The Littlest Cruiser
Laura’s parents had dreamt of going on some kind of cruise together since before they were married. But they could not afford to do it for their honeymoon as the wedding itself had cost them all of their combined savings. Then a year later Laura had been born and their dreams changed. Now they spent all their extra money on whatever made her happy. But when Laura was eleven years old and three weeks away from starting secondary school, they knew they wanted to mark the occasion by doing something truly special for her, something she would remember for the rest of her life. So for the last two years they had not gone on any family holidays at all, just so that now they could afford to go on this one trip together: a five day Caribbean cruise!
They had to board the cruise ship in Florida, so the flight from their home in England was very long. By the time they got to the ship’s port they were all rather tired. But when Laura looked up at the ship her tiredness was instantly forgotten, replaced with sheer wonder. The size of the cruise ship was… immense! Gigantic! Enormous! She had never even seen a building this large before, let alone a ship. She had read that it consisted of 19 decks and had 1200 crew members serving a maximum of 3140 passengers. She had seen many pictures of it, including detailed plans that showed how to find the swimming pool, arcade, cinema, theatre, mini golf course and every other place she wanted to go. But still, seeing the ship in person, the sheer size of it boggled her mind.
They boarded the cruise ship at 11am and left the port at 1pm. Laura’s parents, still exhausted from their long journey, opted to stay in their cabin for a few hours to have a nap before doing anything else. But Laura simply could not do the same… and they did not expect her to. This was why they had had her study the deck guide before they’d left home. She would be allowed to go explore the ship on her own, as she knew her cabin number (C301 on deck 10), and was confident she could return to it from anywhere on the ship.
She decided to start from the top and make her way down. There was a large adventure swimming pool on the roof so she took a lift up to it. As she stepped out onto the deck, she instantly noticed a middle-aged man wearing dark sunglasses talking to a crew member. He seemed very upset, as did the boy standing next to him. She had learnt in her girl guides club to always help strangers when she thought she could, so she went over to the boy – who looked to be about her age – and asked him what was wrong. He told her that his father was blind and that his guide dog – a Chihuahua named Hercules (she had to confirm that she heard that correctly, but yes, the guide dog really was a Chihuahua) – had run off, scared by the movement of the ship. Now they couldn’t find him anywhere. The crewman they were speaking to offered to help look, but it was a huge ship and apparently Hercules would not let himself be picked up by anyone he didn’t know. The boy (who told Laura his name was Kevin) said that he wanted to go looking for Hercules himself, but was worried about getting lost. So Laura told him (beaming with pride) that she knew her way around the ship, as she had been studying the plan of it for weeks. That was all Kevin needed to hear. With his father’s permission, he left him by the swimming pool whilst he and Laura began their day long search for Hercules.
Where will Laura and Kevin begin their search?
Will they ask anyone else to help them, or just search by themselves?
What other interesting people might they meet on this cruise ship whilst searching for Hercules?