Before he contradicts me, I sweep ahead, the barrel picking up speed. “We can do the Jumbo routine and make sure he sees it. It’ll be just like in St. James’s Park. They loved us there.”

St. James’s Park was our stage of choice, with its wide expanses of green and constant stream of people. We’d make enough in one day to keep us fed for a week in the summer months.

“They didn’t always love us. Sometimes they called us pinch-eyed mongrels.” He twists his tricky wrist—the left one, which sometimes gets stuck in one position.

“Sticks and stones.”

“Yeah. They threw those at us, too.”

I watch the oval ball spiral in tight arcs from one plaid jacket to the other. A memory trickles in: a couple of college men, dressed in dark blazers and the distinctive red-white-and-blue neckties that marked them as Cambridge scholars. I had just climbed up Jamie’s shoulders, in preparation for our four-hand six-egg juggle act. One of the Cambridge men jerked his chin at us. “It’s a damn shame, all the litter filling our fine parks nowadays.” He reached down to adjust his sock. Or so I thought. The next moment, a pinecone hit me in the collarbone. I fell, rolling like Ba had taught us to let the ground absorb the impact. Jamie was so angry, he threw all the eggs at the blighters. After the coppers arrested us instead of the Cambridge pair, Ba had to pawn his silver belt buckle to get us off the hook.

I bump my knee against Jamie’s. “Let that go. We’re here now, no worse for wear, and we have our future to think about. Family has to stick together, Jamie. That’s you and me.”

He sighs. “How did you get here?”

“By train.”

“You know what I mean. Tickets aren’t cheap, and neither are those togs.” His eyes travel down my linen shirt to the silk jacket in my lap.

“Mrs. Sloane bought the tickets. She’d been wanting to visit her brother in America, but she hates—hated—sea travel. Then she heard about the new ship and decided it wasn’t going to get better than the Titanic.”

“How did they let you board without her?”

“They didn’t.”

He grits his teeth. “Keep going.”

“I snuck in.”

“Bloody snakes. You snuck in? Explain,” he growls.

I summarize my ride up to the cargo hatch. His spine seems to contract with my telling, as if each statement is a hammer blow, driving the nail farther into the bench. By the time I get to the part about my rescue by Miss Hart, he is back to holding his head in his hands.