I woke to a headache, a dry mouth, and the gross breath of someone who ate leftover seafood before bed and didn’t brush. I opened my eyes just for a second, and it seemed like my room was rocking. I wondered, am I going to puke, is this what a hangover feels like? Then it hit me. I wasn’t in my room. I was still on the Plunger.
“What time is it?!” I asked, panicked. Was it morning? Was it still night? Was Dad looking for me?
“Uh, dunno,” Pepper mumbled, face down on a pillow next to me. I hadn’t told Dad I was going to sleep over. I hadn’t planned on it myself. My own dress was over at the Big House. I was still wearing the vintage dress, now a wrinkled mess. What would Grannie think of me now? I jumped out of bed, stepping on Cheddar, who was sleeping on the floor, sprawled out on an arrangement of deck cushions. His jacket, bow-tie, and cummerbund were scattered on the floor around him.
“Morning, Flip,” was all he said, then he rolled over and went back to sleep.
I could just walk home. I could dry clean the dress and return it in a few days. Then I pictured myself doing the walk of shame through the village as my former classmates poured morning coffees and the good people of Keech piled into church. Maybe it was still early enough to avoid all that.
I rushed up to the deck. The sun was already high, but the morning air was cold. I had never woken up on the water before. I looked around. The deck was damp. Uncle Chet slept on a bench, a yellow slicker pulled over his head. It rose and fell with his snores. He was still wearing his tuxedo shirt but had otherwise changed into shorts and deck shoes.
We weren’t at the yacht club or at the Tooheys’ dock. We were moored offshore. I didn’t recognize where I was, but the land always looks different from the water if you are not used to looking at it from that perspective.
And wow, did everything look different. There were pines and rocky islands and rocky coast, but they all seemed rearranged. I didn’t recognize any buildings on the shore. Maybe I was still drunk. Not a sound came from town or from any of the other boats nearby. The only sounds were the calls of gulls, the lapping of waves, and the flap, flap, flapping of the flag on the end of a nearby dock.
The Canadian flag.