everything is horrible here, nellie thought despondently.
why, after her previous unfortunate experiences, had she signed up for the antarctic cruise?
actually, she knew the answer.
she had been searching for sad sam jones for ten years .
and the only two things she knew about him was that he liked bacon and cheese breakfast sandwiches with ketchup, and that he went on antarctic cruises.
searching every fast food place in the world in the hope of seeing someone putting ketchup on a breakfast sandwicjh did not seem like a high percentage endeavor.
so antarctic cruises it was.
nelly had been on a lot of bad antarctic cruises - and, to be fair, on a few pretty good ones - but this was the worst.
the captain, joe greenwillow, seemed so far to be the worst person she had ever encountered.
and she had encountered a lot of bad people, starting wth her father and mother and grandmother, and her three brothers and five sisters.
and twenty-two of the twenty-five children in her preschool.
and her preschool and kindergarten teachers, and her first and third grade teachers.
if it had not been for her grandfather, nathaniel bump, and her second grade teacher, miss joan archer . and the saintly bodine triplets in preschool, she would never have gotten this far.
as nelly was thinking these thoughts for the billionth time, the ship’s alarm sounded.
for what seemed the thousandth time during the two weeks that had so far elapsed of the six week cruise.
nelly was sorely tempted to ignore the alarm and stay in the cabin, but that was not who she was.
she was a natural born person who always obeyed the rules and avoided the attention of the authorities.
and she had spent forty percent of her life searching for sad sam jones, who was not a natural born person and who flouted the authorities and attracted their attention at every opportunity.
as nelly made her weary way to the stairwell to the ship’s deck, she encountered winona kingsbury, the most horrible person on the ship next to the captain.
oh well, she thought, i signed up for this.
and how are you , my dear? winona kingsbury asked ingratiatingly.
very well, thank you, nelly replied automatically, unaware of what was waiting on deck.
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