The Great Trouble (5 page)

I stopped, not wanting to spill the whole story of my secret box. “How did you guess Hugzie had something to do with it?”

Florrie snorted. “You’ve never tried to hide that you’re smarter than him. He’s the nephew of the owners, after all.”

“I thought you’d be on my side.”

“I am. I’m just saying, those of us on the bottom got to be careful.” Florrie touched me gently on the shoulder. “Have you asked Mr. Griggs to help? He must know Mr. Huggins.”

I hesitated. “Mr. Griggs … wasn’t feeling well enough to see me.” I almost told her everything—that the tailor most likely had been struck with the blue death. But this wasn’t the time, what with Betsy and Bernie so close. Besides, maybe if I put it off, it wouldn’t be true.

Florrie was silent a moment. Then she said, as if the idea had just come into her mind, “Eel, you told me Hugzie took your money. What money? What have you been saving money for?”

I shrugged. “Nothing much.”

“You know, sometimes when I ask you things, it’s like you don’t want to answer.” Florrie fixed me with her clear, honest gaze. “And when you do, it’s like you’re trying to sell me fish that’s gone off a bit and you think I can’t smell it.”

Then she sprinted ahead to pick up Bernie, who’d fallen down again. I was left to walk alone and think about her words.

By the time we got to Sackville Street, with its clean stone town houses all lined up in a neat row, Annie, Bernie, and Betsy were wide-eyed. “It’s so quiet. Almost like bein’ in St. Luke’s,” Betsy breathed.

“Nice, ain’t it? This is where the swells live,” Florrie explained. To me she said, “I’ll be working in a fine house like this soon.”

“Dr. Snow lives in Number Eighteen,” I said, pointing to a house with a large door and with four windows on all three floors. I still couldn’t quite believe that someone as important as Dr. Snow trusted me—a mudlark—to look after his animals.

“Your doctor has this
whole
house to himself?” asked Betsy, craning her neck to see the upper floors.

I nodded proudly. “ ’Course he does. Dr. John Snow is quite a gentleman. So be on your best conduct in his yard or there won’t be any ices on the way home.”

I jerked my head. “Now follow me. We need to go around the back way, through the alley. Mrs. Jane Weatherburn, Dr. Snow’s housekeeper, leaves newspapers and food scraps out there for me to use.”

“How did you meet Dr. Snow?” Florrie asked.

“In Covent Garden. He came to the market to buy a guinea pig,” I said. “You know how busy and noisy it is there. Just as Dr. Snow was putting the guinea pig into a little box to take it home, a horse spooked behind him, toppling a cart of vegetables and making a terrible racket. Well, the guinea pig got such a fright it squirmed out of Dr. Snow’s grasp. Luckily, I happened to be standing right there to catch it.”

They were all watching me now, and I continued the
story, holding up my hands as though cupping an invisible guinea pig. “ ‘Here, sir, let me help you. I’m good with animals. My name is Eel, so I know exactly how these creatures think when they’re trying to wriggle away.’ ”

“You gave it back to ’im, then?” Bernie asked, sounding disappointed.

I nodded. “Before you know it, I had it safe in its little carrying box.”

“Then he offered you the job?” Betsy asked.

“Weren’t quite as easy as all that. I had a trial period first, to prove myself,” I recalled. “And not just to Dr. Snow, but to Mrs. Weatherburn too. She’s like a general. Inspected my work for three weeks before she gave me the nod.”

She had also given me a warning: “Boy, if I catch you taking advantage of Dr. Snow’s generous nature, I’ll be getting the constable after you, and don’t think I won’t.”

Now I looked around warily.
Should I have brought Florrie and the little ones here at all?
I wouldn’t want Mrs. Weatherburn to think we were a gang of thieves.

I could just imagine her bursting out the back door, holding her broom high and shouting, “Scat!”

I let myself into Dr. Snow’s backyard through the black iron gate, then looked at the motley crew behind me.

“Whispers only. No running,” I said sternly. I eyed Dilly, who swished her tail and whined low in her throat. “That goes for you too.”

The small yard was mostly taken up by a neat wooden shed with several cages inside. The brick walkway to the kitchen door was lined with herbs for cooking. Mrs. Weatherburn had remarked once that Dr. Snow was a vegetarian. This made the doctor all the more special: I’d never known a vegetarian before.

“They can’t get out, can they?” Annie said uncertainly, biting the end of a strand of hair.

“It’s quite safe, Annie. Dr. Snow built the shed and all the cages himself,” I assured her. “He designed the shed so that it has good air, even in summer. See how those sides come down to make these openings? In winter, the sides latch up to protect the animals from the cold.”

Bernie and Betsy peered into one of the cages, their eyes round with amazement. “Look, a real bunny,” Betsy breathed. “Will it bite?”

I shook my head. “Naw, she’s gentle as a kitten.”

Betsy stuck her finger through an opening in the wire-mesh cage and wiggled it at a small brown rabbit. She giggled. “She’s nibbling my finger. Come pet ’er, Bernie.”

“You were right, Florrie. It was good to bring them,” I admitted. “Still friends?”

Florrie nodded. “And remember, you can trust your friends. Even with your secrets.”

Bernie was soon scampering from one cage to another. “Are these all his pets? Even the mice and guinea pigs?”

“They ain’t exactly pets,” I told him, putting some clean sheets of newspaper in the mouse cage. “Dr. Snow uses them for experiments.”

“What sort of experiments?” Florrie asked. I could tell she didn’t want me to launch into gory details of dissected legs and tails.

“Dr. Snow just puts them to sleep, that’s all,” I explained. “Not permanent-like. Just for a bit.”

Betsy frowned. “But why?”

“Dr. Snow’s experimenting with a gas called chloroform,” I told them. “When you breathe it in, you fall into a kind of sleep—such a deep sleep you don’t feel pain. That way, a dentist can yank a nasty tooth out, or a surgeon can cut into you, but you won’t feel a thing.”

“I don’t want to be cut into!” Bernie exclaimed.

“Dr. Snow’s been helping dentists and other doctors all over London,” I said proudly. “He even gave chloroform to the queen.”

“
She
had the toothache?” Annie Ribbons asked, surprised, as though kings and queens should be above that sort of thing.

“No. It was for something else,” I explained. “Last year Prince Leopold was born. Dr. Snow helped the queen have her baby prince without feeling much pain.”

“Let me see if I understand this,” said Florrie slowly. “Dr. Snow tries out the chloroform gas on the creatures first, so he knows how much to give people. I mean, he’d have to, wouldn’t ’e? If he made a mistake and gave the queen too much chloroform, they’d have ’is head!”

I nodded. “Exactly. But Dr. Snow is always careful how he treats the animals.”

I remembered the day Dr. Snow had appeared. He’d nodded his approval of the clean cages and told me, “We must treat all creatures kindly, and be humane when doing experiments for the betterment of humanity, Eel.”

“To think we’re standing in the yard of a man who has
actually met the queen,” said Florrie, seeming impressed at last.

“Here’s how I know he is truly devoted to science,” I said. “Mrs. Weatherburn told me he doesn’t just experiment on animals first. He tries out the chloroform on his own self too. He looks at his watch, breathes in the gas, and goes to sleep. Conk!”

I demonstrated, closing my eyes and cocking my head to one side. “Then, when he wakes up after a few minutes, he notes the time in his book and how much chloroform he took. It’s all part of bein’ a great scientist.”

What with Annie Ribbons, Bernie, and Betsy all wanting to help fill the water dishes, feeding took a long time. Finally we were done. Florrie had hung back, and then I saw that she’d been busy drawing.

“One picture for each of you,” she told the little ones, tearing out pages from her sketchbook. “Bunnies for Annie and Betsy, and a guinea pig for Bernie.”

“Look, Eel,” Bernie said, holding it up for me to see. “I’m going to call him General. General the Guinea Pig. Can that be his name from now on?”

“I will call him nothing else,” I assured Bernie. “But now it’s time for you to go home. Florrie, can you take them?”

“By myself? But I thought we were getting them ices. What about you?”

“I have to talk to Dr. Snow, remember? Please, Florrie,” I pleaded.

Florrie sighed. “All right. But what will you do if he’s not home? Can you go back to the Lion tonight?”

I shook my head. “If I don’t get Dr. Snow’s help, I can’t. Stealing is serious, you know that.”

“What will you do tonight, then? Will you stay here?”

I could feel my face getting red. How did that girl manage to be one step ahead of me at every turn? For it
had
crossed my mind to sleep here. I went over to where Dilly was dozing in the shade and leaned down to scratch her ears, avoiding Florrie’s eyes.

“I know you think the world of Dr. Snow, Eel. But swells like him don’t care for mudlarks in their backyards,” Florrie cautioned. “I’d bet a halfpenny that if Dr. Snow or his housekeeper found you sleeping in this shed, they’d boot you out and tell you not to come back ever again.”

If Florrie was right, that would mean losing the only job I still had except mudlarking, which didn’t count for much. “Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I have a place to go.”

“Is it safe?”

I nodded. Well, it had been safe enough. But now I wondered: if I slept in one of my old haunts by the Thames, did I risk getting caught by Fisheye Bill?

I reached into my pocket and gave Florrie a sixpence. My last. “Have an ice yourself too.”

She sighed. “You’ll be missing the best part: holding on to their sticky little hands.”

I grinned and waved as they trudged away. Dilly sniffed at every bush, memorizing the yard in case she might want to return someday.

At the gate, Florrie stopped and looked back. “Good luck, Eel.”

I was going to need it. I stood staring at the back door, trying to get my courage up. At last I knocked. After what seemed a long time, the door opened. “Hullo, Mrs. Weatherburn,” I said, grabbing my cap off my head.

Mrs. Weatherburn was about Dr. Snow’s age, which I guessed was around forty. She put me in mind of a bulldog, with a stern face and unsmiling eyes. She was as loyal to the doctor as Dilly was to Mr. Griggs.

To hear Mrs. Weatherburn tell it, she might be working for Prince Albert himself. “Dr. Snow is a genius,” she told me every week when I presented myself to get paid. “It’s a true privilege to work for him.”

“Yes, ma’am, I think so too,” I always said.

While I shifted from one foot to the other, Mrs. Weatherburn would go on about how busy the doctor was, how he needed to take better care of his health, and how sure she was that his name would go down in history. Eventually she would stop, give herself a little shake as if recollecting where she was, and, at long last, hand over my two shillings.

Now she looked down at me. “Is there a problem, boy?”

Mrs. Weatherburn never used my name. “I am certainly
not about to call a boy a fish,” she had sniffed the first day we’d met.

“No problem at all, Mrs. Weatherburn,” I told her. “Everything is done.” I stared at my feet. I had to talk fast. “I was wondering, though. Is … is Dr. Snow in?”

Mrs. Weatherburn didn’t exactly growl; she was far too polite for that. “Before tea? You think you’re going to be able to see the doctor at this time of day?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. “The doctor is a great man, as you know. And that means he is busy.
Extremely
busy. Most nights he doesn’t get home until after dark.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I put in. “It’s just that—”

“Today I believe he’s giving chloroform for a tooth extraction.” I opened my mouth, but she had already begun speaking again. “They all call upon him now, you know. The best dentists and surgeons in London rely on Dr. Snow. His reputation grows every day. He is a true genius.”

Mrs. Weatherburn, I realized suddenly, was right. Dr. Snow was a busy, important man. What had I been thinking? I couldn’t expect him to take time to help me. Queen Victoria had been his patient. Why should he care about a mudlark?

“Uh … uh, I just wanted to tell you that the cages are all done,” I mumbled. “And, um … it’s Thursday, ma’am.” Mrs. Weatherburn usually paid me Thursday evening or Friday morning.

“Ah, so that’s it. You want to get paid.” She drew two
shillings from her pocket and held them out to me. “He’s generous too, boy. Two shillings a week for cleaning cages. You’re lucky he took a fancy to you in the market that day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, taking the coins, which felt cool and solid in my hand.

Two shillings. It was good, but not enough. Not enough to keep my secret safe.

“Watch it, lad,” barked a cabbie.

I leaped aside over a pile of dung, taking care that my two shillings were stuffed deep in my pocket. The cabbie’s horse neighed and pawed the cobblestones, shaking its great head at me.

“Best not to get in old General’s way,” the cabbie warned. I kept my head down and didn’t answer. I thought of Bernie, who’d given the tiny guinea pig that same name.

Already Broad Street seemed far away. I was headed for the river, and my old life as a mudlark. I pulled my brown cap down so low its rim rubbed my eyebrows. I walked fast, feeling the bumpy cobblestones through my thin shoes. The bridge was probably two miles away, longer if I kept to the
back lanes and alleyways. But that was safer. Pickpockets were sure to be on the prowl in busy places like Piccadilly Circus or Covent Garden.

It wasn’t just losing my money that worried me. Almost every pickpocket in London knew Fisheye Bill. Some of his cronies might well recognize me; others would be on the lookout for a boy of my description. All of them would be glad to turn me over to Fisheye for a few shillings.