her mother would ever let her go anyway.
The musicians were warming up inside. Violet went around to the front window and positioned herself in front of one of the few uncracked panes, the light inside the bar a smoky golden orange.
âTwenty cents a dance,â the host called out.
Twelve girls, their hair decorated with ribbons and flowers, their skirts barely below the knee, milled about on the side of the dance floor until the music struck up, and then they formed two lines, swaying in time. Men in the bar stood and blocked Violetâs view. Now and then she caught a glimpse of the dancers, marching, spinning, and right-about-facing in a quadrille.
Violet marched in place to the music, even as the fiddler broke two strings. Nino came around the building. He stopped a few feet away from her.
âDonât,â he said.
Violet stopped moving, confused by his tone and his anger shimmering just below the surface.
âYouâre no cherry,â he said, spitting.
âWhatâs it to you?â she said, trying to sound angry to cover up the quaver in her voice. Inside, the musicians began a Scottish reel.
But then Jimmy and Charlie came careening out of the alley, two sailor boys in pursuit.
âRun!â
Nino and Violet took off with them, dodging and weaving until they got to the river and collapsed, choking down air and laughing.
Li, Madam Tangâs errand boy, leaned against a lamppost near them, outside a sailor house.
âWell, if it isnât Chinkaroo,â Jimmy said, as Li approached.
âDonât you come up there no more,â Li hissed at Violet.
âI thought you missed me,â Violet said.
Nino laughed.
Li wedged himself between two barrels next to them. A big-ended rat trundled by, and Violet tried to hit it with a stone.
âWhatâs that smell?â Li asked, covering his nostrils with the tips of his two fingers.
Nino nodded his head toward Charlie.
âI donât even smell anything,â Charlie said. âHey, Kentucky, do you think I smell?â
âYou reek,â Violet said.
Warm with rum, she leaned back against a burlap sack and looked up at the ship masts, which shot up and disappeared into the sky. The moon hovered in a sickle. Here she was and she was happy not to be in the Home, happy not to be in Aberdeen. She wished that nothing would change. But if she thought anymore about it she would have to admit that things had already changed. Nino had told her to stop dancing, and sheâd felt a shame that was new and ominous. She was a child, a girl, who soon would no longer be one.
Li jumped up to try to sell his pipe dregs, but the young sailor heâd approached scurried away.
âHave you tried it?â Violet asked Li when he returned.
âItâs for fools,â Li said. âThatâs what Madam Tang say.â
âShut up,â Nino said.
âWhat?â Li asked, exasperated.
âI done it,â Jimmy said. âItâs like tobacco but makes you drunk.â
âYouâre full of shit,â Charlie said.
Jimmy shrugged and spit.
Li unfolded a piece of newspaper. Inside were black sticky ashes.
âWho wants to smoke?â he asked, pulling a small reed pipe from his pockets and waving it in his fingers like a cigar.
âAtta boy,â Jimmy said, his voice deep. He had slipped past childhood, no longer one of them, no matter how hard he pretended it wasnât so. Nino had told Violet that Ollie was going to pull Jimmyâs papers; he had aged out of being a newsboy. A scar bisected the back of his hand.
âI got a dollar,â Violet said. âWhat should we do with it?â
âWhereâd you get a buck, kid?â Jimmy asked.
âI stole it from my mother.â
âThat ainât stealing,â Nino said. âWhatâd she ever do for you that wasnât really for herself?â
A group of white-suited sailors walked by, singing a
Kurt Vonnegut, Bryan Harnetiaux