At the front of the classroom, on a massive table, was a sinister-looking system of glass beakers and tubes. A strange liquid in a toxic shade of purple coursed through the coiled tubes, bubbled ominously in the beakers, and finally dripped into a bowl manned by one of the Girl Scouts. The entire room stank of marshmallows and grape.
A Scout leader advanced toward us with a pair of metal tongs. Pinched between them was a sandwich bulging with melted marshmallows and dripping chocolate.
“Nice to see you back, Kiki. S’more?” she asked, thrusting the tongs under Kiki’s nose.
“No thanks,” said Kiki, recoiling from the s’more as if it were poisoned.
“Suit yourself,” said the woman, turning to supervise a group of girls whose s’mores kept bursting into flame.
“What’s the purple stuff in the beakers?” I asked Kiki.
“Punch,” she said. “It’s snack time.”
Summoning my powers of observation, I let my eyes roam the classroom. Aside from the rather unusual methods of food preparation being used, I immediately noticed at least two things that weren’t quite right. For starters, the Scout leaders who milled about the room, making sure that safety precautions were followed, were all extremely young. Judging solely by their faces, a couple of them weren’t old enough to be in charge. But even the most youthful of the Scout leaders had a helmet of silver hair and walked with the slow, painstaking gait of the elderly. It was as if new faces had been magically attached to ancient bodies.
I also noticed, as I filled a paper cup with punch, that the girl standing by the punch bowl had been involved in an accident. She wore her hair in dreadlocks, and on one side of her head they brushed against her shoulder. On the other side, however, her hair was at least four inches shorter and singed at the bottom, as if it had been set on fire. I returned with my punch to Kiki’s side, but kept my eye on the girl with the lopsided hairdo.
“Her name’s DeeDee Morlock,” said Kiki, hopping onto a stool situated a safe distance from the s’mores. “This is her father’s classroom. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, he’s a chemistry professor.”
“What happened to her hair?” I asked.
“It caught on fire during an experiment she was conducting. She’s lucky, though. The substances she was working with could have destroyed her whole block.”
“So she’s a chemist, too?”
“She puts her father to shame,” said Kiki. “Notice anything unusual about the Scout leaders?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with them? Why do they all have gray hair?”
“Nothing’s wrong with them. You’ll have gray hair, too, when you’re their age. Mrs. Lupinski’s the youngest, and she turned eighty-five last week. Surprised?” she asked, noting what must have been a look of pure astonishment on my face.
“How’s it possible?”
“A couple of weeks ago, our new friend DeeDee succeeded in refining a particularly dangerous strain of botulism. Do you know what that is?”
“It’s the deadliest poison on earth,” I answered. There was an entire book devoted to the subject tucked between some cans of tuna in my kitchen. I had once skimmed it while waiting for the kettle to boil. “But some women have it injected into their faces. It paralyzes the muscles and makes wrinkles disappear.”
“Exactly. Unfortunately, it’s too expensive for most Scout leaders, so DeeDee whipped them up a batch. Now they’re all wrinkle-free and fabulous.”
“That was nice of DeeDee,” I said, feeling a little uncomfortable.
“By all accounts, she’s a very nice girl,” Kiki noted in a scientific fashion, as if she were observing the markings on a rare species of toad.
Once snack time had finished, Kiki hopped off her stool.
“Unless you’re desperate to learn how to macramé, we’re not staying for arts and crafts,” she announced. I reached to gather my things, but Kiki stopped me. “Wait here. There’s one more thing I have to do.” She left me standing on my own while she marched across the room and pulled DeeDee aside. I witnessed the exchange of another mysterious golden envelope. When she returned, she met me with a devilish wink. “We’ll talk later,” she said, anticipating my question. “We’ve got another meeting to go to, and it’s important to get there before it starts.”
Without any further explanation, we left Columbia University and caught a subway downtown to the East Village. When we emerged at Astor Place, it was late afternoon. I struggled with my polyester uniform, which was sticking to me uncomfortably, and tried to keep up with Kiki as she hurried toward an old Yiddish theater that doubled as a community center. Its walls were plastered with advertisements for anarchist meetings, dating services, and guitar lessons.
The minute we stepped inside, we were immediately set upon by two chipper girls, both dressed in Girl Scout uniforms that somehow seemed vaguely punk. One of them grabbed my arm and spun me around.
“This is the best one yet!” she chirped.
“Definitely,” the other agreed. “How d’you get your hair that color? It’s so dull and lifeless!”
“And those shoes! You look like you held up a Payless.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I sputtered once I finally regained my balance. Kiki was doubled over with laughter.
“Oh my God, you totally deserve an Oscar,” said one of the girls, laughing so hard, she could barely get the words out.
“Yeah, you’re my hero, Betty,” said the other.
“Who’s Betty?” I asked.
“She’s not Betty,” Kiki added.
“Are you sure?” asked one of the girls incredulously.
“Positive,” said Kiki, giving my hair a yank.
The two girls looked at each other, suddenly serious.
“I could have sworn we had her this time.”
“I know,” said the other. “C’mon, let’s go look around some more.” They turned and headed toward a large group of girls who were gathering in the center of the room, waiting for the meeting to begin.
“What was that about?” I asked Kiki once they were out of earshot.
“You’ll see soon enough,” she said. “I’d hate to ruin the suspense.”
The meeting was called to order, and one of the Scout leaders stepped up to the group of girls.
“Okay,” she said, as if performing a tiresome ritual. “Let’s get this over with. Which of you is Betty Bent?” No one said a thing. All the girls looked eagerly around the room, examining their neighbors. “We’re not getting started until you tell us who you are today, Betty,” warned the exasperated woman. After a long pause a hand slowly rose from the crowd. “Please stand up,” said the Scout leader.
A girl with long, stringy blond hair, thick glasses, and a slight hump stood up, smiling nervously. The group broke into the kind of worshipful applause that’s usually reserved for divas and dictators.
“You’re a genius!” shouted one of the girls who had accosted me earlier.
“Well, Betty,” said the Scout leader, shaking her head in disapproval. “You’ve really outdone yourself. But may I suggest that our master of disguise come to the next meeting as the real Betty Bent?”
“Who’s the real Betty Bent?” whispered the humpbacked girl, and the Girl Scouts roared with laughter.
“What does she really look like?” I whispered to Kiki.
“Beats me,” she replied. “Last week she was Korean.”
Once again, when the meeting was under way, Kiki showed no interest in sticking around. We had seen what we had come to see, and it was time to make our exit. On our way out the door, Kiki stealthily slipped a gold envelope to a surprised Betty Bent, who was still trying to blend into the crowd. Betty looked down at the envelope in her hand and opened her mouth as if to speak, but before she could ask the meaning of it all, we were gone.
Back on the street, Kiki and I walked in silence until I took notice of my surroundings and discovered we were on Cleveland Place, only a few yards away from m
y home. My disappointment grew when I realized that I would have to wait for the secret of the envelopes to be revealed. Before we separated, Kiki asked me to meet her the next morning at seven o’clock on the corner of Mott and Mosco streets in Chinatown.
“There’s one more person I’d like you to meet before we talk,” she said as she deposited me at my doorstep. “And you won’t need the uniform.”
• • •
In all of Manhattan, only Chinatown is bustling at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning. By the time I made my way to Mott Street, the narrow roads were teeming with people, all winding around stands selling unusual merchandise. At one stand, a man sorted though a barrel of freeze-dried octopi, while at another a woman wearing thick gloves arranged a heap of enormous fruit, each covered with hundreds of spikes so sharp, they could easily puncture a finger. Shops specializing in counterfeit goods disappeared behind sliding metal grates whenever a police car passed by.
Kiki Strike, dressed in black and looking alarmingly chic, stood in front of a little fish shop that spilled out onto the sidewalk. Thin streams of blood trickled into the street and an overpowering odor of death issued from the shop’s open front. Giant silver fish the size of small children lay smothered in ice, their mouths stretched wide as if gasping for one last breath. A large plastic tub was filled to the brim with hundreds of brightly colored crabs, all struggling to make a desperate escape. One scuttled across my foot and disappeared into a sewer drain.
“She’s in there,” said Kiki, pointing at a tiny temple across the street from the fish shop. “She’ll be out any minute now.”
I watched the front door of the temple with great anticipation. As it opened, I caught a quick glimpse of a mammoth golden Buddha that crouched at the end of a dark room and glittered alluringly in the morning sunlight. A stunning girl emerged wearing a silk dress embroidered with emerald chrysanthemums, her hair pulled back in a prim bun. She caught sight of Kiki and made a beeline for her across the street.
“What do you want?” she demanded in a gruff voice that didn’t match her doll-like appearance. “You know I got kicked out. Did you come to rub it in?”
“So you got booted out of the Girl Scouts.” Kiki shrugged. “Who cares?”
Both of us stared at her. I had come to believe that Kiki took the Girl Scouts rather seriously.
“Then why are you here?” asked the girl.
“I wanted you to meet someone.”
“I know who she is,” said the girl, giving me a brisk once-over. “I have better things to do than hang around with Atalanta girls.”
“Do you?” asked Kiki knowingly, and the girl softened. “Anyway, I wanted you two to meet in person. This is Oona Wong,” she said to me.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “How do you know who I am?”
Oona finally cracked a smile and winked at Kiki. “I once made an ID card for someone who needed access to Atalanta. I had to go through the picture files on your school’s computer to find a reasonable match. I never forget a face.”
“Oona’s the best hacker in Manhattan,” said Kiki.
“And forger,” added Oona proudly.
“That’s why she got kicked out,” said Kiki.
“Counterfeit Girl Scout badges,” Oona explained. “I should have known better than to sell a Model Citizen badge to that girl who was stealing the cookie money.”
“To be honest, Oona, I always thought the badge business was beneath you,” said Kiki.
“So you came all the way to Chinatown to tell me?” Oona asked, her head cocked and her hands on her hips.
“No, I wanted to give you something.” Kiki calmly retrieved a small golden envelope from her bag. “Since you don’t have a permanent mailing address, I had to hand deliver it.”
“Are you having a party or something?” asked Oona.
“Or something,” said Kiki. “I thought you might be looking for new ways to pass the time now that you’re no longer welcome in the Girl Scouts.” She handed the envelope to Oona. “Come on, Ananka. We should go,” she said to me.
We walked away as Oona impatiently tore open the envelope. We were almost to the end of the block when we heard Oona’s voice calling out through the crowd.
“I’ll be there!” she yelled.
Walking north from Chinatown Kiki and I soon found ourselves on a deserted cobblestone street in SoHo. Unable to stifle my curiosity any longer, I stopped in front of a narrow building that looked as though it had been sawed in half.
“Okay,” I demanded. “What’s going on?” If I wanted to feel left out, I could always spend more time at school.
Kiki grinned like a cat that had swallowed an entire pet store’s worth of canaries.
“Mind if we discuss it over coffee?” she asked, pointing to a café across the street.
“Why not?” I shrugged.
We sat at a table toward the back of the empty café. A pair of waitresses milled about, gossiping noisily in French as they filled saltshakers and wiped down plastic menus with filthy sponges. Kiki scanned the room for potential eavesdroppers, then settled into a chair. She called out in French to one of the waitresses, then turned her attention to me.
“What did you think of the other girls?” she asked.
“They’re amazing,” I admitted. “But I’m not sure why you’re recruiting them.”
“You can’t see how a mechanical genius, a chemist, a master of disguise, and a forger could come in handy?” Kiki snorted.
“Well, I might if I knew what we were doing.”
Kiki looked as if she questioned my sanity. “We’re going to explore the Shadow City.”
My heart nearly burst through my ribs. “So you have found another entrance.”
“Of course I have.”
A single thought popped into my head. I still don’t know how it got there.
“The Marble Cemetery.”
“You guessed!” she exclaimed, sounding genuinely impressed.
“How did you find it?”
One of the waitresses placed a steaming bowl of café au lait in front of us. Kiki stirred her coffee and took a quick sip.
“I’ve known about it all along.”
Kiki Strike set down her coffee cup, leaned back in her chair, and looked me in the eye.
“There once was a man named Augustus Quacken-bush,” she began.
“Quackenbush?” I interrupted. “That doesn’t sound like a real name.”
“Just listen, Ananka. Augustus Quackenbush was a very rich man,” she continued. “He owned a shop that sold the fanciest clothes in New York. In fact, his business was so successful that in 1852, he was able to pay a fortune for one of the vaults in the Marble Cemetery. I guess in those days, it was the place to be buried.
“Then, right after he bought the vault, Quackenbush went broke. He’d spent every last penny on a huge shipment of fabric from Paris. But the ship carrying the cloth was captured by pirates on its way to New York, and none of the booty was ever recovered.
“Augustus Quackenbush didn’t like the idea of being poor. So he decided that if he couldn’t afford to buy the fabric he needed to keep his business going, he’d just have to steal it. But in order to get started, Quackenbush needed the help of an experienced criminal. Lucky for him, he knew just the person for the job—a man he’d met in a gambling parlor. His name was Pearcy Leake III.”
“The guy who wrote Glimpses of Gotham?” I asked.
“Exactly. Before he started writing books, Pearcy Leake made his living as a con man. His specialty was sweet-talking his way into old ladies’ wills, but he wasn’t opposed to a little larceny here and there. When Quack-enbush offered him the job, he was thrilled. But once he’d thought things through, he realized that the location of Augustus Quackenbush’s shop was going to cause problems. It was on Broadway, the busiest street in the city. There was no way to deliver stolen goods to the shop without being seen by half of New York.
“When it was all starting to seem hopel
ess, Quackenbush happened to mention his vault in the Marble Cemetery and Leake had a stroke of genius. He suggested that they build an underground tunnel that would link the empty vault to the basement of Quackenbush’s shop ten blocks away. Once the tunnel was built, they could hire a crew of thieves, disguise them as grave diggers, and smuggle stolen fabric into the shop using the deserted cemetery as a loading dock.
“They spent six months digging the tunnel. Leake insisted they take another two months to connect their tunnel to the Shadow City. He figured that if anything ever went wrong, it would make the perfect escape route. Of course, nothing ever went wrong, and Quack-enbush and Leake became two of the richest men in New York.
“Augustus Quackenbush dropped dead in 1867, and a couple of years later, Pearcy Leake mysteriously disappeared. Their tunnel was forgotten. But it’s still down there, just waiting for someone to use it.”
“Give me a break. How could you possibly know all that?” I demanded.
“Augustus Quackenbush was my great-great-grandfather,” Kiki said. “A few years ago, I inherited a house that once belonged to him. When we were renovating, a workman found his diary and a copy of Glimpses of Gotham hidden behind a stone in the fireplace. Because I’m a relative of the dead, I was able to get a key to the Marble Cemetery, even though Augustus Quackenbush isn’t even buried there.”
“He’s not?” I asked.
“Well, he couldn’t risk anyone finding the tunnel, so he was secretly buried elsewhere.”
“Where?”
“In my front yard,” said Kiki nonchalantly.
For a moment I was speechless. And although I knew I shouldn’t judge people by their relatives, I wondered if Kiki Strike was up to no good. I was beginning to understand how the other girls might play a part in Kiki’s plans, but I had no idea why she would need someone like me. If I had any unusual talents, I had yet to discover them.
Inside the Shadow City Page 6