The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen Read Free Page A

idolatry.”
    â€œIdolatry?”
    â€œWell what else are you, if you ain’t idle? I’ve a good mind to—”
    â€œI sent her over to the print house with a message, Hildy,” said Cissy’s father, emerging from the back room. “No need to carry on at the child.”
    Cissy thanked her father with a smile and slipped the loop of her apron over her head once more. It was stiff and scratchy with starch, and it felt like a hangman’s noose as she tugged her hair free. “Why is the silo outside our place, Poppy?”
    â€œThat’s as far as they got it, chicken. Mr. West put his knee out pushing one of the rollers. So they’ve wedged it where it is: all set for the last few yards tomorrow.”
    At the end of school, Kookie came tearing up the street to discover by what ruse Cissy had escaped Miss May March’s exam. Mrs. Fudd was standing in the doorway with two skeins of knitting yarn in either hand, showing them to the daylight, comparing them with a jar of jam. “Damson, my sister wants. Reckon that’s damson?”
    â€œI’d say it was, kinda.” Cissy tried to sound helpful but sounded simply unconvinced. When she saw Kookie on the boardwalk, waiting to get through the door, her cheeks flushed the color of strawberries.
    â€œDepends if it’s in the jar or on the tree, I guess,” said Mrs. Fudd. “Ya think my sister meant damson in the jar or on the tree?”
    Cissy had to confess: “I couldn’t say, Mrs. Fudd. It’s a pretty enough color. I think the Romans liked it. They dyed their best clothes in plum.” Her education might have foundered, but Cissy struggled to keep its little flag flying.
    â€œ Romans? Save us all! Clementine wouldn’t want nothing as foreign as that!” And Mrs. Fudd hung her skeins over Cissy’s hands and left the shop.
    Cissy’s mother uttered a gasp of exasperation. “First I knew the Romans wore cardigans . Thank you kindly for edifying us, miss.” As she said it, her eyes flicked between Cissy and Kookie, hovering in the doorway. “Well? Set the wool back where you found it, and next time remember: keep your Romans to yourself, you hear?” It was said for Kookie’s benefit: Mrs. Sissney might just as well have embroidered SHOPGIRL on Cissy’s forehead with purple wool.
    Kookie frowned. “You shorthanded?” he asked. “You got a rush on?” His eyes drifted around the empty store, took in Cissy’s apron. “One of my brothers could help out, maybe.”
    Cissy said nothing. She tried to edge Kookie out through the door onto the sunlit boardwalk, away from her mother’s withering stare, but he stayed put, obdurately looking about him, putting two and two together.
    â€œâ€™Nother letter came today from Miss Loucien,” he said. “Shoulda been there.”
    Cissy gave a little cry of anguish. The news felt like the last and unkindest cut. “So soon? Who read it out?”
    â€œI did, course. Seemingly, Curly got thirty days for profunnity (whatever that is) in a place called Salvation (wherever that is), so the rest of the company is camping out in a shipwreck till he’s served his time!”
    It was impossible to picture. Almost. In Cissy’s imagination, mild-mannered little Curly (ticket seller of the Bright Lights Theater Company) mouthed at her through the bars of a jail window, while Miss Loucien picnicked on the seabed off open clamshells. “Shipwreck?” she whispered.
    â€œSome old boat in a field.”
    â€œWhat’s a boat doing in a field?”
    But just then Tibbie Boden came toiling up the street, carrying a big, tightly stuffed carpetbag. Kookie, seeing an opportunity for chivalry, ran and snatched the bag from her. “Where d’you want I should take it?” His day took on a further strangeness when she nodded toward the store. “You stopping over with