“Here we go,” said the Magnificent Jimmy, “keep your eye on the blue ball,” and then the blue ball got away from him. It rolled toward the antsy little boy, who caught it. “Thank you, mate,” said the Magnificent Jimmy, “toss ’er here,” and the boy did. “You’re a very naughty blue ball,” the Magnificent Jimmy told the blue ball. “Don’t ever leave me again.”

His balloon-animal skills were terrific, balloons inside balloons, all blown up by his own lungs, no tacky hand pump. “I’ll do this in one go,” he said, and he filled a green balloon with one long breath. “I like to do it to annoy the smokers. Not bad for sixty-seven, eh?” An alien in a helmet. A dachshund who’d swallowed a meatball. A red Jelly Baby. “All my dogs are green poodles,” he said. “Reason being: when I was eleven, I painted the neighbor lady’s poodle green, and my father laughed. First good response I ever got from the man. Therefore, green poodles.”

She hoped he’d make balloons for everyone; she felt nervous for the children who didn’t have one yet. When you were a child you believed yourself special, deserving, and every piece of evidence to the contrary broke your heart. As an adult, the same was true. She hated when magicians asked for child volunteers, as the Magnificent Jimmy did: she felt swamped by the longing that rose up. Little kids put up their hands, eighteen-month-olds: they didn’t know they didn’t have a chance.

And yet Mistress Mickle loved the Magnificent Jimmy. It was a condescending love, she knew; she was Mistress Mickle, on television: you could buy a doll of her; he was the Magnificent Jimmy, sixty-seven and performing on a ferry. Perhaps she could get him an appearance on Barnaby Grudge. Or some other CBeebies program: she would talk to them. She would change his luck. He had the melancholy edge of a man acquainted with the dark thoughts of the back of the boat, someone whose life had not quite panned out. Maybe she would invite him to the excellent privacy of her cabin. Her heart scuttled, a sign she was actually considering it. Today she might do anything.

“All right,” said the Magnificent Jimmy, “this doesn’t work for everyone, but it does for some.” He pulled out a large, black-and-white disc on a stick, set it spinning. “Stare at the center. The very center. Keep staring.”

Was he hypnotizing them? She hoped so. She wanted to be changed. She would stand and do anything the Magnificent Jimmy commanded. For once she would be susceptible. So she concentrated, the good student, on the gyre of the disc. It seemed to go on for hours.

“Stare. Stare. Stare—now look at me!”

Gasps. Laughter. A teenage girl said, “Oh! Look at his head!”

For Mistress Mickle, nothing.