Wrede, Patricia C - SSC (13 page)

Mr. Norberg leaned forward and said
something to the driver. Janet didn't bother trying to overhear; they were too
far away, and her German wasn't that good anyway. Now he was talking to Mrs.
Craig. Janet bet he was translating. Mrs. Craig's German was even worse than
Janet's, but the school had had to have at least one female teacher along on
the trip to chaperone the girls, and Mrs. Craig was the only one they could
find who knew even a little German.

Janet saw Mrs. Craig nod, and Mr.
Norberg stood up. "Everybody out!" he called. "Stay together and
follow me, and don't wander off till I'm done with my speech. Mrs. Craig will
bring up the rear, to make sure nobody gets mislaid. We can't afford to spend
much time here if we want to get to
Marksburg
Castle
yet today."

"Then why are we stopping at
all?" Will Forney said from the seat behind Janet. His voice was loud
enough to be heard for a couple of seats around him, but too low to carry to
the front of the bus.

"Ice cream," Janet
whispered back, and ducked her head to keep Mr. Norberg from seeing her
expression.

"Everybody got that?" Mr.
Norberg said. "All right, then,
raus."

There was some good-natured shoving
as the bus emptied and a lot of milling around in the parking lot. Janet noted
that Linda Sommers had taken advantage of the confusion to slip over to the
ice-cream stand and buy one of the triple-chocolate bars. Linda was always
doing things like that.

"Everybody out? All right;
this way," Mr. Norberg said, and started off.

He led the way across the parking
lot and around to the right of the little
Gasthaus.
Janet was rather
proud of herself for thinking of it as a
Gasthaus,
rather than a hotel;
it made her feel as if she wasn't just an ordinary tourist. She smiled to herself,
and then she tripped on the curb and nearly ran into Dan Carpenter from behind.
He gave her a look that made her feel twice as clumsy as she had actually been,
but at least he didn't say anything.

"Watch out," said Heather
Martin, who had come up beside Janet. "You nearly fell on me."

"I did not," Janet
answered automatically. "And if I had fallen on anybody, it would have
been Dan. You weren't even close."

"You missed me by an
inch," Heather insisted. "Honestly, some people are so—"

"Shhh! Mr. Norberg's going to
say something."

Heather craned her neck to see over
Dan's head, and Janet nipped around the outside of the group to a place nearer
the front. There was no point in arguing with Heather once she decided
something; all you could do was get away from her until she found someone else
to complain at.

"Watch your step here!"
Mr. Norberg called. The stone footpath curved around behind the
Gasthaus,
then
dropped into three wide, shallow steps and vanished altogether. Beyond was a
large area of lumpy gray rock, with an iron railing on its far side. There were
a few scrubby trees on the other side of the railing, but as Janet came closer
she realized there was nothing beyond them but air.

"Can everybody hear me?"
Mr. Norberg said. "Good. We're standing on the bedrock at the top of the
Lorelei cliff. Those of you who've had my third-year German class will remember
it from the poem by Heinrich Heine."

There were groans from the seniors,
and some of the juniors looked nervously from them to Mr. Norberg and back.
Sure enough, Mr. Norberg's next comment was, "Who wants to explain who the
Lorelei is, for the benefit of the second-year students?"

"Nobody," whispered Rob
Shonasai, and Janet smothered a giggle.

Despite Rob's comment, there were
at least three hands raised. Mr. Norberg looked them over and shook his head.
"I'd hoped that more of you would have better memories. Dan?"

"The Lorelei was a beautiful
woman who sat on a cliff and sang when the boats went by on the
Rhine
River
," Dan said. "The
boatmen who heard her forgot what they were doing and crashed on the
rocks." He sounded vaguely bored. Janet wondered why he had bothered to
raise his hand. Maybe he'd just wanted to show off.

"Admirably succinct, though
unromantic," Mr. Norberg said. "The Lorelei is, in fact, a German
version of the Greek Sirens who gave Ulysses so much trouble. Ulysses got around
them by plugging up his sailors' ears, but unfortunately that solution never
occurred to the Germans."

"Why not?" Janet said,
then immediately felt stupid because everyone turned to look at her. Dan
Carpenter was practically sneering.

Mr. Norberg wasn't, though.
"Probably because it wouldn't have done them any good. Look down at the
river. See those two bends? They're close together, and the current is very
strong. Furthermore, there used to be a lot of rocks in the water. Until they
were dynamited early in this century, this part of the river was extremely
dangerous."

"So the Lorelei is just
something people made up to explain why they kept wrecking their boats
here," Dan murmured, sounding interested at last.

"Phooey," said Heather.
"I think the Lorelei is much more romantic."

Dan gave her a look. "You
would."

Mr. Norberg let them take pictures,
though he warned everyone several times to stay well behind the iron guard
railing. Looking down the steep, rocky cliff, Janet could see why. Just looking
made her dizzy.

"People still die here, you
know," Lynnanne Gregory said beside her.

"What? What are you talking
about?" Janet said, turning away from the drop with relief.

"I read about it in the
guidebook this morning." Lynnanne dropped her voice to a thrilling
whisper. "They jump off."

"That's not funny,
Lynnanne." Janet stepped back, letting someone else take her place beside
the iron railing. "This place is creepy enough without bringing up stuff
like that.

"I didn't say it was funny.
But every year, two or three people—"

"I don't want to hear about
it!" Before Lynnanne could continue, Janet shoved her way through the
small group of students who were still waiting for a turn at the railing and
went to join the larger group with Mr. Norberg. At least they were almost
finished here; even if the castle at Marksburg had ghosts, it couldn't be as
bad as the cliff.

When everyone was finished with
their pictures, Mr. Norberg led them around the opposite side of the
Gasthaus.
On this side, someone had put up a statue of the Lorelei, made of
gray-white stone. The sculptor thought the Lorelei was a tall, thin woman with
long, wavy hair everywhere and a face that was sad and fierce and grim all at
the same time. The statue made Janet shiver, and she gave it a wide berth.

Unfortunately, Peter Fletch
noticed. "Hey, Janet, what's the matter? Scared of the witch?"

"No," Janet said. She
didn't sound convincing even to herself.

"You don't have to be
scared," Peter said in a tone of false consolation. "You're not a
sailor. You're a girl."

Janet felt herself flushing, and
she longed to make a properly cutting remark, but her tongue was tied in knots.
Then, from behind her, Beth Davidson said, "Don't be a sexist pig,
Pete."

"I didn't say she was
just
a
girl," Peter said, suddenly defensive. "I just said she
was
a
girl, and she is."

"And you are pond scum,"
Beth said amiably. "And if we don't hurry, Linda's going to clean out the
ice-cream stand before we get there. You want ice cream, or do you want to hang
around arguing about who's insulting whom?"

Peter started to reply, thought
better of it, and headed for the ice-cream stand, which was already surrounded
by students from the tour. Beth shook her head. "Pond scum," she
repeated. "You coming, Jan?"

"In a minute." Janet
couldn't decide which would be worse, staying near the statue or joining the
mob by the stand. Finally, she headed for the bus instead. If she hung around
for a while, maybe she could grab a good seat when they got started again.

The bus driver and Mr. Norberg were
holding a conference in German that was far beyond Janet's ability to follow.
It involved much waving of arms and several emphatic phrases that Janet
committed to memory in hopes that they might be swear words. She had a dictionary
of German idioms that might shed some light on the question, now that she had
some idea where to start looking.

Mr. Norberg turned away with a sigh
and saw her. "Janet, would you fetch Mrs. Craig, please? I need to talk to
her immediately."

Janet nodded. If she brought Mrs.
Craig back, she'd probably find out what was going on, because Mr. Norberg
would have to explain it in English. But if she had to guess, she'd bet there
was something wrong with the bus.

She was right. The bus was dead,
and within five minutes everyone knew it, though Mr. Norberg didn't officially
announce that there was a problem until their twenty-minute break was over and
they should have been getting on board again. It took another hour for the
mechanic to arrive, and an hour after that before he admitted that he wouldn't
have the parts to fix the engine until the following day. Mr. Norberg spent
most of that time on the
Gasthaus
telephone, trying to persuade the tour
company to send them another bus. The tour company refused, on the grounds that
all their buses were busy.

This led to another flurry of
conferences between Mr. Norberg, Mrs. Craig, the mechanic, the
Gasthaus
manager,
and an Australian tourist with a rental car who was either very anxious to be
helpful or very nosy, depending on whether you asked Mrs. Craig or Peter
Fletch. Finally, Mr. Norberg called a conference

"Our bus isn't going to be
fixed until tomorrow," Mr. Norberg told them. "We won't know until
then how many stops we're going to have to skip or cut short in order to get
back on schedule. Tonight, though, we're going to have to stay here."

"The Lorelei witch strikes
again!" Will Forney said.

"Don't be stupid,"
Heather Martin told him. "The Lorelei didn't wreck things. She just
sang."

"This
Gasthaus
doesn't
have quite enough room for everybody," Mr. Norberg went on, "so I'm
going to take some of the boys down to St. Goarshausen for the night. Eight of
you will ride with Herr Schoengrum, the mechanic; and Mr. Colinwood has kindly
offered to drive a few more down in his car. The rest of you will stay here
with Mrs. Craig. Mike, Todd, Gordon—" He read off a list of names, and the
boys went to collect their bags. A few people had questions; the rest,
including Janet, drifted away to help unload bags or do some more exploring.

Janet crossed the parking lot and
sat down on a rock. She wished that she were a boy; then she wouldn't have to
stay in this creepy place. But if she were a boy, she probably wouldn't think
it was creepy, or even if she were a girl like Lynnanne or Beth. She sighed.
It's
only Jot one night,
she told herself.
Not so long.

The boys who were going with Mr.
Norberg loaded their bags onto the top of the mechanic's van; then a small mob
of them crammed inside. Mr. Norberg and three others and the bus driver got in
the car with the Australian tourist, and a few minutes later they had all left.

It was an hour later that Janet
realized that one of the boys was missing.

She wasn't sure how she knew. She
wasn't sure how long he had been gone. She wasn't even sure
which
of the
boys was missing. It wasn't Will Forney or Rob Shonasai; they were standing by
the back of the broken-down bus, squinting at the engine in the fading light
and arguing with each other. Beth was there, too, because she thought engines
were interesting, and Linda was sidling up on them because she thought Will was
interesting and she didn't want Beth to get in ahead of her. Rich Conway was
slouching against the corner of the ice-cream stand. Peter Fletch was nowhere
in sight, but only a few minutes earlier Janet had seen him slip around the far
corner of the
Gasthaus,
so it couldn't be him, either.

Carefully, Janet counted over in
her mind all the boys who had gone with Mr. Norberg. Eight in the mechanic's
van, and three in the car with Mr. Norberg and the Australian tourist who'd
offered to help. Eleven boys. If Will and Rob and Rich and Peter were the only
ones who were supposed to be staying with Mrs. Craig, there should have been
twelve who'd left with Mr. Norberg. But there had only been eleven.

If she could only remember the
names of everyone who'd left, she'd know who was missing now. But she hadn't
been paying close enough attention when Mr. Norberg rattled off his list.

Mrs. Craig appeared suddenly in the
door of the
Gasthaus,
calling and waving. Dinner must be ready. Janet
thought briefly about telling her someone was gone, then shook her head. Mrs.
Craig would just say Janet must have miscounted.

Maybe she had. Maybe there had been
twelve boys with Mr. Norberg. Maybe she was worrying about nothing. Janet
sighed as she followed the others into the
Gasthaus.
Maybe she was
wrong, but she couldn't quite convince herself. If only Susan could have come
on this trip, too . . . But Susan was back in
Wilmette
,
Illinois
, and Janet didn't know the rest of
the girls well enough to talk to. Not about anything important, anyway.

The problem preoccupied her through
the first half of dinner, so much that she even ate a bite of the
dubious-looking shredded vegetables before she realized what she was doing. She
swallowed quickly and took a gulp of her orange drink to wash the taste away,
hoping no one would notice. From then on, Janet tried to pay more attention to
eating and the table talk. She even managed to convince herself that she had no
reason to be worried. At least, she thought she had convinced herself of that,
until Beth grabbed her arm as she was getting up from the table and said,
"Wait a minute, Jan. I want to talk to you."