The dark slashes of his eyebrows flex. “We had health inspections before boarding.”

“Health inspections?”

“Yes. No one has influenza.”

“Not influenza.” My laugh cracks like an egg, and Bo blinks as if splashed. “Influences.” I provide the word in Cantonese before continuing in English, “You and that old one-toothed geezer think girls shouldn’t tell boys what to do.”

He grimaces. “I only meant that Jamie may not want to take orders from his sister anymore.”

I sniff. “What makes you think he took orders from me before?” The Titanic sways, and I catch myself on the smooth lip of the lifeboat.

“He told me about—how do you say?—Christmas tree.”

A cold breeze seems to slice off my nose. “He told you about that?”

During one wet spring when we were eleven, I saw men clearing trees in Cadogan Place Gardens, a few blocks from where we lived in Chelsea. I told Jamie we should bring home one of the evergreens to cheer up Ba, who hadn’t left our flat for twenty-eight days after being thrown out of a public tennis court, since “dogs and Chinese don’t need to play tennis.” If he couldn’t use the public courts, he couldn’t give lessons, and he’d already spent all our cracked-teapot money on rackets. Jamie refused to help me get the tree, saying it was a pigeon egg of an idea and that Ba should never have bought rackets in the first place. I told him he was a pigeon egg of a son for saying that. Eventually, he relented, but how could he share that story with a perfect stranger?

“Did you also order him not to tell that story?”

An indignant cloud of vapor blows past my lips.

“Do not get angry. It was funny.” A dimple appears next to his mouth, a tiny star emerging from behind a cloud. “Whose idea was the donkey?”

I snort. “Mine.”

Jamie broke his wrist when the donkey we borrowed to haul the tree bolted, with the tree bumping along after it. Maybe he blames me all these years later for that tricky wrist.

“Half the branches had broken off by the time we got it home. Mum said, ‘You got daisies for brains if you think I’m letting that rottin’ piece of timber in here.’” I pour on Mum’s Cockney accent. Bo grunts out a laugh. “Ba chopped it up for firewood. At least it got him out of the house.”

The pod creaks as he shifts around. “Get in before you get a bad influenza.”

I’m glad for the dark that hides my reddening cheeks. But the warmth lifting out of the lifeboat nearly makes me swoon. “Fine, but don’t try anything.”

“Try what thing?”