Disclaimer: I claim no ownership.
"Mark, we're actually here!" I bubbled for the eight millionth time. "We're on the Titanic!"
Mark grinned and swung me around. He could still do that, since I was pretty small for twelve years old. Plus the fact that Mark, at twenty-three, was really big and strong and junk. I had a feeling he's be swinging me around until we were old and gray in rocking chairs. Older brothers were always bigger than their little sisters (even though Mark was only my half-brother) and the eleven-year age difference only amplified that. He seemed even older, since he had been taking care of me and Merdoc since I was seven, he was eighteen, Merdoc was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand and his mother was still alive. Even though we lived with Uncle Jim, Mark had to work a lot to help support us, as did Uncle Jim. Sometimes my little cousin, Cora, and I would run around doing odd jobs for people to earn a few pennies, but it was only enough to buy a French croissant or a lolly. Uncle Jim and Mark would never accept money we earned, saying that we had to spend it on ourselves or they would give it away. One time me and Cora saved our money for almost a full year and bought two pretty dresses, like the kind they wear in first class. I had brought mine with me.
"Merdoc's excited too, aren't'cha, boy?" I asked the orange tabby. He licked my face with his rough tongue in response. Merdoc was curled around my shoulders.
"I'm excited too, Cass, but you don't see me screaming and jumping around," Mark said, laughing. "It's not like we're first class or anything. We're just steerage."
"So what?" I said, pressing against the wall of the crowded hallway to let a family pass. I jumped up and down. "We're on the TI-TA-NIC."
"We're the luckiest sons of bitches in the world, you know that?" yelled a blond guy, with an American accent like ours, running past us with an Italian-looking man following (and knocking me against the wall again).
"Ow, my shoulder," I muttered. "You okay, Merdoc?"
"Come on, Cassie, let's go watch the ship take off!" exclaimed Mark. We ran after the blond guy and his Italian friend, who were going to the top deck, and grabbed the rail, waving to people we didn't even know.
"Goodbye!" yelled that blond guy.
"You know somebody?" asked the blond guy's friend, with a strong Italian accent. I had been right.
"Of course not - that's not the point! GOODBYE! I'LL MISS YOU!"
"I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU!"
Me and Mark joined right in. The blond guy grinned and turned to Mark.
"Jack Dawson," he said.
"Mark Meyers," replied Mark.
"Fabrizio," said Jack's Italian friend.
"This is my sister Cassie, and our cat, Merdoc," said Mark. "What brings you on the Titanic?"
"Luck in a poker game," said Jack, grinning. "What about you?"
"I know a guy who knows a guy... got tickets the easy way," replied my brother. "If it had just been Cassie and me it could've been a class higher than steerage, but my uncle and little cousin are coming too, and we're content." Uncle Jim and Cora weren't blood related to Mark - Uncle Jim is my father's brother - but it didn't matter to us.
"So, a-how you like the ship, eh?" Fabrizio asked me, winking. He had a childish smile.
"Very swanky," I said, grinning. I turned to my brother. "Mark, I'm going to go look for Cora and Uncle Jim," I said as the ship pulled away. I kissed him on the cheek and ran for room 404, where my little cousin Cora, her dad - my uncle Jim, Mark and me were staying. "401... 403... oh, other side - here we go!" I knocked on the door.
"Hello?" asked Cora's voice.
"Good day miss, do you need your laundry done?" I put on a stern voice.
"What?" said Cora's voice, obviously confused. "No, I don't - Cassie, is that you?"
She opened the door and squealed, hugging me. "Hey, Cora!"
"Is the bad man with you?" she asked seriously, eyes wide.
"No, we left Mark's daddy a long time ago," I said. Cora jumped into my arms.
"CASSIE, I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!" she screamed, hugging the life out of me. "I thought I was never going to see you again!"
"I'm here, Cora," I said, hugging my little cousin back. "I missed you too, so, so much. Can I come in?"
"Of course!" I let Cora down and she opened the door further and I walked in. Uncle Jim gave me a big hug.
"Cassie darling, I was worried about you and Mark and Merdoc ever since..."
I kissed Uncle Jim on the cheek. "No, we're fine. We ran away. Last week. We would've run away sooner but I had the flu and Mark wouldn't let me talk him into running away before I got better."
"He's a smart guy, your brother," said Uncle Jim, kissing the top of my head. "Where is he?"
"We met a couple of guys - Jack and Fabrizio - and they're talking," I replied. "Cora, they were both really cute," I added. Cora giggled. I sighed. "Too bad they're old men like Mark."
Uncle Jim pretended to take offense. "I happen to be a good twenty years older than Mark! What does that make me?"
"Um, wise?"
Uncle Jim laughed. I stretched out on the top bunk of the bed Cora wasn't sitting on and sighed.
"The grandest ship in the world. The ship that can never sink. And here we are on its maiden voyage!"
I sat straight up and pulled a large pad and pencil out of the giant pocket of my simple dress. I thought for a moment and scribbled down a few lines:
"Unsinkable ship" is what they all say.
Her maiden voyage begins today!
Stretched before her are endless seas.
Everyone is on their knees.
Get to America soon, they say.
But on this ship, can they not stay?
Away from the world for just a short while,
nothing but ocean for many a mile.
The freedom, the air, the experience, the sea,
are more important than America to me.
A little on the rushed side, but I had to get my feelings out. I'd lose them otherwise. Suddenly, Cora was next to me, trying to read the poem.
"Will you teach me to read, Cassie?" she begged.
"Sure, but not now."
"Why not?"
"We have to go outside and find Mark."
"Yeah!"
I looked at Uncle Jim and he smiled. "I'm going to unpack, you girls go ahead. Tell Mark I'm glad you're both all right."
I grinned. "Come on, Cora!" We ran out of the room and down the hallway, catching the lift as it was about to go up. Three other people were in it, not counting the operator.
"Wait for us!" exclaimed Cora. The lift operator opened the door for us and we went in. "The lift gates are pretty, huh, Cassie?"
"Very pretty," I said. The other three people in the lift were obviously first class. A man in a black suit with dark hair stood next to an older woman with a stern face and red hair. A younger woman, the man's age, or close to it, stood on his other side. She had red hair like the older woman and a rather bored expression. I could tell she was listening to Cora chattering about how much fun we were going to have and how she couldn't wait to see Mark again. There was a hint of something in her eyes - envy? Why would a first-class girl envy two steerage girls like Cora and me?
The lift stopped at A-deck and the operator stopped me and Cora when we tried to get out, first letting the three first-class people out. Cora glared at him as he let us through.
"That wasn't very nice," she declared. The operator ignored us and I ushered Cora out of there. We ran past the three people from the lift as I explained how it worked on the RMS Titanic.
"The first-class people are rich and snobby, and for some reason, everyone thinks they're better than us," I said. "They get to do everything first, and Mark's friend said that their rooms are not just one room- they've got separate bathrooms and sitting rooms and sun rooms and a million bedrooms - while we have to be in a tiny room with four beds. The first-class people don't like us, they think they're better than us." The bored-looking redhead looked saddened by this.
"But they're not," said Cora, confused. "We're just as good as them, just not with a lot of money."
"I know," I sighed. "That's the way things work, though."
I caught a glimpse of the three people as Cora and I rounded a corner. The older woman and the man looked disgusted, and the younger woman looked thoughtful, and sad, and envious, and angry, and somehow happy, all in one, and it was terribly confusing. I didn't know what to make of it.
"MARK!" we started yelling. "MARK!"
Cora and I must have run around the ship at least twice, a lot since it was so big, all the while yelling for Mark. It was fun to run around with Cora again. I had missed her sweet little self so. When we finally found Mark, he was talking to Jack and Fabrizio still.
"MARK!" screamed Cora. She hurtled into his arms before he registered she had even made a sound.
"Cora!" he exclaimed, grabbing her up in a huge hug. "You scared the hell out of me, kiddo!"
"Uncle Jim is glad we're both all right," I said, not caring that I had interrupted him and Jack and Fabrizio. Well, Cora had done that, actually. "You really should've come with me to find him and Cora here, you know."
Mark just grinned at me. He sat with Cora on his lap and I took a seat next to him.
"Sorry to interrupt you, gentlemen," I said, sticking my nose in the air and smoothing out my hopelessly wrinkled dress. Jack winked at me.
"Bad encounter with a first-class person?"
"Naw, it was the left operator, but it involved first-class people," I said, and explained out experience on the lift. Fabrizio laughed.
"It-a sounds like two little girls will-a be taking the stairs from-a now on, eh?" he said.
"He was very rude," said Cora. "He even let the man off before us and didn't remember the ladies first rule."
"How could he have forgotten that?" laughed Mark.
"You always do," I joked, pulling my pad out of my pocket. I flipped to the next blank page and wrote:
First class first.
Don't kid yourself, you know it.
First class first.
Who says you have to obey?
First class first.
Aw, who cares?
First class first.
You're in a hurry!
First class first.
They're all men and you're a steerage girl.
First class first.
Shove them out of your way.
Ladies first.
I ripped the poem off and handed it to Cora.
"When I teach you how to read, read that and remember your first encounter with first class," I said to her.
"What's that, a sketchpad?" asked Jack curiously.
"Nope, poems," I replied.
"Can I see?" he asked. I had a feeling he wouldn't have protested if I had said no, but I didn't. He looked at the pages of my feelings and thoughts, and I could tell from the way his face deepened that he had reached the section of the pad I had written in when Mark and me lived with Mark's dad. Then he turned a few more pages and read the poem I had just written about the Titanic. Jack whistled as he handed the pad back to me. "You've got an amazing talent."
I blushed. "They're not that good," I mumbled shyly.
"Yeah, they are," Mark said, elbowing me. "Why can't you admit that you're an astounding poet, for twelve years old?"
"...because I'm not."
"I give up," said Mark. "She never takes compliments."
"I understand," said Jack easily. Fabrizio grinned and poked Jack's shoulder.
"I am-a knowing someone who will-a never admit he is a great artist," Fabrizio said.
"Shut up."
Well, people, what do you think? Constructive criticisms will be welcomed, flames will be laughed at and nothing will be nothinged at. REVIEW!