Free The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen by Geraldine McCaughrean Page A

parties: Elder Slater, the preacher; the Dog Woman; Medora (without her Photopia); the Dixie Quartet. The man with the frayed necktie made a few feeble attacks on the placard, trying to pry it off. In the end, Everett felt obliged to help him. By that time everyone knew full well what they would find underneath.
    THE SUNSHINE QUEEN
V ENICE S TEAMBOAT C OMPANY
    The cardplayer’s small head wagged in triumph on its long neck. “So you just shift yerselves off my property, and take yer freaks and yer animals and yer undertaker music with you! And count yerselves lucky I don’t have you thrown in jail!”
    There was another long pause.
    â€œVery well,” said Everett coolly. “I’ll just go and make up your bill.”
    â€œBill?”
    â€œFor salvage, yes,” said Everett, raising his eyebrows and widening his large, expressive eyes. “I refloated your ship off a water meadow near Salvation. Plenty witnesses to it. Naturally I have no objection to you taking back what’s yours, sir. But the laws of navigation say you have to pay me fifty percent of her value. For salvage.”
    â€œSalvage!?”
    â€œAnd delivery, yes.”
    â€œJust cast off the ropes and let’s get out of here,” said Everett, watching the hunched narrow shoulders of the owner slump away in despair, cheated of his prize once again. The children were as hopping happy as fleas; the quartet were dancing. But Everett froze them with one glance. “The man had hopes, and I just dashed them. I don’t find that cause for pride or celebration, do you, people?”
    Miss Loucien stroked her husband’s sleeve. “He meant to win his luck by turning over a playin’ card,” she said. “Us, we’re meaning to earn ours by hard work, ain’t we?”
    He looked her over, soothed but not cheered. The look said that he would sooner his pregnant wife did not have to earn her living at all but could be provided for by a better husband in a better place. “I wonder what became of The Hand,” he said, picking up the crumpled gambling pledge. Its owner had thrown it down in disgust, too broke to pay salvage on the boat he believed was his by right—and probably was.
    â€œFancy you knowing that stuff ‘bout savages!” exclaimed Kookie.
    Miss May March winced. “Salvage, Habakkuk, not savages. It is the act of recovering a wrecked ship. It gives certain rights to the person who saved the ship from being completely lost. Clever Mr. Crew knew that. Haven’t I told you a thousand times, children? Knowledge is power.”
    Everett grunted. “It generally beats ignorance. But to tell you the truth, ma’am, I don’t know the first thing about salvage. It works like that at sea. I recall Revere saying something about it, and he was a sailor once.”
    â€œNot here,” said Elijah, leaning over the ship’s rail, measuring the river’s depth with a weighted length of cord. “Not on the Numchuck it don’t. No matter. It seed off that gambler. Kinder ’n’ easier than shooting him in the head and losing the body overboard.”
    â€œI was unwilling to part with the boat,” said Crew, looking more and more guilt ridden. Then he drew himself up to his full height, gave a shudder, and attempted to justify bamboozling the gambler. His voice was that of Coriolanus explaining why he had turned traitor. “In the absence of my brother, Cyril, I have developed responsibilities . Right now that feels a lot like the sweating sickness. I have seventeen souls, three dogs, and an unborn child to shield from the elements, and this derelict washtub of a boat is the only thing that comes to hand. I also think there is more chance of our lost companions finding us again in a large and watery world if we stay aboard her. That was my motive. If I swindled the man to do it, let it be added to my account on Judgment Day, but so help me,