The Book of Bones (10 page)

I realized I had snapped at the wrong man—another coolie was tugging my hair. Such a mob of drivers, touts and most probably pickpockets had surrounded us as we disembarked that I felt I was losing my wits. All of them seemed to be clawing at me, jabbering, “Missy, Missy.” Rachel was lost from view in a jumble of plaits and hats, Isaac was flailing. It was so hot even the stones on the quay seemed to be steaming, covering everything in dense perspiration.

Thankfully Waldo took charge, shoving people out of the way and barking commands. He had grown so much lately he towered over the sea of conical straw hats.

Somehow we managed to select a rickshaw pulled by two strong but stick-thin coolies, who took us to a boarding house on Bubbling Well Road. Our rooms were clean, our beds dressed with heavily embroidered Chinese silks. Exhausted, we collapsed into sleep. But I woke in the night disoriented at missing the gentle motion of the steamship. I was deeply uneasy, with a sour taste in my mouth and a sickness in the pit of my stomach. The Bakers' poison working its way through my veins? We must find Yin. But how? What chance did we have in this huge, teeming land where we had the advantage of neither language nor friends.

I almost wished Aunt Hilda was with us.

The next morning we breakfasted early on porridge laced with treacle and got directions to an English doctor from the Welsh lady who ran the boarding house. Rather puzzlingly Shanghai is divided into many “concessions,” with the English, Americans and French all owning portions of the booming port. What a city! Stately avenues, elegant boulevards, towering stone buildings that would have graced Piccadilly or the Champs Elysées. No wonder it was called the Paris of the Orient. It was as if some grand European metropolis had erupted, fully formed, in the middle of Asia.

But Asia it was, no doubt about that. As we made our way on foot to the doctor, my eyes were drawn by a
thousand wondrous sights. A purple pagoda in the shade of blossom trees. A fine Chinese lady with vermilion lips and black-lined eyes, wearing a traditional high-necked dress in pink satin. She surveyed the world like an empress from her gold sedan chair while her bearers puffed and sweated. Smoked ducks hanging in rows from their long necks. Sacks of rice piled high. Thousands of tiny bamboo cages, each one graced by a twittering songbird. An armless beggar rolled up in a doorway, his face grimed with sweat and dirt but wearing a once elegant silk tunic.

Isaac stopped in wonder before one stall that was selling hundreds of colorful tubes and boxes. The seller was toothless with a long pigtail hidden behind a broad-brimmed straw hat. A sign engraved with gold letters hung above him.

“You like?”

“What are they?”

“Fire,” the man explained. He pulled out a handful of something and threw it on the pavement. It exploded among us with deafening bangs and multicolored sparks.

“Fireworks!” Isaac yelled with delight. “You know that the Chinese invented gunpowder and fireworks hundreds of years ago.”

“Come on!” I tugged him along. “No time to waste.”

“You go ahead. I'll catch up with you. I just want to talk to this man for a minute.”

“Hurry!”

Leaving Isaac, we went on. Our destination was a stately stone house, which could have been in Oxford. Though, I must confess, in my own town it would have been blackened by coal dust. While we kicked our heels in the waiting room I told my friends that we must be very clear about what we said. We couldn't confess to being poisoned. We must handle things more carefully. Isaac caught up with us just as we were ushered into Dr. Sheldrake's room. The doctor himself, a bald man wearing wire-framed glasses, was sitting at a large ebony desk writing in a leather book. He barely looked up as we entered.

“One of us has been poisoned,” Waldo announced, as soon as we were in. “We badly need your help.”

I groaned inwardly. He never could keep his mouth shut.

“Poisoned, you say?” the doctor looked up, interested.

“We believe so.”

“What was it. Chinese food? Infected water? Poor sanitation?” The doctor was peering at us over his half-moon spectacles. “I must say, you all look the picture of health. How long have you been in Shanghai?”

“We arrived yesterday.”

“Hardly long enough to contract a bug.”

“No,” I explained patiently. “We believe we were poisoned in England before we reached China.”

“How extraordinary. Which one of you?”

“That's just it,” I replied. “We don't know.”

“How can you
know
one of you is poisoned if you don't know
who
it is?”

“Um … we were given reliable information,” I said, cutting off Rachel's explanation with a glare.

“A hopelessly muddled tale,” Dr. Sheldrake said. “Haven't you got things rather mixed up?” He was gazing at us as if we were soft in the head.

“We received a letter aboard ship that told us that one of us had definitely contracted food poisoning. Rather hard to explain, but definitely bona fide.”

The doctor was looking us over, a searching examination. I wondered how we seemed to him, Waldo, blond and blue-eyed, Rachel and Isaac with their glossy dark curls and nut-brown eyes. And me, Kit Salter, with my wide boyish face, always a little tousled and sticky. We were sunburnt from our voyage but still clearly foreign. Did he wonder what we were doing here? As I went into my story the doctor seemed to grow less suspicious. I
think
I convinced him.

“I suppose I should take a blood test from each of you then.”

We rolled up our sleeves and the doctor took blood from each of us, his massive syringe filling up. My blood looked unnaturally dark. Well, at least to me it did.

Then Dr. Sheldrake did something that dismayed me. He asked all of us to lie down. There wasn't enough space on his consulting trolley, so he asked us to lie down on the floor.

“Why?” I wondered.

“Your craniums are fascinating.”

Reluctantly we did as he requested. Then the doctor knelt by our heads and literally
felt
our heads. His hands were bony and probing and the whole thing was most uncomfortable. I could see Waldo's mouth twisting in discomfort and Isaac frowning. At last his examination was over, although what it had to do with poisoning was a mystery.

“Very interesting protuberances on your head, Miss Salter,” Dr. Sheldrake said to me as we rose. He added to Isaac. “Your skull has definite possibilities, Mr. Ani.”

“How so?” Isaac asked suspiciously.

“The marked development of your pre-frontal cortex makes me believe you to be highly mechanically competent with a developed rational streak. On the other hand, Miss Salter, your lobes, to use layman's terms, are less prominent. I believe you to be impulsive and reckless, with a marked distaste for reason.”

“Are you saying Kit is a bit silly?” Waldo inquired.

“That's not a medical term. But essentially yes.” Dr. Sheldrake nodded. “The young lady puts passion before reason.”

“You've hit the nail on the head, Doctor.” Waldo grinned.

“That's outrageous—” I began, then stopped. “Look, we're not here for this. When will we get the blood samples back and find out about the poisoning? We're really worried.” I glanced at Isaac, who was tugging my sleeve. “Stop it!”

“A few days.”

“We're in a hurry,” Waldo said. “That's far too long.”

“I see. As a special favor I'll try to rush them through by tomorrow. Can't promise, mind. Where should I contact you?”

I was about to tell him the name of our boarding house when Isaac replied, giving him a false name. He was practically pulling me out of the door. Suddenly he seemed in a mad rush to be elsewhere. We said goodbye and tumbled out into the Shanghai street.

“Why did you give him a false address?” I asked Isaac in surprise.

“I didn't like that doctor,” he replied.

“Nor did I,” said Rachel. “He was all wrong.”

“But it wasn't just a matter of not liking him. I think
he's positively sinister. You realize what he was?”

“No,” we chorused.

“Honestly, you lot are half asleep sometimes.” Isaac sighed. I let this comment go, even though Isaac is the most dreamy of us all. “Doctor Sheldrake is another phrenologist. Didn't you see that bust in the corner? The phrenological head? He's a dangerous crank!”

Waldo gave a low whistle. “There was a leaflet on his desk,” Isaac continued. “I saw it out of the corner of my eye. It advertised the ‘Greatest Scientific Unveiling of the Mystery of the Human Mind Ever Seen.' This meeting, whatever it is, is taking place at midday in somewhere called the Jade Dragon Theater.”

I gasped. Things were clicking into place. I had an intuition, reasonable or not, that we
must
join the scientists at that meeting.

“Come on!” I said. “We have got to go to Jade Dragon Theater.”

Somehow Yin had sensed we must be there. Her enigmatic words were starting to make sense.

I'll meet you in the belly of the dragon
.

We arrived late at the meeting, as the first cab driver that we hailed had taken us to the Jade Dragon temple. This ancient shrine was near the Dai Jin Tower, where the guardians of the city kept a lookout for Japanese pirates, near the stone wall that protected Shanghai from her enemies. It took us much confusion and explanation, in our pidgin Chinese English, to return us to the city center. Luckily our second driver was more intelligent and took us to the Jade Dragon Theater in Seven Lotus Lane. We had to bypass the watchful guards at the entrance to the theater, creep up the stairs and into the meeting, which was already crowded when we arrived.

At first I thought I was back in Oxford, for it was the type of fusty, dusty gathering that my father frequents. Apart from a smattering of women and Chinese, most of those gathered here were elderly Europeans, with a scholarly air. Sitting here there was an artistic lady in fringed hat and beads, there a more robust type, perhaps
a merchant. None of them, I was relieved to see, looked as if they would be much use in a fight.

If Yin turned up here, we might have to spirit her away by force.

I could see why the strange child had described this hall as the “belly of the dragon.” It was painted in shades of red and pink and decorated with red silk banners inscribed with Chinese calligraphy. It did resemble the guts of an animal and I could imagine the fluttering silk as the pulsing of the beast's intestines.

Ah well, here I was being unreasonable again.

“Let's creep up to the front. Get a better view,” Waldo whispered.

We edged along the side of the chairs. Someone was striding onto the stage, a man dressed in a white coat. My heart nearly stopped when I saw it was the scientist from the
Mandalay
. The quack doctor who had kept Yin a prisoner. In his wake came two Chinese pushing a metal trolley covered with a sheet. It came to a stop near a green baize card table. There was a babble of talk now, a sort of hushed expectancy in the air, as the scientist held up his hands.

“Welcome to the Jade Dragon Theater. I'm Doctor Richard Billings and I am going to present you with one of the most marvelous demonstrations of the human mind ever known to science.”

There was a smattering of applause. Then, more like a showman than a scientist, Dr. Billings whipped the sheet off the trolley. I had already known what was underneath. Still, the sight of Yin's skeletal body, of her shaved, decorated head, shocked me. She was just a child, an innocent child, and here she was being offered up to these scholars like a performing monkey.

“Little Yin here is going to perform some remarkable feats,” Dr. Billings boomed. “I will give you a phrenological explanation of them. I guarantee today's demonstration is going to make waves across the seas, from Shanghai to London to New York!”

Yin had seemed to be in a coma but now, on cue, she rose and sat obediently on her trolley. The shaven skull covered with scrawls and the almost translucent white of her skin were chilling. She looked more than ever like a death's head. Her gray-green eyes were dull. Was I wrong to see a spark of recognition in them as they swept over me?

“Little Yin is the most phenomenal patient I've ever had,” Billings went on. “She has a particularly enlarged perception cortex and, as you can see, her memory and time lobes are also very prominent. This means she has powers that would put any fortune-teller to shame. Now, do I have a couple of volunteers to come up on stage and test the girl's powers?”

A number of people put up their hands. Two gentlemen were chosen and ushered to the front. To my surprise, at the very last moment, Waldo barged in and took one of the men's places. When he saw Waldo walk on stage, along with a muscular man who carried a knobbly cane, Dr. Billings paled a little. But he quickly carried on.

“Have you ever met this child?” he asked.

Waldo shook his head, as did the other gentleman.

“Very well. For her first amazing predictive effect I choose you, young man. Your name is …?”

“Waldo Bell,” my friend said loudly.

“Mr. Bell, prepare to be amazed!”

Billings indicated a pile of books which lay on the card table. “Choose a book. Any book,” he ordered.

Waldo went over and picked out a book. I saw that it Mary Shelley's well-known work
Frankenstein
.

“
Frankenstein
. Aha,” Dr. Billings said. “Now, Mr. Waldo Bell, I am going to ask you to flip through this book.”

Waldo took the book and flipped through it while the audience held their breath. Yin was watching him, or at least her eyes were directed toward him. What she saw, whether she saw, it was impossible to say.

“Waldo, I may call you Waldo, may I not?”

Waldo nodded.

“Pick a word, any word out of the hundreds, nay thousands, in this book.”