India Dark by Kirsty Murray Page B

the water. Palm trees grew in the small garden out the front and vermilion flowers tumbled down a trellis. We piled into the hotel, all the girls talking at once and the noisy boys shouting as they raced each other up and down the marble staircase. Twenty-one girls with stage voices and dancing feet. Eight boys with too much energy and not enough sense. Miss Thrupp covered her ears in despair as our voices ricocheted across the foyer. Her Timmy began to howl, as usual, and she disappeared, leaving Mr Arthur to organise everything.
    Our trunks were unloaded and porters carried them upstairs to the rooms while Lo sorted us into our new groups. I wasn’t sure I even cared whether Poesy was put with us again, I was still feeling so cross with her. But Lo obviously had ideas of her own about Poesy and Eliza sharing a room. She placed me, Valentine and Poesy with three younger girls. Our room was on the second floor, above the tradesmen’s entrance. When I saw that the French windows opened out onto a balcony, I let out a shriek of pleasure. Valentine and I dragged two rattan chairs onto the balcony and sat with our arms resting on the railing, watching hawkers in the bustling street below. Poesy and the other girls took off their boots and flopped onto the white beds, pulling mosquito nets around themselves.
    â€˜This weather is beastly,’ said Valentine, patting her brow with her hankie. ‘I hope it’s not like this everywhere we go.’
    â€˜It will be hot in Manila too,’ I said. ‘But I still think it’s my favourite place in the East. Those American soldiers simply love giving chocolates and flowers.’
    Suddenly Poesy piped up, contradicting me. ‘We’re not going to Manila at all.’
    â€˜Oh, how would you know, Poesy?’
    â€˜While everyone was shouting down in the lobby, I heard Mr Arthur talking with Mr Shrouts. Mr Shrouts had just come from having tea with someone from Liddiard’s Lilliputians. And Mr Shrouts told Mr Arthur that the Ramos brothers had all of Manila sewn up and no one wanted to see another child troupe so soon after Liddiard’s.’
    â€˜Yes, but we will get there eventually,’ I said.
    â€˜That’s not what I heard,’ she said.
    Valentine and I looked at each other and then at Poesy, still lying beneath the mosquito netting, so wise, so smug. ‘What else do you know, Poesy?’
    â€˜Lizzie says we’ll be in India for a very long time and then go to China. We probably won’t get to America until 1911.’
    â€˜Nineteen-eleven! That’s years away. I thought we were only going to visit Calcutta, not tour the whole ruddy sub-continent. I can’t wait until 1911 to reach America.’
    â€˜You might have to,’ said Poesy. ‘We all have to do as we’re told.’
    Then she turned on her side and put her pillow over her head, as if she couldn’t bear to hear what I would say next.
    I stormed across the room and snatched the pillow away from her. ‘Listen here, Miss Poesy. I’ve had quite enough of your airs and graces. How dare you tell me that I have to do as I’m told, as if you’re the one who knows all about being a Lilliputian. And why didn’t you tell me the minute you heard we were going to be stuck in the East for years?’
    â€˜I did tell you,’ whined Poesy.
    â€˜Don’t contradict me,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to you, Poesy. You’re not the girl I knew in Richmond.’
    Poesy climbed off the bed, pushing her way past me as she walked to the door of our room. ‘Perhaps I’m not that girl any more. Maybe I’m not who you think I am. I might have my own ideas about things.’
    â€˜Perhaps, might, maybe and s’pose,’ I called after her. ‘Make up your mind, Poesy Swift! Whose friend are you?’

23
    STAGEDOOR JOHNNIES
    Poesy Swift
    We played the Victoria Theatre that