Seconds later, the door opened again and the Jägerman clambered inside, panting. He bent over, hands on his knees, as beads of sweat dripped from beneath his hat.
“You, lass,” he grumbled between breaths, “do not have typhoid.”
Molly shrugged. “It comes and goes?”
“I oughta take you straight to Blackwell’s Island,” the Jägerman said, straightening up. “They tame wild orphans over there.”
“I’ll have you know I am that wild orphan’s mother!” Cassandra threw open the folding screen with such vigor that it fell over. Molly ran to her.
“Well, ma’am, I’m Agent Muldoon with the Jäger Society.” The agent flashed his badge. “We look to the welfare of all children, orphans or no. Why is your daughter not in school?”
Cassandra eyed the man cautiously. “Because she—”
Molly coughed loudly.
“She’s sick,” Cassandra said. “So I kept her home.”
The agent’s eyebrows shot up. “The girl lives in a pickle store?”
“What? Ha! No.” Cassandra faked a laugh. “Of course not. Who would live in a . . . ha!”
Clearly visible behind her were beds, blankets, a half-cooked breakfast, and several pairs of bloomers hanging from a clothesline. Not to mention the cluttered heaps of tools and bizarre machinery.
“Mrs. . . . Pepper, I assume?” the Jägerman said. “This is clearly not a safe environment for a child. I can see three dozen Jäger Society violations just from where I’m standing. And I don’t even want to ask why that teakettle is holding a knife.”
“It’s buttering our toast,” Cassandra said.
“My point is that it would be in my rights to take your girl away from here this minute,” Muldoon continued. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Pepper.”
“Certainly,” Cassandra replied, her jaw suddenly tight. “You’ll find him at St. Mark’s Cemetery, plot 16B. Tell him I’m sorry I haven’t visited in a while.”
The Jägerman sighed. “Look, I’m not heartless. I’ll give you a chance to fix this. But when I return—with the district supervisor—we’ll want to see this place clean and safe. And the girl properly dressed and back in school.”
Cassandra’s hands were balled up, her lips tight. Molly figured her mother was working very hard to avoid saying something she might regret, so she stepped in, and despite her own growing anger, said, “Thank you, sir.”
“But understand,” Muldoon warned, “if everything is not to our satisfaction, we will remove the girl and see that she’s placed in a home that can handle her.”
Molly was no longer faking that sick feeling.
The Jägerman tipped his hat as he walked out. “See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Molly sputtered as soon as the door was shut again. “This is outrageous! They can’t—” She stopped when she saw her mother flopped along the countertop like a wet rag, arms dangling over the sides.
“I’ve failed you, Molls,” Cassandra mumbled.
Molly tilted her head to be aligned with her mother’s. “You’re doing your best, Mother. I’m the one who messed up. I let him follow me.”
“I thought I could change the world,” Cassandra said, lifting her head. “I wanted to make history. And I wanted to do it for you. For us.”
“That’s why you’re my hero,” Molly said. “So what if we’ve had a few setbacks? We’re Peppers, right? Peppers don’t give up. And when your name does end up in the papers, it will all have been worth it. Now get up, because I’m pretty sure you’re lying on the pepper grinder. That cannot be comfortable.”
“But twenty-four hours, Molls?” Cassandra said as her daughter helped her down. “How are we going to turn this into a respectable home by then?”
“We’re not,” Molly said as she grabbed a slice from the Crust-o-Matic Toastinator. She took a bite, then held it out for Cassandra to chomp into.
“We’re not?” Cassandra repeated with her mouth full. “I mean, some curtains might help.”
“No, Mother. We’re sticking to our original plan,” Molly said. “The Jägermen aren’t going to take away the daughter of the woman who saved the World’s Fair, right? We still need to foil Alexander Graham Bell’s dastardly plot. We just need to do it faster.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“We’re going back to the Guild.”
9
Return to the Palace of Wonders
MOLLY WOULD HAVE been happier had they worn disguises on their return trip to the Guild Hall, but her mother insisted nobody would so much as glance in their direction. It turned out Cassandra was right. Though the vast cathedral-like entry chamber was packed wall-to-wall with people, every eye in the place was cast upward. There would have been spectacle enough with the towering marble pillars, mosaic tiles, and the kind of gold-railed staircases you’d expect to see a princess glide down on her way to the ball. But there was also the ceiling, which could have given the Sistine Chapel an inferiority complex. As gears spun and pistons churned, mechanical dolls waltzed with one another, swung on teensy trapezes, rode clockwork horses, and pounded the scenery with miniature hammers as if repairing the endless machine they themselves were part of. A tiny tin fairy “flew” around on wires, setting electrical stars aglow.
“I used to think all this clockwork hoo-ha-ha was the Guild’s gift to the people of New York,” Cassandra said. “Now I’m certain it’s a distraction—to keep anybody from giving too much thought to what goes on upstairs. So let’s not allow ourselves to be delayed for one more—oh, look! A chicken rowing a boat!”
“To the Welcome Desk, Mother. And take your invention,” Molly whispered. She forced the wicker basket she’d been carrying into Cassandra’s hand. “We need to talk our way back into Bell’s office.” And hopefully find some clues to the whereabouts of his death machine, she thought.
As Molly pulled Cassandra across the immense room, a band of tin angels tooted out a fanfare on their trumpets and the crowd parted as a man strode into the building like royalty. Molly had seen enough photos to recognize that crisp checkered suit, the trademark bow tie, the eyebrows like startled caterpillars: it was Thomas Edison.
Molly froze, unsure of what to do. Should she try to approach Edison directly and tell him what was going on? Or did he already know? Edison and Bell worked together on so much—what if this World’s Fair plot was another of their collaborations?
But the crowd made Molly’s decision for her. She and Cassandra were engulfed as scores of cheering fans swarmed the famed inventor. Security guards swooped in to hold back the whooping spectators.
“Thank you, thank you!” Edison called out. “Now, that’s the kind of reception a man likes to get on his way to work! All right, all right—who wants an autograph?”
Dignified men in top hats and elegant women in gowns bounced like delighted toddlers. Several people surged forward, waving autograph pads over their heads. Cassandra was bumped in the rush and Molly saw a folded piece of paper fly from her basket. The secret plans! Molly dove forward and snatched up the parchment a fraction of a second before it would have been impaled by a high-heeled boot.
“Whew.” Molly struggled to her feet, but quickly realized her mother was forging on without her. “Wait!” She waved to get Cassandra’s attention and yelped as someone plucked the folder paper from her fingers. She turned to see Thomas Edison scribbling his signature across the back of Bell’s secret plans. Molly yanked the paper back.
“Hey, I wasn’t fin—” the inventor began.
“How about a dance, Mr. Edison?” Molly shouted.
“Yeah, a dance!” cried another woman in the crowd.
“Give us a show, Tommy!” a third fan called out. And soon dozens joined in.
“Oh, you people are terrible!” Edison joked as the guards cleared a space for him at the foot of a grand spiral staircase. “But you also know I can’t say no to my fans!”
With a flourish, Edison tossed his hat high into the air
and a tiny spinning propeller emerged. A bright light erupted from beneath the brim, turning the derby into a hovering spotlight. And then, Edison began to dance.
With the crowd occupied, Molly darted to join her mother at the Welcome Desk. “We are here to see Alexander Graham Bell,” Cassandra announced.
“Mr. Bell regrets that he needs to cancel all his appointments for today,” said the clerk.
“That’s no problem,” said Cassandra. “We don’t have an appointment.”
The man, whose long nose and twiggish arms made him look more marionette than human, stared at her for a few seconds before clarifying. “You can’t see him.”
Behind them, the crowd applauded as Edison finished his dance routine and headed upstairs. “Let us see Edison, then,” Molly said. She and Cassandra needed to snoop around Bell’s office, but a “consultation” with any of the inventors should get them to the second floor. “He’s definitely here.”
“And he just said how busy he is.” The clerk’s instant frown told her that he was an adult of the children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard persuasion.
“Look, we don’t need a lot of time with Bell,” Cassandra said.
The clerk’s patience seemed to be wearing as thin as his hair. “Mr. Bell,” he sneered, “like all of our scientists, is working on a big surprise for the Fair.”
“Bigger than you know,” Cassandra muttered.
“Excuse me?” said the clerk.
“The surprise,” Molly interjected. “It’s bigger than you . . . no?”
The man rolled his eyes.
“Well, speaking of surprises,” said Cassandra, mimicking Edison’s showy manner. “I’m sure Mr. Bell will make room in his schedule when he sees . . . this!” From her wicker basket, she produced a helmet (crafted from the kitchen strainer Molly used to wear to play King Arthur) fitted with a network of knobs, coils, and gears.
The clerk stared. “Are you planning to cook him some beans?”
“This, my good man, is the amazing Automated Sneeze Shield,” Cassandra continued. “Now, you look like the hustle-bustle man-about-town type. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you didn’t have to put your gadfly lifestyle on hold every time you came down with a head cold? ‘But,’ you ask, ‘how can I protect my fellow socialites from the icky business that shoots from my face when I sneeze?’ That, my friend, is where the sneeze shield comes in. You wear it like so.” She plopped the device onto the startled clerk’s head. “It reacts to the sound of an oncoming sneeze. It would, of course, be too late if the machine waited until the ‘choo’ part of the sneeze, so the helmet has been designed to lower its shield the moment it hears a loud ‘ah!’” And with that—boing!—a curved sheet of tin sprang down from within the helmet.
It should have covered the man’s entire face, as it had done for Cassandra and Molly during their test runs. But the Peppers had much smaller noses than the clerk. The man howled in pain. “You cut off my node!” With a struggle, he slid the shield back up to reveal a large, red welt on his ample nose (which was, thank goodness, still attached to his face).
“Okay, I apologize for that bit,” Cassandra said. “But as you can see, the device works. Your nose just isn’t supposed to be that big.”
The clerk seethed.
“Sooo,” said Cassandra. “Can we see Mr. Bell now?”
The clerk slammed his hands on his desk and shouted, “Absolutely not!” But most of his shout was muffled, since, after the first syllable, the shield slammed down on his nose again. Yowling, the man tossed the sneeze shield from his head. The Peppers gasped as it hit the floor and broke apart.
“You, woman, are a dangerous loon!” the clerk yelled. “Take your obnoxious girl and that ridiculous nasal guillotine back home and tell your husband that if he’s too embarrassed to demonstrate his own inventions, he should keep them to himself instead of sending his flibbertigibbet of a wife in here with them!”
“Husband?” Cassandra’s gaze went dark. She leaned over the desk, close enough to make Molly wonder if she might bite the man. “I am the inventor! And back when my husband still walked this earth, he assured me that, someday, each and every person in this building would know my name. And they will. Even those high-and-mighty hoop-de-hoos upstairs. So don’t think for a moment that you and that farcically oversized beak of yours have stopped me. You haven’t heard the last of Cassandra Pe— Molly, what?”
Molly was tugging her mother toward the exit. “Strategic retreat,” she muttered. They had gathered almost as big a crowd as Edison.
“Detain them,” the clerk snapped at the guards who materialized out of the crowd. “I’ll call the police.”
Call the police? That meant he had a telephone! And Molly wasn’t going to get to see it. Of all the rotten luck.
“Operator, get me the police,” they heard the clerk say behind them. “There’s a woman causing a disturbance at the Inventors’ Guild! Her name is Cassandra something . . . Cassandra Pemollywot!”
Molly heard the guards shouting behind her as she and her mother ran for the doors. But then— “Oof!” And—thud! And, “Excuse me! I’m so sorry, gentlemen!”
Molly glanced over her shoulder to see the two guards in a jumble on the floor, having just tripped over an older woman’s parasol.
“Outta the way, lady,” one guard barked.
But the woman in the funny little knit cap didn’t budge. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I think you’ve broken my umbrella. Look at it—oh, I’m sorry again! Was that your ear? I really should wear my glasses.”
Molly could have sworn the woman winked at her.
Outside, the Peppers ducked under the marquee of the Madison Square Theatre next door. From behind the box office booth, Molly watched as the guards poked out from the Guild Hall entrance—one with a blue parasol jammed down the back of his coat—and peered around before grumpily heading back inside. Molly sighed—a mix of relief and frustration. If they were going to succeed in thwarting Bell’s wicked plot, outbursts like the one her mother had just had were not going to help. But how could she express this gently? “Mother,” she began. “I think we might need— Flaming flapjacks! Look behind you!”
The boy from Bell’s workshop had just stepped out of the Guild Hall.
10
Molly’s Archnemesis
THE MYSTERY BOY looked very different than he had the night before. In a tweed suit, cap, and tie, he looked surprisingly professional for an eleven-year-old. And he was carrying an unusual twine-wrapped box. Could it be that he actually did work for Bell? If so, why had he been sneaking around the Guild after hours? Why had he fought so hard for that roll of paper? Had he been trying to protect his boss’s plans—or swipe them? Maybe so he could turn Bell in himself? One thing was certain: the boy was nervous now. His eyes were darting every which way. This was someone who clearly did not want to be followed.
“We have to follow him,” Molly said to her mother. “I don’t know if he’s delivering that package for Bell or if he stole it from him, but either way, we need to find out where he’s taking it.”
Cassandra nodded. “Let’s move.”
Molly paused. Stealthily trailing her archnemesis was going to be challenging enough without her mother tagging along. “Actually, maybe we should split up? We can meet back at the shop.”
“Don’t be silly, Molls,” Cassandra said. “The more Peppers, the better.”
“But . . .” Molly was at a loss until she spotted her third surprising face of the day—a face surrounded by the same curly hair and braided beard as the faces on the theater posters all around them. “Look, Mother! Heading to the stage door—it’s Sergio Vittorini! This is your chance to get an autograph!” She reached into the basket and pulled out Bell’s plans. “But not on this.” She tucked the paper down her collar, patted her mother on the back, and raced off after the mystery boy before Cassandra had a chance to object.
Her quarry kept glancing over his shoulder, so Molly took to using taller, wider pedestr
ians as camouflage, peering out from behind a puffy skirt or under the elbow of a pointing tourist. When the boy turned to walk under the elevated Bowery rail line, the wealth of shadows, hanging clouds of soot, and forest of iron beams provided ample hiding spots. Molly had been giving a lot of thought as to what type of career she should pursue once she’d helped her mother achieve fame and they could leave the pickle shop behind. Right now, spy was moving to the top of that list.
Twenty-five blocks later, though, the boy and his box took a hard left onto East Broadway, leaving the cover of the train tracks and heading into a quieter part of town that held mostly warehouses and stables. Aside from Molly and a man in black suspenders, the street was empty. She hustled up close behind the man for cover.
“Thought you’d nick my wallet, eh?” the man sneered as he turned around. “A lady pickpocketer? Now I’ve seen everything.”
“No,” Molly sputtered. The boy turned a corner. There was no one else in sight. “I just—” She looked around. Still nobody.
“It’s a shameful world we live in, when even the thieving’s left to females.” He grabbed Molly’s wrist. “You’ll come along with me now, missy. The Jägermen’ll—OW!”
Molly bit his hand and ran.
In an alley around the corner, she crouched behind a row of dented trash cans and bowed her head. Chasing the mystery boy across Manhattan all by herself, she’d felt elated. And proud. And free. But when Suspenders Man grabbed her, she fully expected her mother to pop up and save the day. Now she was disappointed in herself for feeling disappointed.
“Why are you following me?” The boy from Bell’s lab was standing by the alley wall.
Molly leapt to her feet. “Aargh, stupid Suspenders Guy ruined everything!” she snarled. “If he hadn’t given me away, you’d never have spotted me.”
“I’ve known you were behind me since we were a block away from the Guild Hall,” said the boy.
“Impossible.” Molly crossed her arms defiantly. “I move like the wind.”
A Dastardly Plot Page 5