Read Online The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen by Geraldine McCaughrean - Free Book Online

bite?” asked Kookie.
    â€œYes,” said Cissy, who had just gotten down to stroke them.
    The talent spotters were happy to see a lantern-slide projector carried aboard. “We have lantern-slide shows sometimes in the storeroom back home!” said Cissy. “Leastwise we did .”
    The projectionist, who had scaly skin and a paunch, hugged the shiny black metal to his chest, and his eyes flickered to and fro between half-closed lids. “My show’s not for your sort.”
    The children looked at one another. Could there really be a projectionist in the world who did not like other people to see his slide collection? “Do you have any wild-animal ones?” asked Cissy. “I saw a zebra once in—”
    â€œNo,” snapped the scaly man. “You kids got no fathers?” And he cast about with his snaky eyes for some adult who might appreciate his wares. The comment about fathers did not endear him to Cissy. Nor did his habit of scratching himself with the slide box. But despite disliking his audience, he snapped open the legs of the projector and pointed it at the cleanest, least mossy wall. After a few curses and some complex chemistry with a pellet of lime, which produced a brilliant blue light, he slid home the first slide.
    Tibbie closed her eyes and covered her face with both hands. Kookie stared, his mouth ajar, his eyelids fringed with exclamation marks.
    â€œNext!” said Cissy with great presence of mind.
    But the projectionist deliberately mistook her, and put in the next slide.
    â€œ Next! ” said both girls simultaneously. The projec-tionist leered and reached for a third.
    â€œGo away!” they shouted at him, all three.
    â€œYou wanna get us all arrested?” squeaked Kookie. Even so, his eyes stayed on the mold-spattered wall for a long time after the naked ladies had faded from view and the projectionist had clattered his way angrily ashore, spilling burning pellets and a smell of graveyard lime.
    The moving pictures, on the other hand, had all three children enthralled. Medora, who was Spanish and dressed in Gypsy costume, was pretty attention-catching. But they had never seen anything so new-fangled or marvelous as Medora’s Amazing Photopia. The images flickering across the wall exceeded lantern slides as far as a horse exceeds the painting of a horse. Tibbie got down and laid her hand to the wall to see if she could feel the fluttering butterflies of light and dark. Instead, the pictures engulfed her, patterning her dress, while human figures strutted jerkily across her smock and the blond curtain of her hair.
    â€œTibs, you’re in the moving pictures!” breathed Kookie . . . and then they were all standing against the wall, watching gray phantoms play across their hands and chests.
    The coin-operated, vibrating therapy chair was also immense fun. Since it was designed for adults, it bounced the children around like peas in a drum and dumped them unceremoniously on the floor. “Spackfacious!” said Kookie.
    â€œCan I have another try?” said Cissy.
    The chair belonged to a barber-surgeon called George. He was eager to set up a booth on board, offering shaves and haircuts. He rarely used the vibrating facility: customers begrudged another dime on top of the price of a haircut, and while the chair was shuddering its way around the room, it was nigh impossible to give a man a close shave without cutting his throat. Another service George no longer offered was phrenology.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œIt’s a science,” said George defensively. “Study of the skull. You can tell a lot from feeling a man’s skull . . .”
    â€œWhat, while he’s still wearing it?”
    â€œ. . . health . . . intelligence. But no! Only thing customers wanted to know: was money coming their way. Or love. Like it’s fortune-telling or something. Don’t do much phrenology lately.” He sank into