Page 3 of Without a Clue

“You give it back now,” he growls.

“Promise to turn it off,” I counter.

I’m five feet even and half of my height is covered in damp, dark brown hair. Thick and twisty hair that has tried to mummify me in the salty wind. My long blunt bangs that reach to the top of my round glasses are plastered to my forehead, sticky and no doubt incredibly unsightly in the humidity. Most days I look screamingly academic, running around in maroon sweaters and juggling black folders full of Hugh’s pages, but right now I look more like a horrifying creature who has emerged from the seaweed and is stealing people’s beach cargo.

Which is . . . some could say . . . fair.

Nonetheless.

I can still see nothing but that same old loyal expression of fondness in The Magnificent Seven’s—currently Six’s—eyes.

But then something distinctive changes in Pineapple Trunks’s look as he lets out another flash of outrage, and I cast a glance at the tide and wonder just how seriously I can outswim him.

Neena jumps in.

No, that’s not correct.

Shimmies in.

“Okey dokey!” she cries out in a singsong voice, moving in between me and the man. “This has been a . . . well, a nice little surprise in the day . . . but I think we’d best all settle down. Pip, honey, give the man his nice boom box.”

I open my mouth to protest, but she jumps in, adding, “And let me say, I’m so proud of you. This is great progress, and frankly, my dear, I’d love to sit this one out for as long as it takes. But the boat has made that honking noise three times now, and I’m afraid if we let them go on any longer, they’ll leave us entirely.”

“They won’t leave us,” Hugh says. “We’re the ones putting on this cruise.”

“Never leave people believing they play second fiddle to you, Hugh,” she says, frowning at him. “It’s impolite.”

Hugh tucks in his lower lip, and Neena continues, “Anyway, I think it’s probably time we give this man back his property—no matter how annoying he is or how many oxymorons he uses—”

“I’m not a moron!” Pineapple Trunks yells.

“Of course, dear,” she says, with a now let the grown-ups talk wave. “Or how generally wrong he seems to be in every way. It’s still his boom box, and we must give it back.”

“You heard her!” Pineapple Trunks pumps his fist in triumph and reiterates what she says very loudly, and much more forcefully, in my direction.

Neena gives him a simpering smile and, to everyone’s surprise, pats his hand a few times. “I’ll take it from here.”

The man looks from his hand to her, this sixty-eight-year-old curvaceous woman in head-to-toe glittering purple.

And to everyone’s surprise, he sits down.

She turns to me.

“Come on,” she says then, beckoning me toward her like I’m some puppy being wooed from its cage. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”

“He’s just so insensitive,” I say.

“Very much so.”

“And the music was so abrasive.”

I take a tiny step forward.

The sparkling starfish clip in her hair glistens as she nods, and she reaches her hand out farther over the waves. “I heard it all the way from the pier. A true blight to the human ear,” she agrees.

“And he was so . . . offensive.” I take another step forward, the boom box lowering slightly to my shoulder.

“I have no doubt. But we all make our own choices, don’t we? Some opt for a lifetime of meaninglessness. We can’t force someone else to have a positive effect on the world.”