The Monkey's Secret Page 5

  “I’m going to tell them he doesn’t live in Chinatown, he lives with us. He doesn’t belong in the quarantined area. Papa’s a doctor. He needs Jing’s help.”

  “We should mention Uncle Karl,” Billy says.

  “I wish Papa were here. He’d know what to do.”

  Billy snorts. “I don’t.”

  Papa wants Billy to go to medical school, and he won’t take no for an answer. Every time Billy says he might want to do something else, Papa looks like he’s getting surgery without anesthesia.

  Papa doesn’t expect much of me, so he’s often pleasantly surprised. That’s one good thing about being a girl.

  “Why are you so mad at Papa all the time?” I ask.

  “I’m not mad at him; he’s mad at me. Everything I do disappoints him.”

  “You used to be nicer.”

  “You didn’t used to be such a Goody Two-shoes.”

  “I’m not!”

  “Oh, Papa, can you show me how to clean a bedsore?” He makes his voice gooey and high-pitched.

  “I don’t sound like that.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Well, I’d rather go with him than go to school.”

  “Still having trouble with those girls?”

  I don’t answer. We pass two men in matching outfits riding a bicycle built for two.

  “You try too hard. That’s your problem. They can smell it on you.”

  How do you try not to try? Or try in a way so that people don’t think you’re trying? Why can’t people just say what they want and be who they are?

  “Hey, Billy!” A boy, maybe seventeen, with a plaid cap and red cheeks waves to him from the back of a wagon. “You sure got a thumping last night.”

  Billy shrugs as a distant boat toots its horn. “Going to make my two bits back tonight, Oofty. You watch,” Billy tells him.

  “You’re fighting? Does Papa know?” I ask.

  “Not unless you tell him, you little squealer.”

  “I’m not a squealer. You know I’m not,” I say as a wagon loaded with wood turns down a side street. A few blocks later we pass Dr. Jenkins’s Museum, where the head of the world’s greatest bandit can be seen in a bottle.

  Soon the air begins to smell like burning rubbish. Black pots placed every few yards spew stinking smoke. Wooden sawhorses and ropes circle the haphazard crowded-together buildings of Chinatown. Chinese signs, Chinese characters, Chinese lanterns, and foreign scrollwork—Chinatown is its own city in the middle of our city.

  The police in their navy coats and hard bell-shaped helmets are out. I count five on horseback, seven on foot.

  Inside the ropes of Chinatown, crowds of Chinese wait for … what? Most men have long braids and wear baggy silk clothes. Some are in black with black derbies, some have on bright colors. The few women wear fine embroidered robes and trousers. Some men smoke. Some pace the ropes that cordon off Chinatown.

  I scan the crowd. Only a few men are in regular clothes, and none are Jing. I notice the donkey-pulled hearse. When rich men die in San Francisco, they get a carriage drawn by six white horses. When poor men die, they get a wheelbarrow ride or the donkey-pulled hearse. When it passes us, I see that it’s empty.

  A few minutes later a wagon full of barrels roll by. Strangely, the police let that one out of the quarantine area.

  “How did they decide where to rope off?”

  “Everything that’s Chinese, they quarantined.”

  “They think white people can’t get sick?”

  Billy shrugs.

  “Papa would be mad if he saw how they’re locked in,” I say.

  “Papa doesn’t know half of what happens in this city.”

  “Let’s get closer. Then we can ask about Jing. What’s his last name, anyway?”

  Billy shakes his head. “Maybe Jing is his last name.”

  “We don’t even know,” I whisper. Noah’s words flash in my mind. You don’t know anything.

  Billy maneuvers the wagon closer to the quarantine line, away from the cluster of police. “Hey!” I call to a little boy in a red silk jacket. “Do you know if Jing is in there?”

  The little boy hops on one foot, then the other. “Jing?” he asks.

  “He’s our cook.”

  The boy hops closer. A man in a black derby scolds him, and the little boy scurries away. The other men inside the rope stay away from the boundary. They ignore our calls.

  A policeman on foot half-runs toward me. “Move it on!”

  “Mr. Policeman, sir.” My heart pounds in my chest. “Our cook lives with us. He got caught in the quarantine by accident. Could we get him out?”

  “No one’s to go in. No one’s to go out.”

  “Yes, but this was a mistake, sir. Our uncle Karl Sweeting is going to be talking to you about it.”

  The policeman stops. “Mr. Sweeting? He’s your uncle?” He peers at us. “I don’t know nothing about that. My orders is to keep folks out of here.”

  “Yes, sir.” Billy turns John Henry around.

  We walk around the quarantine—far enough away that the police don’t bother us. Down a side street we pass officers drinking coffee. I listen in as we roll by.

  “You know anything?” a policeman with a red beard asks.

  “When it’s going to end, you mean?” the officer with his helmet off replies.

  “Waiting on the monkey,” the third officer replies.

  The second officer laughs. “The monkey, is it? City of fools, if you ask me.”

  “What monkey? What are they talking about?” I whisper to Billy.

  “Who knows? It could be a code, or a nickname. There’s a man named Monkey Warren.”

  “But why would this monkey man have anything to do with Chinatown?”

  “It’s just talk.” Billy peers down the block to the barricade. “We’re not going to get any closer than this.”

  In the distance I see a painted dragon and large blue-and-white porcelain vases outside a shop on a deserted street. A man with a pole over his shoulders carries loaded baskets on each end.

  Billy circles John Henry back. “We tried, Lizzie.”

  “We can’t leave. Jing’s in there.”

  “Maybe Jing has a lady friend. Maybe he’s in Berkeley visiting his cousin. Maybe he told Papa he’d be gone and didn’t tell us. Why are you so sure he’s in the quarantine?”

  John Henry is moving faster. He knows we’re headed home. I guess that’s one good thing about a motorcar. They don’t get barn sour.

  “It just makes sense,” I say.

  “If you’re going to be a scientist, you’re going to need to prove what you think.”

  “I know!”

  “Look.” Billy’s eyes are kind now. “Stop worrying about Jing, okay? He’ll be back.”

  I’ve lost the battle. Billy’s going home. If only I knew these policemen the way Uncle Karl does. Wait. Do I know any policemen? That girl Caroline, whose arm I set. Wasn’t her father a policeman?

  “Billy, wait here for me.” I dive from the wagon seat.

  “Lizzie! No! LIZZIE!” Billy shouts. I’m holding my skirts up, running fast, jigging and jagging around a spittoon, a tethered horse, a watering trough, and a mounting block.

  But when I turn the corner, where the policemen were drinking coffee, they’re gone. I keep running toward Chinatown.

  The first policeman I see is on horseback, walking the roped-off line.

  “Excuse me, sir. Sir!” I wave to him.

  “What are you doing out here, young lady?”

  “Do you know where Officer Jessen might be?”

  The policeman’s horse is fidgety. He roots his head. “Jessen? He family of yours?”

  “No, sir. He’s a friend of my papa’s. But it’s important. I need to see him.”

  The policeman nods. “Stay put. I’ll get him.” His skittery horse leaps forward. I glance back, wondering if Billy will wait, go home, or come find me.

  Inside the barricade, I se
e a policeman start a bonfire in the street; trash and bedding explode in flames.

  Thick orange clouds of stinking chemicals rise. People cough, cover their faces with their shirts. Scatter in all directions. A ring of policemen surrounds the fire. Buckets of water appear. Sparks die down with a hiss, then turn to smoke.

  Outside the barricade, a big policeman lumbers toward me. Caroline’s father.

  “Officer Jessen!” I say.

  He looks me up and down. “You’re Dr. Kennedy’s daughter. Aren’t you the one who helped my little girl with her arm?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m Lizzie.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Billy driving John Henry down the street toward us. He’s driving standing up and motioning for me to come.

  “What’s the problem, Lizzie?” Officer Jessen asks. “What can I do to help?”

  “Our cook, Jing, is in the quarantine. We need to get him out.”

  Officer Jessen shakes his big head. “If he’s in there, I can’t get him out.”

  “But he doesn’t belong in Chinatown. He lives with us.”

  “That isn’t the point. If he’s in the quarantine area, he’s been exposed. If we bring him out here, he could get you sick. Do you understand?”

  “Papa says the plague isn’t here. He says this is all just—”

  “That’s not for us to decide, Lizzie. You and I don’t make the rules, but we surely must live by them. Now, how’d you get here? Do you need a ride home?”

  I point to the wagon. “My brother.”

  He nods. “You climb up onto that wagon with your brother and you go on home. If this weren’t my job, I’d be nowhere near this place, believe me.”

  “But—”

  “I can’t help you with this. Now I need you to go on home, you hear?”

  I look back at the barricade. On the Chinatown side, a man is running back and forth along the ropes like a caged animal. One policeman shouts at him to stop. Another walks the barrier with a billy club.

  A quarantine is to keep infectious diseases from spreading. But there are no doctors or nurses here. No one wears masks or gloves. There is no soap or water. Whatever this is, it’s not quarantine for disease at all.

  Chapter 10

  Orange Tom

  When we get home, the Sweetings’ uniformed houseboys are carrying Aunt Hortense’s white antique writing desk, her chair, her steamer trunk, her footbath, her quilts, her jeweled boxes, and silk pillows in through our front door.

  Billy groans. “Aunt Hortense is moving into the spare room.”

  “What!”

  “Yep. To keep an eye on you.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  He rolls his eyes. “At least she’s not making us move to her house. Remember when she used to do that?”

  “What about Papa?”

  “Apparently he’s not going to be home for a while.”

  I look up at Noah’s window. How will I get him his meals with Aunt Hortense watching?

  Billy unhooks the traces and takes John Henry’s collar off. I sponge down his sweat marks, pick up each of his big flat hooves to check for stones, and let him loose in his stall.

  In our parlor, Papa’s chair has been moved to make room for Aunt Hortense’s French horn, her letter-writing pens, her magazines, her Bible, and a bell to call Maggy. Aunt Hortense stands waiting, dressed to go out, in a white dress with ruffles at the hem, the cuffs, and up and down her bodice. She has ribbons in her hair and a parasol in her hand.

  “Why, Elizabeth”—she grinds the tip of the parasol into our rug—“where are your purchases?”

  I look at her, try to smile. What is she talking about?

  “The ones you bought at the Emporium.”

  “Oh, those. I didn’t find anything,” I say.

  “Is that so?” She stares at me, waiting.

  “There wasn’t anything I liked.” I can feel my nose growing longer with every word.

  “We got a call from the police. You and William were trying to get into the Chinatown quarantine.”

  “No—”

  “Elizabeth!” she barks.

  “We weren’t trying to get in,” I whisper. “We were trying to get Jing out.”

  “They said you were using Mr. Sweeting’s good name to curry favor.”

  Billy looks at me.

  Aunt Hortense taps me with her parasol. “I won’t be lied to.”

  “But Jing shouldn’t be in there. It’s wrong. If Papa were here, he’d get him out. We had to do something.”

  “In the first place, we have no idea if Jing is there or not. And in the second place, Mr. Sweeting has already agreed to help. Everything doesn’t happen the instant you want it to, missy. But even more important than all of that … what if they do have the plague there?”

  “We have to get Jing.”

  “You listen to me, young lady. Even without the quarantine, Chinatown is dangerous. You have no business going there, Jing or no Jing. Do you hear?”

  Her stern eye falls on Billy. “And as for you, Master William.” She taps her parasol on the rug, then the wooden floor, where it makes a more satisfying clack. “I expected more from you. Evidently neither of you can be trusted. While your father’s gone, I’ll be staying here so I can keep a closer watch on you.”

  “When’s he coming back?” Billy asks.

  “Next week,” Aunt Hortense says.

  “Next week?” I ask.

  “He sent word by telegraph to the Call offices. There’s a smallpox outbreak. A family with six children in San Rafael. He’s got his hands full.”

  Papa has been immunized against smallpox, and so have Billy and I, but not everyone believes in immunization. If only they did, then he wouldn’t have to be away so long. Why couldn’t he just have an office here, the way Dr. Roumalade does?

  I watch Aunt Hortense pin her hat. Her calendar is jam-packed with entertaining, committee meetings for charity events, doing the books for Uncle Karl and all the responsibilities of running a huge house with a staff of thirty-five. She won’t be here all the time … will she?

  “Mrs. Sweeting, where shall I stay?” red-haired, freckle-faced Nettie asks.

  “In your own bed, Nettie. Maggy can handle me, can’t you, Maggy?”

  A smile flashes on Maggy’s face.

  “But, Mrs. Sweeting, ma’am, Maggy is not a ladies’ maid. She hasn’t been properly trained,” Nettie grumbles.

  “Well, then she’ll learn, won’t she?”

  “I’m to teach her, then?”

  “That would be lovely, Nettie.”

  On my windowsill is my collection of gifts from Jing. I run my hand over a smooth black stone carved with Mama’s initials. There’s the white feather from when I fell off Juliet and the rhyming dictionary with my mother’s neat handwriting on the inside—Jing found that for me. On the end is the shell, with the word I misspelled from the spelling bee tucked inside. Jing said your mistakes teach you more than your victories.

  Where is Jing now?

  Maybe my note to Noah should warn him to be extra careful because Aunt Hortense is staying here now. But with the racket of all her stuff being moved in, not to mention her voice ringing through the house, he must know. Instead I write:

  We’ve seen the quarantine. Monkey makes them wait … Will investigate.

  There’s a block of cheese in the cold box. I cut a slab and drop it in my pocket. In Maggy’s sewing basket, there were spools of thread, which I slipped into my top dresser drawer. Orange Tom is in my room, and I have his collar off. I fold up my message to Noah until it’s the same width as Orange Tom’s collar, then wrap green thread around the note and the collar until the paper is secure. Orange Tom scratches at the door of my room, trying to get out, his tail moving like a double-jointed finger. He smells of tuna fish.

  I put his collar back and carry the sprawling cat to the servants’ stairs, his back feet hanging down. I break off bits of cheese and toss them up the stairs while still holding
the cat. The first piece falls short. It takes me five tries before I make it all the way up to the landing. With five pieces of cheese scattered along the servants’ stairs, I’m confident the cat will go where I want him to. But when I release him, he leaps across the hall and down the main stairs.

  It takes me the better part of an hour to catch him again. Now I close the second-floor hall door so he can’t escape.

  He runs straight up the servants’ stairs to get away from me.

  I’m listening for Noah’s door to open, when Billy appears. He squints at me. “What are you doing with that cat?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why do you look so guilty?”

  “I don’t look guilty.”

  “You’re hiding something. What is it?”

  “Nothing.” I try to go to my room, but he’s blocking the door.

  “You might as well tell me. You don’t want me to find out on my own, do you?”

  “Billy, there’s nothing.” I shove him out of my way and slam the door.

  Chapter 11

  The Miracle of Dog Spit

  In the morning, I run down and feed the horses and fill their water buckets. Then I consider pretending to be sick. But who wants to stay home with Aunt Hortense? Even Miss Barstow’s is better than a day spent writing thank-you notes with Aunt Hortense.

  How to get breakfast to Noah? Jing must have food in his room, but how much? Jing was expecting to be gone for two hours, but it’s been two days. With Billy watching my every move and Aunt Hortense in command of the drawing room, I couldn’t get Noah supper last night.

  Luckily, Billy leaves for school before I do. I only have Aunt Hortense to worry about now. Down in the kitchen, the Sweetings’ chef, Yang Sun, has brought over croissants and brioche, jams and jellies, honey-butter, clotted cream, and long baguettes baked with ham and cheese—more food than we could ever eat. I grab a pitcher of water and wrap two croissants and a brioche in a tea towel, but when I go outside, the cord is not down.

  In the dining room, Aunt Hortense is drinking her tea and reading the morning paper, with Maggy standing beside her. “Ready?” Aunt Hortense asks.

  “No,” I say, and rush upstairs to my room, where I leave my bundle of pastries and compose my message. After a few tries, I come up with: There’s a meal. On the stair. If you dare. Then I grab blue thread from the drawer and begin searching for the orange cat. I find him in the stable loft, curled up in a bed of straw, next to a dead mouse. He eyes me warily as I unbuckle his collar, which I now see has white thread around it.