Chasing Secrets
Authors: Gennifer Choldenko
Al Capone Does My Shirts
Al Capone Does My Homework
Al Capone Shines My Shoes
No Passengers Beyond This Point
If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period
Notes from a Liar and Her Dog
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Gennifer Choldenko
Cover art and map illustration copyright © 2015 by Hugh D'Andrade
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Choldenko, Gennifer, author.
Chasing secrets / Gennifer Choldenko. â First edition.
pages cm
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Lizzie and her secret friend Noah, who is hiding in her house, plan to rescue Noah's father from the quarantined Chinatown, and save everyone they love from contracting the plague that is spreading in 1900 San Francisco.
ISBN 978-0-385-74253-5 (trade) âISBN 978-0-375-99063-2 (lib. bdg.) â ISBN 978-0-385-74254-2 (pbk.) âISBN 978-0-307-97577-5 (ebook)
1. PlagueâJuvenile fiction. 2. FriendshipâJuvenile fiction. 3. Fathers and daughtersâJuvenile fiction. 4. QuarantineâJuvenile fiction. 5. ChineseâJuvenile fiction. 6. San Francisco (Calif.)âJuvenile fiction. [1. PlagueâFiction. 2. FriendshipâFiction. 3. QuarantineâFiction. 4. Chinese AmericansâFiction. 5. San Francisco (Calif.)âHistoryâ20th centuryâFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C446265Ch 2015
[Fic]âdc23
2014040329
eBook ISBNâ9780307975775
Cover design by Kate Gartner
Random House Children's Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v4.1
a
San Francisco, January 1, 1900
Chapter 1: The Cook, the Maid, Our Horse, and Papa
Chapter 2: The Doctor's Daughter
Chapter 4: Our Cat's in a Drunken Tizzy
Chapter 7: Chocolate Brussels Sprouts
Chapter 11: The Miracle of Dog Spit
Chapter 12: The Mystery of the Chamber Pot
Chapter 16: Monkey in the Garden
Chapter 17: A Hundred and One Rules
Chapter 21: A Harebrained Plan
Chapter 25: Toil and Toil, Our Maggy Doyle
Chapter 30: The Servants Vanish
Chapter 31: Rhymes With “Persons”
Chapter 32: Roumalade's Triage
To Kaiâwho knew it would
be so fun to have a daughter?
I
n the Palace Hotel, electric lights blaze as ladies in shimmering gowns and gentlemen in black waistcoats waltz in a ballroom gilded with gold. On the cobblestones of Market Street, revelers jangle cowbells to ring in the new century for the city, the Pearl of the Pacific.
In the bay, a steamer from Honolulu is fumigated, scrubbed, and smokedâfrom the silk-seated parlors to the stinking steerageâand given entry to the port of San Francisco.
At the dock, thick with the smell of fish, rats slip off the ship. They scurry onto the wharf and climb the sewers to Chinatown.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
I
find a spot on the bench in front of the line of carriages, buggies, and one stalled motorcar facing the wrong direction, trying my best to ignore the other girls' whispered plans as they climb into each other's buggies after school. They're going to wear split skirts and bicycle in Golden Gate Park, or carry parasols and wear hats and gloves to shop at the Emporium, or go to each other's houses to try on new cotillion dresses. I crack open my book as more girls sweep by. A book is a friend you take with you wherever you go.
Gemma leans on her crutches next to the bench, resting her black-stockinged toe on the ground. Her sprained ankle is bandaged in a crisscross patternâvery different from the way my father does it. Gemma has blue eyes,
reddish-blond hair, and full cheeks that always look feverish. “What are you reading about?”
“Mucus,” I tell her. “Did you know your nose produces a flask full of mucus every day?”
Gemma makes a face. “A flask fullâ¦Don't tell me you drink it?”
“Actually, I do. Everyone does.” I know I shouldn't say things like this. Aunt Hortense says I try hard to be peculiar. But she's wrong; I come by it quite naturally.
“Did Spencer ask you yet?” Hattie with the pouty lips calls to Gemma.
Gemma turns to answer. I don't hear what she says. It isn't intended for me. Nothing they say ever is.
It's been a long time since I've had a friend my age. I should be used to it by now. I was eleven when Aunt Hortense insisted I enroll in Miss Barstow's School for Young Women, where every girl learns the virtues of patience, the proper use of calling cards, and how to marry a man of stature, which means he has money. Last year, Clara, my friend from church, moved away, and my big brother, Billy, turned mean and stopped letting me tag along with him.
Now I'm thirteen, and my friends are the cook, the maid, our horse, and my father. Luckily, tomorrow I get to go on calls with Papa, so I won't have to face Miss Barstow's for three whole days. I've been assisting my father for only a few months, but I've taken to it like butter to biscuits.
What Papa does is a lot more interesting than what we learn in school. There's no science at Miss Barstow's. No
math after third grade. We take subjects deemed necessary for cultured young women destined to run a household of servantsâFrench, elocution, dancing, music, geography, etiquette, and entertaining.
I like geography the best, then French and elocution. Etiquette and entertaining put me to sleep, and dancing is pure agony.
When I look up again, Jing is here in our black buggy with our filly, Juliet, who's snorting and prancing like she hasn't been out in a while.
Jing waggles his eyebrows at me, and I climb up beside him.
He flaps the reins, and Juliet trots forward into the street. Bits of foam fly where the lines rub against her shiny brown neck.
Jing doesn't have a long braid or wear baggy pants and white socks the way most Chinamen do. He dresses like my father and speaks formally, never in pidgin English. We say he's our cook, but he also takes care of our garden, our two horses, our nine chickens, and our cat, Orange Tom. But not the parrot, Mr. P. Our maid, Maggy Doyle, looks after Mr. P. Maggy does the work of three maids, but she has peculiar ways. “Addled,” Billy calls her.
We take the route by the sign that says
PAINLESS PIANO-PLAYING DENTIST
. Painless, my foot. Papa says he plays the piano so no one can hear his patients scream.
Jing smiles slyly. “See anything in my ear?”
I lean in. “No.”
He turns his head. “How about the other one?”
I peer in that ear. “Nope.”
“Ahhhâ¦what's this?” He pretends to pull a tiny frog out of his right ear and hands it to me.
I grin at him, inspecting the live frog in my hand. It's bright green with a black mask.
Jing always has something for me. A smooth black stone, a white feather or cookies baked in the shape of my initials. I keep his gifts on my windowsill, except for the ones I eat.
He asks me how Miss Barstow's was today, and I try to think of a story that will make him laugh.
“Miss Barstow bought a new dunce cap. She tried it on to demonstrate what will happen if you flunk your French vocabulary test, but her hairpin got caught and she couldn't get it off. Miss Annabelle had to help her.”
“Stuck dumb,” Jing says.
“Dumbstuck,” I say, and laugh. “It serves her right. I hate that thing. Not that I've ever had to wear it, but still.”
We pass a workhorse pulling a big dray. On the corner, white-ribboned temperance ladies pass out flyers, and newsboys hawk papers.
“Orange Tom has disappeared again. I have a hunch he has a lady friend,” Jing says.
The frog hops in my lap. I cup my hand over him to prevent escape. “I hope his lady friend likes rats.”
Orange Tom loves to hunt, but he kills more than he can eat. He's fond of leaving dead rodents in Aunt Hortense's fountain, in the backseat of Uncle Karl's brand-new automachine, on our front step, and on top of Papa's medical journals.
The farther we get from Miss Barstow's, the more my mood improves. I settle back and enjoy the short ride up the hill to home.
Aunt Hortense and Uncle Karl's house on Nob Hill is enormousâfive times the size of oursâand built to look like a palace in Paris. Crystal chandeliers, paintings of angels, marble busts of famous old men, gold candelabras held up by gold cupids with gold twigs in their gold hands. Every night it's lit with all electric light.
Aunt Hortense and Uncle Karl own our house, which is tiny compared to theirs but plenty large enough for Papa, Billy, and me. Aunt Hortense married sugar money. Her sister, Lucy, my mother, married a doctor who will care for patients whether they can pay or not.
My mother died five years ago. It started with a stomachache; Papa thought she had parasites, but it was cancer. No cure for that. Maybe I will discover one.
When my father is away on calls, Aunt Hortense steps in to oversee Maggy, Jing, Billy, and me. I've tried to convince Papa that now that Billy is sixteen, he should be in charge. Billy is bad-tempered, but I still prefer him to Aunt Hortense. I haven't been able to persuade Papa yet.
Aunt Hortense never lets upâI'm not to come or go without her permission. I guess it's because she can't have children of her own that she thinks she owns us.
I watch her walk down the steps from her house, wearing a yellow dress that sounds like a bristle brush when she walks. She has on white lace-up boots and carries a pearl-handled parasol. Most of her clothes come from Paris. A
few weeks a year, French dresses are brought to the Fairmont Hotel for ladies to purchase.
Jing reins in Juliet so I can climb out. I like it better when I get to help unharness her, but I can't do that with Aunt Hortense standing here.
I still have the frog in my hand, and contemplate handing it to her. How she'd jump! Aunt Hortense is terrified of amphibians and reptiles. She's allergic to cats and doesn't like dogs.
She peers at me. “Oh, for goodness' sake, Elizabeth. What did you do to your hair?”
“Trimmed it, ma'am.”
“With a meat cleaver? They have better hairstyles at the almshouse.”
“Really? Well, I'll sign myself up,” I say under my breath.
“I heard that,” Aunt Hortense snaps. “Don't you know what a privilege it is to go to Miss Barstow's? What did
she
say about your hair?”
“That I ought to keep it pinned up.”
My father comes out the kitchen door with his brown medical bag in his right hand and his black bag in his left. Papa is tall, like me, with hair the color of piecrust, and brown eyes like mine.
“Hurry and change, Lizzie. I just got word Mrs. Jessen is having her baby,” Papa says.
Aunt Hortense frowns. “Must you take her with you, Jules? It was bad enough when you took William.”
“She likes going.”
“Where do the Jessens live?” Aunt Hortense asks.
“Larkspur.”
“Larkspur? She'll miss school tomorrow.”
“She'll make up what she missed, won't you, Lizzie?” Papa asks.
“Yes, sir.” I lean down to hide my smile, release the frog, and then run up the path to our house.
Aunt Hortense shakes her head at Papa. “Even so, Jules⦔
“It's okay, Aunt Hortense. Childbirth is not contagious,” I call back.
“I'm just trying to keep you safe, Elizabeth. Don't you know that?”