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Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise
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Also by Wendelin Van Draanen
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Shredderman: Meet the Gecko
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The Gecko & Sticky: The Greatest Power
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The Gecko & Sticky: The Power Potion
How I Survived Being a Girl
Flipped
Swear to Howdy
Runaway
Confessions of a Serial Kisser
The Running Dream
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2013 by Wendelin Van Draanen Parsons
Jacket art and interior illustrations copyright © 2013 by Dan Yaccarino
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Van Draanen, Wendelin.
Sammy Keyes and the killer cruise / Wendelin Van Draanen;
illustrations by Dan Yaccarino
p. cm.
Summary: Teen sleuth Sammy Keyes solves a classic locked-room mystery aboard a cruise ship.
eISBN: 978-0-307-97409-9
[1. Wealth—Fiction. 2. Family problems—Fiction. 3. Missing persons—Fiction. 4. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 5. Cruise ships—Fiction. 6. Friendship—Fiction. 7. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Yaccarino, Dan, illustrator. II. Title.
PZ7.V2857Safm 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2012045296
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
This book is dedicated to Sue Grafton, Margaret Maron, and in memory of Joan Lowery Nixon.
Each provided encouragement to me in advance of the first Sammy Keyes book, and each has been inspirational since.
Special thanks go to
Dr. Nanine Van Draanen, chemistry professor
and sister extraordinaire,
and to
Mark Parsons and Nancy Siscoe, my partners in crime for every Sammy Keyes book, but especially this one!
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
PROLOGUE
I look back on things I’ve done and wonder … why didn’t I see that coming?
Why didn’t I know that was a bad idea?
Why didn’t someone warn me?
Grams would tell you she does warn me and that the question should really be, Why don’t I listen?
Which, yeah, I admit, is usually the case.
But not this time. This time, I thought it was a bad idea. This time, I warned Grams and my mother and Hudson and anyone else who told me it was a good idea that it was a bad idea.
This time, they didn’t listen.
Which is how I wound up on a cruise ship with a dad I barely knew, an endless buffet of party animals, and a family of creepy millionaires.
Happy birthday to me.
ONE
I was allowed to bring one friend. And since Marissa McKenze has been my best friend since third grade, and since it looks like she’ll be moving to Ohio in June because her mom’s lined up a job there, and who knows how long it’ll be before I’ll get to do anything with her again after that, and since I wasn’t allowed to bring Casey because he’s my boyfriend and it would have been “inappropriate,” and since my other good friend Holly thought cruising sounded like a nightmare, the choice was easy.
Marissa.
Even Mrs. McKenze was for it, and she’s never for anything that has to do with her daughter spending time with me. According to her, I’m “hazardous.”
And yet, there we were, at the Long Beach dock with our luggage and passports, about to cruise to Mexico.
Actually, I think Mrs. McKenze being okay with the trip had more to do with Darren Cole being my dad than her daughter having one last adventure with her best friend.
He seems to have that effect on middle-aged women.
Something about the shaggy hair and the guitar makes them lose their minds.
Or, at least, their common sense.
Him sending a car service to get us to the dock didn’t hurt, either. Mrs. McKenze actually gasped when she heard it was how we were getting to Los Angeles, and I could tell I was suddenly a friend she wanted her daughter to hang with instead of the “hazard” I’d been before. Why a week away with a musician didn’t register as a hazard to her was beyond me, but like I said, common sense didn’t apply.
Marissa was over the moon about going on the cruise. She’d been on cruises before with her family, pre–financial meltdown/divorce. “It’s awesome, Sammy. You have no idea! You can’t even picture it, it’s so amazing! It’s like twenty stories of a Las Vegas resort steaming through the ocean!”
I’ve been to Las Vegas, so that didn’t help sell me on the idea at all.
And since she hadn’t actually met my dad in person yet, she’d blown the whole thing way out of proportion. People would ask us what we were doing over spring break, and she’d say, “Sammy and I are going on a celebrity cruise!”
“It’s
not a celebrity cruise!” I’d tell her through my teeth.
“Sure it is! Your dad’s a celebrity and he’s playing on the cruise!”
“He’s playing one night. That’s all!”
But it was like she couldn’t help herself. She kept letting it slip out until finally I told her, “Knock it off or stay home!”
Her eyes had gotten huge. “You wouldn’t do that to me!”
“Yes, I would! The whole situation is embarrassing enough without you doing this!”
Which it was. It had only been about six weeks since I’d found out that my dad was Darren Cole of Darren Cole and the Troublemakers, and I was still pretty weirded out by it. Partly because going from being poor to finding out you’re the daughter of a rock star puts you smack-dab in the middle of some really strange territory, and partly because people at school love to gossip and Darren Cole being my father became Big News fast.
It was amazing to see how many new “friends” I suddenly had, too. People who’d made fun of me before were now kissing up to me.
Thanks, but no thanks.
And Darren had set me up with a cell phone—my first one ever, if you can believe that. At first I was like, Wow, this is so cool! But then my mother started calling. And texting. Like, constantly. It made me wish I didn’t have a phone, because instead of just being able to come up with some excuse about where I was or why I was late, I was now on a buzzing leash.
What’s weird was that she wasn’t checking up on me or being, you know, supervisorial. Since she’d moved to Hollywood, we’d really grown apart, and now she was using the phone as a way to try to reconnect.
Either that or she was worried or jealous or whatever because Darren was texting me, too, trying to get to know me, asking me things that she was clueless about. I mean, how embarrassing is that? Keeping your daughter from her dad for almost fourteen years and then having her dad know things about her that you don’t?
So between her being all, Come to L.A. for the weekend! Let’s go shopping! and Darren texting things like, “Dream pet?” and “Favorite color?” and “Worst subject?” I was the one hiding and avoiding and “forgetting” to turn on my phone.
I was really relieved when Darren told me I couldn’t use my phone on the cruise—something about “sky-high international rates.” But I think it also had to do with the whole point of the cruise, which was us getting to know each other, not constantly texting.
I was also relieved when he told my mother that she couldn’t come on the cruise with us. He didn’t say it because he didn’t like her—they were obviously back to being nuts about each other—but because with her around, there was no way I was going to relax and he knew it. So he told her no, even though that meant she was going to miss my fourteenth birthday.
I was secretly happy not to have her around on my birthday, seeing how she’d totally messed up the last one. Grams, I kind of felt bad about because she’d not only been at every one of my birthdays, but she’d also been there for me on all the days in between. But she was married to Hudson now, and the two of them were doing a slow transition from the Senior Highrise, where Grams and I had been living for the past two and a half years, to Hudson’s house on Cypress Street.
There was nothing slow about my transition out of the Highrise. Hudson invited me to live with them and, boom, I was gone. And my cat, Dorito, loved prowling around. So at first I didn’t really get why Grams couldn’t just abandon the Highrise and live happily ever after on Cypress Street, but Hudson explained that it was hard for Grams to give up her independence so spontaneously.
I guess Las Vegas weddings have their aftershocks, even when you’re a senior citizen.
Grams and Hudson had thrown a little pre-birthday cake-and-ice-cream party for me, which was nice, but also sort of strange because thirteen wasn’t actually over yet and my mother was trying too hard to make up for last year’s fiasco. The best part of the party was definitely that Casey was there and had customized a pair of gray high-tops for me by writing on them with a black Sharpie. Both shoes were covered with things like “Shortcut Sammy Rides Again!” and “Holy Smokes!” and “Dive for the Bushes!” Plus he’d drawn little pictures that brought back funny memories. There was a pig labeled “Penny” and some skulls labeled “Not Candy!” and a headstone labeled “Sassypants.”
And then there was the heart with “S+C Forever” in it.
It was the most amazing present ever.
My mother tried her diva best not to show it, but I know she was sort of miffed that I was way more excited over some “scribbled-on shoes” than I was about the dainty charm bracelet she’d given me.
The bottom line is, my mother doesn’t get me, which is why I was glad Darren had told her she couldn’t go on the cruise. I mean, birthday or not, and getting to know my rock star dad or not, sharing a cabin with Marissa was going to be a whole lot more fun than sharing one with a person who disapproves of everything from my high-tops to my attitude. And really, the fact that Darren seemed to understand that went a long way toward making me think that being trapped on a boat with him for six days might actually be all right.
Still. When we’re at the Long Beach dock waiting for Darren to show up, and Marissa suddenly points and squeals, “There he is,” I can tell she’s going to be trouble. So I grab her and get right in her face. “No squealing. No fawning. No gushing or gawking or … or fainting! He is just a guy. Just. A. Guy.”
There are masses of people swarming around and checking their luggage at different stations, but when I look over to where Marissa had pointed, I spot Darren right away. Maybe it’s the Louis Vuitton sunglasses. Or the blazer he’s wearing instead of the beachy clothes so many other people are wearing.
Or maybe it’s the boots.
Who wears boots on a cruise?
“Sammy!” he calls, flashing a great big smile.
He’s got no luggage. No suitcase, no guitar, no nothing.
And that’s when it hits me—he’s not coming.
Something’s come up and he can’t make it.
I can feel myself get mad and hurt and withdrawn all at once.
Like I haven’t had enough cancellations and gushing apologies and pathetic excuses from my diva mother?
But, hey, just another reality check—I should be used to getting them handed to me by now.
“Sammy!” he calls again.
I do give him a nod, but Marissa doesn’t catch it. “Why aren’t you answering him?” she asks, and then does a big, dopey wave that people in Hawaii could have seen.
“We canceled?” I ask when he gets up to us.
He slips the Louis Vuittons down his nose and looks at me, eye to eye. “Canceled? Why would we be canceled?”
“Where’s your stuff?” I ask, looking around like, Hello, stuff …?
“It’s being loaded in with the band’s gear.” He has a quick conversation with our driver/escort and signs some papers, and then all of a sudden he calls out, “Marko! Marko, over here!”
Marissa whips around to look, then whips back and whispers, “Who’s Marko?”
“The drummer,” I tell her, and before you know it, he’s standing right there, in board shorts and a cool gray T, with his shaved head and a little piratey earring, smiling from ear to ear, going, “Dude! The ship is huge.”
Darren slaps his shoulder and checks him over with a grin. “You goin’ on a cruise or something?”
“Dude, I am so ready!” Then Marko smiles at me and says, “Hey-yo, Sammy!”
Darren pulls out a big envelope of paperwork from inside his sports coat. “Let the adventure begin!”
“Uh, I’m Marissa?” Marissa says, putting a hand out.
Darren pumps it. “Darren.” He turns to Marko. “And this is my best friend and troublemakin’ timekeeper, Marko.”
Marko shakes her hand and says, “Nice to meet you, Marissa,” but as Darren starts to walk, she looks around a little and asks, “Aren’t we waiting for the others?”
“The rest of the band?”
Darren smiles at her. “Glad you’re on the lookout for trouble, but Drew and Cardillo aren’t meeting up with us until later.”
“Wow,” Marissa whispers as Darren leads us to a line where we’re supposed to turn over our luggage. “Is he your dad or what?”
“Shh!” Then I ask, “What do you mean?”
“His eyes, the way he smiles, the way he—”
“Shh!”
“How can you be so matter-of-fact about this? This is awesome!”
And I know she’s right.
I know that it is.
And the truth is, I have butterflies.
Not nervous butterflies.
Happy butterflies.
I can’t quite believe we’re here, doing this. I can’t quite believe that nothing’s “come up,” that nobody’s flaked, and that I’m going on a cruise with … with my dad.
“Why are you crying?” Marissa whispers.
I shake it off. “I’m okay.”
“You sure?”
I nod and roll my luggage up closer to Darren and Marko.
Let the adventure begin!
TWO
After we turned in our luggage, Darren and Marko led us inside a big metal building where we went down some corridors, passed through security, and wound up in a warehouse where we got in a long, zigzagging line.
I did a lot of gawking because it was all new to me, but the only thing Marissa seemed to be impressed by was Darren.
“Knock it off!” I finally told her, because she was watching his every move. And she did knock it off for a whole minute, but then went back to staring. “Marissa,” I said through my teeth.
“Sorry!”
And since I knew that wouldn’t last, I decided to make up a distraction. “If you’d quit staring and look around a little, you’d notice you’re being watched.”
That made her eyes fly open. “I am?”
“Those guys?” I whispered, nodding at the backs of two boys in the zag ahead of our zig. “They were definitely checking you out.”
Now, since the line is snaking back and forth, it doesn’t take too long for those same two boys to be facing us instead of walking away from us. And since Marissa is now on high alert, she starts checking them out, and before you know it, they’re noticing that the cute girl in the line behind them is watching them. So then they do start checking her out and pretty soon my little lie has become reality.