Read Online Earthly Astonishments by Marthe Jocelyn - Free Book Online

her with relish. “A rare condition that makes his skin look scaley and cracked like the bark of an old tree. It’s so plug-ugly you could cry.”
    Josephine looked back over her shoulder. That gentle, pleasant face was sitting atop a lizardly body? She found that she, too, could be astonished.
    “Hey! Filipe! I didn’t see you at the station!” Charley punched the arm of an older boy, who tapped him back with a grin.
    “Where are the snakes?” asked Charley.
    “Snakes?” asked Josephine.
    “They’re not allowed on the train,” answered Filipe. His accent was different from that of Nelly and Charley. “They will ride tomorrow on the roof of Mr. Walters’s carriage.”
    Filipe’s dashing yellow cap barely contained his thatch of black hair. His skin was the color of coffee with milk poured into it. Next to him, Charley looked as white as a marble floor.
    “Marco and Polo are pythons,” explained Charley.
    “Uck,” said Josephine.
    “Those snakes are so big they’d eat you for supper, Jo.”
    Filipe eyed her, considering. “It’s true, I think. You are not so big as a one-year pig. This would make a good supper.”
    He and Charley punched each other again, laughing out loud with their mouths wide open.
    Josephine bit the inside of her lip. She felt the train shaking under her, matching the quivers of anger inside. Charley should know better than to tease about her size. How would he feel if she called him—what could she call him that would hurt? How about Paste Face? Or Ghost Boy?
    “Never mind the boys, they get silly and cut shines.” Nelly was suddenly beside her. “Look here, we’ve arrived. We’ll see the ocean!”
    Josephine was lifted from the train like a picnic basket and set on the platform of the Coney Island station.She felt the ocean in the air almost like a slap, before she even saw it.
    Oh, the ocean!
    No one had prepared her for the ocean. She knew it was there, of course; there were oceans in books about sailing ships, and it was a spreading blue background on the map in the Academy’s geography classroom.
    But no one had said the word “ocean” in an ecstatic whisper with shining eyes and clasped hands and body tilted as if feeling the salty wind.
    And then she saw it for herself! A huge, glittering carpet, shifting and rolling under the summer sun, like acres of spangled silk! This ocean was here all the time? She could come every day to smell the fresh, tangy air. To hear the perpetual rumble and crash of the foaming waves. To watch the sparkle on the water, like countless floating jewels.
    The sting of Charley’s teasing faded away. The whole week of being measured for fancy clothes and smiling at newspapermen disappeared.
    Josephine couldn’t believe her luck. She had an ocean!

osephine’s first day of employ at the Museum IP of Earthly Astonishments in Coney Island was one she would remember for all of her life.
    Nelly fed her bites of toasted bread while she dressed, because she had no stomach for the oatmeal porridge that Charley devoured each morning. During her regular exhibition hours, Mr. Walters had decreed that Josephine wear a dress of rose-colored satin with a purple petticoat and lavender stockings. If she were to fall down and give a view of her underpinnings, she’d look like a garden in full bloom!
    Charley wore his customary work uniform of a black suit with a pink cravat, which made his eyes glitter like blushing crystals.
    “You look about to be married, Charley O’Dooley!” said Josephine.
    “Oooeee! You’re almighty comely yourself when you’re slicked up, Jo!” And when she looked in the glass propped against the wall, she had to agree. Her hair was pinned up into a real lady’s chignon, adding several years to her face. Nelly had insisted that a few curls escaping at the back were the height of fashion.
    Nelly, who gave up her job at the Half-Dollar Saloonduring the summer months, would be in charge of the admissions booth at the museum.