"After him!" cried Nicky.

Nicky and Vanessa chased the boy, and I chased Nicky and Vanessa. But the boy had gotten a headstart. By the time we reached the bottom of the staircase that he'd run down, he was nowhere in sight.

"Awesome!" exclaimed Nicky for the umpteenth time that day.

And Vanessa added, "I can't believe it. I cannot believe it! Do you know what, Mary Anne? There's a stowaway on the Ocean Princess!"

cTTll APT]ER f4 t was perfect, absolutely perfect. I couldn't have asked for a better arrangement. The thing is, I had just finished reading Harriet the Spy. Well, not really just finished, but pretty recently. I had finished it about a week before my family left on our trip. And I wanted to be just like Harriet. Well, not really just like her, since she had a lot of problems. But I wanted to keep a notebook like hers, a notebook in which I could write down things about people. And I couldn't imagine a better place to do that than on a huge ship full of people. There were bound to be some interesting ones to write about. Now, I know Harriet's notebook got her in trouble, but I wanted to keep one anyway. I'd just be extra careful that my notebook wasn't discovered the way Harriet's was. Besides, I'd be writing mostly about * *.

strangers, not about people I knew. I told myself that if Mom or anyone caught me, I could say that this was a writing exercise, which was true, and which would sound believable since I might become a writer one day. (You never know.) The perfect part of the arrangement came when Stacey announced that us older Pikes - the triplets and me - were allowed to go off on our own. We didn't have to stick with Mom or Dad or Stacey or Mary Anne. Not that I don't like them, and not that Stacey and Mary Anne aren't a lot of fun, but it sure was going to be easier to spy and to write in my notebook if I could look around the ship alone.

So after the triplets ran off, with big plans to go find people wearing goofy bathing caps and laugh at them, I started to go off, too.

"Don't you want to come exploring with Nicky and Vanessa and me?" asked Mary Anne.

I did, I really did - but not as much as I wanted to go spying. "Thanks," I said, "but I'll look around by myself." I rolled my eyes, trying to make Mary Anne think I'd had it up to here with Vanessa, and Mary Anne grinned. Then I pretended to leave. I walked away, but after I'd rounded a corner, I hid behind a door until I'd seen Mary Anne go off in one direction with Nicky and Vanessa, and Stacey go off in the other with Margo and Claire.

Then I ducked back into the cabin I was sharing with Vanessa and Mary Anne. I rummaged around in my suitcase until I found the new spying book I'd bought three days ago. It was a spiral notebook with a shiny green cover. As a precaution, I'd written OUR TRIP: A DAILY DIARY across the front. That was something that sounded fairly boring, should the book happen to fall into the wrong hands - not that I'd be careless enough to leave the diary where anyone might find it.

I grabbed a pen out of my purse and was ready to go, but where? The ship was huge. I'd seen a diagram of it showing where the shops and restaurants and swimming pools and everything were. There were eight decks on the ship, from the Island Deck on the bottom to the Sun Deck on the top. At least I wouldn't have to worry much about running into my brothers and sisters. If you wanted to, you could probably get lost on the Ocean Princess.

I decided to start my spying right where I was, on the Dolphin Deck, but all I found were cabins, cabins, and more cabins. No people. No interesting people anyway. Maybe I needed an interesting deck in order to find interesting people.

I made my way up to the Tropical Deck. That was the level with a theater, a casino, a video games room, and some restaurants and stuff. My luck up there was much better. Trying to look inconspicuous, I settled myself on a lounge chair on the veranda that wound around the deck. Almost the first person who walked toward me was a girl about Stacey and Mary Anne's age (or maybe a little older) with long, dark, wavy hair. She was wearing the teeniest bikini you can imagine, and she looked as sophisticated as if she'd just stepped out of a fancy penthouse apartment in New York City.

She paused to look at the ocean and soon a cute boy paused next to her. He smiled at her in this sort of coy way.

Gosh! Maybe something like that will happen to me someday.

"Great view," said the boy. "Look, you can still see land."

The girl yawned. "It is great, I guess. It's just that it's no big de^al. I mean for me. I live down here."

Darn. So she wasn't a New Yorker after all.

"Well," the girl went on, "I live here when I'm not making movies."

"You're an actress?" said the boy. "Wow." He took the girl by her elbow and they sauntered off together.

I wrote furiously, trying to get down everything I'd heard. When I was finished the boy and girl were gone, but I stayed right where I was - like a fisherman who's caught a trout and decides he's found a lucky spot on the riverbank.

A few people strolled by me on the veranda - no one out of the ordinary. Then this old man came by. The thing that made me notice him was that he just looked so sad. He leaned against the railing and stared out at the water. I could tell he was thinking of something else, and that the something, whatever it was, made him feel just awful.

I was right in the middle of inventing a tragic past for the man when I caught sight of Kristy and Claudia. Oh, no! I didn't want them to see me, but it was too late to get up and hide. I scrunched myself against the back of the lounge chair and bent Over as far as I could. At least they wouldn't be able to see my face.

Then they walked by and I could tell that, like the man, they weren't really seeing the ocean, or anything else. They were very caught up in their conversation.

"I know I'm a slob," Kristy was saying, "but why should it matter to Dawn? Can't she ignore it?"

"I don't know," Claudia replied. "Why don't - "

"Excuse me," said a third voice, and I dared to look up.

The old man had stopped Kristy and Claudia!

"Do you have the time?" he asked them.

"Sure," replied Kristy. "If s three forty-five."

"Thank you," said the man.

"You're welcome." Kristy smiled at him and she and Claudia walked on.

I left the veranda then. It might have been a good fishing hole, but I was too exposed there. I found a flight of stairs and walked up one level to the Moondance Deck. At first it didn't seem like much - just the children's recreation area and pool, and more cabins. But after I walked by a cabin with its door open, I realized that they weren't just any cabins, they were luxury cabins - huge. I decided to * *.

wander through those corridors for awhile. Maybe I'd see the sophisticated girl again. If she was a big-time actress she probably had a luxury cabin.

I didn't see her. What I did see was more interesting than the girl, more sad than the old man, and very curious. I turned a corner, and coming toward me down the hall was a woman pushing a little boy in an impossibly small wheelchair.

"We're almost there, Marc," she was saying. "Just wait'll you see our room."

"I can't wait, Mom!" exclaimed Marc, but I could tell he wasn't feeling as excited as he wanted his parents to think he was. I know because I've done that with my parents. Sometimes you have to protect parents and their feelings.

I stepped aside and sort of flattened myself against the wall to let them go by, but it wasn't necessary. The woman stopped when they were still a few yards away from me and entered one of the cabins.

"This is it!" she announced, steering Marc into the room.

I didn't hear Marc's reply. That was because I was too busy noticing, for the first time, who sZ, and what had been behind Marc and his mother. The first person was one of the ship's stewards, wheeling a huge oxygen tank. He was followed by another steward with a second tank. And he was followed by a well-dressed man (Marc's father?) carrying a black box labeled: MEDICATION - REFRIGERATE. They all disappeared into the cabin with Marc and his mother, and the door closed behind them.

Wow. What was that all about?

I barely had time to scribble a few notes about Marc in my spying book before someone else came through the corridor, and when I saw him I nearly pa.s.sed out.

The guy was about twenty years old with thick red hair. You know, that color that is so red you're just sure he was called Carrot-Top when he was little. He had flashing blue eyes, and when he grinned as he squeezed by, I could see that he was missing one of his bottom teeth.

Why did I almost faint? Because the guy was Spider from the Insects, my favorite group. I was sure of it. He's famous for that missing tooth. He lost it during a show when he hit himself in the mouth with his own electric guitar. I was just dying to ask him for his autograph, but I couldn't work up the nerve. What if he was one of those famous people who hated to be asked for his autograph? I watched him disappear.

Little did I know, there was even more excitement to come. I had barely recovered from my Spider-sighting when I stepped onto the deck (for some fresh air) and what should I see but a sandy-haired boy who climbed out of a huge pile of coiled rope, looked cautiously in all directions, and then ran through a corridor into the ship.

A stowaway! I wrote in my notebook. I think there's a stowaway on board the Ocean Princess. It was almost too much to take. What an afternoon I'd had - Spider, a stowaway, and all those other people. I decided to keep my notebook with me at all times, if possible. I'd have to figure out some ways to hide it in my clothing. This was going to be one exciting voyage and I didn't want to miss a thing.

/cHAPTER / s /A5X / / i love my big stepsister, Kristy. She is very, very fun. But here's one thing I don't love about her. Sometimes she doesn't believe the things I say. And just because I'm only six years old. I don't think that's fair. But it happens. Also, sometimes she says I'm too little to do things. I don't think that's fair, either. But it happens.

It was our first day on the big ship called the Ocean Princess. Andrew and I were really excited. We wanted to go swimming. We wanted to go exploring. And we wanted Kristy to go with us. But Kristy and her friend Clau-dia had gone off on a walk. Andrew and I hoped they would come back soon.

"Here they come! Here they come!" Andrew shouted a little while later.

I ran out into the corridor to see. Sure enough, there were Kristy and Claudia.

"Kristy!" I called. "Me and Andrew want to go swimming. Will you take us? Daddy and Elizabeth say they want to take naps after they finish unpacking." (Elizabeth is Krist/s mother, my stepmother.) "Sure," said Kristy. "You don't mind, do you, Claud?"

Claudia shook her head. "Maybe I'll go look for Dawn."

"Are you mad at Dawn, Kristy?" I asked as she helped me change into my bathing suit.

"No. Why do you think that?"

"I just do. I can tell."

"Were you eavesdropping?" Kristy asked. Now she was helping Andrew with his suit.

"No, honest," I said.

Kristy gave me one of her I-don't-believe-you looks.

"Never mind," I told her. "Let's go."

Kristy changed into her suit, too, and then we were all ready.

"Let me just get David Michael," Kristy said, stopping by her brothers' cabin. "I bet he'll want to come with us."

He did. A few minutes later the four of us were way up on the Moondance Deck, stand- ing at the edge of the children's pool. And that was when I remembered something important.

"Uh-oh," I said. "Kristy, I forgot my earplugs. I can't go swimming without them. I'm not allowed. I'll get an earache." Then I had a terrific idea. "Can I go get them myself, please? I know the way back to our cabin. Really I do."

"Oh, no," said Kristy. "You're not going alone. I'll have to go back with you. I mean, we all will."

"No way," said David Michael. "We just got here."

"Please let me go, Kristy," I said. "Please?"

Kristy scrunched up her face. "All right," she said at last. "You can go by yourself. But come right back, understand?"

"I understand! And I promise!" I cried. I dashed down one flight of stairs, then another. I knew I had two more flights to go before I reached my cabin, but I had to stop and look around the Coastal Deck. I had to. From where I was standing, I could see a big restaurant. Even better, I could see a beauty parlor.

I just love beauty parlors.

Sometimes my friend Hannie and I play Beauty Parlor and fix our dolls' hair. We make them look very, very lovely.

This beauty parlor was called the Seven Seas. I peeked inside. A lady was having her nails painted. A big girl about Kristy's age was having her hair trimmed.

I forgot all about my promise to Kristy. I stepped up to the desk and stood on tiptoe. "h.e.l.lo?" I said to the lady there.

"Yes?" she replied, smiling. She peered down at me.

I put on my most grown-up voice. "I would like to have my nails painted, please, mad-ame," I said. "Just charge it to my cabin."

The lady opened her eyes wide. She looked a little surprised. "Just charge it?" she repeated.

I nodded. I know all about charging. Andrew and I have stayed in hotels lots of times with Daddy. Twice we stayed in a hotel in New York City, and another time in a hotel in Chicago. Whenever we're in hotels, Daddy hardly ever spends any money. He just says, "And charge it to our room, please." So I know you can do this. Except here on the Ocean Princess, I was guessing you were supposed to say "cabin" instead of "room."

The lady behind the counter leaned over a little further and peered at me dosely. "Do you have permission to charge things to your cabin?" she asked. "Did your parents say you could?"

Daddy had not said anything about charging. Neither had Elizabeth. They hadn't said I could, they hadn't said I couldn't. But before I answered the question, I had to straighten the lady out about something.

"I'm not here with my parents/' I told her. "I'm here with my Daddy and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is my stepmommy. Not my real mommy. My parents are divorced."

'Tsk, tsk," the lady ducked. She looked very concerned. "Poor little thing," she muttered. "Whaf s your cabin number, sweetie?" She was checking a long computer list.

"It's P nine," I told her.

"P nine . . . P nine. Your daddy's name?"

"Watson Brewer."

"Right-o. Okay. If you'll wait just a moment, Judith will take care of you. She's the one over there," the lady said, pointing. "See her name tag? Why don't you sit down while you wait?"

I sat.

Soon Judith called, "Miss Brewer?"

I got to my feet feeling very grown-up.

Judith showed me bottles and bottles of nail polish and told me to choose a color.

It was hard to make up my mind. Finally I chose light purple.

"Splendid!" exclaimed Judith. "That will look divine."

And it did. But a manicure takes much longer than I thought it would. First Judith soaked my fingers, then she cleaned my nails, then she fussed with the skin around my nails, then she put on some clear stuff, then she put on the purple polish, then she put on more clear stuff, and then I had to wait for everything to dry.

"Now you be careful," Judith said to me when she finally let me go. "That polish isn't quite hard yet."

'Til be careful," I promised. "Thanks, Judith."

While I was thanking Judith, the big girl who was having her hair trimmed was standing up and saying, "Thanks, Lynnette," to her hairdresser. She handed Lynnette some money. I guess she didn't know how to charge.

Lynnette glanced at the money. "Thanks.

Let me get this changed for you."

"Oh, don't bother," said the girl. "Keep the change."