“They were about to leave empty-handed, when one of the cops remembered a story he’d heard about secret rooms hidden beneath some of the older buildings in Chinatown. So he went back for another look, and sure enough, he found a trapdoor in the shop’s basement. Below it was a hidden room filled with not-so-designer handbags. From the description in the article, the hidden room sounds a lot like the room Ananka and I discovered. If any of the smugglers had bothered to look a little harder, they might have found a second trapdoor.” Like a character in a movie, Kiki paused for dramatic effect. “One that led to the Shadow City.”
DeeDee passed the article to me. The picture that accompanied the story showed a young policeman standing in front of a dingy building in Chinatown, dozens of counterfeit handbags dangling from his arms. Nearby, two handcuffed men leaned against a van with a crosseyed dragon painted on its side. I heard a faint gasp behind me. Oona was reading over my shoulder. Kiki’s eyes darted in our direction.
“Anyone you know?” she asked Oona.
Oona shook her head, but the expression on her face said otherwise. She looked like she’d been zapped by an electric cattle prod, and her breathing was fast and shallow. Kiki held Oona’s eye for the briefest of moments before she continued with her explanation.
“As I was saying, Chinatown is full of secret rooms and smugglers. Unless we take action, someday soon, someone is going to find an entrance to the Shadow City. My guess is that it won’t be the police. And there’s no telling what could happen if smugglers take control of the tunnels. But if we have a map, we can use it to keep the Shadow City free of criminal scum. We’ll block any entrance that’s in danger of being discovered.”
“Just out of curiosity, why shouldn’t we tell the police about the Shadow City?” asked DeeDee.
“We could,” said Kiki with a shrug. “But where’s the fun in that? Besides, if there is treasure down there, do you think the police would let us keep it?”
That was all that the rest of us needed to hear.
Kiki spent an hour answering everyone’s questions, but as soon as the sun began to set, she called an abrupt end to the gathering.
“When’s the next meeting?” asked Luz.
“Monday evening,” said Kiki. “I need to get a few supplies together. Ananka, do you mind if we meet at your house? We’ll need to use your library.”
“Sure,” I muttered, overcome by a tsunami of dread. It may be difficult to believe, but I had never invited anyone to my home.
• • •
I spent the following day tidying my apartment in time for the second meeting of the Irregulars. For as long as I could remember, the place had never received a proper cleaning. Aside from my father’s aunt Beatrice, who had lost both her vision and sense of smell in an unfortunate deep-sea fishing accident, no one ever came to visit. As a result, we had no reason to pick up after ourselves, and our sloppiness had gotten out of control.
I devoted an exhausting hour to removing the splatter from a batch of spaghetti sauce that lent one wall of our kitchen the appearance of a gory crime scene. In the bathroom, I discovered a patch of mold growing on the tiles that had assumed the size, shape, and texture of a small wombat. My parents watched with growing amusement as I traveled from room to room with my bucket, rags, and bottle of hot pink household cleaner.
“I didn’t know we could afford a maid, Bernard,” I heard my mother say to my father as I passed by.
“You’d be surprised, Lillian, child labor is remarkably affordable these days,” my father replied.
“I knew there was a reason we wanted a child,” said my mother.
“Think of it. If we’d only wanted three or four more, we could rent Ananka out to the neighbors,” said my father.
“You’re hilarious,” I huffed, wishing my parents would take me seriously. “You know, I could use a little help. My friends will be here soon, and this place is revolting. Haven’t you noticed the smell?”
“If there’s a smell in here, it never seemed to bother you before, Ananka. We’d like to help, but your father’s giving a lecture tonight, and we have to prepare. Besides, haven’t you heard? The Fishbeins don’t do windows.”
“Or floors or bathtubs or dishes or laundry, I guess.”
“Isn’t she witty?” said my father. “She must get that from me.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to stay calm.
“Well, if you aren’t going to help, will you at least stay out of the way when my friends show up? We’re working on a very important project.”
“Interfere with your schoolwork?” said my mother with the same infuriating smile I’d seen her offer the mentally challenged. “We wouldn’t dream of it, dear.”
I grabbed my bucket and sponges and stomped off toward the bedrooms.
“Don’t forget to iron the sheets,” called my father. “I like mine with a smidgeon of starch.”
• • •
When the first of the Irregulars arrived, I was still a nervous wreck. Before I opened the door, I uttered a silent prayer to keep them from noticing the spiderwebs I had been unable to reach or the mouse that lived in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. I shouldn’t have worried, however, because the only thing each of the girls did as she stepped through the door was stare at the towers of books that lined the walls.
Kiki and Oona arrived first. They both looked so effortlessly glamorous that I felt dowdy in their presence. Oona wore a silk dress in a vibrant shade of scarlet and the sort of floppy hat that usually only looks good on movie stars. Kiki, dressed casually in black, almost seemed to glow. I was slightly relieved when DeeDee showed up in a yellow skirt covered with purple blotches, followed by Luz in a rather unflattering gray outfit that showcased a little potbelly I hadn’t noticed before. Betty was the last to knock at the door. Still out of disguise, but hiding behind another pair of enormous sunglasses, she was soon so busy scanning the titles of books along the hall that she didn’t spot the spider that dangled inches above her head.
Once we were all seated in my decontaminated living room, Kiki retrieved a pile of index cards from her satchel.
“This is even more impressive than I expected,” she said, her eyes still skipping across the spines of my parents’ books. “Is there some kind of organizational system?”
“Tell me what we’re looking for, and I’ll tell you where to find it,” I replied, feeling suddenly confident. Most people would have found our library hopelessly confusing. But having spent twelve lonely years searching for subjects to keep myself entertained, I knew where to find almost any title.
“Okay, then. Here are our assignments. Before we pay our first visit to the Shadow City, we need to do a little research.” Kiki handed a card to Luz. “Luz, you’re going to learn all you can about underground New York. You won’t find any information on the Shadow City, but we need to know where all the subway tunnels, water pipes, and sewers are. I think we’ll be too far down to run into any of them, but we should make sure. I don’t want any surprises.”
Next, Kiki addressed DeeDee.
“You’re going to be studying the use of explosives in dangerous situations. We may come across barred doors or parts of the Shadow City that have been walled up. We’ll need to find a way to get past any obstacles.
“And no surprises for you, Betty,” said Kiki, handing out another card. “You’re going to design our uniforms. They should be tough, comfortable, waterproof, and reasonably fashionable.
“Oona,” Kiki continued, “we need to know everything we can about picking locks that date from the nineteenth century.”
“Picking locks really isn’t my thing,” Oona complained. “Aren’t there any documents that need forging?”
“There will be,” Kiki snapped. “But this is what we need to know right now. I was planning to invite a lock-picking prodigy to join the Irregulars, but the girl I had in mind turned out to be extremely untrustworthy.”
Oona snatched the card from Kiki’s fingers. “J
ust my luck,” she muttered under her breath.
“And here are a few locks to practice with,” said Kiki. She pulled out a sack filled with ancient and rusty locks and tossed it to Oona. Then she turned to me and held out the last of the index cards.
“This subject should be self-explanatory,” she said. I looked down at the card and discovered a single word.
Rats, the card read. Instantly, my skin began to crawl.
“There’s no doubt they’re down there,” Kiki said with a touch of sympathy. “We have to be prepared. You guys can go ahead and get started. I’ve already found what I need.” I followed her eyes to a pile of books stacked on the fireplace mantel. For a moment, I thought she was mistaken. The only books in that area were on diamonds and precious stones—subjects that, as far as I knew, had nothing to do with the Shadow City. But rather than say anything, I assumed there was a reason for everything. I left Kiki alone in the living room and guided the other girls to the information they would need. Then I went off in search of the rat-related books, which were housed underneath the kitchen sink, in a rodent-proof box next to the home of our resident mouse.
• • •
My mother had named the mouse Hubert Jr., in honor of her father, who had claimed to be the world’s foremost expert on rodents. A man of great compassion, my grandfather had once planned to devote his talents to ridding the world of rodent-borne diseases. (As a teenager, Hubert Sr. had repeatedly tried to contract the bubonic plague in order to cure himself.) However, when he discovered that his medical training would require the sacrifice of scores of lab rats, he became so disgusted with the human race that he chose to focus on saving the rodents—not their tormentors.
Like most sane people, my parents and I did not share my grandfather’s love of all things small and furry. But out of respect for him, we had never attempted to harm Hubert Jr. He had been allowed to live a long and productive life (for a rodent) and in a way, he had become a part of the family.
Rats, however, are not mice. Hubert Jr. was old and feeble, but he was still somewhat charming. Rats, on the other hand, are filthy, flea-ridden creatures with teeth as sharp as hypodermic needles. In New York, they will always be the subjects of legend. Gangs of hungry rats are said to roam the city’s subway tunnels, searching for unlucky transit workers who’ve become separated from their crews. And you don’t have to live long in the city before you hear a story about a giant rat that climbed into a cradle with a sleeping baby and feasted on its fingers and toes.
If, on some future visit to New York, you happen to come across a solitary rat in an alleyway or on a subway platform, odds are it will scamper away. Don’t be misled by this behavior. If you remember nothing else, remember this: New York rats aren’t afraid of people. They consider us a delicacy.
I had only to skim a couple of the books I found under the kitchen sink before I realized the hopelessness of my task. As I read from a book entitled The Devil’s Army, I began to doubt whether six girls could ever be a match for the rats of the Shadow City.
Nature’s super-villains, the powers of the rat are humbling to behold. The beady-eyed beasts can scamper up the slickest surface, leap three feet in the air, and squeeze through openings the size of gumballs. With their sharp teeth and amazing powers of concentration, they are able to gnaw through an astounding variety of materials. Entire buildings have been known to collapse after rats have eaten through the support beams.
Once they have invaded a home, rats are almost impossible to expel. Traveling in groups called “mischiefs,” they outwit all but the most ingenious traps and employ taste testers to identify poisoned food. Many a frustrated apartment dweller has resorted to flinging them out of a window, only to discover that rats can survive falls from as high as six stories.
Mankind is in danger of losing our war against rats. To avoid defeat, we must stop underestimating the cunning of our enemy. We should avoid thinking of them as lowly rodents, and realize that they are more intelligent than we have ever imagined. Recent university studies, for example, have shown that rats can count—though they rarely make it past the number five. What other secret skills might they be hiding?
As I shut The Devil’s Army, I noticed an old spiral notebook tucked between The Scourge of Europe and Rat Fancier. In the corner was my grandfather’s name, Hubert Snodgrass. I thumbed through the notebook’s brittle, yellowing pages. The first, rather dull section was devoted to sketches of rat ears in various shapes and sizes. When I flipped to the second section, however, I found an intricate drawing of a device that resembled a battery-powered kazoo. The title, written in a fancy script, read, Invention #466. The Reverse Pied Piper.
I knew I had found what I needed. My eyes scanned the smaller print at the bottom of the page. An effective rodent-removal device that does not cause injury or death. Reading on, I learned that my grandfather, in the course of his studies, had discovered that rats could be driven to distraction by sounds that the human ear can’t even detect. He developed the Reverse Pied Piper, a miniature megaphone of sorts, which could emit a blast of sound that would have no effect on a human being, but would cause a rat to run as far as possible in the opposite direction. They would abandon their nests—even leave their food and helpless offspring behind—just to escape from the noise. Amazingly, laboratory tests had proven that just the memory of the sound could keep rats at a distance.
Apparently, my grandfather had considered even this too cruel, and his notes showed that he had abandoned the project. Fortunately for the Irregulars, I was no rat-lover. Once I had studied my grandfather’s drawings, I decided to ask Luz if she could make a Reverse Pied Piper. I said a quiet good-bye to Hubert Jr. and left to join the rest of the Irregulars.
On my way to the living room, I bumped into my mother and father, who were leaving for their lecture.
“We were just chatting with your little blond friend,” my mother said, adjusting her hair and beaming down at me. “You’re lucky to have such an intelligent study partner. I hope this means your grades will be improving? You’re too smart to keep getting C’s.”
Hope away, I thought. “You promised you wouldn’t interfere with my schoolwork,” I said.
“I beg your pardon, my dear, but we were passing through the living room when your friend asked your mother a question,” my father scolded.
I turned to my mother in surprise. “Kiki asked you a question?”
“Yes, something about the long-term effects of poisoning. I showed her a couple of books that I thought might help. She said you two were writing a paper about that unfortunate foreign politician who was poisoned by his rivals. It sounded very exciting. By the way, where is your friend from? She has such a charming accent.”
“Accent?” I asked. “Kiki doesn’t have an accent.”
“Oh, dear,” said my mother. “You should try to be a little more observant, Ananka. And make sure to give your friend something to eat. She looks a little malnourished to me.”
• • •
It had been hours since the meeting had kicked off, and slowly the girls began to trickle back into the living room. Betty was first, carrying a stack of books and an oversized pad of drawing paper. Oona emerged next with the sack of locks and two wire hangers tucked under her arm. She plopped herself down on the sofa, pulled an emery board from her handbag, and proceeded to file her nails, which were broken and jagged. DeeDee and Luz chose to sit in a shadowy alcove at the back of the room. Every few minutes, they would lean toward each other and exchange a barrage of angry whispers.
“Okay, let’s see what you’ve got,” said Kiki. “Betty, you’re up. Show us your ideas for uniforms.”
Betty’s hands and forearms were smeared with charcoal. She flipped to a page in her artist’s pad and held it up for the group to see.
“Sorry,” Betty whispered. “I know it’s not very good, but maybe you could use your imaginations.”
“How about that? You really are as crazy as you look!” cried Oona in
mock astonishment as she studied a marvelously lifelike drawing of Kiki wearing a black jumpsuit. “That’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Betty blushed.
“It’s probably not what you were expecting. But I did consider the standard catsuit. You know, like the one Cat Woman wears. It’s attractive, but it’s really not that practical. My design has a looser fit so we can wear our own clothes underneath, and the seams are made of waterproof Velcro, so the suit can be pulled on or taken off in a couple of seconds.”
“Good thinking,” said Kiki, nodding with approval. Betty managed a nervous smile.
“I got the idea for the fabric from this book on military textiles.” She opened the book to an image of a handsome Marine filling a large sack with grenades. “See the duffel bag he’s carrying? You can buy them in the Army and Navy store near my house. They’re made of a material that repels water, resists flames, and can’t be punctured. I once overheard the man in the store saying it’s used to make bulletproof vests. But the company that designed the fabric found a way to manufacture it cheaply, so now they make other things out of it, too. I’m pretty sure it’s tough enough to protect us from what-ever’s down there.” She raised her eyes and looked cautiously around the room, but she quickly lost her nerve and returned her gaze to the pile of books.
“Umm … just a few more things. First, we’re all going to need boots. Since we don’t know what’s down there, I think it’s safest to go with knee-high boots, but we’ll also want something with good traction. So I thought these might work.” She pulled a fly-fishing catalog out of the pile. I couldn’t imagine where she might have found it. No one in my family had ever been within a hundred miles of a crisp mountain stream. Betty held up a picture of a pair of tall black boots. “They’ve got little spikes on the bottom, so you can anchor yourself against the current. And they come in boys’ sizes, of course, not girls’, but I think we can make do.” She turned a page in the drawing pad and held up a very flattering sketch of me wearing the tall black boots.