"That one of those noisy, beeping video games?" he asked with a scowl.

"Yes," I replied, undaunted. "Slobs like us love them. So come on down to the Tropical Deck. I'll show you how to play. I'll show you how to play Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, too."

To my surprise, Mr. Staples came along. To my greater surprise, he was good at Centipede. When we were tired of the video room (Mr. Staples said his ears were ringing), we went back up to the Sun Deck. There Mr. Staples showed me how to play shuffleboard. To my surprise, I was good.

I looked at my watch after we'd finished a couple of games. "Gosh!" I exclaimed. "I have to go! It's almost lunchtime. This was really fun. Will I see you on Treasure Cay?" I asked. (That was where the Ocean Princess was going to dock for the afternoon, but you didn't have to visit the island if you didn't want to.) "Maybe," said Mr. Staples. "Don't know what I'd do there, though."

"Just look around," I said. "See a new place.

Treasure Cay is going to be almost like a deserted tropical island - I think. Anyway, even if it isn't, don't you just want to be able to say you've seen it?"

Mr. Staples' almost-smile returned. "Guess so," he said.

"Good. . . . Hey, I've got the perfect woman for you," I told him. "I mean, if you ever decide you want to start, you know, dating again."

"Who's that?"

"My nannie."

"No kidding."

"Listen, why don't you eat dinner with Mom and Watson tonight? I know they'd like to meet you. And you could meet the rest of my family, too."

"Well - "

"See you later!" I called. I ran off before Mr. Staples could say no. I ran all the way to our cabin. When I opened the door, I stopped and stared in horror. Someone had done something to the cabin while I was gone, and I knew who that someone was. Dawn. What she had done was straightened it up to within an inch of its life. Everything was folded up, hung up, put away, or thrown away.

Dawn had spent the morning committing a crime of tidiness.

I banged my way into Mom and Watson's cabin without even knocking. "Mo-om!" I cried. "Would you please talk to Dawn? She is driving me ... CRAZY! No, better yet," I rushed on, "can I switch rooms? Can I stay in here? Karen could move in with Claudia and Dawn. Please?"

Mom was the only one in the cabin. She was sitting at the desk writing a postcard. "Honey, do you really think that's fair to anybody?" she asked.

"If s fair to me."

"What about to Claudia and Dawn? Do you think they want to share a room with a six-year-old? And what about Andrew? He depends on Karen."

"Are you saying no?"

"I'm saying I'd like you and Dawn to try to work out your differences."

"We can't," I said flatly. I left Mom's cabin in a huff.

At lunch, I spread the word that our daily meeting was canceled.

But I made Claudia spread the word to Dawn.

Byron.

Treasure I could feel it in my bones.

We were going to find buried treasure on Treasure Cay. All the signs pointed to it. I had just finished reading Treasure Island, and what was one of the movies they showed on the boat yesterday? You got it, Treasure Island. I made Adam and Jordan, my brothers (we're triplets), watch it with me. They didn't want to at first (because Treasure Island, the book, is a cla.s.sic, and they think all cla.s.sics are boring). But finally they came along.

On the other hand, our little brother Nicky and his friend David Michael begged to come with us, but we didn't want them. You can't keep people out of a movie theater, though, so they sat with us anyway. By the time the movie was over, we'd forgotten all about who did and didn't want to see it, and who did and didn't want to sit with whom. All we could talk about were pirates.

"A really good pirate," said Adam, "wears red-and-white striped stockings and has a black patch over one eye and a wooden leg."

"And a parrot that sits on his shoulder," added Nicky.

"And the parrot can squawk out, 'Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum,' " said David Michael.

"He wears one big gold earring," said Jordan. "The pirate, I mean, not the parrot."

"And he's rude and mean," I finished up. "He steals a treasure, buries it, and won't tell anyone where if s hidden. Except he tells his best friend - "

"Whose name is Old Bad John," said Nicky.

" - but he doesn't really tell him," I went on. "He gives him a hint in a treasure map. That's all. And he only does that when he's about to die. He figures that if Old Bad John is smart enough to figure out what the map means, then he deserves the treasure. But if he isn't smart enough, then the treasure should stay hidden."

"Right," said the others.

That was yesterday. Today we were still talking about pirates and treasures. And the Ocean Princess was going to dock at Treasure Cay! (Cay, which is p.r.o.nounced either "kay" or "key," is just a word meaning small island. I asked my dad.) We were sure the cay was going to be like islands in movies - all jungly and wild with monkeys and coconuts and maybe a couple of pythons.

When we got off the ship, we sort of had a surprise. Treasure C^ay didn't look too different from Na.s.sau. I saw hotels all along the beach.

I glanced at my brothers and David Michael with raised eyebrows.

"They must have let us off at the wrong island," said Nicky.

"No way," I told him. "The captain knows what he's doing. They announced Treasure Cay7 so this must be Treasure Cay. But wouldn't you know?"

"Wouldn't you know what?" asked Adam.

"There are thousands of cays and islands in the Bahamas. Only a few are inhabited, and we get one of them. Why couldn't we have gone to one of the other ones? It probably would have been real easy."

"How do you know all this stuff?" asked Jordan.

"I read a pamphlet/' I told him. "Come on, you guys. Let's get going."

Since Treasure Cay was small, Mom and Dad had said that us triplets could be on our own, just like on the ship, as long as we behaved ourselves. The only thing was, Nicky and David Michael begged to come with us again. This time we didn't mind so much. They made up pirate stories that were almost as good as ours. But we had to do some fast talking to get permission. We got it, though, and so the five of us set off to explore.

"I don't see jungles anywhere," said David Michael, looking very disappointed. "Just hotels and swimming pools. Where are we going to look for buried treasure?"

"Where?" I replied. "Everywhere! Think, you guys. Were these hotels here hundreds of years ago?"

"Of course not," said Jordan. "So what?"

"So years and years ago, this island was probably just as wild as those uninhabited islands. A pirate could have buried his treasure here as well as anywhere else."

"Yeah," said Nicky slowly. "I bet lots of them did."

"Sure," I replied. "That's probably how the cay got its name."

"But everything must have been dug up when they built the hotels," said Adam.

"Not necessarily. Look at all this beach." I pointed up and down the sandy coast of the island. "They didn't dig here. And even if they did, that doesn't mean we can't be explorers."

"Adventurers!" added Nicky.

"Discoverers!" cried David Michael.

"Come on," said Adam. "Let's see what we can find."

Most of the people from the Ocean Princess had drifted away to try snorkeling or sailing or fishing, or to watch the shipbuilders I'd heard about. But my brothers and David Michael and I were happy on the beach. We peeled off our shorts and shirts and stood under a palm tree in our swimming trunks.

"This beach sure looks different from the one at Sea City," said Adam.

"Yeah, no waves," I replied with satisfaction. "Shallow water."

I hate swimming where the water is deep, especially when you can't see the bottom. But here, not only was the water shallow a long way out, but it was a sparkling clear aqua blue. You could stand in it and see your toenails and every grain of sand around your feet.

"Look!" cried Nicky. He'd waded out as far as his ankles. "Coral! I found coral!"

"Look at this sh.e.l.l!" said David Michael, joining him.

"Throw it back. It's pink," said Nicky, looking disgusted.

David Michael dropped the sh.e.l.l.

We waded through the water, following the coastline, until we came to a tide pool.

"Cool!" exclaimed Jordan. "Look at all those little animals."

We watched crabs scuttle along the bottom. They sent up puffs of sand. And a school of tiny silvery fish darted back and forth near the surface of the pool.

Then we walked to dry sand.

"Let's dig," I said suddenly.

"Huh?" asked the others.

"Let's just start digging. Right here. Right now. Maybe we'll find something. Look at that cliff of sand over there. Wouldn't that be a great place to hide a treasure chest?"

We all began searching. We turned over rocks, we combed through ma.s.ses of sh.e.l.ls, we dug deep holes in the sand, and we clawed at the cliff I'd seen.

Adam found a comb. Jordan found a pair of sungla.s.ses with one lens missing. Nicky found a lobster daw. David Michael found another pink sh.e.l.l. (Nicky made him throw it back.) But I was the one who found the treasure map.

It was under a rock, far back on the beach, in a spot where the sand would always be dry (unless it rained).

"Hey! Hey! . . . Hey!" I cried. I could hardly speak.

"What is it?" called Jordan, running over to me.

"If s - it's a treasure map!" I exclaimed. I held out the small yellowed piece of paper. "Look! There's a diagram and some funny words. They must be in another language. I wonder what language pirates spoke."

None of us knew. We tried to make sense out of the arrows and X's and lines that had been drawn on the piece of paper, but since we couldn't read the words, we couldn't figure out directions or where the ocean was or anything.

"Let's show it to that fisherman," I said, pointing down the beach to a man at the water's edge. "He looks like a native. Maybe he knows some stories about Treasure Cay."

But when we showed the map to the man, he just laughed gently and shook his head. Then he got a bite on his line, so we left him alone to reel in his fish.

Later, we saw Dawn Schafer walking down the beach with some boy we didn't know. We showed the map to her, but she barely looked at it. She acted like she was in a daze.

"It's a treasure map, Dawn," I told her urgently.

But all she said was, "Mmm."

Disgusted, we let her and the boy walk on. It was almost five-thirty, and we were supposed to be back at the Ocean Princess by then, so I folded the treasure map and put it in my pocket. We headed for the ship.

"You know," I said to my brothers and David Michael on the way, "this map could be for anywhere. We don't really know. We could use it to look for treasure in lots of places. It doesn't have to be a map for treasure on Treasure Cay."

"Right!" cried Jordan. "We'll look every- where. On the ship, at Disney World. Who knows?"

"Yeah," said Nicky, and his eyes lit up. "You know, there's a stowaway on the ship. Va-nessa and I saw him. Maybe he has something to do with the map and the treasure!"

We all began talking at once. We had big plans.

Dawn.

"Ow!" cried Kristy. "Claudia, for gosh sakes, do you have to step on me every morning?"

"No," replied Claudia, sounding offended. "I don't. Not if you sleep on the top bunk. Then you can climb up and down the ladder."

"Nice try," said Kristy. "This is our last day on the ship. Tonight we'll be in a hotel. I have a feeling there won't be any bunk beds."

"Good," said Claudia.

"And wake up Dawn, will you? I wouldn't want to contaminate her or anything."

I smiled. This morning, Kristy couldn't bother me. Even the messy room couldn't bother me.

I was pretty sure I was in love.

Love is a tricky thing, so if s hard to tell, but there was no doubt that I felt different that morning. I felt a way I had never felt. It was a pleasant feeling. And since love is supposed to be both different and pleasant, and I had spent the afternoon before with the boy of my dreams, I a.s.sumed that I was in love.

It all made sense - in a confusing sort of way.

Even though I knew we were supposed to get up so we could meet Kristy's family for breakfast, I rolled over and dosed my eyes. I wanted to try to remember everything that had happened the day before, on the most wonderful afternoon of my life.