Titanic 2020

3 The Anxious Stowaway

Announcements were made by the Captain over the public address system, appealing for Jimmy to give himself up, telling him that he wouldn't get into trouble.

Yeah, right.

He had stowed away. There was no land in sight anywhere, in any direction. He was in BIG TROUBLE.

They followed up their appeal with a deck by deck, cabin by cabin search. But the ship was too big, and the crew was too small. Even though he only had a few hours' experience of the layout of the Titanic, he had thirteen years' experience of being chased, and he put it to good use. He was constantly one step ahead of his pursuers. And sometimes two.

Jimmy was torn between being frightened by what he'd done and hugely exhilarated by it. There was a slightly sour feeling in his stomach, and it wasn't just the after-effects of the champagne. His parents, once they got over the urgent desire to slap him around the head, would be going frantic. His granda, who had sent him on a mission to throw away the lucky penny, was probably blaming himself, convinced that Jimmy had somehow slipped and fallen into the water and drowned.

On the other hand — what a story he would have to tell when he got home! Some boys skipped off school for an afternoon and thought they were pretty cool. Even getting expelled was relatively commonplace. But running away to sea on the Titanic — now there was a tale worth telling!

The easiest thing would be just to give himself up. What was the worst they could do? Shout at him? It was the early afternoon of the first day at sea — if he surrendered now, they would almost certainly be compelled to return to Belfast to hand him over.

But what if he . . . stayed hidden?

Wouldn't they get to a point of no return — where it made more sense to continue on to America and send him home from there?

Absolutely!

The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Avoid them for a few days — then give himself up and enjoy the rest of the cruise in style! Maybe they'd fly him home first class as well!

No problem!

***

Jimmy enjoyed a snooze in a cabin on Level Ten, then sat on the balcony enjoying a Toblerone. As the sun fell the temperature went with it and a cool wind blew up, so he retreated back inside. It was time to move — he had already decided it wasn't safe to spend too long in any one place. Besides, there was a lot more of the ship still to explore. But as he peeked out to make sure the corridor was clear, he was horrified to see two officers hurrying straight towards him. Jimmy let out a surprised yelp, then hurtled out of the room and ran as hard as he could in the opposite direction. They raced after him, shouting at him to stop, but he was too young and too fit, and even though they had radios to call in help, he was soon able to lose them.

A little later, Jimmy took the stairs down to Level Six, selected several books from the large public library there, then wandered along the corridor until he found a cabin he liked. He was completely relaxed again. They had stumbled on him by chance, and that was something you couldn't plan for. But they'd wasted their opportunity and he remained confident in his abilities to avoid them. Jimmy closed the door, switched on a bedside light, liberated another Toblerone from the mini bar, then lay back on the bed and leafed through a book about Florida. He wondered if there was any possibility of jumping ship once he arrived in Miami. He could hitchhike up to Orlando, and go to Disney, or any of the other huge parks up there. Maybe this would be his life from now on. Living wild, on his wits, on the road, a tramp, a supertramp. He could be a modern-day Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and . . . keeping it. Jimmy laughed and closed the book. It was easy to dream on this ship. The ship itself was a dream. He returned to the mini bar.

Peanuts this time, I think.

He sat quietly munching on the edge of the bed, trying to imagine what the Titanic would be like with its thousands of passengers on board — if he was still a stowaway then, it would surely be even easier to avoid detection. He could just lose himself in the crowds and cruise the world for ever.

Still hungry, Jimmy opened the mini-bar door again and selected a small glass jar containing jellybeans. As he looked for something to drink — definitely not champagne — his eyes fell on a price list stuck to the inside of the door. Toblerones were $6. He guessed that was about four pounds! Diet Cokes — which were only half-sized cans anyway — cost five times as much as at home! If the passengers were prepared to pay that much, they were crazy. At the bottom of the price list there were payment instructions:

There is no need to keep check of your purchases from the mini bar. Each time you remove an item it is automatically registered to your account, which you may settle at the end of the voyage.

Jimmy smiled. He was stuffing his face at someone else's expense. Well, they could afford it. They probably wouldn't even notice.

He was just opening the jellybeans when the thought struck him.

He studied the payment instructions again.

Each time you remove an item it is automatically registered to your account.

Every time I remove something it'll show up on the computer! They'll know there's nobody supposed to be in this cabin. That's how they found me earlier! And I took another Toblerone fifteen minutes ago!

Jimmy dropped the jellybeans and dashed out into the corridor, fearing the worst.

But it was empty.

Maybe he was crediting his pursuers with too much intelligence. Or perhaps capturing him wasn't all that important when there was a ship the size of the Titanic to navigate across the Atlantic. He was just turning back into the room when he heard the ping of an arriving elevator, followed by hurried footsteps.

They were coming for him!