Chasing Secrets

by Gennifer Choldenko

  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.

  Noah sent a message back!

  His message is written in black ink on bumpy rice paper. He has made a little drawing of a monkey.

  The monkey has a secret.

  What does that mean? And what if Aunt Hortense intercepts this note? How will I explain it?

  Then I smile. Aunt Hortense is allergic, of course! She won’t touch Orange Tom. It’s only Billy I have to worry about.

  I attach the new message with blue thread. The cat lets his muscles go limp. I carry him down the loft ladder, his legs bumping against mine as I make my way down the rungs. I lug the big fat cat all the way to the house.

  I peek through the window. The kitchen is empty. Yang Sun does his cooking in the Sweeting kitchen. Ours is too small for him.

  Just as I get Orange Tom in the kitchen, Aunt Hortense sashays across the cold storage room with Nettie and Maggy right behind her. Maggy is carrying a linen pouch full of Aunt Hortense’s hair. Each time Maggy brushes her hair, the hairs from the brush must be saved in the bag. She’s keeping it to make a hairpiece, should the need arise.

  “Maggy,” Nettie says. “I’ll take that now.”

  Maggy hands her the bag, and Nettie scoots out the kitchen door.

  Aunt Hortense looks up. “Elizabeth, don’t you dare bring that dreadful creature in here. I’ll be sneezing all day.”

  “Oh, I forgot,” I say as she streaks into the dining room away from the cat, Maggy flying after her. Now Maggy has a teacup and saucer and a box of menus. Aunt Hortense writes two menus every day, one for the family and one for the servants. She even plans out tea and snacks.

  If Aunt Hortense is doing menus, she’ll stay put for a while. I go back out and around the house to the front door, then dash up the stairs with the cat. But just as I do, Nettie comes back.

  “Didn’t you hear Mrs. Sweeting? No cats.”

  I pretend to clean the wax out of my ears. “Oh, um,” I say, and head back out.

  “Bad enough I got to watch that Maggy,” she grumbles. “She’s been hearing things. She ain’t right in the mind, that one.”

  Orange Tom tries to wiggle out of my arms, but I hold him tight. “What things?”

  “From Jing’s room when he ain’t there.”

  Oh, great.

  Nettie squints at me. “You know something about that?”

  “It’s just the cat. He likes to go up there.”

  “Cat should be made into a handbag, if you ask me,” Nettie mutters.

  I wait until Nettie is gone, then make another run up the stairs with Orange Tom. In my room, I get Noah’s tea-towel-wrapped pastries. I place the bundle on the servants’ stairs, then toss the cheese up and close the second-floor hall door, so Tom will be forced up to the third floor. If Aunt Hortense or Nettie finds the brioche and croissants, I’ll say I planned to take them to school to share with the other girls and I forgot them when I was sitting on the stairs button-hooking my boots.

  The water pitchers! If they all disappear, it will be suspicious. I have to remember to bring them back down. It’s exhausting thinking of lies Aunt Hortense will believe. But she can’t find out about Noah. She’ll have him arrested, whether he’s Jing’s son or not.

  —

  Today at Miss Barstow’s, the girls are in the dining room. The topic seems to be the move to Presidio Heights. Miss Barstow has found a fancier place for the school. And everybody wonders if that means we’ll be wearing uniforms, which of course leads to the topic of bustles. How big should they be? Which ones ride up when you sit down and which don’t?

  I sit by myself as usual. My book and me. For a second, I think about what Noah said. Is there one girl I like better than the rest? Nope.

  The girls giggle, the metronome pings, a dog barks, and the same three chords are pounded on the piano. I try to concentrate on the story, but all I can think about is Noah.

  The barking continues. Miss Barstow would never allow a dog in the house. I walk out of the dining room and up the thickly carpeted stairs toward the sound. If you’re caught hurrying, you must recite the class motto, “All things come to him who waits,” and freeze while everyone passes you by. At the very least shouldn’t it be: “All things come to he who waits”?

  In the geography room, old maps cover the walls, wood floors clack under my boots, and the dunce cap waits for its next victim. Gemma is plunked down on the floor, crutches splayed out beside her.

  “Gemma? Did you fall?”

  Gemma barks.

  “Wait. You’re the dog?”

  Gemma licks her hand, and then rotates her arm around her ear, like a canine itching with its back leg. “Shhh, Gemma! If Miss Barstow hears you, she’ll pitch a fit.”

  “A dog bit me this morning. I have rabies.” Gemma tips back her head and howls.

  “Rabies? You can’t get rabies that quickly.”

  “How would you know?”

  “My father’s a doctor.”

  “Really?” Her arm drops down.

  All I know about Gemma is that she often asks me what I’m reading and the other girls like her a lot.

  I help her up and hand her her crutches. She fits them under her armpits just as Miss Barstow rings the bell.

  Gemma smiles. I look around to see who has come up behind me.

  No one. She’s smiling at me. I can’t help grinning back.

  “Time for dance class,” I say.

  “You like to dance?”

  I hate to dance. It’s worse than swallowing cod liver oil. Last week, when Gemma wasn’t here, Miss Annabelle called me Horse Feet, and the girls all laughed. Why am I nodding?

  “Miss Barstow says I’m not allowed to.”

  “You’re on crutches,” I point out.

  “So?”

  I want to talk to her as long as I can, before the other girls arrive and I become invisible. “Did you really get bitten by a rabid dog?”

  “It may have been more of a hard lick.”

  “A hard lick?” I try not to laugh.

  She leans in. “Can you get rabies from dog spit?”

  Is this a joke? Every time I laugh at something a girl at Miss Barstow’s says, I get weird looks. “I wouldn’t think so…unless the dog licks an open wound.”

  She looks down at her wrist. Her shoulders droop.

  “You want rabies, Gemma?”

  “No.” She plants her crutches and swings her body to meet them. I follow her to the dance studio and stand with her. When the others come, I’ll lose this spot. But now only the little girls are here.

  “Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes, they all fall down.” They collapse in a heap.

  “Why do they fall on the floor like that?” I ask.

  “They’re dead.”

  “From what?�
��

  “The plague.”

  “Nice,” I say.

  Gemma laughs.

  I stare at her.

  She frowns. “What’s the matter?”

  “You laughed.”

  “So?”

  I tip my head at the girls streaming through the door. “They never laugh.”

  Her eyes look deep inside me. “They’re all right,” she whispers. “You should give them a chance.”

  I should give them a chance?

  “They’re not sure what to say to you, that’s all,” Gemma whispers as Miss Barstow swoops into the room to begin her lesson.

  “San Francisco is the Paris of the Pacific, and every young woman must know the language, the dances, and the culture. French restaurants have taken over the city. French clothes are all the rage, and any one of us might marry a Frenchman with a title—a duke or a baron.” Miss Barstow sails across the floor, her back as straight as a scalpel, her steel-gray hair tightly pinned. The mole on her lip is the only part of her that seems unplanned.

  “Listen, please, ladies,” she says, but my eyes are on Gemma. Even with the other girls here, Gemma hasn’t backed away from me.

  “When a gentleman approaches you at the cotillion, what might you say to spark a conversation?” Miss Barstow asks.

  The weather, music, hunting, his schooling. The usual answers.

  “I’d ask, were you a bed wetter?” I whisper. But as soon as I do, I regret it. My tongue is like an enemy in my mouth.

  Gemma peeks at me, eyes sparkling.

  I keep going. “No shame in it,” I whisper. “George Washington was a bed wetter.”

  Gemma flaps her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, just as the elocution teacher pokes her head in the door and motions to Miss Barstow.

  “He could have been,” I tell her when Miss Barstow ducks out of the room. “We don’t know. What biographer is going to write about that? Or you could ask your gentleman friend what runs in his family—madness? Apoplexy?”

  “What about that crazy aunt locked in the attic?” Gemma asks. “Every family has one.”

  Hattie with the pouty lips is watching. She can’t believe Gemma is sharing secrets with me.

  Miss Barstow is back. “Dr. Roumalade is here for our annual health examinations. Gemma, you’re first. Please go to my office.”

  Hattie leaps across the room to hold the door open. Two other girls walk with Gemma.

  Miss Annabelle is running the class now. We’re learning a new dance. I write down the instructions in my notebook to appear to be paying attention—a technique I use often.

  When Gemma comes back, I’ve faded into the wall. She heads straight for me. “Your turn,” she says.

  Why would I need an examination? My father’s a doctor. Still, I’m stupidly happy Gemma chose me.

  —

  Dr. Roumalade has powdery hands, a round head, cheeks as red as raw steak, and a slender mustache. He smiles pleasantly. “Jules Kennedy’s daughter, if I’m not mistaken. And how is your father?”

  “Fine, sir.”

  He slips his stethoscope around his neck. “I understand you’ve been accompanying him on his calls.” The flat metal disk presses against my chest as he listens to my heart through the connecting tube.

  “Yes, sir.” How does he know this?

  “He doesn’t have an assistant?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I couldn’t handle my practice without one.”

  I bristle.

  He’s inspecting my ears now. I can feel his finger and hear a whoosh sound inside my ear. He looks into my eyes and peers down my throat. “Interested in nursing, are you?”

  “No, sir. I’m going to be a scientist.”

  He snorts. “You mean you’ll marry a scientist. Any persistent coughing, diarrhea, fever, headaches?”

  “No, sir.”

  He washes his hands in the bowl Miss Barstow has provided. His examination isn’t as thorough as Papa’s. “You, my dear, are as healthy as a horse. I will let your aunt and uncle know.”

  “The Sweetings? Why?”

  “Going hither and yon with all manner of clientele.”

  “What does that have to do with Aunt Hortense and Uncle Karl?”

  “With you accompanying your father the way you have, he puts you at risk.”

  “No, he doesn’t!”

  “Certainly you understand contagion, my dear.”

  My fingers curl into a fist. “My father does not put me at risk.”

  “You think you know everything, do you?” Dr. Roumalade presses the tips of his fingers together. “But you don’t. The dangers are real.”

  “Papa takes good care of me.”

  Dr. Roumalade presses his lips together. “Well…thank you for calming Gemma Trotter down. She has quite the imagination.”

  “She’s doing fine.”

  “Yes. Now, you say hello to your father for me. He’s a good doctor. It’s a shame he doesn’t have a busier practice.”

  My cheeks burn. “My father is doing very well.”

  “I always try to refer patients to him.”

  Right. If a patient isn’t able to pay. A lot of help that is.

  I count backward from ten to keep from saying what I shouldn’t.

  “All right, then, Lizzie. We’re done here.”

  Miss Barstow must be listening at the door, because she comes right in. “Go tell Kathryn she’s next. Quickly, please.”

  I’m just turning the corner when I hear Dr. Roumalade tell Miss Barstow:

  “You’ve got your work cut out for you with that one, Sarah.”

  “It’s the age.”

  “I suppose.”

  When I get back to class, Gemma is in a huddle with Hattie and the other girls. Do I dare stand with her?

  It’s better to choose to be alone than to try to be friends with someone who doesn’t want to be your friend. I go to my usual spot, six feet from everyone else, though a tiny part of me knows that I’m taking the chicken’s way out.

  “Lizzie!” Gemma waves me over. “Why are you over there? C’mon with us,” she says.

  When I get home, I run to the front yard, where I have a clear view of Noah’s window. The blind is down, the window a uniform gray. No gold cord hangs over the top.

  If only I could wish that stupid cord down.

  “Peanut.”

  I jump, Uncle Karl is leaning against a tree, cigar smoke swirling around him. Is he watching me?

  “What’s so interesting up there?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing, huh?” He leans his chin on his hand.

  “What are you doing out here?” I try to turn the tables.

  “Waiting for Billy,” he says. “And you?”

  “Looking for the cat.”

  “The cat?” Uncle Karl’s eyes cut through me.

  My hands are shaking as I search for Orange Tom. Uncle Karl is never in our yard. Does he know something?

  On the way back from the barn, I spot a dead rat under the hedge, so Orange Tom must be around. I go up to my room. I don’t want to run into Uncle Karl again.

  Upstairs, I begin thinking about Gemma Trotter. Why was she nice to me today? Is she the person Noah said I should look for, the one I like better than the rest? I can’t wait to tell Noah what happened. I won’t say anything about Uncle Karl, though. I don’t want to scare him. I focus on finding words that rhyme with “Gemma.”

  Today a girl named Gemma

  Had quite a big dilemma.

  She barked like a dog with babies,

  On account of she thought she had rabies.

  At nine o’clock they talked to the doc.

  “It’s all in her head” is what he said.

  I run down to see if the cord is visible. Still no.

  In the pantry, I collect as much food as possible, in case I can’t get back up there for a while. I fill a basket with mason jars of pears, peaches, applesauce, and olives, a hunk of cheese, a rol
l of salami, and half a loaf of French bread.

  And water. I fill a pitcher, but it won’t fit in the basket. I make two trips to my room to get it all up there. Just as I’m carrying the pitcher filled to the brim, Aunt Hortense appears. In her hand is a wad of dollar bills.

  “Maggy, dear!” she calls down the stairs. “Can you iron these for me? I can’t stand to carry those filthy things all bunched up like that. Elizabeth? What are you doing? Maggy filled that this morning.”

  “I wanted more…in case of fire,” I add lamely.

  “Fire? Goodness gracious, child, what makes you worry about that?”

  “We talked about it at Miss Barstow’s.”

  She nods. “Speaking of worrying, I talked to Mr. Sweeting. He’s working on finding Jing.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  She shimmies her hands into her gloves.

  “You’re going out?”

  “Try not to sound so happy. Mrs. Luther Cumberbatch is taking me out driving in her very own motorcar. A woman with a driver’s license—can you imagine? Yang Sun will bring your supper over.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And, Lizzie…no trouble while I’m gone.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She takes my chin in her gloved hand. “Don’t just move your lips.”

  I look her straight in the eye. “No trouble,” I say.

  I carry the pitcher into my room and close the door, then watch out the window. I hear the motorcar before I see it. It roars into the driveway, then spits and gasps to a stop. Aunt Hortense climbs in, decked out in a pale green driving dress edged in velvet, her dark hair glistening under her green wide-brimmed hat tightly secured with a white veil. Mrs. Cumberbatch is wearing a plaid driving coat and matching hat. Aunt Hortense waves to her butler, who cranks the motor again. The car sputters forward, lurching through the gate.

  When they’re gone, I run outside and check for the cord. It’s finally down! Noah must have seen her leave, too.

  Maggy is on the side porch in a cloud of dust, beating a rug and grunting. The parrot is on her shoulder. “Dirty work. Dirty work,” Mr. P. chirps. Billy has gone off with Uncle Karl.

  Nobody notices me as I make my stealthy trips, bringing supplies to Noah.