Hula Done It - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,87

the next moment, the glass tube swooped belowdecks and disappeared.

He was going down, which meant he was definitely leaving the ship.

"Gjurd up and left!" snapped Grumpy as she beat a path through the crowd toward me, dragging Sleepy behind her. "We think he's on his way back to his cabin. But don't worry; we're on him like ugly on an ape. Isn't that right?" She whacked Sleepy in the gut, prompting him to nod sluggishly.

"You bet," Osmond said, yawning into my face.

"What about Nils?"

"He left, too, but the pigs are trotting right after him. See? There's one of them now."

I followed Grumpy's gaze to find one of the little pigs signaling a greeting to me with her hoof. I flashed her a thumbs-up, then watched in bewilderment as she waddled around, wiggled her corkscrew tail at me, and oinked.

I hoped that wasn't a secret code, because I had no idea what it meant. "I'm on my way to the disembarkation deck," I told Grumpy. "I'll probably see you down there."

I snaked through the noisy crowd toward the central staircase, my descent slowed by streams of people who were swimming against the tide and incapable of figuring out how to get out of each other's way. And to think I'd considered Times Square on New Year's Eve a zoo! I fought my way through the foot traffic, wasting precious minutes as I waited behind revelers who stopped to converse on the stairs. When I reached the end of the line, I put a bead on the bulkhead door that was opened to the darkening sky. "Did a broccoli spear just leave the ship?" I asked the crewman who was standing by the door.

"Just barely. He nearly got deflowered heading out the door. He better remember to duck when he climbs into the tender."

I narrowed my gaze at him. "Tender?"

Grinning, he guided me onto a metal ramp beyond the bulkhead door. "The tender," he said, indicating a large boat that bobbed in the water below us. "That's how guests get transported over to Lahaina. It's not a deep-water port, so the Princess has to anchor in the bay."

I looked from the boat, to the harbor, to the crewman again. "We can't just dock and walk over?"

"You're Wonder Woman." He flashed a cocky smile. "If you don't want to take the boat, why don't you fly?"

I drilled him with a withering look. "Wonder Woman doesn't fly. She just moves really, really fast." I clomped down the metal stairs, across the length of a wobbly float, and up the gangway of the ship's launch, where I ran headlong into the Sugar Plum Fairy, who was trying to look inconspicuous as she lingered outside the men's head.

"Emily!" she asked when she saw me. "Are you going into Lahaina?"

Not wanting to give anything away, I did my best to muddy the issue. "Um, I haven't actually decided yet."

"Look, I hate to sound paranoid, but there's something really weird going on here."

From the tail of my eye I caught sight of Nana and Bernice, looking enormously pleased with themselves as they aimed fingers at Shelly and flashed victory signs at me. Uh-oh. I wondered if Shelly's paranoia had anything to do with dwarfs.

Shelly lowered her voice and spoke to me from behind her hand. "I can't go in there to check it out, but there's a guy in the john who --"

The door swung open at that moment, ejecting the rotund form of Friar Tuck. "Get him!" shouted Shelly as she grabbed him by his cassock, kneed him in the groin, and kicked his legs out from beneath him. He crashed onto his face like a felled tree, bellowing out an agonized wail as she straddled his back and forced his arms behind his shoulder blades.

Hunh. Pretty slick moves for a fairy. I stared down at my boots and bustier. Maybe she was the one who should be wearing the Wonder Woman outfit.

"You're busted!" she screamed at the fallen friar. "You're a dead man! You hear me? A dead man!"

"I think you'd have to hit him way harder to incur death," Bernice said helpfully.

Passengers rushed toward the commotion, emptying out the bow and stern. Jonathan in his broccoli stalk. The Red Baron in his scarf and aviator goggles. Sherlock Holmes with his signature pipe and cloak. Dopey and -- "A-CHOOO!" -- Sneezy. Nils in his gold diaper and trident. Grumpy and Sleepy. Gjurd in his wolfskin skirt and horned helmut. Two of the Three Little Pigs. A