“It’s been a long time. People grow up. I’m eleven now,” huffed Iris, who seemed a little offended.
“What’s with the masks?” asked Luz.
“My parents collect them,” said Iris. “They’re anthropologists, experts on cannibalism. My dad thinks the masks keep burglars away.”
“So how long have you two known each other?” I asked Kiki.
“About a year now,” said Kiki. “Iris helps me out with a few things.”
“I keep an eye on the neighbors,” added Iris enthusiastically.
Kiki shot Iris a disapproving look. “She’s usually more discreet.”
“Sorry,” said Iris. “I guess you guys are here to see the basement. It’s this way.”
Iris guided us down a set of stairs and into a basement that reeked of mildew.
“We haven’t been able to get rid of the smell since the flood,” noted Iris.
“We’re really sorry about that,” said DeeDee.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Iris laughed. “If you ask me, it was all worth it.”
She walked over to an empty trunk that sat against one wall of the basement. She heaved it to the side and studied the floorboards beneath it for a second.
“The handle’s around here somewhere,” she said.
“Wait, Iris, let me …,” insisted Kiki, stepping forward to raise the trapdoor. But Iris had already reached down and grasped an upturned board. As she struggled to open it, her fingers slipped and she fell backward into Kiki, who stumbled a few steps before she tripped over the trunk. As she fell, Kiki’s backpack flew across the room, its contents spilling out along the way. A roll of duct tape bounced across the floor and came to a stop at my feet.
“I’m sorry,” Iris said quickly, rushing to help Kiki gather her things. Kiki ignored her as she shoved her possessions into her backpack. “I’m really sorry,” Iris tried again.
“This is serious business, Iris. You’ve got to start thinking before you do things.” Kiki threw her backpack over her shoulder and returned to the trapdoor. As she pulled upward, a section of the floor rose, revealing a hole beneath.
“The Shadow City,” murmured DeeDee.
“Are you sure you’re feeling up to this?” I asked.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” added Oona.
“Of course I’m feeling up to it,” DeeDee insisted.
“I’ll go!” offered Iris.
“Forget it, Iris,” Kiki told her.
“But it was an accident!” pleaded Iris.
“We can’t afford any accidents tonight,” said Kiki as she flipped her flashlight on.
“Next time,” I whispered to Iris.
“Ready?” Kiki barked at the rest of us. I saw the others nod solemnly. “Okay, then. Let’s go.”
And with that, Kiki dropped into the darkness.
HOW TO BE A GOOD DETECTIVE
Anyone who regularly watches the local news may have noticed a curious fact. Each time a bank robber, kidnapper, or garden-variety bad guy is hauled out of his house in handcuffs, there’s always a group of neighbors milling about who swear that they never noticed anything unusual. As far as they knew, the man who knocked off the local Stop & Shop was just an average upstanding citizen who took good care of his lawn.
After seeing so many surprised neighbors, you might come to the conclusion that criminals are an exceptionally clever bunch. But that’s simply not the case. Neighbors rarely see anything strange because they just aren’t paying attention. A good detective, however, makes a habit of looking for the clues that other people miss.
Open Your Eyes!
Most people walk through the world in a daze, seeing only what they expect to see. They never bother to notice that the mailman never stops at the house down the street or that the shades in one of its bedrooms are always drawn. The fact is, most clues are hidden in plain sight. All you have to do is keep your eyes peeled and never assume that there’s a harmless explanation for everything you see.
Know that Little Things Can Mean a Lot
Even everyday objects can offer important information. For instance, if you were to find an ordinary fountain pen at the scene of a crime, you might conclude from the bite marks around the top that the owner was either a nervous nellie or desperately trying to quit smoking. By examining the tip of the pen, you might be able to determine whether the person was right- or left-handed. And if the ink in the pen were a pale shade of purple, you would know that the owner had a bit of a flamboyant streak.
Listen for What People Don’t Say
In many cases, the subjects that people avoid are far more interesting than the ones they choose to talk about. Has the new girl down the street never mentioned what her parents do for a living? Perhaps you should find out. Does she try to change the subject whenever you ask where she lived before she moved to your town? If a subject is off limits, there’s bound to be a reason.
Read Their Body Language
People communicate far more with their body than they do with words. Often a person will say one thing while his body tells you the opposite. And while you can’t always trust the things people say, their bodies never lie. A good way to teach yourself to interpret body language is to watch television with the sound off.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sugar & Spice & Not Very Nice
I was the last of the Irregulars to make the descent into the Shadow City. Iris closed the trapdoor from above, and the weak light that had guided the others down the ladder was suddenly extinguished. All I could see were the beams of four flashlights flickering like fireflies far below me in the darkness. Each time my feet searched for another rung, my heart pounded hard and fast against my chest. Dizzy with fear, I prayed that my sweaty fingers wouldn’t lose their grip.
I reached the bottom and immediately grabbed for the flashlight tucked into the waistband of my pants. My eyes followed its spotlight as it illuminated one small section of the room at a time. Stacked high along the walls were simple wooden boxes, each filled with dozens of bottles labeled Angus McSwegan’s Finest Scotch Whisky. There must have been hundreds of boxes and enough whisky to give half of Manhattan a vicious hangover. Judging by the skeleton slumped in one corner of the room, Angus McSwegan had guarded his fermented fortune to the very end.
“Okay, ladies,” said Kiki Strike. “We’re not here to enjoy the scenery. We’ve got to move fast. There will be no sightseeing this time. Without our uniforms, we’re extremely vulnerable. So it’s there and back again—nothing more. Got it?” She shined her flashlight in each of our faces, searching for signs of opposition. She wasn’t going to get an argument from any of us. Oona was chewing nervously on one of her nails. DeeDee’s scar was flushed, and little beads of sweat had appeared on her forehead. Even Luz had momentarily forgotten she was angry at Kiki and was nodding along in agreement.
Kiki opened the door to the Shadow City and stood aside to let us pass. On the other side, we found an avalanche of rubble that blocked one side of the tunnel. Two years earlier, I had stood in the very same spot and watched DeeDee running for her life.
“The tunnel looks exactly like we left it,” Luz marveled. “Why wasn’t it flooded?”
“Maybe all the rubble kept the water from coming in from the Princess’s house,” I guessed.
“But what about Iris’s basement?” Luz asked. “It was totally soaked. It still smells like mildew.”
“The trapdoors must be watertight,” said Kiki. “The river’s only a couple of blocks away. In the days when the tunnels were built, it must have flooded all the time. The Shadow City would have been destroyed pretty quickly unless the builders had found a solution.”
“So this is what happened,” said DeeDee. Her eyes drifted across the destruction. “Now that I’ve seen it, there’s no doubt in my mind. This was my fault. I made the explosives too powerful. They never should have caused this much damage. It must have been a bad batch.” She turned to Kiki. “I let everyone blame you. I can’t tell you ho
w sorry I am.”
“It was a long time ago,” Kiki said, taking DeeDee’s arm and steering her away from the rubble. “It’s over now. All that matters is that we all got out alive. I just hope we’ll be able to say the same tonight.”
As Kiki and DeeDee started to walk away, I saw Luz heading toward the spot where DeeDee had fallen after the explosion.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Wait a second,” she said without looking back. She stopped in front of one of the large rocks that lay scattered about the floor of the tunnel. Bending down, she reached out and brushed it with her fingertips. It wasn’t a stone, but rather a backpack sprinkled with gray dust. Luz looked up at me. Her eyes were wide and her jaw slack.
“It’s DeeDee’s backpack. It’s the gold,” she whispered in a voice that was barely audible.
“The gold?”
I heard the other girls stop and turn back.
“It’s been here all along.” Luz looked as if she might burst into tears. I turned in time to see Kiki drop DeeDee’s arm.
“You didn’t take it?” Oona asked, staring at Kiki in astonishment.
“No,” admitted Kiki.
“But why did you leave it here?”
“I had to. It was too heavy to carry. And saving DeeDee was more important. I thought I’d come back for it later. But I never got the chance. I was too busy trying to stay alive.”
“I don’t understand.” Luz was struggling to keep her voice even. “We thought you had stolen it.”
“It was better to let you think I was a thief than to let you risk your lives going back for it. After the flood, I didn’t want you to return to the Shadow City unless it was absolutely necessary. It just wasn’t worth it. There are easier ways to make money. When I had to disappear, I wrote to the Capybaras Corporation and told them about the Reverse Pied Piper. I assumed that would make up for the lost gold.”
“I thought … I mean, I’ve said so many horrible things. I nearly turned you in to the FBI,” Luz sobbed, her face now slick with tears.
“There’s no time for any of that,” Kiki said softly. “We’re all friends again, right?” Luz nodded. “So forget the gold. Let’s rescue Betty.”
“Okay,” said Luz. She wiped her face on her sleeve and set off down the tunnel, leaving the bag of gold lying on the ground.
• • •
We walked south toward Chinatown. The tunnel was colder and much smellier than I remembered. A putrid odor assaulted our senses, and we shivered in our light summer clothes. My bare arms were covered with goose bumps, and I longed for the uniform that was now several sizes too small for me.
For what seemed like miles, we followed the tunnel’s twists and turns. Then, after choosing a fork in the path, I saw something scamper across the beam of my flashlight.
“Did you see that?” I asked the others.
“Uh-huh,” said Oona.
“Was that what I think it was?”
“Uh-huh,” Oona confirmed.
“What was it?” asked DeeDee.
“A rat the size of a cocker spaniel,” I told her.
“But there can’t be any rats in the Shadow City. We got rid of them all,” said Luz.
“That doesn’t mean that a few haven’t moved back in,” said Kiki. “I brought my Reverse Pied Piper just in case.”
We huddled closer to one another. I linked arms with Oona and checked the map with my free hand. We weren’t far from our destination. Another half a mile and we would be under the warehouse. Just then, I tripped and dropped the map. As I scrambled to retrieve it in the darkness, I felt a warm furry body brush against my arm. I screamed and grabbed my flashlight, pointing it toward the section of the tunnel we had just walked through. The others aimed their beams in the same direction. For a second, I fought the urge to faint. There behind us were thousands of rats, their teeth gleaming in the light.
“Don’t move,” ordered Kiki, pulling a Reverse Pied Piper out of her knapsack. She put it to her mouth and blew. Nothing happened. The army of rats stared at us in anticipation, waiting for us to make the first move. Kiki tried once more. Again, nothing. Growing restless, the rats began to inch toward us.
“What’s going on?” DeeDee wailed.
“It’s not working,” said Kiki, examining the Reverse Pied Piper with her flashlight. “It must have broken when I dropped my backpack.”
Suddenly, the whole horrible situation made sense to me.
“It’s not broken. It doesn’t work because the rats are all deaf.”
“Tell me you’re joking,” pleaded Luz.
“Remember the first time? A few of the rats weren’t bothered by the Reverse Pied Piper. They must have been deaf, too. They were left behind in the city and now they’ve had two years to breed. These are their descendants. There could be thousands of them by now.”
“Well, I guess we only have one option,” said Kiki, tucking the Reverse Pied Piper into her pocket.
“What?” I asked.
“RUN!” she shouted.
With the rats behind us, I led the way as we sprinted through the tunnel. There was no time to check the map. I let my intuition guide me past a dozen identical doors and through featureless forks in the tunnel. Once or twice, I worked up the courage to look over my shoulder. The thundering herd of bloodthirsty rodents was hot on our heels. A giant rat was running alongside Luz, nipping at her shoe. With one well-aimed kick, she sent it flying into a wall. Her moment of victory didn’t last long, however. It was only a second before an even bigger and hungrier specimen took its place. I picked up speed and hoped I was leading the Irregulars in the right direction. One misstep, one wrong turn, and we’d all be eaten.
As we neared the warehouse, the ground became soft and slippery. Dozens of dirty mink coats lined the floor of the tunnel, along with two human skeletons, their bones picked clean by rats. A third skeleton wearing a jacket decorated with the Fu-Tsang dragon lay just outside the door I had been searching for. I darted inside and waited for the others to file in behind me before I slammed the door as hard as I could. There was no lock, and I hoped that the mutant rats hadn’t learned to turn doorknobs. We could hear hundreds of furry bodies hurling themselves against the wood and the squeals of frustration when the door refused to budge. Once we knew we were safe, we collapsed on the floor of the room.
“I thought we were dead for sure,” DeeDee panted.
“Don’t worry,” said Kiki with a grin. “It will take more than a bunch of rats to get rid of us.”
“Oh, yeah? Did you see those skeletons? And all of the coats?” Luz asked. “The rats got rid of somebody.”
“Now we know why the robberies stopped,” Kiki said. “The Fu-Tsang gang couldn’t get past the rats. They didn’t have enough bullets to kill them all. And it’s hard to run fast when you’re carrying stolen goods.”
“At least we’re safe now,” said DeeDee.
“Sure, as long as Ananka’s brought us to the right place,” said Oona.
I looked around the room. The ceilings were low and the space was crammed with crates, rolled floor mats, and dirty pillows. The floor was strewn with wooden chopsticks. Above the crates was a hole in the ceiling.
“Yeah, this is it,” I said. “We’re in the storeroom under the opium den.”
Kiki and I slowly climbed through the opening in the ceiling and up a long ladder that led to a wooden trapdoor. The boards we had used to close off the entrance had been removed. We pushed the trapdoor open an inch and the too-sweet odor of Devil’s Apple drifted down to us. The walls of the opium den were lined with shadowy wooden cubbyholes the size of coffins. Most were filled with old silk cushions, but two were hidden from view by brightly colored screens on which miniature dragons danced. The room was dark and cavernous, but a lantern on a table at the far end of the room illuminated an unexpected scene.
Seated at the table less than twenty feet away from the trapdoor were Jacob Harcott and Thomas Vandervoort, both dressed in
the expensive suits they had worn earlier in the evening. Jacob was boasting of the time he’d forced a boy to walk the plank on the way to a Bannerman Ball. When he finished with his story, they both slumped over the table, their bodies heaving with laughter.
“Idiots,” spat Kiki. “They should take better care of the few brain cells they were born with.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, not entirely certain of her meaning.
“Just look at them. They’ve been sampling the Devil’s Apple. Even those oafs wouldn’t act that stupid without a little help. But I guess it makes it easier for us.”
“They may be high on wart remover, but they’re still dangerous,” I cautioned her.
“Not as dangerous as I am,” she said, climbing into the room.
“Hey, look,” said Thomas Vandervoort, shaking his friend’s arm and pointing in Kiki’s direction. “It’s the leprechaun!”
“How’d it get in here?” asked Jacob, looking up in confusion at the camouflaged trapdoor that led from the opium den to the warehouse above.
“Must have followed the rainbow,” said Thomas Vandervoort, cracking himself up.
Kiki walked over to the table. “Having a good time?” she asked with the syrupy politeness of an overeager waitress. “I really hate to interrupt your fascinating conversation, but I just wanted to thank you.”
“Thank us?” asked Thomas Vandervoort, his evil smile fading quickly.
“Yes. I want to thank you for making this so easy. I mean, look at me. I’m just a girl, and as you can see, I’m not a very big one at that. So thank you for going out of your way to make it so easy to kick your butts.”
Jacob Harcott stood up from the table, knocking his chair over backward. A snarl deformed his handsome features as he towered over Kiki like an angry ogre.
“We spent six months in jail thanks to you,” he growled. “We know who you are, and we’ve been looking forward to meeting you again. It’s not going to be easy this time.”
“Oh, I beg to differ,” said Kiki. “This is going to be another walk in the park. By the way, how was juvie? I hear the food’s not bad, but the maid service leaves something to be desired.”