"I'll sign a lease for six months at six thousand pesos a month up front plus six thousand pesos for you. What you say?"

The landlord made a quick calculation. He'd get to keep two thousand a month from the owner for looking after the property, plus the six thousand. Eighteen thousand pesos total, almost six months' salary.

"Estamos de acuerdo!"

"Excelente. Now, I'll have to ask you to leave us strictly alone once we move in. Our-our equipment is extremely sensitive and requires a high level of concentration to operate. We gotta have complete privacy. You understand."

"No hay problema. If I have come over, I phone night before."

"That sounds fine. We'll move in within two weeks. There may be up to six technicians here at a time."

A handwritten lease was prepared and signed, and cash and keys were exchanged.

Phillip had phoned the yacht broker, Jim Higgins, in Fort Lauderdale, who had faxed him all of the specs on the Real Ship. The boat looked ideal. Quite a bit bigger than what he was used to, but he was sure he could handle it. After an uneventful flight from Chicago, he was ready to take the boat out for sea trials.

The guy looked a bit like a wild card, Jim thought, what with his baseball cap with a long ponytail hanging out the back and rumpled bermudas, no socks. But the laid-back harbor-rat look was just the impression Phillip wanted to create. Whatever happened, n.o.body would be out looking for a balding businessman.

Phillip handled the boat with ease. She quickly got up to ten knots once they cleared the Intracoastal Waterway. At sea she did everything she was supposed to do, and in spades.

Back at the dock they got down to the nitty gritty. Real Ship boats are pretty standard, all of them loaded with all the bells and whistles. Philip felt sure the Two Wise Two Wise would be pretty much the same as this boat. would be pretty much the same as this boat.

The engine room, with standing headroom, housed two 510 hp Caterpillar diesel engines and two Westerbeke marine diesel generators, a 10kw and a 20kw. The master electrical control panel was in the engine room, too, as well as a store of batteries. Off to the side was a workshop that had spares for everything. It had a sizeable electronics package with everything they could possibly need, including radar, COMSAT telephone, chart plotter, weather fax-you name it, it was there.

Phillip made a mental note of the locking system on the entry doors, the keyed ignition switch, and the keyed lock on the instrument-panel door. All would provide easy access with the right tools.

Accommodations were adequate for six. The galley housed a large freezer and refrigerator, so food storage would be no problem. The cocaine could be stored on the covered aft deck. There was no question this boat could handle the trip they were planning.

Jim, meanwhile, could almost taste his commission after spending four hours on the boat with Phillip, watching his painstaking appraisal of the mechanical and electrical systems, answering his detailed questions, and trying not to think about lunch while Phillip reviewed the comprehensive owner's manual. Didn't matter that the guy looked like a beach b.u.m. He'd seen his kind before, coming in deliberately dressed down to hide his affluence, hoping to negotiate a better deal. This guy knew boats, that was for sure.

Dropping Philip off at the airport for his return flight, Jim handed him his card with his phone numbers-office, home, cell, and fax-on it, and told him not to hesitate to call any time if he had any more questions. What other questions the man could possibly come up with, though, was beyond him.

Phillip promised to get back to him within the week, and, for a wonder, didn't even quibble about the asking price of $1.2 million.

Philip knew the boat was perfect, but of course he had no intention of buying.

5.

Spring and summer pa.s.sed in a flurry of preparations. By her mid-August departure, Melissa had packed and repacked half a dozen times, changing her mind again and again about what was truly essential and what was not. (Sunscreen and vitamin C were always always essential.) She was allowed to take only one soft-sided Blue Water Academy bag plus two small carry-on bags because storage s.p.a.ce on the ship was limited. essential.) She was allowed to take only one soft-sided Blue Water Academy bag plus two small carry-on bags because storage s.p.a.ce on the ship was limited.

In a way it was just as well that the academy rules prohibited any sort of portable CD players...o...b..ard ship, she thought, though how she was going to get along without hers she couldn't imagine. She loved music and did her best studying to a rock beat. But headphones weren't exactly conducive to the social bonding that was crucial to living in a small shipboard community. Besides, you had to keep one ear out at all times for emergency announcements.

In any case, there was no room in her luggage for her beloved Discman. Her bag came in at just one pound below the seventypound limit. Her carry-on bags consisted of a bulging backpack and a video camera, a farewell gift from Uncle Jack.

Customs, immigration, and security went without a problem; boarding and departure for San Diego were on time; and the Inspiration Inspiration was the next stop. She was on her way! was the next stop. She was on her way!

On the flight there were four other "Floaties," as students on the ship liked to call themselves. They were easily recognizable by their red shirts, part of the BWA uniform. They were not seated anywhere near one another during the flight, however, so Melissa pretty much kept to herself, lost in her own thoughts. The flight was smooth, but her stomach was doing flip-flops as her emotions seesawed between elation and apprehension. No homesickness yet, at least. But then again, a few days after the orientation period her parents would be coming to San Diego to see her off, so it wasn't really a fair test.

The source of both her greatest excitement and her greatest anxiety was the prospect of all the new people she would be meeting and all the new friends she'd make. Might that even include a boyfriend?

Anyone looking at Melissa would a.s.sume she had scads of boyfriends already. She seemed to have everything going for her: a tall, slim, well proportioned figure; l.u.s.trous hair in soft waves that reached halfway down her back; a silky cream-colored complexion; and eyes so deep brown they were almost black. She was, in fact, a knockout. And she attracted more than her share of attention from the opposite s.e.x. Heads swiveled in her direction wherever she went.

And yet she'd never had a boyfriend.

Unfortunately, the average male is only five feet ten inches tall. At just shy of six feet, even when wearing flats, Melissa was taller than most. It wasn't that she would reject a guy if he was shorter-she wouldn't have turned away a midget if he'd been nice. But the fact was, most guys felt intimidated around her. And attending an all-girls school decreased her opportunities to dispel any boy's awe of her. About the only boys she knew were Eric's friends, who were much too young for her.

But that was all going to change on the Inspiration Inspiration. According to the list of names and addresses she'd been sent, there were twenty boys to twelve girls. Good odds, she thought. But the two male Floaties on the plane were disappointingly short. She wondered what the other eighteen would be like.

The plane circled San Diego Bay as it approached the airport. Peering out the window, Melissa was able to see the Inspiration Inspiration docked next to the Marine Museum, right behind the docked next to the Marine Museum, right behind the Star of India Star of India, an old tall ship that used to ply lumber between Alaska and San Francisco. With its vivid color and distinctive three-mast barquentine rig, the Inspiration Inspiration was easy to recognize. That green dot in the water, she reflected, which looked so tiny from the air, was going to be her home for the next year. was easy to recognize. That green dot in the water, she reflected, which looked so tiny from the air, was going to be her home for the next year.

As Melissa heaved her bag off the revolving carousel, she was startled to hear a voice with a p.r.o.nounced Quebecois accent just behind her.

"Please, allow me to help you with that."

Turning, she found herself looking up into the face of an extraordinarily good-looking young man-an extraordinarily good-looking young man some four inches above her in height! His red shirt identified him instantly as a fellow Floatie.

"I am Pierre," he said, smiling at her.

"Melissa," she had the presence of mind to reply, while thinking, "Oh my G.o.d, the plane must have crashed. I must have died and gone straight to heaven."

Who knows how long they might have stood there in the baggage-claim area just gazing at each other had not a second tall and good-looking fellow come bounding in. This one was a bit older-about thirty, Melissa guessed. His blue shirt marked him as a Blue Water Academy teacher.

"Dave Cameron," the man said, trying to catch his breath. "I had to leave the van in a no-parking spot about a mile away. All the luggage accounted for, Pierre?"

Pierre Rouleau realized he had not made the first move to help the other students with their bags, or even to welcome them to San Diego. No matter, they had retrieved them on their own and everyone was soon bundled into the van and heading toward the harbor. Pierre was glad a seat was open beside Melissa.

He had arrived the day before, he told Melissa as they bounced along. His eagerness to tell her everything about himself helped him overcome his self-consciousness in speaking English.

He was eighteen, he said, and lived with his mother and younger sister in Quebec City. His older brother was away at McGill University. His parents, both chartered accountants, had divorced five years before, and his father had moved to the Montreal office of their accounting firm after the split.

Applying to the Blue Water Academy program was his mother's idea, he said. He hadn't been enthusiastic about the prospect at the time. But he was a pretty sure why his mother had enrolled him.

Helene Rouleau had not been happy about the direction her middle child's life was taking. At thirteen Pierre had begun hanging out with a group of kids whose idea of ultimate cool was to wear their hair long and their pants baggy, with big gangster-style metal chains attached to their wallets. All of which Helene could have put up with as an adolescent fashion statement-after all, hadn't she looked pretty silly herself as a teenager? Hadn't most people? The swearing and smoking that were part of the group's image, however, were another matter.

And although the kids spent their days skateboarding-or s...o...b..arding in the winter-Pierre's mom was afraid their activities might not be so innocuous when they got just a bit older. There had been a lot of talk among the parents about an underground culture that was springing up among skateboarders, a culture that involved not just the performance of risky feats of daring on their boards but drugs as well.

That's why she packed Pierre off to the Caneff School for Boys in northern Ontario. Caneff had a reputation for working with wayward kids, keeping them in line through exhausting physical activity and rigorous discipline. Pierre had to be in top shape every morning, prepared for whatever was going to be thrown at him during the day-and that could be almost anything. The boys were united in their hatred of the place. However, they knew voicing even just one complaint wasn't worth the consequences.

When Helene saw how miserable Pierre was at Caneff, she began to think it was too high a price for a child who had never been in any serious trouble. Besides, some of the Caneff boys were far rougher than his friends in Quebec, so perhaps it was not the best environment if she hoped to protect Pierre from unsavory influences. She hated having him so far away yet was reluctant to bring him home. One of his skateboarding friends-a cherub of a boy struggling desperately, at age thirteen, to look like a tough guy, cigarette dangling from his lips-had recently spent twenty-four hours in jail following a night of drunken brawls.

Then she heard one of her office partners talking about her daughter's experience with Blue Water Academy. That, Helene thought, might be exactly what Pierre needed. It would be a year of hard work and rigorous study, and discipline, too, bien sur bien sur, but in an atmosphere of adventure and camaraderie rather than punishment. She would have to scrimp to afford the tuition, but it would be well worth it if Pierre emerged from the program the mature, capable young man she knew he could be.

"You will love it," she had told him, nearly breathless with enthusiasm about the wonderful plan she had devised. She was disappointed when Pierre said he wanted no part of it.

"I felt like she just wanted to get rid of me," Pierre told Melissa. "I was so happy when she said I didn't have to go back to Caneff, but then ..."

He was sick of authority figures telling him not to think for himself, to do whatever they said and do it quick, no questions asked, and was sure life on the Inspiration Inspiration would be more of the same. And he was sure that the other kids on the ship would look down on him once they knew he had been to Caneff. It was practically a reform school, wasn't it? Everyone would a.s.sume he was a juvenile delinquent. They would all be rich kids, anyway; the concept of hard work would be foreign to them. And why were they all paying good money for the privilege of working their tails off, anyway? would be more of the same. And he was sure that the other kids on the ship would look down on him once they knew he had been to Caneff. It was practically a reform school, wasn't it? Everyone would a.s.sume he was a juvenile delinquent. They would all be rich kids, anyway; the concept of hard work would be foreign to them. And why were they all paying good money for the privilege of working their tails off, anyway?

Not that he was ever going to be accepted in the program.

"The interview was awful," he told Melissa. "They kept asking me questions about drugs, about drinking. And I told them what I thought-that onboard ship, no, drinking should not be allowed, that could be disastrous, but on land? I said I didn't know what authority the program has over the local officials.

"And anyway, my grades were not so great. I was sure they'd never accept me over the other kids who were applying."

But accept him they did. Ten days after the interview, to his chagrin and his mother's delight, he received the acceptance package. He had no choice but to go. And now he was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, he was was going to like it. going to like it.

6.

When the van dropped them off at the dock, Melissa was amazed by the size of the ship. It looked huge, certainly bigger than she had antic.i.p.ated. All of the lines and ropes made it look confusing and exciting at the same time.

Dave Cameron told her she was a.s.signed to cabin 119. Pierre showed her the way, lugging her bag down the stairway to her cabin for her. He had promised Dave he would go with him to pick up the last group of students at the airport, so he was forced to bid his new friend adieu adieu for the time being. for the time being.

Opening the cabin door, Melissa's first impression was, Oh, my G.o.d! Four people can't live in here for a year!

Four paces into the cabin was a wall with four sections of three shelves each, one section for each student. To the left was an aisle about three feet wide and six feet long with bunk beds on either side. There were two drawers under each lower bunk. That was it for storage s.p.a.ce. Just inside the cabin door to the left was a tiny washroom with a small sink, a shower stall barely big enough to turn around in, and a toilet, or "head," as it was called onboard ship. The whole cabin was about ten feet square.

Two of her roommates had arrived earlier and taken the lower bunks, so Melissa claimed the inside upper one for hers.

The thought of unpacking was depressing. What would she do if her clothes and stuff didn't fit? It took almost half an hour to unpack; some stuff she simply left on her bunk until she could figure out what to do with it. Jettisoning it into the Pacific began to seem the best option. And she had been so careful, she thought, to pack only the most essential of items. Clearly there was a discrepancy between what the ship builder deemed "essential" versus what an average teenaged girl did. She realized why the students had all been given soft canvas bags-there wasn't any s.p.a.ce for hard suitcases.

Melissa was just squishing her bag into the corner of her storage drawer, hoping she'd be able to close it afterward, when her three cabinmates opened the door, nearly falling on top of her as they entered.

"Whoa! That's one way of making introductions!" one of them laughed from the lower bunk into which she'd rolled in order not to step on Melissa. "I'm Nancy."

"I'm Kathy," one of the others said, stretching out a hand to help Melissa off the floor. "Kathy Reid."

"And I'm Trudy Baker," the third one said, when she had recovered from her fit of giggling.

The four traded preliminary information. Nancy Sh.o.r.e was from the Boston area, entering grade twelve. Kathy was a gradetwelve student as well, from Calgary, and Trudy was a grade-eleven student from Montreal. Trudy had been among the last group of students that Dave and Pierre had picked up at the airport, so she had to make do with the only unclaimed bunk, the outside upper one. But that was okay, the others told her. She was the "child" of the four of them, a mere sixteen to their seventeen, so it was only right for them to get first pick.

Melissa liked all three of her cabinmates instantly. She decided if it was at all possible for four strangers to get along in a s.p.a.ce not much bigger than a doghouse, their chances were better than most.

At 1600 hours everyone was called on deck for introductions. The professional crew consisted of Captain Luke Marzynski; Dr. Elliott Williams, who was first mate as well as ship's physician; Henry Mattox, the second mate; two engineers, Matt and Sam; Jarred, the cook; Mac, the bosun, who was in charge of the ship's rigging; and the bosun's mate, Charlie. The teachers were Dave Cameron, Sharon Rock, Tom Michaels, Mary Wilson, and Anika Johnson, who was the shipboard director.

Melissa looked around at the Floaties a.s.sembled on deck. She checked out her compet.i.tion among the girls and was dismayed to find it pretty stiff. But she always underestimated her own attractiveness. She noted with resignation that she was, as always, the tallest girl. As for the boys, they were the usual mixture of good-looking and nerdish and all points in between. But Pierre was the only real standout, so she resolved to reel him in him, hook, line, and sinker, and the sooner the better. No other girl, no matter how cute and pet.i.te, was going to have a chance at him.

As for how she was going to put her plan into operation, she hadn't the least idea.

After the introductions, Captain Marzynski outlined the first week's itinerary. It would include moving the ship to another dock, where provisioning would take place, intensive training on lines, sails, and terminology, and getting used to laying aloft.

That first night the students ate onboard but were free to leave the ship after supper as long as they went in groups. For safety reasons, students had to be in groups of at least four when going ash.o.r.e. Such security might not be necessary in San Diego, but it would be in other ports, so the rule was put in place for the duration of the voyage.

Melissa grabbed Nancy and made a beeline for Pierre, who was wandering around the deck with his cabinmate Dan, as if in search of something.

"Nancy and I are going ash.o.r.e for a walk if we can just find two more people to go with us," Melissa said. "How about you two?"

There, she thought. That sounded plausible, not too obvious.

"I-we-were just looking for two people to go with us us to get some ice cream," Pierre said. to get some ice cream," Pierre said.

Dan shot him a glance, this being news to him, but off they went with Melissa and Pierre taking the lead. Nancy and Dan tried to think of things to talk about, aware of how redundant they were. Melissa and Pierre weren't saying much either, but it was clear that they were communicating beautifully.

It was as if they were made for each other, Melissa thought, the way their strides matched, the way she could forget about her height altogether instead of feeling like a gawky Gulliver among the Lilliputians. She was surprised to find herself touching his arm as they walked. That was something she'd never have felt comfortable doing with a guy before. But Pierre didn't seem to mind. She hoped that meant he felt the same warmth and excitement she was feeling-a feeling she decided she would quite enjoy getting used to.

As for Pierre, he not only was warming up to the idea of Blue Water Academy, but he also was incredulous that it included the most gorgeous girl he'd ever seen and she was walking by his side. He was pretty sure she liked him, but it was always hard to tell with girls. He hadn't had much experience with them, thanks to his prolonged incarceration at Caneff. He'd flirted a little with one or two of the girls in his neighborhood when he was home on vacations, but he'd never really gotten to know any girl very well. What was the point if he was just going to be packed off to school again in a few weeks? Besides, he hadn't been so sure he wanted to have any romantic entanglements, ever. Look at what had happened to his parents' marriage. He'd be better off not setting himself up for something so devastating.

But that was before Melissa. There was just something about her, he thought. Something about the way she looked at him with her dancing eyes; something about the way she touched him, a touch that was exciting and comfortable at the very same time; something about the way she so often put into words exactly what he was thinking. There was, Pierre decided, something inevitable inevitable about her-about them. about her-about them.

Their feelings only increased as they spooned up their ice cream. They had both been torn between the espresso chocolate chip and the triple chocolate treat, so they ordered one of each to share. They were oblivious of Nancy and Dan as they talked about their families, their friends, their hopes. They found their outlooks remarkably similar despite their different backgrounds. By the time they reached the ship, just before curfew, each was convinced they were a perfect match.

Scarcely noticing when Dan and Nancy bid them good night, Melissa and Pierre moved to the bow and talked for another hour. They were both dead tired, but neither wanted to break the spell. Eventually, however, exhaustion took over and they agreed it was time to turn in.

Melissa took Pierre's hand in hers and looked into his eyes, marveling again that she had to tilt her chin to do so.

"I've really enjoyed this evening. I am so glad I met you, Pierre. Good night."

He squeezed her hand, then quickly raised it and brushed his lips against it, murmuring, "Bonne nuit."

7.

The next day, after breakfast and colors, it was time for sail training. Mac, the bosun, handed out a sheet of paper with diagrams identifying every line and sail onboard. All students, he announced, fixing them with his intense blue eyes, would be expected to know and understand the function of each one. Over the next few months, they would have training and theory cla.s.ses every week for two hours at a time. A lot more time, he went on, his soft Scottish burr lingering over the r r in in more more, would be spent on deck for hands-on experience.

"For example, ye need to learn how to handle a line under load and where to position yer fingers so you don't lose them," he said.

He and Anika pa.s.sed out a numbered harness to each Floatie.

"Ye must wear yer harnesses at all times aloft and on deck during watch. Is that clear to everyone? Right. Now ye'll have yer first try at climbing the yardarms. The lowest yard there is called the 'course.' Who'll be first, heh?"

Pierre's hand went up like a shot. Piece of gateau gateau, he thought, after the rock-climbing he had to do at Caneff. And Melissa would be watching.

He climbed the rat lines to the course, then beyond it all the way to the "royal," the small sail at the very top of the mast.