Chapter 1

"Now, Tara, you be careful." Tara's mother warned her as she pressed her daughter tightly against her.

"Mom, I'll be fine." Tara broke away from her mother's embrace and scanned the crowd. They had to be here somewhere...

Over the chatter of the huge crowd of people here to see the Titanic off, Tara heard a distant sound. The sound of crutches tapping. A minute later, Tara's best friend Mary came up behind her, balancing on her purple forearm crutches.

"Hey, Tara, have you seen Kerry anywhere?" Tara shook her head.

"Nope. But she's got to be here somewhere. She was so excited last night that she could barely talk." Just then, Tara felt something jab into the back of her ankle.

"Ow! Careful with the footplates, Kerry, that's my only right ankle! And it doesn't work too well, either." Tara's other friend, Kerry, smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry, Tara." She maneuvered her manal wheelchair cautiously backwards so that the footplate wasn't digging into Tara's ankle. Then she turned to Mary.

"Looking for me?" Mary nodded, smiling.

"I was, but now that you're here, I'm not." Laughter escalated the excitement between the three best friends. They were going on a vacation to America, together, to celebrate Tara's fourteenth birthday. There was only one person missing...

Lost in thought, Tara jumped a mile when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She whirled around to see her third friend, Cate, laughing.

"Cate!" Tara complained. "Don't do that!" Cate smiled playfully.

"Calm down, Tara! Oh, hi, Mrs. Kelly." she added, spotting Tara's mother. Mrs. Kelly smiled apprehensively.

"Oh, hello Cate." she said, rather nervously.

"Mom. Calm down." Tara reassured her mother. "We're going on a vacation, to have fun. You've got nothing to worry about. We'll be fine." Before Mrs. Kelly could say another word, a man in a White Star Line uniform appeared at her elbow.

"Ma'am, if it's all right with you, we'd like to take the young ladies on board now."

"But why?" Tara questioned. "We're not first class." Was it her imagination, or did the man look uncomfortable? He looked at Tara and her friends for a split second before turning back to Mrs. Kelly.

"We'd like to take them on board before everyone else starts jostling each other to get on. It would not be good for their, uh," Okay, now he definitely looked uncomfortable. "their, uh, unique needs." Mrs. Kelly nodded silently, obviously not noticing the man's difficulty. The man started leading the four friends away, guiding them like they were toddlers, while Mrs. Kelly shouted last-minute instructions to the girls through the thicket of people.

"Girls, be careful! The ship doctor knows you have CP, right? No roughhousing! I don't want you to fall!" Tara twisted away from the man's grasp and glared at him as he led them to the tender ship that would bring them to the great Titanic. Or tried to glare at him. Because of cerebral palsy, Tara had not much control over the muscles of her body. This made things like glaring very difficult.

Mary, and Kerry also had CP, each at a slightly different degree than Tara. Kerry's was the most severe out of all of them. She couldn't walk unaided. Mary's was slightly milder than Kerry's. She could walk a limited distance without her crutches.

Cate was the only one out of the four of them who did not have CP. She had gotten very sick when she was a little girl, and so was pretty much paralyzed on one side of her body.

"God, we're not toddlers." Tara whispered to Kerry as they were guided along. "What does he think, that we're mentally retarded or something?" Actually, nothing could be farther from the truth. All four girls were very bright, and all of them wrote amazing stories and poetry. As the man led them along, Mary looked back nervously. Mrs. Kelly had now been swallowed up by the crowd.

"Maybe we should listen to your mother, Tara. Maybe we should be a bit more careful. There's no telling what could happen." Tara hugged her friend tightly.

"Aw, Mary, it's OK. We'll be careful. Besides, it's not like the ship is going to sink or something." Famous last words.

A/N: Wow, I'm writing a new story! This is dedicated to my best friend Nicole (NoDoubtFan) who told me that I should write a Titanic story. So, I am! I have no clue where this story is going, so it might be awhile before I update again.