That’s right, we shall see who the better Luck is tomorrow. I turn a challenging eye to Bo, but his seat is empty.
12
Once back in Room 14, the lads immediately switch out their shoes for their slippers. Olly eyes my toque, which I had placed on Jamie’s pillow so it would be out of the way.
“You have something against feathers?” I ask.
Olly jams his hands in his pockets, shifting from slipper to slipper. “The farmer’s wife used to give me a slice of pork and some vegetables for scraping chicken piddles for her. She told me if I ever saw a hackle feather pointing to twelve o’clock, something was going to happen.”
I’ve never heard of that one, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Luck wears many faces. The number four for Fong, twins for Ba, a crane for April. Are we all just looking for the heavens to speak, to assure us things will turn out right? As far as I’m concerned, the best way to counter bad luck is to make some luck of your own. “Something’s always going to happen.”
“The first time I found one, someone gave me a whole bag of rock sugar. But the last time I found one, I saw a man gored by a water buffalo.” Olly squeezes his shoulders together, as if trying not to get gored himself.
I poke his shoulder, and he relaxes. “Well, the good news is, I haven’t seen any water buffalos around here, unless they keep them in the swimming pool.”
Wink lets out a teensy smile.
“And while we wait for that something to happen, I’ll show you how we’re going to win that bet.”
The lads watch me pull four bread heels and one apple from my pockets. I’ve chosen the heels from the basket with the most similar weights.
Olly works a piece of taffy off his back teeth with his finger. “How’s that going to make money?”
Wink scratches his cap. “We’re going to knock out a couple of nobs with those and steal their wallets.”
“That’s dark, Wink, and not what I had in mind. Now, who wants to learn how to juggle?”
The lads look at each other.
Olly lifts a slippered foot. “You mean what you did with these?”
“Exactly.” Using the bread heels, I show the lads how juggling works, letting them see the pattern, then handing them the heels to practice throwing.
“That’s it, toss it high, but not too high. Easy there. You’re a natural.”
Both the lads have quick reflexes and good balance. The room tilts unexpectedly, but Wink, focused on the heel he just tossed up, catches it without stumbling.
“Where’d you learn such good balance?”
“He climbed a lot of trees,” Olly answers for him.
Wink glares at Olly, then takes off a slipper and starts whacking him with it.
Olly shields himself with his arms. “What? She asked.”
I puzzle over what could make a boy self-conscious about climbing trees, but both lads have clammed up. “Jamie and I climbed a lot of trees back in London. Our favorite ones were these patchy giants in St. James’s Park that were as tall as those masts up on the deck. Jamie loved it up there. He said we could see clear to America if we could find a tall enough tree.”
Olly grins, wedging a smile out of Wink.
“Lads, do you have a pair of scissors?”
“Bo used to have a pair, but one of the other sailors pinched it.”
“What about a knife?”
Olly’s eyes grow round. “Jamie has one in his mess kit.”
“Good. First, I have to fetch something from upstairs—the showstopper.” I visualize the pineapple, prickly on the sides and spiny at the top, but with a bottom concave enough to balance on my head. I hope no one took it from the mermaid on the tidal-wave staircase. “Step out and let me get respectable again.”
* * *
Two hours later, I’m back in sea slops. I unhinge Jamie’s staghorn pocketknife and lift my hair off my neck. “Would anyone like to do the honors?”
Wink ties his hands behind him, his eyes twice their usual size.
Olly takes a step back. “Jamie would kill us.”
I sigh. “He’s much too concerned about hair.”
Shearing off my lion’s mane will be harder to do myself, and not just physically. But sacrifices are necessary. I can’t wear a seaman’s cap during my routine, and I need to score big. Jamie already has a lead on me. Plus, if I’m going to be impersonating one of his mates, I may as well look the part as best I can. Using the knife, I saw off my hair in chunks, committing them to the sea through the porthole.
At last, we are ready.
Scotland Road streams with crew and passengers. We head to the third-class decks at the stern, the bread heels, the apple, and the pineapple in my slipper bag. Olly and Wink keep looking at my newly shorn tresses, cut above my ear.
“It’ll grow back,” I assure them, wishing I sounded more certain.
A quartet of young men with baggy trousers eating from a bag of peanuts slice their eyes to us. I’m startled to recognize Bledig, the sweeps winner. With their flattened white-blond haircuts, the four remind me of the bottom cutting teeth, with Bledig the loosest tooth of the bunch. He must be riding high from his win, judging by his swagger and half sneer.
Noticing Wink and his clomping feet, Bledig snickers and, with a shoulder like an anchor, bumps him hard enough to knock him into Olly and Olly into me.
I catch myself on the wall. “Oy! Watch it, you blighter.”
Bledig throws a peanut shell at us, though it makes it only partway before dropping to the floor. The men’s laughter echoes off the corridor.
Wink attempts to storm after them, with Olly close behind, but I grab both of them by the collar. Those young men are not only older and bigger, but sport more scars on their hulls than the lads on their tender shells. I will take care of this myself.
When I set down my slipper bag, two bread heels roll out, and I reconsider. If I confront those bottom cutters, they might get violent, with me dressed as boy. There goes my juggling act, and I can kiss Jamie goodbye.
Wink straightens his crumpled jacket, scowling mightily after the men. “Ghost hair.”
“Dumb eggs,” Olly curses in Cantonese, all the friendliness gone from his face.
“Come on, lads.” I hike my slipper bag over my shoulder. “We have better things to do.”
With weightier steps, we set off again.
“So how did you two meet?” I ask, an obvious attempt to divert them.