Iceberg

Hazel decides to return to the lower decks where she hid on the first night and see if she can find out anything more about the coal fire. While sitting and waiting, she reflects on whether she’s taking the high road or low road by reporting on honest people just doing their jobs. Later, Hazel overhears two men talking about how the fire damaged one of the bulkheads, so it’s no longer watertight. Hazel goes back up to the deck to find an officer and ask about repair plans for the bulkhead, and on the way, she sees Charlie receive another important message from Officer Murdoch. Charlie tells Hazel that it’s another warning about icebergs, this time much closer than before and directly in the ship’s path. He relays the message to the captain, who reads it and passes it to the ship’s owner, Mr. Ismay. Charlie finds it strange that the captain would give it to Mr. Ismay rather than posting it for all the officers to see but doesn’t have time to think much about it. In the library, Hazel finds Mrs. Abelman, who gives her a book on morse code so that she can learn to understand messages being sent to and from the ship.

Hazel tries to memorize morse code in the second-class library but is interrupted by Miss Gruber, who lectures her again about being in the wrong part of the ship. Confusing Hazel, Miss Gruber invites her back to the cabin she shares with Sylvia. There, she tells Hazel that she sees herself in her. Miss Gruber dreamed of becoming a cartographer, but her parents told her that it was a pointless dream, and she became a governess instead. Although she loves her work, Miss Gruber doesn’t want to see this happen to Hazel and urges her to accept Sylvia’s offer. Hazel considers this and the fact that it would likely give her an education as well as a lifelong friend; however, when Miss Gruber reveals that she thinks she’ll be fired in New York when Sylvia’s parents find out that their money was stolen, Hazel declines the offer. Sylvia walks in and hears Hazel’s decision. She becomes angry and takes the safe deposit key, asking Miss Gruber if she had anything to do with the missing money. Hazel tries to think of a way to stop the Mollisons from stealing from Mrs. Abelman next.

Hazel reluctantly goes to find Charlie to ask for help in getting into the Mollisons’ room to retrieve the paper that proves their criminal plot. On the way, she overhears the Mollisons talking about how the ship diverted south, which will delay their plan to cash Mrs. Abelman’s stock certificates. When Hazel finds Charlie, she asks what those are and learns that they’re proof of ownership of a company and thus worth a lot of money. When she tells Charlie about her plan to stop the Mollisons, he initially hesitates but agrees to help.

Charlie takes Hazel to retrieve the keys to get into the Mollisons’ cabin, and then he sneaks into the cabin while she keeps watch. The Mollisons only just left but return moments later to get Mr. Mollison’s gloves and find Charlie inside the room. As they drag him away, Charlie drops the paper to the floor for Hazel to retrieve. The paper reveals their plan to steal Mrs. Abelman’s stocks, as Hazel suspected. Mrs. Mollison confronts her and tells her that she should go to the boat deck if she wants to help Charlie. Hazel rushes there immediately afterward to wait for Mrs. Mollison and writes in her notebook to pass the time. She notes the cold air, calm waters, dark sky, and a haze forming on the water—all the factors necessary for the lookout crew to miss or mistake the location of an iceberg. Hazel looks out around her and sees nothing but knows that she can only see so far.

Hazel’s mind swirls with thoughts of icebergs and the Mollisons’ plot. Mrs. Mollison finally appears and demands the piece of paper back. Hazel agrees to give it back only if Mrs. Mollison releases Charlie and returns Mrs. Abelman’s stocks, but Mrs. Mollison laughs at the proposition. When Hazel brings up Sylvia’s money, Mrs. Mollison again insists that she isn’t the one who stole it, and Hazel realizes that Miss Gruber did. She recalls other papers that she saw in the Mollisons’ cabin, detailing a debt that they had to repay, and figures out that Miss Gruber borrowed Sylvia’s money to give to the Mollisons, intending to get it back before the ship reached New York. Mrs. Mollison proudly reveals that she and Mr. Mollison have taken Sylvia hostage and plan to stage a ransom so that Miss Gruber never gets the money back at all.

Hazel and Mrs. Mollison fight over the piece of paper until it blows away in the wind, and Mrs. Mollison darts away. Hazel decides to report the Mollisons to an officer, but when she finds the same one who arrested her the day before, he doesn’t believe her. Hazel worries that if the officer can’t see a criminal right in front of him, he may not see an iceberg in front of the ship either. The officer takes Hazel back to the holding room where she and Charlie sat before.

Hazel wonders where Charlie is, and the officer explains that he’s being held and is in serious trouble. The air gets colder, and once Hazel is alone, she sneaks out and overhears the captain being told that the ship is approaching several icebergs. Outside the Marconi room (where telegrams are received and sent), Hazel hears the operator complaining about the constant messages regarding icebergs and telling the Californian (the closest ship) to “shut up.” The officer returns to release Hazel, who immediately looks for Sylvia, thinking she might be trapped in the cargo bay. Inside the cargo area, she hears someone tapping out “SOS” in morse code and finds Sylvia locked inside a room. Hazel frees Sylvia, but an officer locks the main door, trapping them in the cargo bay.

Sylvia looks for Miss Gruber’s luggage, hoping to find the receipt for the money she took, but has no luck. The girls decide to use a car to break through the cargo bay doors, and Hazel ends up behind the wheel. The plan works, and the girls escape; Hazel feels a sense of accomplishment for having helped Sylvia. They find Miss Gruber, who is greatly relieved to see that Sylvia is okay. When Sylvia asks Miss Gruber about the money, Hazel explains for her, having figured out that Miss Gruber must be Mrs. Mollison’s sister and lent her the money to pay off a debt, given that both women said that their parents had told them to dream small. Miss Gruber admits that she (not Mrs. Mollison) also stole Hazel’s notebook: She didn’t want Hazel to write about her borrowing Sylvia’s family money. When the girls announce that they had to use a vehicle to break down the doors and escape the cargo bay, they’re told to wait on the boat deck so that Miss Gruber and the purser can go inspect the damage.

Hazel and Sylvia wait on the boat deck, and Hazel has a horrible premonition that something is about to go wrong. After eavesdropping on the Marconi room again and learning that even more warnings are coming in, the girls look out across the ocean and see that it’s eerily still and silent. Hazel thinks about how the warnings were kept secret and the lack of lifeboats on board. In the middle of her thought, the crewmen in the lookout post ring the bell and shout to the decks below that an iceberg lies straight ahead.