Barret was back with the others quicker than expected.
     He sure was. He has my pretzel too. I love him. I'm gonna sing to Barret now.
     Oh oh black man,
     You're so nice, man,
     You brought me a pretzel with salt,
     And hey! where did Reno get a malt?
     "It's not a malt dude," Reno said.
     I know. I couldn't think of anything to rhyme with salt though, so go with it.
     Once we were all together again, we headed to the loading area to the cruise ship. The loading area looked a lot like in the movie "Titanic" which greatly scared me. Mother was already getting ideas and bugging people for their ice materia. There was a giant line for the ship because everybody had luggage. The only person in our group that had luggage was Marlene who had a container of Comet. We tried passing the time by playing 'hot hands' and 'rock, paper, scissors.' Mother even tried a bit of I spy, but it got very old considering the only thing Mother ever spied was the large ass of the woman in front of her. Finally, after moving a whole inch closer, Tseng decided to put his genius plan into action. Somehow, the Turks all knew what he was planning and assisted him in pulling it off. All four Turks snuck out of line and moved toward the front.
     Elena approached the person at the front of the line. "Excuse me," she said to the elderly woman at the front who was digging through her purse to find her ticket. "Me and some friends want to get on quickly, we have no stuff, so we'll be real quick."
     "Oh pipe down," the elderly woman said, "I've almost found it. You can wait like the rest of us."
     Tseng moved behind Elena and snapped his fingers. At the command of the snap, Reno and Rude stood on either side of the old lady.
     "Sure you won't reconsider?" Tseng asked threateningly.
     "Absolutely not. I'm sure it's right here, so you can wait your turn."
     Tseng nodded at Reno, then at Rude. They nodded back, then grabbed the lady's arms, lifted her about a foot off the ground, carried her, then threw her off the pier. Elena approached the next person in line: a fat man of about five million pounds.
     Wow. I can only bench four million.
     Reno and Rude stood on either side of the man and Tseng backed up Elena.
     "Will you let us cut?" Tseng asked the man.
     "%#@^ you guys," the fat man said. "Good luck tossing me overboard."
     Tseng nodded at Reno and Rude, but both of them shook their heads and pointed to his large gut. Tseng nodded in response, then reached in his coat pocket, pulled out one of his custom pistols, and fired, hitting the man between the eyes. He collapsed within seconds. Elena approached the next group of people: a man, a woman, and their two children.
     "I think we'll let you cut," the man said.
     "Good thinking," Tseng said, reaching in his coat pocket. He pulled out a sack of gil and tossed it to the man. "Thanks."
     Tseng waved for all of us to come, so we did. We walked up the ramp, handed the ticket taker our tickets-
     Umm... duh? What else would we give a ticket taker?
     "Well sorry Mother, but 'handed the ticket taker our things which we give to ticket takers' is a little bit more effort than I care to use."
     So instead you say it the simple way, then have this long effort filled conversation with me in which you use the very same sentence?
     Moving on. Tifa was still holding my arm, thus proving she doesn't have her memory back yet. We boarded the actual ship-
     As opposed to the fake ship?
     We boarded the cruise ship and headed into a large plaza sort of thing where we made one great discovery: people are sneaking on the boat. No question. All those tourist traps with useless crap and all those tours of retarded land formations like middle-finger rock and the waterfall that never stops have stopped because they are all on the boat. After only twenty-six seconds of being on the ship, there was a man trying to sell us this hideous rag doll that he claimed was sacred; yet, this guy claimed he liked us, so we could have it for only twenty-five gil.
     "Sammy," Tifa said tugging at my arm, "will you buy me that?"
     "Mother," I said. "You ready to barter?"
     Aww Sephy. I love bartering. Okay. I'm ready.
     "So Mr. Rips-off-a-lot," I said. "I only have ten gil. Will you sell me your sacred object for ten gil?"
     "The name's Ripsofflots," he said, "and I don't know about ten. Maybe twenty-four..."
     While I bartered with him over the crappy doll, Mother was grabbing everything off of his stand that she could carry. Marlene helped out by filling her hands with stuff too. I touched the doll often in order to make the man all paranoid about his one doll while Mother stole his life's trade. Once Mother made off with every last thing on his stand, and even created her own stand selling his stuff, I bought the rag doll at ten gil.
     Sephy? I did a bad thing.
     "Mother, we've robbed many people before."
     No, not that. I accidentally flushed Cloud's cellphone. See, I think Cloud set his stuff on the table that I just cleaned out, and his ffffsssss-
     "It's the PHS."
     Right. Well, it rang, and I got freaked out and dropped it in the toilet and flushed.
     "Mother, that doesn't make any sense. What toilets are near here?" Mothe pointed to a bathroom nearby. "Why'd you flush the toilet?"
     Rushing water makes me feel better.
     "You know what Mother? I really don't care. Let's just find our rooms."
     "I agree," Aeris said. "We're on C-Deck, right?"
     "What's the C stand for?" Cloud asked.
     "What do you mean?" Aeris asked him.
     "Well, L is Lido Deck, and P is Poor Deck, so what is C?"
     None of us knew, so we just headed to the elevators. Only one of the elevators went to the C-Deck, and that was the service elevator, which didn't stop any of us. We got on the service elevator and hit the C button. The elevator started moving jerkily downward.
     "I thought we were already on the lowest deck," Aeris said.
     The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. The hallway was very small and only had five available rooms, and one door which had a sign reading: Do Not Enter. We split up the five rooms hoping that we were the only people on the C-Deck (the doors down here didn't have locks, so it's not like we broke in). I shared a room with Tifa and Mother, and our room just happened to be next to the Do Not Enter room. Mother kept pressing her face against the wall to see if she could hear what was going on.
     I think I hear something. It sounds like a cellphone.
     "Oh that's just me," Tifa said. "I found Frank's cell number listed here under Cloud, so I just wanted to call him and make sure it's his number."
     No. I think I hear a cellphone in the other room.
     Mother pressed up against the wall even more when Cloud came in. "Oh good," he said. "Your room smells too. So it's not just mine. My room smells like the person who was last in it never flushed in his lifetime, but funny thing is, the toilet was unused. Well anyways, I'd better get back to my room. I've got to-" he paused. "Is that my cellphone?"
     I think it's coming from in here.
     Cloud pressed up against the wall and listened. "Yeah, that's definitely my phone. Didn't you say you flushed it though?" Cloud asked Mother.
     Yeah, I'm right sure I did.
     "Guys," Aeris said, walking into the room through the open door while pinching her nose shut. "I think I know what the C in C-Deck stands for."
     "Why don't they just call this the Shit Deck!" Tseng yelled from his room. "I'm going to stay in the buffet for the whole trip, who's with me?"
     Everybody quickly left the rooms and headed for the elevator. Everybody except Mother that is.
     "You coming Mother?" I asked.
     I'll catch up with you. I feel bad about Cloud's phone. I'm going to get it.
     "Keep it," Cloud said. "I'll just get a new one."
     Thanks buddy! I'll see you guys in a few.
     "Yo, jus' do us a favor," Barret said. "Please shower repeatedly befo' finding us."