to see either his eyes or eyebrows, but he smiled when he saw us coming.

  “Heeeeey!” he called.

  Pamela gave him a smart salute, clicking her heels together, and he laughed. “Pamela Jones reporting for duty, sir,” she said as we neared the water. Flirting already.

  “I’m just one of the deckhands,” he told us, and checked off our names on his clipboard. JOSH, his name tag read. “Where you guys from?”

  We told him.

  “Silver Springs?”

  “Singular. There was only one,” Gwen corrected.

  He scanned our luggage. “Alcohol? Drugs? Inflammables? Explosives?”

  “No … no … no … and no,” I told him.

  “No smoking on board for crew. They tell you that?”

  “Got it,” said Liz, then glanced at Yolanda. We’re never quite sure of anything with Yolanda.

  “Okay. Take the port—that’s left—side stairs down to crew quarters, then meet in the dining room for a late lunch. Follow the signs. You’ll get a tour of the ship later.”

  We went up the gangplank, and even that was a thrill—looking down at the gray-green water in the space between ship and dock. Now I could really believe it was happening.

  On the wall inside, past the mahogany cabinet with the ornate drawer knobs, was a large diagram of the ship, naming the major locations—pilothouse, purser’s office, dining room, lounge—as well as each of the four decks: observation deck, at the very top; then Chesapeake deck; lounge deck below that, and main deck, where we were now. Crew quarters weren’t even on the map.

  A heavyset guy in a T-shirt and faded jeans, carrying a stack of chairs, called to us from a connecting hallway, “Crew? Take the stairs over here,” and disappeared.

  “How do you know what’s port side if the ship’s not moving?” I asked, confused already.

  Nobody bothered to answer because we’d reached the metal stairway, and we hustled our bags on down.

  Gwen was right; we had no porthole.

  There were five bunk beds in the large cabin—large by shipboard standards, they told us. Ten berths in all, and other girls had already taken three of the lower berths. We claimed the remaining two bunk beds, top and bottom, and Gwen volunteered to sleep in the empty top bunk of an unknown companion.

  “Ah! The graduates!” said a tall girl with freckles covering her face and arms and legs. She looked like a speckled egg—a pretty egg, actually. “I’m Emily.” She nodded toward her companions. “Rachel and Shannon,” she said, and we introduced ourselves.

  “First cruise?” Rachel asked us. She was a small, elflike person, but strong for her size—the way she tossed her bags around—and was probably older than the rest of us, mid-twenties, maybe.

  “We’re green as they come,” Liz answered.

  “Same here,” said Shannon. “I’m here because I’m a smoker.”

  We stared. “I thought there was a rule … ,” Pamela began.

  “There is. I know. I’m trying to kick the habit. Compulsory detox. I figure it will either cure me or kill me.”

  “Or drive the rest of us mad,” said Rachel. And to us, “She’s a dragon when she doesn’t have a cig.” She looked at Shannon. “Just don’t let Quinton catch you if you backslide.”

  “Who’s Quinton?” I asked.

  “The Man. The Boss. You’ll see him at lunch”—Emily checked her watch—“in about three minutes. I worked under him on another cruise line a couple of years back, so I know some of the people on this one.”

  “What’s he like?” asked Gwen.

  “Pretty nice. He’s fair, anyway.”

  The last two girls arrived. The younger, Natalie, had almost white-blond hair, which she wore in a French braid halfway down her back, and then there was Lauren, with the body of an athlete—well-toned arms and legs. Only three of the girls had worked as stewards before—Rachel, Emily, and Lauren. And out of the ten of us, Lauren and Rachel seemed to know the most. Rachel, in fact, was a wellspring of information, the kind of stuff you never find in the rule books. Like Quinton’s favorite drink when he was onshore—bourbon on the rocks—and how to keep your hair from frizzing up when you were at sea. She chattered all the while we put our stuff away, cramming our clothes in the three dressers provided. We’d been warned about lack of space, and I’d managed to bring only my duffel, my cloth bag, and the new laptop I got for graduation.

  So here we were—ten women in a single room with a couch, a TV, and a communal bathroom next door. The walls were bare except for notices about safety regulations, fire equipment, the dress code, and various prohibitions: no smoki
ng aboard the ship; no food or alcohol in crew quarters; no pets of any kind; no cell phones when on duty; no men in the women’s cabin and vice versa… .

  Welcome aboard.

  The first thing we did was eat—on crew schedule, as I’d come to learn—and we were starved. I guess they figured that “stews,” as we were called, would pay more attention in training later if we were fed. There were thirty of us in the dining room, counting the chef and his assistant—ten female stewards, ten male stewards, and eight male deckhands. We sat down to platters of hamburgers, potato salad, fries, and every other fattening food you could think of.

  “Don’t worry,” Rachel told us. “You’ll work it off. That’s a promise.”

  But we weren’t doing calorie counts as much as we were working out the male-to-female ratio. All the ice cream we could eat, guaranteed not to settle on our thighs, and two guys to every girl? Was this the ideal summer job or what, lowest salary on the Chesapeake be damned!

  The guys, who had come in first, were grouped at neighboring tables, and we could tell from their conversation that most of the deckhands were seasoned sailors, older than the rest, who had worked for other cruise lines in the past. They were undoubtedly paid a lot more than we were. A couple wore wedding bands.

  “I just decided to ditch my theatrical career and devote the rest of my life to the sea,” Pamela breathed, after a muscular guy in a blue T-shirt grinned our way.

  “Yeah, and what will you do in the winter months when the ship’s in dry dock?” Lauren asked her.

  Pamela returned the guy’s smile. “Three guesses,” she said.

  I tried to imagine what this dining room would be like in two days’ time when passengers came on board. The large windows spanning both sides would be the same, of course, but I’d seen pictures on the cruise line’s website of white-clothed tables with sparkling glassware and candles. It must have been a special photo shoot, because this ship hadn’t sailed before—not as the Seascape, anyway. Still, I bet it would be grand.

  Quinton came in just as the tub of peanut butter ice cream was going around for the second time. We’d met Dianne, his wife, when we’d picked up our name tags. She did double duty as purser and housemother, Rachel told us, but it was Quinton who called the shots.