Inside the Shadow City

by Kirsten Miller

  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter whether he was lying or not,” I said. “I know what we have to do.”

  “What?” asked Oona.

  As the others waited eagerly for the answer, I experienced my first taste of power.

  “Whether she’s an assassin or just a lowly thief, we can’t let her cause any more trouble. We have to stop Kiki Strike.”

  HOW TO TELL A LIE

  As you learned in chapter 2, there are many tricks you can use to expose a liar. Unfortunately, you’re not the only one who knows them. So when you find yourself in a position where telling a little, tiny, insignificant fib or two is in the interest of the common good, it’s an excellent idea to stick to the following guidelines.

  1. Always try to be yourself. Your friends and family know how you usually behave, so they’ll be quick to spot it if you start sweating, talking too quickly, or gesturing wildly— unless that’s what you’re usually like.

  2. Practice makes perfect. If you have to tell a fib, practice in front of a mirror until it’s so familiar that you could repeat it in your sleep. That way, when the time comes, you’ll feel perfectly in control and you won’t end up stumbling over your words.

  3. The more detailed your story, the better. It may sound a little suspicious if you say, “I couldn’t have stolen that priceless artifact from the museum because I was with my friend Betty all day.” Instead, try to make your fib a little more interesting. “I was with my friend Betty Bent at the library looking for books on puppies.”

  For additional credibility, feel free to add further details that can’t possibly be checked. For instance, you might go on to elaborate, “I’ve been thinking about getting a Chihuahua, because I’ve read that they bite more people than any other dog.” Of course, don’t add so many details that you won’t be able to memorize your story. There’s always a chance that you will have to repeat it at a later date.

  4. Make it embarrassing. Few people will doubt a story if it sounds like something you’d rather not admit. So instead of telling the principal you missed class because you were at the doctor, try telling her you went to see the doctor because you had a terrible case of diarrhea. She probably won’t ask too many questions.

  5. Most importantly, try to stay close to the truth. If you don’t feel like you’re lying, you won’t look like it, either.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A Visit from Lady Luck

  Joan of Arc, France’s favorite girl warrior, was only fourteen years old when she left home to fight for her country. Some say the voice of God was whispering in her ear, urging her to take up arms. Others claim that the voices inside her head were clear evidence that the girl was a little loopy. Whatever you choose to believe, there are certain facts that can’t be disputed. She was fourteen. She was a girl. And she was about to lead the French army against their mortal foes, the English.

  What many people don’t know is that the voices had been egging Joan on for more than two years before she finally summoned the nerve to kick some English butt. You can hardly blame her for stalling. After all, Joan was little more than a scrawny peasant lass, and she lived at a time when goats were more valued than girls. But Joan was no coward. She just wasn’t certain she was the right person for the job.

  Of course, these days it’s hard to take a pleasant stroll in France without stumbling across a statue of a tiny girl dressed in knight’s armor. There’s little doubt that Joan was indeed the right girl for the job. She just needed a little convincing. And therein lies the moral of this side trip to the fifteenth century. Not everyone is born with a desire to lead. But in times of crisis, even girls who would rather stay at home and tend to the pigs should answer the call of duty.

  • • •

  If you had come to me in the hours after Kiki Strike’s disappearance and asked me to choose the next leader of the Irregulars, I wouldn’t have nominated myself. At the time, I thought Oona would make a much better choice. She had the confidence it takes to get people to sit up and pay attention—and the temper to make sure they did. In fact, if anyone had actually offered me the role, I probably wouldn’t have taken it. I might have preferred to spend my time catching rabid raccoons with my bare hands or defusing bombs while blindfolded. But once we knew that Kiki was gone, somebody had to take charge. The subject wasn’t discussed, and there was never a vote, but somehow I ended up with the job.

  I never dreamed that the Irregulars would take me seriously. I had none of Kiki Strike’s charisma, and the only thing I’d ever led was a lunchroom line. Standing in front of the other girls, I felt like the pudgy, line-fumbling understudy of a brilliant Broadway actress. But though I longed to step out of the spotlight, I knew the Irregulars were looking to me to come up with a plan. So I did. If Kiki Strike is still alive, we have to find her, I informed the group, trying to keep a tremor from my voice. And we aren’t going to turn her in to an overdressed FBI agent. Assassin or not, Kiki needs to answer to us first. We deserve to know what she was after and why she chose to betray us. Once she answers our questions, I said, we can then decide how to punish her.

  To my surprise, no one argued, although I suspected that a couple of girls would have preferred a plan with a little more violence. Luz was eager to recover the gold by any means necessary. Oona just wanted to make Kiki pay. And while sweet-tempered Betty refused to believe that Kiki had abandoned the Irregulars, she had to agree that Kiki owed us an explanation. By the time the Irregulars left my apartment, they not only had a new leader—they had a new mission.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t foresee how long it would be before the Irregulars could put my plan into action. DeeDee spent three long weeks being poked by doctors and prodded by nurses. Her faithful housekeeper kept quiet and never told DeeDee’s parents about the mysterious circumstances surrounding her accident, but DeeDee was still forbidden from conducting experiments until her head wound healed. Her parents locked up her laboratory and confiscated her chemicals. She may have survived an explosion, but for a while, I worried that the boredom might do DeeDee in.

  The rest of us weren’t much luckier. When my mother and father returned from New Haven, I met them at the door with a carefully crafted fib that involved an early-morning trip to the library. I even slyly suggested they check my story with the librarian at the Abingdon branch of the New York Public Library. My parents nodded along, but I could tell they didn’t believe a word of it. For several weeks, they paid an annoying amount of attention to my comings and goings. They also decided they preferred a tidy house and kept me mopping and scrubbing for hours each day. But aside from the unsightly calluses I developed, I suppose I got off easy. Betty’s parents grounded her and paid a sadistic babysitter to make sure she stayed in bed at night. And of course, Luz fared the worst. When she hadn’t shown up from her summer job, her mother had called the police. They had already put out an all-points bulletin and were trying to locate a missing entomologist by the time Luz showed up covered in dirt and soot. However ingenious her excuse may have been, she wasn’t allowed out of her bedroom until the beginning of school.

  Fortunately, Luz’s cruel imprisonment couldn’t prevent her from breaking the law. While her mother slept, she built five illegal police scanners and lowered four of them out her bedroom window to Oona, who was stationed on the street below. Having mysteriously escaped all punishment, Oona was able to deliver the goods to the rest of us. Luz’s handiwork allowed the Irregulars to eavesdrop on the New York police department and listen for news of Kiki Strike. But other than an amusing encounter between a SWAT team and an escaped Komodo dragon, we heard little of interest.

  It was late July before my parents stopped ordering me around like the family maid. Oona and I spent our last weeks of summer break staking out Sidonia Galatzina’s house, waiting for Kiki to strike again. We weren’t interested in protecting the Princess. As far as I was concerned, the obnoxious brat and her haughty mother deserved whatever was coming to them. We just wanted to find Kiki, and the Princess an
d her jewelry seemed to be the perfect bait. But it soon became clear that we were wasting our time. From what I could tell, Kiki Strike was done with diamonds.

  By the time DeeDee, Betty, and Luz were free to join the hunt for Kiki Strike, I had already begun to believe she was gone for good. After two months of watching and waiting, we were still no closer to finding her. Summer break ended, and the Irregulars started the eighth grade. With Kiki missing, our lives felt almost normal—too normal. Then, on a Saturday in early November, just after my thirteenth birthday, there came an unexpected knock at my apartment door.

  • • •

  Peering through the peephole, I could tell that the man on the other side of the door wasn’t with the police or the FBI. His face was hidden, but I could see he was short, unkempt, and wearing a tweed suit that was fraying at the lapels.

  “Hello?” I called through the door.

  “Ananka Fishbein?” squeaked the man in a harsh New York accent.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “My name is J. Willard Katzwinkle. I’m from the Capybaras Corporation.”

  “The what?” I asked.

  The man cleared his throat nervously.

  “The Capybaras Corporation? We, ah, we specialize in environmentally friendly rodenticides. You know, rat traps, poisons, that sort of thing. If you’ve got a minute, I’d like to talk to you about your Reverse Pied Piper.”

  “Do you have any identification?” My heart was thumping painfully inside my chest. If the man knew about the Reverse Pied Piper, the information could only have come from Kiki Strike. Though he was short and slovenly, I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that he might be a killer. So, as he slid a business card under the door, I ran and grabbed a can of oven cleaner from beneath the kitchen sink. If the little man had come to do Kiki Strike’s dirty work, he was in for a nasty surprise.

  I opened the door, holding the can of oven cleaner behind my back. The man standing in the hall resembled a large rodent. His nose was long and pointy, his teeth were stained a dark yellow, and his mustache grew like a set of bristly whiskers.

  “Who told you about the Reverse Pied Piper?” I demanded to know. Mr. Katzwinkle began to fidget with one of his lapels.

  “I got a letter from a friend of yours. She said you had an invention you might wanna sell.”

  “What friend?”

  The man shook his head and smiled meekly.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m not supposed to tell you until after we’ve talked.”

  I almost slammed the door, but my curiosity got the better of me.

  “Okay. Then tell me this. The postmark on the letter,” I said. “Where was it from?” I already knew who had sent it, but I needed to know where she was.

  “You know, it’s funny you should ask. I don’t usually pay attention to those kinds of things, but this one was unusual. It was shaped like a tea bag. I think it said Hong Kong.” His answer left me a little stunned.

  “Come in, Mr. Katzwinkle,” I said, hoping I could learn more about Kiki Strike’s whereabouts. “And please, have a seat.”

  I slid the can of oven cleaner between two sofa cushions as I settled in the living room. Mr. Katzwinkle looked around nervously, as if scanning the surroundings for predators, and I realized I had nothing to fear. The rat man was too jittery to do me much harm and too preoccupied to realize I was only thirteen years old.

  “The letter said you had, ah, invented a powerful rodent removal device.”

  “I didn’t invent it. My grandfather did.”

  The man looked bewildered and began fidgeting again.

  “Oh? In that case, I should talk to your grandfather. Where can I find him?”

  “You can’t. He’s been dead for years. A friend of mine built a few Reverse Pied Pipers using my grandfather’s sketches.”

  “You’ve got prototypes?” asked Mr. Katzwinkle. “Do you have one handy?”

  “Sure.” I retrieved a Reverse Pied Piper from my backpack and handed it to the rat man.

  “Looks like a kazoo,” he noted, turning the device over and over in his hands. “How does it work?”

  “It works like a kazoo, too. You just turn it on and blow into it. Rats can’t stand the noise.”

  The rat man looked skeptical.

  “Mind if I try?”

  “Go ahead. But blow it out the window. We have a mouse in the cupboard that I don’t want to disturb.”

  The man threw open the window and leaned outside. I wasn’t sure if he would get any results. There were no creatures of any kind to be seen in the little park below. After wiping the mouth of the Reverse Pied Piper on his shirtsleeve, the man put it to his lips and gave a quick puff. Six enormous rats emerged from beneath a shrub in the park and ran as fast as their filthy legs could carry them toward a building across the street. A young man entering the building with two bags of groceries fainted when he saw the rats heading in his direction. As he dropped to the ground, his bags exploded on the sidewalk. Eggs, oranges, and a smoked trout flew through the air as the rats scrambled over the man’s body. One of the rodents jumped up and caught the trout in its jaws before it disappeared into an alley. The rat man thrilled at the sight.

  “Not bad, not bad,” he said. “It works pretty good with Rattus norvegicus. But who’s to say they ain’t gonna come back?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” I assured him. “My grandfather’s experiments showed that rats find the sound so unpleasant that just the memory of it keeps them away.”

  The rat man paced the living room as he quietly studied the Reverse Pied Piper. He tried to keep a straight face, but he couldn’t conceal the gleam in his eyes. He was ready to make a deal.

  “Would you mind excusing me while I call the office?” he asked.

  I nodded and went to the kitchen, where I attempted to eavesdrop with my ear against the door. I could hear Mr. Katzwinkle whispering into the phone, but I couldn’t decipher a single word. When the conversation was over, I allowed a few minutes to pass before I returned to the living room.

  The rat man was pacing the room again, his eyes caressing his new love. When he saw me, he cleared his throat and tried to make his voice sound as official as possible.

  “Pending thorough testing of your Reverse Pied Piper, the Capybaras Corporation is prepared to make you a very generous offer.”

  “Really?” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too eager. “How much?”

  The man looked up at me with a sheepish grin. “I’ve been authorized to offer you two million dollars,” he said. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Kiki Strike says to wish you a very happy birthday.”

  • • •

  “Two million dollars!” shouted Luz, who had suddenly transformed from a sullen scientist into the happiest girl in the world.

  I had called a meeting of the Irregulars at a coffee shop near Kiki’s hidden house. A nosy waiter craned his neck, trying to listen in on our conversation.

  “It’s not all ours,” I whispered, knowing there could be spies anywhere. “About half goes to taxes. And I’m not old enough to sign contracts, so I had to make a deal with my parents. They get half of what’s left over. It’s only fair, I guess. The blueprints were in their house, and it was my mother’s father who invented the Reverse Pied Piper. But the other half goes to me, which means there’s a little more than a hundred thousand dollars for each of us.”

  “You’re giving us a hundred thousand dollars?” Oona asked. Her eyes were as wide as my parents’ had been when I had given them the news. They still couldn’t believe that their daughter, a straight C student, had managed to make them a fortune.

  “I’m not giving it to anyone,” I told the group. “You’ve all earned it. And I didn’t set this whole thing up. Kiki Strike did.”

  At the mention of her name, the conversation turned serious.

  “What does she want?” sneered Luz.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “She doesn’t want money, or she could
have sold her own Reverse Pied Piper and cut us out of the deal.”

  “Maybe she wants to pay us back,” said Betty. “Maybe she wants to be friends again.”

  “She’s trying to buy our goodwill,” said DeeDee, shaking her head thoughtfully. Her hair had at last grown to an attractive length, but the scar on her forehead would turn a vivid red whenever she was excited. “She probably wants to lower our defenses.”

  “I think DeeDee’s right,” I agreed.

  “If that’s what she wants, she’ll need to give me more than a hundred thousand dollars,” snarled Luz.

  “Does this mean Kiki’s back?” Betty whispered, pushing her sunglasses back and adjusting the curly red wig that made her look like a crazed Little Orphan Annie.

  “I don’t think so,” I told her. “The postmark on the letter she sent Mr. Katzwinkle was from Hong Kong.”

  “I have a hunch she’ll be staying there for a while,” said Oona. “Here, I brought something to show you guys.” She pulled a roll of paper out of her bag and spread it across the table. It was a poster for an Asian kung-fu movie. “Look what I found in a video store in Chinatown.”

  The poster showed a girl in a plaid school uniform standing triumphantly over an assassin’s whale-sized carcass. Above her head she held a double-edged jian sword dripping with blood. Despite a black wig and glittery makeup, the girl’s arched eyebrow and ice blue eyes were all we needed to identify her as Kiki Strike.

  “Want to hear something funny? In Chinese, the movie is called Cute Little Demon Girl. Pretty dead-on, wouldn’t you say? But get this. The clerk in the video store said it’s coming out in Asia in a few months. Our sweet little Kiki Strike is going to be a movie star.”

  “Oona?” said Betty, looking a little pale beneath her makeup. “Are you sure this movie was filmed in Hong Kong?”

  “Pretty sure, why?”

  “They’ve been making martial arts movies in Chinatown. Right before school started, I heard my parents talking about a costume-designing job. They said it would be a challenge because the lead actor was really short. Do you think it could have been Kiki?”