The Quest for Skye: Chapter 35

Recap: In the last chapter, Morgan and Tammy took Skye to Florida to reunite her with that dolphin she kissed way back when. Then the Hamiltons talked to each other a lot about how Skye is super nice and appreciates life and stuff and decided that was what Lance meant when he said she was the key to the whole thing. That made me want to throw my laptop across the room in frustration at the book. I did not, but I WANTED TO.

The chapter opens with Tammy waking Skye up and telling her they're going to get her hair, nails, and makeup done, which leads to an incredibly awkwardly-written moment where Skye asks if putting makeup on means she'll be growing breasts soon. Tammy quickly sidesteps the whole puberty question (which I guess is OK since Skye is probably going to be dying in the next couple weeks anyway) and instead says they're all going somewhere special tonight.

Tammy presents her with a dress, which Skye pronounces a "Christmas dress." We're given no description of the dress, so I'm not sure what makes it a Christmas dress. It's probably just red and green, but part of me hopes it resembles a horrific Christmas sweater with reindeer and Santa heads knitted all over it. Whatever it looks like, Tammy has an identical dress, so yay for matching.

The girls spent the next couple hours getting their hair and nails done. It was hard telling who was having more fun, the stylists, or the Hamiltons.

Well, uh, probably the Hamiltons. Why would the stylists be that excited about it? Except for the Pure and Untarnished Joy of Just Being Near Skye, I guess.

When they were finished with their girl-time, they continued to giggle all the way back to their room.

And this is one of those awkward writing details that sounds fine until you start thinking about it. There's no reason for them to be giggling. If they're giggling just from the sheer excitement of having visited a beauty salon, that excitement should have died down into a quiet happiness long before the time they're actually heading back to their room. Or have they been giggling throughout the entire appointment? If so, I can pretty much guarantee you they had more fun than the stylists. A women and a girl doing nothing but giggling at each other for no reason for like 30-45 minutes straight has got to be not only annoying, but kind of creepy after a certain point.

Later that night, Tammy reveals her new style to Morgan and he is blown away by how beautiful she is and wants to kiss her, but she won't let him because it's far more important that he see how beautiful Skye is. Turns out she's also gorgeous and Morgan compliments her, and Skye once more laments that she doesn't have the body yet to fill out the dress.

They go out to dinner, and the paparazzi papparaz Skye at the restaurant. The security guards get super aggressive about it, throwing the cameras on the ground and literally pushing the photographers out the door.

While eating, they discussed funny things that happened on the cruise and reminisced about more recent events.

Skye's really into reminiscing about this cruise. She reminisced about it while she was on it. Now they've all been living together for several months and must have other stories to reminisce about with each other, but, nope, it's all about the cruise again. The cruise that they were only on together for like a week. I get the feeling that if this was in the real world, it would mean that every other day Skye'd say, "Hey, remember that cruise?" and Morgan and Tammy would reply, "Sigh. Yes. We remember it. We only talk about it every day."

The Hamiltons then blindfold Skye and drive her somewhere in a limo, and it turns out that they got her tickets to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which just so happened to be playing in the same area as the Jamaican dolphin lived, so that's nice.

Too overwhelmed to speak, she jumped to her feet and threw her arms around her mom and dad.

And the people behind her were probably like, "SIT DOWN YOU'RE IN MY WAY!"

Oh, and then, the band invites her onstage to play one of their songs at the piano for them. So that's nice too.

Like a little lady, Skye moved in front of the piano bench , straightened her flowing dress, and sat down.

She used to be able to sit at a piano like a trained entertainer. Now her skills have been downgraded to "little lady." I guess she's out of practice.

After the performance:

Tears cascaded from her eyes as she moved to the front of the piano and bowed to the audience like a professional entertainer.

Oh, good, at least she can still bow like a professional entertainer. Bowing like a little lady would just be embarrassing right now.

The whole audience is crying because I guess watching a little girl they don't know playing the piano is some sort of big emotional moment for everyone. Skye gets to go backstage and meet the band after the show, and then they all go back to the hotel and wind down.

He, too, could still hear, The Christmas Canon. On this night... all is right... on this Merry Christmas night. This night... we pray... our lives... will show... this dream... she had ...  

Morgan smiled. This dream... his little girl had... had been met... tonight.

My mind just makes this sound like Morgan is wheezing out these lines while being extremely out of breath. Maybe he'll run all the way out of breath and he and Skye will both die in the next chapter!