I puzzle over what could make a boy self-conscious about climbing trees, but both lads have clammed up. “Jamie and I climbed a lot of trees back in London. Our favorite ones were these patchy giants in St. James’s Park that were as tall as those masts up on the deck. Jamie loved it up there. He said we could see clear to America if we could find a tall enough tree.”

Olly grins, wedging a smile out of Wink.

“Lads, do you have a pair of scissors?”

“Bo used to have a pair, but one of the other sailors pinched it.”

“What about a knife?”

Olly’s eyes grow round. “Jamie has one in his mess kit.”

“Good. First, I have to fetch something from upstairs—the showstopper.” I visualize the pineapple, prickly on the sides and spiny at the top, but with a bottom concave enough to balance on my head. I hope no one took it from the mermaid on the tidal-wave staircase. “Step out and let me get respectable again.”

Two hours later, I’m back in sea slops. I unhinge Jamie’s staghorn pocketknife and lift my hair off my neck. “Would anyone like to do the honors?”

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.”