Jude took the bucket, glancing at it skeptically.
Marlowe gestured for it, so the boy handed it over.
“I do horoscope poetry.” Shelley was still talking, unfazed by the pitch and yaw of their small craft.
“Oh! Are you one of the Astro Poets?” Sofia asked.
A look of supreme frustration flitted across Shelley’s face. “No, I’m Shelley Moon. Of Shelley’s Moons. I do horoscope poetry.”
As if that somehow distinguished her from the other account. Which also did horoscope poetry. And which was well known.
There was a brief, intensely awkward silence.
“I mean, yeah,” Sofia started, pressured words rushing into the painful gap.
“I do poems with structure. You know. Classical stuff. Like quatrains. Rhyming couplets. Sestinas.”
“Yeah, I can see how that’s different.” Sofia quickly appeased her, eyes cutting to Plum for help.
“Me too,” Plum agreed.
“They do free verse.”
“Completely different,” Sofia said.
“Sonnets, for God’s sake,” Shelley continued. “On winter solstice every year, I do a sonnet for every star sign. That’s twelve sonnets!”
“That’s a lot,” Jude agreed.
“No one else does that!”
“Amazing,” Cici said. “I’m going to follow you right now, if I don’t already.” Cici swiped her phone screen and glanced down. The boat tilted upward like a rearing horse. “When we get to the island,” she said, letting out a breath. “Wooooo.” Despite the sea spray, her makeup was still flawless. Plum would definitely have to follow Cici’s channel to learn a few things.
“What do you do?” Sofia turned to Jude Romeo.
“I’m a streamer.” Jude shook his forelock out of his bright blue eyes. “Mostly hangouts with my fans. Or I talk about what’s important to me, especially positivity—anything is possible!”
“Videos?” Plum asked. “On YouTube?”
“Nah,” Jude said as the boat skidded into another trough. “YouWow.”
Plum had never heard of it. She nodded.
“It’s a better place for me, my manager says. He’s a great guy, King Michael, that’s what we call him, ’cause he’s a kingmaker. He made Tommy McGee and Billy Paul and the Holsy twins.” Jude pitched forward. He righted himself and leaned back.
The names were all new to Plum. She nodded again.
“Anyway, it’s a good place to grow my platform.” Jude Romeo smiled a completely adorable and devastating smile.
Plum realized the others on the boat had fallen silent.
Plum turned to look at Marlowe. Her best friend was still holding the bucket as she watched the horizon. Her lips were pressed tight in a grim grip.
Plum turned the other way, to Sofia, who held her head in her hands. Just past Sofia, Cici had a definite greenish cast to her previously glowing, light olive-brown skin.
“Um.” Plum turned back to Jude. “I think we might need another bucket.”
“Oh no.” Cici urgently gestured.
At least her hair was already pulled back in that high ponytail.
Marlowe handed the bucket over. Cici was immediately sick into it.
Jude Romeo made a sympathetic face, and when Cici leaned back, he took the bucket and dumped it overboard.
“Thank you,” Cici breathed.
Next to Plum, Marlowe’s slender hand extended.
Plum handed the bucket to Marlowe, who immediately leaned over and made the most miserable noises into it. Plum pulled Marlowe’s hair back and held it out of the way.
When Marlowe sat up, Jude took the bucket and emptied it again.
The boat pitched and slid, up and down, a sickening seesaw.
Or actually sea-saw, Plum thought. She breathed a prayer of thanks for her inner ear, which was somehow fine with all of this.
Because when Jude Romeo had emptied the bucket again, two pairs of hands had gestured for it urgently. Shelley Moon, the horoscope poet, and Sofia.
Plum snagged the bucket for her best friend. Because that’s what best friends do.
She held Sofia’s dark hair back as she hurled her lunch into the bucket.
Across the aisle from her, Jude held Shelley’s bright red hair as she leaned over the railing.
Plum met Jude’s gaze, across the aisle, as their charges each yakked copiously. Jude’s blue eyes lit up with suppressed mirth.
Plum couldn’t help but snort back. The laugh caught in her throat.
Her poor friends.
These poor other passengers.
“I never get seasick,” she explained to Jude.
“King told me to take a motion sickness pill,” Jude explained back. “He said, ‘Burst capillaries around the eyes do not an influencer make.’”
Plum couldn’t help it. She laughed, an actual all-out laugh, erupting from her chest like a seal’s bark.
“Really, Plum?” Marlowe breathed. She was looking . . . greener.
“I’m sorry,” Plum said. She rubbed her friend’s back.
“Just give it to me. Again.”