The Great Trouble Page 4

  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!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dr. Snow’s Menagerie

  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.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On the River

  “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.

  They weren’t the only ones either. Fisheye Bill still had fishmonger pals from the old days, before he took to crime. They often gathered at the open windows of pubs after work, cradling their pints and keeping a sharp eye on everything that went on around them.

  I could just imagine one telling my stepfather: “Bill, my friend! I saw that lad of yours today, walkin’ right through the market, bold as brass. Run off, has ’e? Now, that’s a shame, after all you done for him. His name is Eel, ain’t it? Too slippery for you, is ’e?”

  Talk like that would make Fisheye Bill boil with rage. He couldn’t stomach the fact that I’d been smart enough to disappear. Could I let Fisheye get near me again? Never.

  The smell of onions and frying potatoes wafting out from the pubs made my stomach growl. I was pinched with hunger, and hadn’t touched a morsel since breakfast at the Lion. The Lion. I wondered about Queenie. I wouldn’t be there to feed her anymore. How would she get on? Would anyone remember to give her scraps or fill her tin water cup?

  Then I thought of Abel Cooper. When the foreman had come in on Monday, he’d found the scrawny black kitten, still a bit damp, curled up in the center of his chair like she owned it. “And who, may I ask, is this?” he’d grumbled.

  “This here is Queenie, sir. Some boy threw her into the Thames. Lucky for her I was there,” I told him.

  “Very gallant of you, I’m sure,” Mr. Cooper said sarcastically. “But how did she end up on my chair?”

  “Aw, c’mon, Guv, have a heart. Besides, the Lion needs a good ratter.”

  Abel Cooper grunted. Later, though, when I’d gone back into his office to deliver a message, I found Queenie still on his chair—only this time on his lap.

  Queenie would be just fine.

  The closer I got to the Thames, the worse the air smelled. I thought about how this day had begun, with Abel Cooper warning of the trouble miasma would bring. As bad as my own troubles were, things were a lot worse for Mr. Griggs. How was he doing now? Maybe I’d been wrong about the blue death. Tomorrow I’d go back and check.

  But I had somewhere else to go first thing in the morning. I swallowed hard, thinking about what would happen when I appeared without four shillings. I’d had those shillings yesterday, put away safe in my tin box. But that was yesterday.

  I couldn’t think of that now. I might not be able to add more than a penny or two to what Mrs. Weatherburn had given me, but I had to try. I had to be a mudlark again, like it or not.

  The sour, rotting, filthy smell hit me full in the face as the river came into view. My stomach lurched. Probably just as well it was empty—and likely to stay that way for another day. But luck was on my side—it was low tide.

  Pa had taken me for walks by the Thames, I remembered that much. I’m not sure it smelled as bad back then. What I do keep from that time is the feel of his large, firm hand around mine.

  Pa never tired of watching the river. “Just look—the barges, the fishing boats, the coming and going of goods!” he’d say, throwing out his arms. “The Thames is like a rich, throbbing blood vessel keeping all of London alive.”

  Pa felt so sorry for young mudlarks that he sometimes called the littlest ones over to give them a penny. He couldn’t have imagined how true his words would turn out to be for me: this river had kept me alive many a day before I got my place at the Lion. And now it would do so again.

  I wouldn’t get many pennies a day selling coal, bits of wood, or globs of fat tosse
d overboard by a ship’s cook. But it would keep me going. With what I earned from Dr. Snow, I might just be able to make it—at least until winter set in.

  With a sudden, fierce stab, I missed Pa. He’d been gone three years now. Just as London was divided by the Thames, my life was divided in two. There was the part before Pa died. Then there was everything else that had come after. More and more, that earlier time seemed to be fading, like a dream that drifts away when you open your eyes to the light.

  One moment I was staring at the glittering river. The next I was rammed hard in the back. I went flying through the air and tumbled into the mud. I managed to land on my hands and knees. I leaped up, ready to fight.

  “Don’t even try, you pigeon.” Nasty Ned stood a head taller than me. I cursed myself for being careless. Ned was bad enough. What if it had been Fisheye who’d snuck up behind me?

  I wrinkled my nose and stepped back. It was as if Ned took baths in a cesspool. Well, seeing as he was rarely out of the river, that was more or less the case. He narrowed his eyes. “Now, Eel, something’s puzzling me.”

  I brushed mud off my pants, scowling. “I imagine with your tiny brain there’s a lot that baffles you.”

  “I’m just wondering what you’re doin’ here,” he went on, ignoring my insult. “By my count, that’s twice this week. I don’t mind an occasional morning now and again, given that we’re old pals. But here you are back again.” He glowered at me, then tipped his river stick under my chin.

  I pushed it away. “You don’t own the river, Ned.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  He jerked his head to where a few younger boys were wading along the river’s edge. “See them lads? They work for me. They’re under my protection, so to speak. And I don’t like for ’em to come up empty-handed after a day’s trolling. I don’t like people pushin’ in.”

  “Oh, come on, Ned,” I said lightly. “You know I’m a better mudlark than that ragged lot. How about we go in together? It won’t be long before you’d be working for me, I wager.”