Fire: Chicago 1871 (13 page)
Read Fire: Chicago 1871 Online
Authors: Kathleen Duey
“Come up to the first-class dining roomâit's empty by then, and a few of us are going to have a card game.”
Gavin glanced at the side of Lionel's face, then looked back at the stairs. “I've been coming up here.” He pointed at the second-class library as they started downward again.
“You're going to read? When you could be playing poker?”
Gavin smiled and nodded. “I have to get to New York with all my pay. I can't expect my brother to support me.”
Lionel slowed as they reached D-deck. “Come up if you change your mind. You can just sit with us; you don't have to play.”
“I will, thanks.”
Gavin watched as Lionel went into the first-class dining saloon. Through the open door Gavin saw that the room was still pretty full. The stewards were just beginning to clear away dirty dishes. Lionel's rakish grin disappeared, and his face became a mask of politeness as he turned and bent to whisper discreetly to a woman in a green silk gown.
Gavin shook his head as he pulled the door closed and turned to cross the landing. Going into the first-class pantry, he walked fast, rounding the corner by the neatly stacked crates of Waken & McLaughlin wine. The roast cook and one of the confectioners came through the galley door ahead of him. He stopped and turned sideways to let them pass. Neither man acknowledged his presence.
Gavin watched them walk away. He wasn't like Lionel. It was hard for him to smile at people who were rude to him, whether they were crew or passengers. He hurried into the galley, wishing he had been hired on as a dining room steward. They had it easier. A half hour after the last passenger left the dining saloons, the stewards would be changing the white tablecloths and setting the tables
for the next meal. Then they would have a break.
“Hey! Gavin!”
Gavin turned to see Harry making his way across the crowded galley. His sharp-featured face was smudged with flour. He was already developing the short-strided, agile walk necessary to avoid collisions in the crowded, busy room.
Cooking never ceased here, except for a few hours in the middle of the night. The bakers began at three in the morning. The cooks started preparing breakfast early, then began lunch before the breakfast dishes were cleared. Dinner preparation sometimes started a day in advance, all the meals overlappingâonly the chefs understood the schedule.
“Where have you been off to?” Harry asked, dodging a pantryman carrying an enormous, bloody roast. “You missed a chance to watch the pastry chef make éclairs.”
Gavin shrugged. Harry wanted to be a chef someday and he rarely left the galley. “I went up for air,” Gavin told him. “I just like to see the sky once in a while.”
Harry nodded vaguely, turning when the sauce
chef bellowed out an order. Then his eyes focused on Gavin again. “What do you have to do now?”
Gavin made a face. “Wash a hundred and twenty pounds of new potatoes.” Harry laughed, and Gavin pretended to take a swing at him. “It isn't funny. I hate the new potatoes worst of all. I can't even use the wire brushes because the skins tear so easily.”
Harry grinned over his shoulder as he walked away. “Better you than me.”
Gavin went to his basin. The pantrymen had already brought in the bags. He stared at the lettering. Whoever Charles Papas was, he sure raised a lot of potatoes.
“When do we raise anchor?” someone yelled behind him.
“Soon,” the answer came. “Less than half an hour.”
Gavin's throat tightened. There was no turning back now.
KATHLEEN DUEY
's works include the middle-grade series American Diaries and the well-reviewed chapter book series The Unicorn's Secret, with a companion series, The Faeries' Promise. She is also the author of the National Book Award finalist
Skin Hunger
. She lives in Fallbrook, California.
KAREN A. BALE
grew up in Southern California and graduated from the University of California, Riverside. She has written seventeen historical romances and has done freelance work, including helping to write two nonfiction books. Karen still resides in Southern California, ten miles from the Pacific Ocean.
ALADDIN
Simon & Schuster, New York
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Aladdin hardcover edition March 2014
Text copyright © 1998 by Kathleen Duey and Karen A. Bale
Jacket illustration copyright © 2014 by David Palumbo
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Jacket designed by Jeanine Henderson
Jacket illustration by David Palumbo
Interior designed by Tom Daly
The text of this book was set in Berling LT Std.
Library of Congress Control Number 97-52937
ISBN 978-1-4424-9055-0 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4424-9054-3 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4424-9056-7 (eBook)