Neville Nordstrom could not remember the last time he’d enjoyed such a good sleep. The gentle motion of the ship had sent him off almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. His mind was filled with dreams, which had fractured into a thousand tiny pieces as soon as he woke up – but he felt warm inside, like after a hot chocolate on a frosty day.

‘Good morning, Master Neville.’ Henderson knocked and opened the bedroom door. Neville clutched the covers and drew them to his chin.

‘Would you like something to drink? Perhaps a glass of juice?’ the steward asked.

Neville barely moved his head. He seemed to have the uncanny ability of shaking his eyes up and down.

‘Very good, sir. I’ll leave you to get dressed then.’ Henderson retreated from the room and set about preparing a tray with some juice and a shiny apple.

He was trying hard not to judge, but the boy was quite the strangest lad he’d ever encountered. And what was his obsession with that trumpet case? Henderson had to stop himself from laughing out loud when he noticed its outline under the covers at the bottom of the bed.

Inside the bedroom Neville waited a couple of minutes before he pushed back the covers and hopped out of bed. He walked across the room and peered through one of the portholes. From his cabin on the starboard side of the ship all he could see was miles and miles of endless ocean. He wondered for a moment what would happen if the ship struck an iceberg. Like the Titanic. He supposed that they would all die an icy death in the sub-zero temperatures of the Atlantic.

Dismissing the thought from his mind, Neville pulled his kit bag from the bottom of the wardrobe, opened it up and located a clean pair of underpants and his favourite yellow polo shirt. He’d caught Henderson trying to unpack his bag and managed to find enough voice to object. He wanted to have everything in one place in case he needed to leave the ship in a hurry – like in the event of an iceberg or something.

The lad pulled on his beige trousers and sat down to put on his shoes and socks. He stared at his grubby trainers. Neville’s mother had suggested they go and buy a new pair last week but he’d told her not to worry. Now he rather wished he hadn’t put her off. In the opulence of his cabin, they looked especially shabby.

He emerged from his bedroom hoping that Henderson would have left him some juice and gone away. But he hadn’t. Neville stood clutching his case in the doorway.

‘Will you be dining with your mother in the Breakfast Room this morning, sir?’ Henderson asked, holding back a grin.

Neville shook his head. He wondered why Henderson mentioned his mother. She certainly wasn’t here.

‘Very well, Master Neville. Would you like me to bring you some breakfast then?’ Henderson was starting to wonder if there was really something amiss with this unfortunate kid.

Neville moved his head ever so slightly. Henderson withdrew from the cabin and Neville sat down to look at the newspaper on the coffee table.

On page three Neville was surprised to see a face he recognised smiling out at him. He checked the name and wondered what the article was about. He wished he’d paid more attention in his Spanish language classes – there were only a few words here and there that he understood and none of it made any sense.

Neville checked the date on the paper. The pages didn’t feel like newsprint. And he wondered how they would get the paper out here in the middle of the ocean anyway?

Neville thumbed through the rest of the paper, picking up the odd word here and there before flipping back to page three.

Henderson returned with a breakfast tray laden with pancakes and maple syrup, bacon and eggs, several boxes of cereal, milk, fruit salad and more juice.

‘I hope everything will be to your liking, Master Neville.’ The steward sat the tray down on the small table for two which stood in an alcove at the end of the sitting room.

Neville sat at the table and glanced warily at the steward. Henderson decided that Neville might be more comfortable attending to his own breakfast, so he moved over to the couch and began to plump the cushions. It was then that he noticed the newspaper on the coffee table.

‘I am sorry, sir; I’ve given you the Spanish newspaper. We have them printed from the internet and I must have picked that up by mistake. He’s a busy man.’ Henderson pointed at the photograph.

‘W-w-what does it say?’ Neville whispered.

‘Oh, he’s heading to Spain,’ Henderson replied.

‘W-w-when?’ Neville stammered.

‘I think he’s there tomorrow. A two-week tour – very unexpected – some business and then a holiday by the sea, it says.’

Neville gulped. His eyes spun and his brain felt like it was packed tightly with cotton wool. Without warning he slumped forward and his head glanced off the corner of the cereal bowl and hit the table with a thud. A trickle of blood began to ooze from his eyebrow.

‘Are you all right, Master Neville?’ Henderson rushed to his side. But the poor boy was out cold.