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.
“We were both runaways,” says Olly. “Tao saw us begging by the docks in Victoria Harbor.”
“Why’d you run away?”
Olly shrugs. “I just had people passing me along. I don’t think anyone noticed I left. Wink had a father, but...”
Wink begins glowering again, his cheek twitching.
“Anyway,” Olly hastily moves on, “Tao asked Captain Pibst to take us on as ship boys, and he did, except we busted a propeller in the Suez Canal. So then Atlantic Steam took us on, and that’s where we met the rest of the Johnnies.”
My nose wrinkles. “Why do you call yourselves Johnnies?”
“Bo was getting into fights every time someone called one of us a Johnny. So Jamie started calling us the Johnnies to poke fun at him. Then it became funny.”
I can’t help smiling, despite my annoyance at Jamie. He knows just how to save a cat without getting scratched.
Once, we saw a gent offer a hungry-looking man tuppence so he could buy himself a pie, but the man pushed the gent’s hand away. Jamie took the tuppence and said to the hungry man, “Sir, your coins fell out of your pocket.” The hungry man took the money. Jamie understood people. Me, I would’ve taken the tuppence and run. If that gent wanted to feed someone hungry, he had a willing person right there.
We reach the far staircase and climb to the poop deck. People crowd the rails, watching sea life pass below. The fresh air seems to shake the sand off the boys’ foul moods.
Up on the docking bridge, the same crewman with the sharp beret as yesterday stands with his legs and elbows in triangles, looking out to sea. “Do they ever let passengers up there?” The platform’s elevated position could provide a perfect stage for the upper-class passengers, who could see us clearly from across the well deck.
Olly glances at where I’m looking and stiffens. “No. That’s the quartermaster’s turf.”
