Earthly Astonishments (17 page)

“That’s a good idea!” Emmy sighed with relief.

“No, it’s not,” said Josephine. “They’ll just send her back to Miss MacLaren, and she’ll get twenty licks with the leather!”

Emmy shuddered, but Nelly ignored them both.

“What happens after that is up to her family, Jo.”

“But—”

“There’s nothing to say ‘but’ about. If she stays here any longer, we’ll all be in terrible trouble. There’ll be policemen and reporters and nosy do-gooders. Emmy’s father is a powerful man. We could be arrested! Or the museum closed down. Think how worried her parents must be tonight.”

“I’m sure they won’t know until tomorrow, Nelly,” Emmy piped up. “Miss MacLaren won’t want to report until she has to. The school is not on the telephone yet. She’ll have to wait for the post.”

“All the same, Emmy. You’re still a child. Your future has to be decided by your parents. And I’m sure it will be well taken care of.”

Emmy nodded, chewing on the tip of her braid. “You’re right, Mrs. O’Dooley.”

“I’m still a child too,” said Josephine, pouting.

“Aye, but you’re a child without parents. You’ve had to make choices for yourself a wee bit sooner than Emmy here. And you’ve done pretty well for the most part.”

“You’re very brave, Josephine,” said Emmy. “I could never—”

“Maybe I don’t like doing all the thinking for myself.”

“It’s much better that way, Jo.” Charley sounded as though he knew for certain. “Do you think I’m listening for Mr. Walters, or even Nelly, to tell me what to do with my life?”

“Yes, Charley, I do. We’re all listening to Mr. Walters, as a matter of fact. You’ve been listening to him for more than half your life!”

“Well, he is the boss, Jo,” Charley admitted, “but not forever. I plan to run my life the way I want it to be, not as anyone else decides for me.”

“That sounds very grand, Charley,” said Nelly softly. “Now, isn’t it a good thing you’re not needing to run anything for a time yet?”

Josephine didn’t like to hear him bragging. “That’s a lot of fat talk, Charley. Run your life in which direction? You won’t be the Albino Boy forever, you know. You’re fourteen years old. But you aren’t learning a trade to take you anywhere different. Do you want to grow up to be the Albino Man?”

“That’s what I’ll be anyway, you daft girl! This is who I am!”

“Oh, please!” cried Emmy. “Please don’t shout.”

Josephine lowered her voice, but kept on. “What kind of life is that?”

“Is it better to be ‘the Albino coal hauler’ that everyone snickers at behind my back, or ‘the Albino coach driver’?” Charley turned on Josephine. “Do you want to be ‘the midget in the sewing factory’? Or ‘the midget who cooks the hot dogs at Feltman’s’?”

“That’s enough, Charley.” Nelly’s voice was firm. She put up her hand to signal an end to the conversation. “We won’t have any more of this.”

Charley’s pale cheeks were flushed with the first color
Josephine had ever seen in them. He ignored his mother and continued to rail at Josephine. “Do you think you’ll start growing all of a sudden when you’re not a child anymore? Even if you quit being Little Jo-Jo, you’ll be a midget until the day they find you dead in your teeny little bed!”

“Oh, no!” Emmy’s hand flew to her mouth.

“Charley!” Nelly stood up and turned her son toward the door.

Charley held his palms to his cheeks, as if feeling their heat.

“I’m to bed,” he said.

Josephine’s eyes prickled with tears as he left the room. What had she said to make Charley so angry? She’d only said what he knew to be true. That Mr. Walters owned them both. That there might be a better life out there somewhere.

“I think we should all be getting to bed,” said Nelly gently. She sat next to Josephine on the quilt and put an arm about her shoulder.

“You have plenty of time to worry about the future, Jo. And no one is sending you out on your own, now that we’ve found you.” Nelly was warm, and she smelled faintly of apples. Josephine leaned against her, inhaling the calm.

“Emmy, however, will have to be going tomorrow.” Nelly was regretful, but left no opening for protest. Emmy bowed her head, knowing she had no choice.

“I’ll take her into the city in the morning, while you
and Charley get yourselves to work. When we hear how it all shakes out, maybe Margaret can bring her again, for a visit, on a Sunday.”

s Charley always so forceful?” Emmy asked in a whisper. “It seemed a dreadful argument.”

“We never had a disagreement before. Only teasing, is all.” Josephine was quiet a moment, getting used to having a confidante. “I’m all twisted up inside, not feeling sure how we’ll settle it.”

“Oh, you’ll fix things,” said Emmy. “I can see you’re the best of friends, really.”

“Do the girls do this at school?” asked Josephine. “Talk at night in the dormitory?”

“Not to me,” said Emmy. “I have the corner bed, so I’m out of the way. I do hear them whispering, though.”

“I never slept next to a person before,” confessed Josephine. “I don’t know if I wriggle.”

“I hope you don’t mind me saying,” said Emmy, “that you’re just about the size of my best doll, Belinda. She sits on the chest at the end of my bed at home. I’m not supposed to touch her really, her clothes are ever so fancy. You’re better than a doll, of course. Smarter.”

“People at the museum think I’m a doll sometimes,” said Josephine. “They think it’s a trick of some kind, that I can move and talk. So I don’t mind you saying it, in a nice way. But it’s an odd thing; all the day long, I’m next to big folk, or regular folk, I guess you’d say. The size of them is so familiar to me, sometimes it’s a surprise when I see my own hand or my own foot. Then I remember again that I’m small.”

Emmy was quiet. Then she tucked her arm around Josephine and, soon after, dozed off. Josephine lay still, cherishing the warmth of Emmy’s body. She could hear Nelly’s steady breath from the other bed.

Josephine, however, was jumpy as a grasshopper. For a while, she followed Emmy’s breathing, willing herself to go to sleep along with her. But finally she climbed carefully out from under her friend’s arm and hopped to the ground. She kept hearing Charley shouting at her, telling her things she wasn’t liking to listen to.

Silently she dressed and crept down the stairs, carrying her stockings and shoes. She would sit outside for a bit. Her thoughts were flitting around inside her head like flies in a sugar bowl.

The front door croaked faintly when she opened it and closed too quickly, with a thump, behind her. But no one called out, so Josephine sat on the doorstep to pull on her stockings and shoes. It was true, what Charley said. She would always be a midget. She would always wear stockings that could fit a cat. She would always have to reach for things that other folk just took.

Josephine tipped back her head to see the sky. She spent so much of each day bending her neck to look up, it should have snapped in two by now! She stepped into the street and turned, without hesitating, toward the ocean.

She hadn’t been outside alone after dark since her departure from the MacLaren Academy. Hilda’s little road was tucked away from the bustle, but as Josephine ventured farther, she discovered all manner of person, plying all manner of trade. The streets in Coney Island were as wide awake at night as in the city.

Boisterous customers spilled out of the taverns into the street, singing or fighting or strutting. The smell of beer drenched the air like mist. Rough men, selling everything from cigars and wagers to whiskey and knives, were stationed whichever way she looked.

Dodging the action, Josephine made her way to the beach, where even the water was tranquil tonight. The surface reflected stars and moonlight in glimmering splinters. A girl might glide across it, collecting gold dust on the soles of her feet.

How much had changed since her first glimpse of this splendid ocean! She had begun with such faith that Mr. Walters’s promise of happiness was moments away from becoming true. And it did come true for a while, didn’t it? She liked her dresses, and the pounding applause. She liked the two gold dollars she plucked from Mr. Walters’s large, flat palm every Saturday night.

Couldn’t she have those things without feeling
obliged to her employer? Without the fear of being caged or scolded? Though Mr. Walters had once promised her a family, it was not the museum where she felt at home. As much as she liked the other Astonishments, they were all too used to being on the outside of life. And Mr. Walters encouraged them to be peculiar.

Josephine had found her family with Nelly and Charley, not in the museum. She wanted to keep the family and change the home. Charley was right about deciding for herself.

Just as she thought his name, Josephine saw Charley’s form strolling across the sand, with his skin alight beneath the moon.

“I heard you go out,” he explained, not looking at her. “I thought I’d better follow in case you found trouble.”

“And what would you do with trouble if it found me?” sassed Josephine. “With you being blind as a mole? It’ll be me leading you home by the hand.”

She watched for his smile, but she could see he wasn’t giving in just yet.

“I like to go out at night,” he said, almost to himself. “There’s no sun to worry about, frying me up like bacon.”

Josephine stared out across the water, waiting to talk.

“Charley—” she began.

“Jo—” said Charley at the same moment.

“You go ahead first,” said Josephine.

“I only wanted to say…” Charley hesitated. “I only
think you should get used to being little, Jo. So’s you can settle down and make use of it.”

“I do know I’ll always be small,” said Josephine. “I’m not a ninny. But it seems wrong somehow to pretend it’s a skill of some kind. Just to use the thing you were born with and not put any effort or brains into it. Like being born pretty or rich and that being the end of it.”

Charley shook his head impatiently. “Don’t you see, Jo? It’s just the opposite. Outsiders like us, we need extra wits and extra courage to stay the way we’re born. We have to be who we are and hold our heads up at the same time. Can you see that?”

“Yes, I can see that. And I’m ready for it, I really am. Only I’m not staying with Mr. Walters anymore. Because he thinks of it as business, and for us, it’s our life. You should be the boss, Charley, you understand.”

Charley reached out his hand and rested it on Josephine’s shoulder.

“We could do it, Jo, just us, with Nelly to manage things, and maybe one or two others.”

“Maybe.”

“We could move around like gypsies. See the world a bit too.”

“I’d like that, Charley. I’d like to see what’s on the other side of that ocean.” She took a deep breath of the salty night air and blew it out in a happy gust. She opened her arms wide, knowing suddenly there was a whole world waiting out there for her.

“Do you suppose there’s other midgets right here in Coney Island?” she wondered.

“Walters’ Museum boasts to have the only one out here,” said Charley, “but there’s plenty in the city, I’ll stake my hair.”

“You can keep your hair, Charley. You’d be a fright, bald. I just was curious, is all. Did you ever meet another albino?”

“I saw one once in a traveling show. Nelly took me, thinking I’d like to see. It was a Wild Man Albino, with his hair all tangly, and him growling like a raging bear from behind a screen made of a fishing net. But he took one look at me and dropped to his knees, like he was ashamed of himself.”

Charley brushed a hand over his face, remembering.

“He whispered to me, real quiet and calm, so’s nobody else could hear, he said, ‘I’ve the heart of a gentleman, Boy, not the savage you see. Don’t ignore your heart, Boy, if you want a moment’s peace.’ That’s what he said.”

“That’s hard to do,” said Josephine. She slipped her hand into Charley’s thin, white one. “Especially at the Museum of Earthly Astonishments.”

“What we have to remember is, there’s things on this earth more astonishing than the color of a person’s eyes or the size of a person’s foot,” said Charley.

“That’s true,” said Josephine. “What’s astonishing is how we found each other, considering where we came from.”