The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen by Geraldine McCaughrean Page B

piano.
    â€œDoesn’t that woman know anything cheery?” protested Everett.
    â€œNope,” said three young voices, as one.
    They placed an advertisement in the Winona Gazette and telegraphed another to Branko, farther downriver. Chad Powers began painting a sign along the outside of the main-deck cabin:
    BRIGHT LIGHTS
FLOATING THEATER
    and they put up handbills around the town. Never mind that on the undersides of the handbills were advertisements for The Tempest : Shakespeare was no longer on the menu. The advertisements read:
    WANTED
ARTISTES, PERFORMERS
& INT ERESTED PARTIES
FOR VOYAGE OF FORTUNE
ABOARD THE PADDLEBOAT
CALLIOPE
TALENT THE ONLY REQUISITE.
APPLY ENGEDI WHARF, WEDNESDAY
    Then for three days they sat tight and waited.
    Elijah could recall auditions fifty years before for jobs aboard the river steamers. “River was a way outa starvin’ in them days. Notice went up askin’ for a roustabout, all kinds piled up on the bank a-hoping to get lucky. Germans and the Irish, for the most part. Last man standing got the job. Fought each other like jackals. Free-for-all fistfights. Germans and the Irish.”
    Even Kookie (who was one of nine children and accustomed to competing for anything on offer) was shocked by the thought of it. “You German, Elijah?” he asked.
    â€œHabbakuk Warboys!” exclaimed his schoolteacher. “A gentleman does not ask such things!”
    But whether Elijah had ever been either German or Irish, whether or not he had fought bare knuckled for his first job aboard a paddle steamer, was as lost as the date of his birthday or the names of his kin.
    A big stack of life rafts had been stowed in the stateroom. On top of these, Miss Loucien spread a plaid blanket for the children to sit on. “Now what I want you to do, fellas, is to sit up here and audition the talent. If you like it, it’s past doubt the paying public will.”
    â€œMy wife trusts your critical eye,” said Everett from the top of a stepladder, where he was trying to make the mildewed curtains travel along their runners. “Curly’s too highbrow, Lou says. I’m too devoted to the spoken word. And your Mr. Powers has broken his glasses.”
    Once upon a time, a ten-piece band had played on the stage of the Calliope ’s stateroom. Today it was the turn of would-bes and hopefuls. So Cissy and Kookie and Tibs Boden put on their most severe faces and faced the stage, like cats on a wall waiting for the moon to rise.
    The first person to audition was a Chinese contortionist who could hold her head between her knees while playing the xylophone with her feet. She twirled banners, too, but the act was over in a minute and a half.
    â€œAny more?” said Kookie, resting his fingertips together as he imagined a New York impresario might. The girl looked at him from between her knees: a look that said, That ought to be enough for anyone .
    â€œI do again?” she suggested.
    â€œNext!” said Tibbie.
    â€œThank you so much. That looked very . . . painful,” said Cissy.
    The Dutch clog dancer did not know any dance steps but sounded striking on the hollow wooden stage of the hollow empty room.
    â€œCould you do something with your hands, too?” said Kookie.
    â€œSemaphore or something?” said Tibbie.
    â€œThank you so much,” said Cissy. “That was very . . . loud.”
    There was a dog act with three rat-sized terriers. The woman had an accent so strange that picking out her separate words was like separating dried peas from lentils. She was wearing around her throat a black velvet choker decorated with crystal buttons, almost as if she were a high-class dog herself. “I had four,” she said, choking back tears, “but Twinkle got drowned on the way here.” She had to say it four times to be understood.
    â€œWe’d love to have you!” said Tibbie, guilt stricken about the lost runt.
    â€œDo they