Titanic 2020 t2-1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

on the crew kitchen and restaurant far below. With the passengers still to board, he figured, none of the many restaurants were yet functioning, so it was the only place hot food was going to be available.
    What he needed, he decided, was a disguise.
    The school uniform was a dead giveaway. He needed to blend in. There was at least a hundred crew on board — ten times that number would join in Miami — but they were surely all still getting to know each other. Another strange face wouldn't be so remarkable — even if it did look very young especially if he was wearing the right clothes. Jimmy had already observed that the sailors wore white uniforms, while the engineers wore blue overalls and baseball caps, the catering staff green and the cleaners red. He didn't think he would ever pass for a sailor, but if he could get hold of a set of overalls and matching baseball cap, then he would surely be able to pass unchallenged. It was just a case of having the nerve to go for it.
    Nerve was never a problem for Jimmy Armstrong.
    After studying the relevant floor plan Jimmy pinpointed a store room on the second level which looked a likely place for the crew uniforms to be kept. When he got there he discovered that it was situated at a busy crossroads of corridors. It took nearly an hour of patiently watching in a dark stairwell before he had an opportunity to dash across and try the door — but it was locked. Before he could try and force it footsteps sounded on the stairs behind him and he had to bound across the corridor and seek refuge behind the first door that would open.
    As he slipped in he found himself confronted by a man's bum.
    It was white and flabby and spotty. Like a full moon beaten with a stick.
    He was in the men's locker room. Luckily, the sound of his panicked entrance was covered by the water pounding against the tiled floor of the shower cubicles. Jimmy darted behind a row of lockers just as the bum, along with the man attached to it, moved into the shower. Thankfully, Naked Spotty Flabby Bum Man was the only other occupant of the room. As NSFB man began to sing something vaguely Japanese he became enveloped in steam, which allowed Jimmy to venture out and remove his red overalls. He held them against himself. They were slightly too long in the arms and legs, but with a bit of turning up, they would do rightly. He changed quickly, lifted the man's baseball cap off a second hook, and discarded his by now rather stinky school uniform in a bin. Jimmy made sure his cap was pulled down hard over his face, then stepped out of the locker room into the busy corridor. At first he moved hesitantly, sure he was about to be rumbled, but very soon he realized that nobody was paying him any attention. He was one of them!
    And now for food!
    The canteen doors were open, and with the breakfast rush apparently over there were only a few crewmen still eating or choosing their food from a long buffet table. Jimmy walked purposefully up to the hot food selection, lifted a plate and began to load up. He was so hungry he could have just buried his face in the scrambled eggs and sucked it up. But he had to stick to the plan: stock up then get back up to the guest cabins to enjoy his feast in comparative safety.
    When he couldn't pile anything else on to his plate, Jimmy turned for the door, only to find an angry-looking chef blocking his way. Veins bulged at the side of his head as he barked something incomprehensible. Jimmy shrugged and tried to move past, but the chef remained exactly where he was.
    A voice from behind Jimmy said, 'If you want me to translate, he's saying you can't take food out of the restaurant.' Jimmy glanced around. There was an old man — at least as old as his granda, sixty maybe — sitting at one of the long bench tables. 'If I were you, I'd shift your butt, because Pedroza there is as mad as a bag of spiders. Only this morning he took a knife to some guy for tramping egg into the carpet.'
    Pedroza's