Murder Ashore

Chapter 3 - Setting Sail...

Chapter 3 – Setting Sail

Tiger, Val and Davis soon all heard the news and were all buzzing and exited to go. Well except Tiger, she just gave a quick smirk, but denied it later. I was ecstatic that everyone took to the idea very strongly and no one more than I looked forward to the holiday ahead.

Two days later and the tickets were booked! A luxury cruise ship going to the five island of Gonzola! So flippin’ excited ahhhhhhhhhh. Obviously I alerted the other four straight away and collected the contributions towards the trip, (all together the trip cost £2,350 for all of us) after everyone chipped in, my mum only ended paying £388 for me, which is a pretty good turnout for a birthday.

Counting down the days until the ship set sails. Only 10 left. I thought if I went shopping for new clothes and gadgets to take with me, I wouldn’t have enough spending. Or maybe I should use the time for revision. No. I did this holiday for the reason of getting away from revision and stress. Exploring these exotic islands, I realised that I couldn’t do it without accessories. So to aid this problem I hunted round the house in search for: binoculars, water bottle, cap and a digital camera. One does not simply go on and adventure like this and don’t bring back any memories, my mum would be all over me when I got back, wanting to see all the photos and ask me how I got on. You know getting the 3rd degree. Obviously I would have to give her every detail, just to mildly satisfy her.

The time came were it was just a matter of days till this cruise to pull in our local docks.

“Tim, come here a minute, we have some… well interesting news” Called my dad. I rushed downstairs and sat down.

“We’ve had an e-mail” he went on. Something told me that this really wasn’t good news

“You’d better sit down” What a ridiculous mark my bum is firm to the sofa I’m sitting on.

“I am sitting you dim bat!” I screamed at him.

“Well, I’d better get on with it them. It’s cancelled. The cruise. The ship was over booked by about five spaces and since we were the last to book, we had to withdraw our reservation. We’re really sorry.” Dad tried to break the news to me as softly as possible, knowing that that had just ruined my entire holiday all together.

I childishly ran up to my room without looking back once. I have never looked forward to a holiday as much as I was looking forward to that one. For some reason I have never been trusted to go abroad on my own before. With my family I have been to, America, Italy, Greece, Germany and Australia. So I suppose I do travel a lot. Bu none of that takes away the fact that I have nothing to look forward to anymore. I guess its back to the books then.

The following morning I organised to go to town with the other five. We met in the city centre at the arranged time. While I was there I tried to put off the devastating news for as long as physically possible. However I knew it had to come out sometime. Firstly I decided to go clothes shopping, I usually hate it but when it’s for me it becomes my newest craze.    The train home seemed fun and enthusiastic, until I had to depress the news to the others.

“Listen. The cruise that we booked for a week and a half from now” I said morbidly.

“Yeah, yeah thanks again. God. How any times?” Tiger impatiently interrupted.

“No. No, if you’d listen, we had to cancel the booking last night. The ship was overbooked and we were the last reservations. I’m sorry there’s no other way.” I strolled off the train, with their gloomy faces fixed on mine. I felt so bad about doing that to them. I had a call later on that night, off David. He told me that there was a girl on the train that goes to our school. I thought this was going somewhere along the lines of, she wanted to come with us. I couldn’t have been more wrong. She overheard our entire conversation, and offered her boat out to us to enjoy our holiday on that.

“Who?” I questioned

“Beatrix Luxemburt” David whispered down the phone. I had heard of this Beatrix person before, never really spoken to her though.

“Have you told the others? And how much is she charging?”

“Yes. And it’s free!” David squeaked excitedly down the phone. He also mentioned that Beatrix wanted to come a long with us. Which although we’d rather so on our own, the conditions seemed pretty fair to me.

Packed and ready to go was I. My mum was crying as if I was going away for an indefinite amount of time. I repeatedly told her to calm down and that I would be back in a few weeks. She was having none of it. To my rescue Nathan turned up in his car to give me a lift to the docks. I was informed that Val, Tiger and Beatrix were at the socks waiting. We were picking David up on the way. We arrived at David’s and hurried him along, girls are not the most patient of specimens, especially Tiger and Val (not sure about Beatrix).

The car was parked and we rushed with our luggage to the girls.

“God, you don’t rush do you. No urgency about you is there.” Tiger yelled.

“Shut it, Tiger!” I screamed back at her. I had a sense of fear first, but then she just gave me a sardonic smile and that was that.

“Good day to you all!” A strange looking man said as he appeared out of nowhere.

“My name’s Smithy, I’ll be driving the boat, and directing your perfect holiday.” I actually forgot that we needed someone that could drive the boat. I smiled at him and nodded we were good to go. As I expected he said that he was charging £50 from each of us. We turned to Beatrix, she lied.

“I said it was free, because I was paying for you all, I can’t just go with you on my own will.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re lending us your boat, we’ll pay for you if anything,” exclaimed the somewhat new compassionate Tiger.

We climbed on to the boat and waited for around an hour, until we heard a reassuring voice of Smithy. Just after our luggage was dumped in a compartment and then we heard Smithy: “Full steam ahead!” in his Australian accent.