He places a reassuring hand on my back. “I am not sure yet.” His dark eyes force my attention to him. “You and I are partners tonight. We need to find the kumquats. If something bad happened, then we find a boat that will take Chinese.”

I grimace, already anticipating the resistance. There aren’t enough lifeboats to go around, only enough for half the passengers aboard. And people who get served bread heels are more apt to be kicked off them than put on. But perhaps our acrobatic performance has shifted the scales in our favor. Maybe it’s harder not to save someone after giving them a round of applause.

We reach the aft staircase, where the crowd has thickened. Their protests make my ears ring.

“Won’t let us up,” a voice calls down the stairs. “Says we should wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“It’s outrageous.”

“Probably just a drill. Let’s go back to our rooms and wait until the ruckus is over.”

“Wink! Olly!” Bo calls up the stairwell. No one answers.

“There’s another way up.” I pull him back down the hallway to one of the emergency doors and throw it open, ignoring its prohibitive “Third Class Not Allowed” sign. This is an emergency, after all. “You can get to the Boat Deck this way, folks,” I tell the closest passengers, gesturing in case they don’t speak English.

Several cast us guarded looks, or maybe they’re just scared. A dark-haired group in thick sweaters passes, and a woman with a tight bun stops. It’s the Syrian woman from the dining hall, clutching her little girl to her.

I gesture through the door and point up. “Lifeboats. Come.”

Bo and I take the first-class stairs two at a time, pulling ourselves up the ornate banisters. When we finally emerge from the deckhouse—five decks up—my legs begin to cramp, and I lean over my knees to catch my breath. The Syrians exit moments later, and we lose them in the crowd.

On the port-side corner where we’re standing, the Boat Deck crawls with people, most collecting around the quartet of lifeboats. We cross to starboard and find the situation the same.

Unlike my prior visits to the Boat Deck, all the lights have been turned on. At least the electricity is still running. But with no moonlight silvering the water, the ocean seems to have disappeared. If not for the liquid sounds of water sloshing against the hull, we might be performers on a stage in the middle of some play. A tragedy.

“What happened?” I say, mostly to myself, shivering as the cold bites at my exposed parts. I wish I hadn’t left April’s vanilla coat in Mrs. Sloane’s room. Worse, I put Mum’s Bible in the slipper bag. It’ll be lost in all this commotion.