Chasing Secrets Page 11

  When Ho comes after school, I dive into the carriage.

  “Um, Ho.” I clear my throat to control the trembling. “Could you take me to a friend’s house?”

  “Yes, miss. Where is that?”

  I hold my breath. “Down by Chinatown.”

  Ho’s Adam’s apple slides up and down. He steals a look back. “Mrs. Sweeting knows about this?”

  “Of course.” I try to sound convincing, but mostly I’m just loud.

  I’ve put him in a bind. He doesn’t want to displease me, as I can report him to Aunt Hortense. But if he goes along with what Aunt Hortense calls “Elizabeth’s harebrained plans,” she’ll have his head.

  I watch which way he steers the horses. Toward home or Chinatown? I hold my breath.

  Chinatown!

  We’re getting close. I can see the barricade up ahead. Ho fidgets, stealing glances back at me.

  I spot a nearby building with paint peeling from the posts, blinds down and one boarded up window. “Here,” I say.

  He pulls the horses up. “Miss? I don’t think—”

  I jump out of the carriage. “Tell Aunt Hortense I’ll be home before dark.”

  “Miss, are you sure Mrs. Sweeting—”

  “Yes, yes. She knows.” I slip around a corner and wait.

  When he’s gone, I tie on the protective mask, the cap, the coat, and the gloves. For once, I’m glad I’m tall. With the mask on, I can pass for an adult.

  Papa says there are woman doctors, but since I’ve never seen one, I’m going to pretend to be a nurse. It would be better if I had a proper uniform underneath the medical coat, but no matter. I head to the quarantine zone. My hands sweat in the gloves. I untie the bottom of the mask so I can breathe.

  Here the quarantine line is nothing more than a wire across the road. Surely I can get through that.

  Two policemen patrol the wire. “Excuse me! Excuse me, sir!” I wave. “I have to get inside. I have to see patients.”

  “What? Who are you?” the tall policeman with shiny buttons asks. The other policeman is eating a sandwich.

  “I’m Dr. Kennedy’s assistant,” I say.

  “Who’s he? What you got all that on for?”

  “In case of contagion, sir.”

  The tall policeman steps closer. He looks me up and down. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two,” I lie.

  “Twenty-two?” He snorts. “How old are you really?”

  “Twenty-one,” I try again.

  He laughs. “Lost a year already. Don’t you know it’s a crime to lie to a police officer? Ben, how old you think this one is?”

  The other officer squints at me.

  “Take the mask off,” the first officer says.

  I untie it.

  He shakes his head. “Even younger than I thought. Fourteen at most. That right?”

  A drop of sweat slips down beneath my shirtwaist.

  The policeman crosses his stiff arms. “You don’t have any business in there.”

  I stand stupidly, unsure if I should keep pretending or tell the truth.

  The policeman turns away. “Ben, you got another one of them sandwiches?”

  Now what? Maybe I can try again on the other side of the quarantine area. I’m marching that way when I hear the wheels of a carriage creak behind me.

  Gemma’s head pops out. “Lizzie! Lizzie, is that you?”

  The Trotters! Gus, Gemma, and their driver.

  “What in the world are you doing?” Gemma demands as their carriage pulls up beside me.

  “What am I doing?”

  Gus and Gemma exchange a look. “You were acting weird at school,” Gemma explains. “We decided to follow you. And it’s a good thing we did.”

  “I was not acting weird,” I say.

  “You were. Why are you dressed like that?”

  “Our cook, Jing, is stuck in the quarantine. I’m trying to get him out.”

  “Quarantine for what?” Gemma asks.

  “The plague,” Gus tells her.

  “For goodness’ sake, Lizzie, take that stuff off and get into this carriage right now.” Gemma pats the seat next to her.

  I look over at the policeman patrolling. I didn’t fool this one. What makes me think I’ll fool the next? Will they take me to the police station next time? Put me in jail? No telling what Aunt Hortense will do if she has to bail me out.

  I climb up into the Trotter carriage.

  Gemma helps me get the mask untied. “If your cook has been in the quarantine, he’ll be contagious.”

  “It’s not a real plague outbreak,” I say.

  “Why else would they have a quarantine?” she asks.

  “It has to do with a monkey,” Gus explains. “We’re waiting to see if a monkey dies. And if the monkey dies, it might really be the plague.”

  “That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Gemma tells me.

  “I know, but it’s true.”

  “Why is Jing so important?” Gemma asks as I settle in between Gemma and Gus.

  “He’s our cook. He’s a member of our family,” I say as we pass a row of run-down buildings. Laundry hangs out the window to dry. Pigeons coo and scurry around buckets of old crab shells, the air thick with the smell of fish.

  Gus nods, his brow furrowed. “Wouldn’t it be better to try to get him out than try to get you in?”

  “I just…haven’t been able to figure out how.”

  “We’ll help you.” Gus smiles at me.

  I look from Gus to Gemma. They actually seem excited to be a part of this. Did anyone ever have better friends than these two?

  The Trotters live in a yellow house with a witch’s cap turret and big bay windows that look clear down to the bay and the little island of Alcatraz. The Trotters’ garden is filled with yellow, pink, peach, and lavender roses. Mrs. Trotter is on the porch with a big floppy hat and pruning shears.

  Gemma takes me up to her room. It’s larger than mine, with pale yellow striped wallpaper, a wicker back rocker, a hat stand filled with hats, and a table jammed with music boxes.

  When Gus comes in, he has a pen, paper, and an envelope. He sits down at Gemma’s writing desk.

  “What are you up to?” Gemma wants to know.

  “Writing a letter.”

  I glance over at the stationery: TROTTER, BLACK, AND JESSUP, ATTORNEYS AT LAW.

  “On Papa’s letterhead?” Gemma asks.

  “Yep,” he mutters.

  We watch as Gus dunks the pen into the ink, taps off the excess, and begins writing. Gemma leans over his shoulder.

  “It has come to my attention,” Gemma reads, “that the cook in the residence of the esteemed and revered Dr. Kennedy has been unable to see to his duties. Dr. Kennedy’s work has been impeded by his cook’s absence. His absence has caused heartache and hardship of great magnitude for the Kennedys, and it is important, imperative, and essential that he be released at once….”

  Gemma’s mouth drops open. “You’re not going to sign Papa’s name.”

  “Course not.” Gus smiles a sly smile. “I’m going to sign my name.”

  “Gus! He was named after Papa,” she tells me. “Still”—she raises her eyebrows at him—“he won’t like you using his stationery.”

  They stare at each other, considering this.

  “It’s pretty good, though. Official, like the way he writes,” Gemma says.

  Gus’s eyes are on me. Is it my opinion that matters to him?

  “Sounds like a lawyer to me,” I say.

  “And it’s for a good cause. You know how Papa always talks about making moral decisions,” Gemma says, nodding now.

  Gus bends his head over the page, his pen nib scratching against the paper as he finishes his letter.

  —

  There’s a hop to my step as I climb up into the Trotters’ carriage.

  We don’t want to risk running into the same policemen I talked to earlier. So we take a long route around to the other side of C
hinatown.

  Beyond the ropes and sawhorses of the quarantine line, red lanterns hang, carved wooden dragons wind around a pole, and red silk shirts flutter in the breeze. I search the faces as I always do, but no Jing.

  Gus presents the envelope to a mounted policeman, who reads the letter, rubs his eyes under his spectacles, and reads it again. The policeman refolds the letter and slips it back into the envelope. “Sorry, son.” He returns the letter to Gus. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  “But we need our cook,” I say.

  The policeman shrugs. “You, me, and my aunt Theresa. We let them all out, won’t be much of a quarantine, now, will it?”

  “But that’s a letter from a lawyer,” Gemma points out.

  “I see that, miss, but it isn’t a court order. I’m sorry. I can’t let you through. Go on now.” He flaps his hand. “We need to keep this area free of traffic.”

  The Trotters’ driver turns the carriage around. I look back at the paper parasols and cone-shaped bamboo hats hanging on hooks. On this side, the signs are all in English.

  Gemma takes my hand and squeezes it. “Sorry, Lizzie.”

  No one says anything else the rest of the way home. I begin to wonder if I’m ever going to get Jing out.

  After school the next day, the cord is down. I take the stairs two at a time. But then I remember that Noah will need supplies, and I run back to the kitchen to fill my basket.

  When Noah opens the door, I fill him in on everything in a big rush. I explain what Peter said and how I tried to pretend to be a nurse to get into Chinatown. I tell him how Gus Trotter wrote a letter on his father’s letterhead, but that didn’t work, either.

  His upper lip trembles. “You’re going to give up, aren’t you?” he whispers.

  “Of course not,” I say.

  He flashes his crazy grin. “I wish I could go with you.”

  I think about how nice it would be for Noah and me to walk down the street, or ride in the carriage, or bicycle in Golden Gate Park like other friends do. “I wish you could, too.”

  “Hey.” He smiles. “I made something for you.” He pulls a small brown paper-wrapped package out of his pants pocket and hands it to me.

  I unfold the paper and pull out a piece of fabric. A buttonhole strip. Except mine has a button in the buttonhole. The button is the head of an animal, the body is sewn in gold thread. It has four big paws and a tail with a yellow puff at the bottom. Around the button a thick yellow mane has been fluffed out from the strip. Noah has made me a button-head lion.

  “So you’ll remember to be brave,” he says.

  “With the girls at Miss Barstow’s?” I ask.

  “With everyone. Be your best true self. That’s what Baba says.”

  I sigh. “That’s hard.”

  “It takes a lot of courage,” he agrees. “That’s what I think about when I do the lion dance.”

  “Thank you for this,” I whisper, holding the button against my chest.

  He nods, pleased that I’m pleased.

  “Lizzie!” I hear Billy tromping below.

  Noah’s face falls.

  “Oh no,” I whisper.

  “LIZZIEEEE! Where the heck are you?”

  I take off out of Jing’s room and down the stairs. On the second floor, Billy sees me come out of the servants’ stairwell.

  “What were you doing up there?”

  “Looking for the kittens.”

  “Kittens, huh?” He watches me closely. “What’s the matter with you, anyway? This morning you were moping around like your horse died.”

  “I tried to get Jing out again. Didn’t work.”

  Billy scratches his eyebrow and frowns. “I thought he’d have found a way home by now. Maybe he needs our help.”

  “Of course he does. What do you think I’ve been telling you!”

  He shrugs, stares out the hall window. “There’s this woman, Donaldina Cameron, who lives in Chinatown with a bunch of girls. If there’s a girl in trouble, she rescues them. People call her the Angry Angel, because she gets people out of dangerous places. Anyway, I heard that her front door isn’t quarantined. Her back door is.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “What about this quarantine makes sense?”

  “Nothing,” I admit, sitting on the hall chair and unlacing my boots.

  “I helped her get a girl out once. Climbed a tree, jumped in the window, and carried the girl down. She owes me.”

  “Out of where?”

  “A bad situation.” He picks a flower out of the hall vase and rips it apart petal by petal. “She was working for people in Presidio Heights. They were beating her.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugs. “Bad people do bad things.”

  “She’s okay now, right?”

  He nods, wadding up the petals in his hand.

  “You should tell Papa when you do things like that. It would make him proud.”

  “Which is exactly why I don’t.”

  I frown at him. “Why wouldn’t you tell him something that would make him happy?”

  He sighs. “Because I don’t want to do things for him. I want to do them for me.” He opens his hand.

  “But you did it for you. What’s the matter with just telling him?”

  He snorts. “Put your shoes back on. You want to try this or not?”

  I shove my toes back into my boots. “Of course I do. But what will we tell Aunt Hortense?”

  He smiles in his sly Billy way. “Leave that to me.”

  —

  “I understand you and William would like to go to the opera tonight,” Aunt Hortense announces when I come down the stairs.

  “Oh, yes,” I say. Opera? I mouth the word to Billy behind Aunt Hortense’s back.

  He nods. Later, in the wagon, he explains. “We need time. The opera gets out late.”

  “She believed you.”

  “Of course. She believes everything I say.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “It is.”

  “But what happens when she comes home and we’re not there?”

  “She’s going to a masquerade ball with Uncle Karl. We’ll be home before she is,” Billy says, and picks up the lines.

  “Shouldn’t we be wearing opera clothes?”

  “She’s upstairs. She can’t see us.”

  “Won’t Ho tell her?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He owes me.”

  “Does everybody owe you?”

  “Yes.” He smiles. “As a matter of fact, they do.”

  We take the fast route to Chinatown and then go around to the back side. Through the quarantine wire, I see a vegetable stand, a few weird-looking bumpy green vegetables. Bins of brown roots. Not much there. Are they running out of food?

  At the far corner, outside the wire, we stop at a plain three-story brick building. I can’t see the back door from here, but there’s the quarantine rope down the street.

  “Why would they quarantine her back door but not her front door?” I ask.

  “People think God will protect her because she’s doing his work. Look, you stay here with John Henry.” He climbs down. “I’ll go in and talk to her.”

  The sun is setting, leaving an orange glow on the street. A group of Chinese girls in shirtwaists and skirts hurries up the front steps. A horse trots down the hill behind us. I’m getting a little more used to Chinatown, but still it is strange and I don’t like sitting out here by myself. Although, technically I’m not in the quarantine, so this isn’t Chinatown.

  The darker it gets, the more anxious I become. I sit up tall, try to look fierce. But my feet are cold and my bottom is tired of sitting. Every time I see someone walk by, I jump. I think about Noah’s lion. Being brave is a lot easier in daylight. Finally Billy comes out. “They’re going to send someone in for him.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  “What time is Aunt Horten
se getting back?”

  “Late. Those masquerade balls start late and last a long time.”

  “What if she calls the police?”

  “What if she does? Do you want to get Jing out or not?” The lights are on in Miss Cameron’s house. A girl carrying a lantern walks by the window. Upstairs we hear girls singing.

  “Billy?”

  “Yes.”

  I pull my knees up. “Are you going to become a doctor?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Remember when Mama died? Remember how sure Papa was that he could save her?”

  “That wasn’t his fault. He tried his best.” I pull my coat tighter around myself.

  “I know he did. That’s why it’s a stupid profession. Nothing he did worked.”

  “You can’t prevent people from dying.”

  John Henry shuffles his legs. He bites at his shoulder, leaving a wet spit mark.

  “But you shouldn’t tell people you can help them when you can’t,” Billy says.

  “It makes them feel better.”

  “It’s a lie.”

  “But, Billy, sometimes you can help them.”

  “Yeah…I guess.”

  We listen to the distant foghorn and watch the fog roll in. Under a dim gaslight in Chinatown, a group of men in black are serving food to a long line of people. The smell of soy sauce wafts toward us.

  A crucifix hangs in the window of Miss Cameron’s house, backlit and eerie in the night. The singing has stopped. A girl giggles. Voices rise and fall, some in Chinese, some in English.

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  “Haven’t decided. Might want to be a fighter,” Billy says finally.

  “Why?”

  An owl hoots in the distance. A family of raccoons scurries down the street, making their strange clicking sounds. “It’s fun.”

  “It’s fun to get a black eye?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t mind. Besides, there’s a lot more to it than that.”

  I rearrange myself. Try to get comfortable. Use my purse as a pillow. I’m almost asleep when the wagon jiggles. I grab Billy’s arm. “Billy!”

  “Shush, Lizzie. It’s okay,” Billy whispers.

  I turn back. A Chinese woman in a large silk tunic and silk pants and a red silken hat climbs into our wagon.

  I tighten my hold on Billy’s sleeve. “Billy!”

  And then I see her face.