18
When my eyes opened again, I was looking at a clear blue morning sky and could feel the faint chill of a crisp October breeze against my face. I’d gotten used to the sight of the lush green foliage at the stable point when viewing the location in the log, but it was a bit startling to have my other senses kick in as well. The island itself was quiet except for birds and chirping insects; I could detect the dull hum of a crowd in the distance. I caught the faint aroma of roasting peanuts and, much closer, the unmistakable smell of mud.
The local time was 8:03 A.M., one minute after Katherine and Saul’s arrival. The gates of the Exposition had opened at eight, so it was still too soon for foot traffic to make its way to the Wooded Island near the center of the fairgrounds. I glanced around quickly. A dark-haired kid of maybe seven or eight years was energetically sweeping the sidewalk in front of a rustic cabin, and a bit farther away to the right I could see the retreating figures of Saul and Katherine.
Each time that I had viewed their arrival through the medallion, I’d seen Saul grab Katherine’s elbow to help her up the small hill that provided cover for their sudden appearance on the island. The gesture had seemed like unnecessary gallantry, but I now realized that the soggy terrain, combined with decidedly unsensible clothing, was going to make it a lot more difficult to reach the sidewalk than I’d thought.
Sighing, I tucked the CHRONOS key into the hidden pocket in the bodice of my dress. I hiked up the long skirt with one hand and used my unopened parasol as a brace to pull myself up the incline. The ground was not as tightly packed as it looked and the tip of my parasol sank about six inches into the loose, damp soil and mulch, throwing me off balance. I caught myself and managed—just barely—not to fall flat on my face, but I made enough noise to attract the attention of the kid sweeping in front of the cabin.
My parasol was now streaked with dark mud and my gloves were ruined—so much for maintaining a ladylike appearance. I peeled off the gloves and stashed them in my bag, brushing the soil and stray leaves off the parasol as best I could before opening it, my hands shaking badly.
The shaking hands brought to mind my one and only time onstage, during a fifth-grade play. I had been desperately afraid that the curtain would go up, with dozens of eyes watching, and I would forget both of my very short lines. Even though the only eyes on me right now were those of the boy in front of the cabin, the feeling was the same. I took in a few deep breaths to calm myself, and then gave the kid a haughty look that I hoped would suggest he mind his own business. I turned to follow Saul and Katherine, who were now on the bridge that crossed the lagoon to link the Wooded Island with the main Exposition.
I could still see them clearly as I approached the bridge over the lagoon. Saul towered over Katherine’s petite form, in her gray dress and purple hat topped with the lavender feather—just as I remembered from the many times I had watched them through the medallion.
I picked up my pace, still hoping to follow plan A and keep the two of them in sight. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, a necessity. They would end up at the Ferris wheel around ten-fifteen, and—if that failed for some reason—I could always follow them downtown, where Katherine would be alone for much of the afternoon. But even if the version ahead of me was a half century younger than the grandmother I knew, and even if she had no idea who I was, I knew that I would feel much more comfortable if that silly lavender feather remained in view.
Plan A, however, was in jeopardy from the beginning. My ungraceful climb to the sidewalk had put me farther behind the two of them than I had planned. It would only take me a few minutes to catch up if I walked quickly, but there was trouble, quite literally, on the horizon. Although they were the only two people walking away from the island, about fifty yards ahead of them were the thousands of people who had arrived via the much more conventional route of the Sixty-Seventh Street entrance. Crowds were gathering around the various buildings in front of us and, unless Katherine and Saul turned to the right or left and walked along the lagoon surrounding the Wooded Island, they would be swallowed by the crowd before I closed the distance between us.
And then, to make matters worse, I heard someone running up behind me on the bridge. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that it was the little kid from the cabin.
“You dropped this on the island, miss!” he said, a bit out of breath. He had a folded envelope in one grubby hand and a damp rag in the other. “And you’ll want me to be helpin’ you with that umbrellow—if you leave that mud to stay on it, the fabric’ll be ruint.”
I recognized the envelope at once and my heart rose into my throat. It was Dad’s letter, which I’d stashed back in my pocket without thinking after Trey finished reading it. It must have fallen out during my stumble up the hill.
The letter had been stuffed a bit carelessly back into the envelope, and I suspected that the inquisitive eyes in front of me had at least glanced at it; although, he would hardly have had a chance to read it carefully during his run across the bridge—and that was assuming a kid his age could even read in this era. The postmark was clear on the envelope, but surely he would think it was a mistake if he had seen the date?
The boy reached up with the hand holding the letter to pull my parasol down and wipe the dark stain off the top. I let him have the parasol and took the letter, tucking it quickly into my purse.
“Thank you. I wouldn’t have wanted to lose this…” I dug about in the small coin purse inside the bag, trying to decide what an appropriate tip might be.
“Int’restin’ stamp,” he said. “Must’ve come from a long way to cost forty-four cents for just sendin’ a letter. And I ain’ ever seen a stamp with a tiger on it like that. Looks like one of them tigers they have over on the Midway and the paintin’ on it is real bright an’ colorful. Don’ guess you could let me keep it for my c’lection?”
I shook my head, glancing back over the bridge. Katherine was nearly out of sight. “I’m very sorry—but my sister collects stamps, too, and this is from our father, so it’s already spoken for…”
He finished wiping off the parasol—I can’t say that there was a noticeable improvement, other than the dirt being spread around a bit—and handed it back to me, shrugging. “S’okay, miss. Just real unusual, so I thought…”
“Here,” I said, giving him my best smile. “Take this—a reward for returning the letter and a bit for your trouble.” I handed him a half-dollar coin, hoping that it might take his mind off the stamp. “I really need to be going, however—I’m running way behind. Again, thank you.”
His dark eyes grew very large, and it occurred to me that I might have been a bit too generous. A nickel or dime would have clearly been more appropriate. Running the numbers in my head, I realized that I’d given him the modern equivalent of about a twelve-dollar tip.
“No, miss. Thank you,” he said, pocketing the coin and falling into step beside me. “What are you plannin’ to see first? Do you have a map? If not…” He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a grimy, much-folded map of the Expo, clearly hoping that he’d be able to tap the rich girl for another buck or two before she got away.
“No, thank you, I have a map right here,” I said, picking up the pace a bit. I tugged the official-looking replica of a Rand McNally Expo map out of my bag and craned my neck to see if Katherine’s feather was still in view. It was, just a few feet into the crowd.
The kid was keeping up with me, step for step. “Don’t you need to get back to your job?” I asked, although it felt a bit odd saying that to a kid who should be in about the third grade.
“Nope—I’m all finished there for the day. I don’ have to be to my other job ’til later.” He skipped a few steps ahead and then turned to look at me, walking backward. “Those maps are no good, y’know. Half of ’em was written before the fair was even finished so they could get ’em printed in time and some of the exhibits moved aroun’. What you need is a guide. A respectable young lady shouldn’ be wanderin’ the fair without an escort, anyway.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “I’ve seen plenty of women touring the fair without a male escort.”
“Well, t’gether, yes,” he admitted. “But not walkin’ aroun’ by their lonesome much, right? I c’n be your guide—I done it nine times already, once for a group of ladies all the way from London. I know ever’thin’ about the fair, ’cause me dad worked here the whole time they was buildin’ it.”
He paused and drew in a deep breath. “For two dollars I can show you ever’thin’ worth seein’ here and ways to avoid the crowd and”—he blushed a bit—“where the ladies’ necessary is, an’ all that kind of stuff…”
I was about to ask what a necessary was, but then I considered his blush and put two and two together.
“So what d’you say, miss?” he continued, quickly. “You don’ wanna be goin’ around by y’rself. There’s spots what ain’ safe for a young lady to be in—there’s some bad folk here might take advan’age of a girl on her own, y’know.”
We had reached the middle of the avenue between the Mining Building and the Electricity Building. The gold dome of the Administration Building was just ahead, but Katherine’s lavender feather was nowhere in sight.
Sighing, I glanced around and could see that he was correct—there were plenty of women in groups or even pairs, but I didn’t see even one unaccompanied female. I had to admit that I would probably look less conspicuous if I wasn’t alone.
There was also the fact that he had seen the letter. I still wasn’t sure how much he had read, and I decided that it might make sense to keep the kid in sight and under my control until I was out of there. And it was pretty clear that the promise of additional cash would keep him close.
He could tell that I was mulling it over, so he stood quietly, stick-straight, with his hands behind his back—a small, grubby soldier awaiting inspection. It was apparently difficult for him to keep perfectly still, however, especially with such a major business deal on the line, and the excess energy had him bobbing up and down on his toes, like a pogo stick.
“I thought you had another job to be at.”
“Not ’til a lot later,” he said, shaking his head. “And that’s just helpin’ me mom at the booth t’night, and she’d much rather I was workin’ somewhere else if I c’n bring in some extra. It’s been tough since me dad…” Died? Left? He didn’t finish the sentence and his face closed while thinking about it, so I decided not to press.
He was thin and his clothes were worn, and I suspected that his assessment that his mother would be happy to have a few extra dollars for the week was dead-on. He also seemed pretty sharp—which was a mixed bag, given that he knew more than I wanted him to about my arrival. The dark eyes were a bit mischievous, but his face looked honest and open.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Well, they used t’call me dad Mick and me Little Mickey, on accoun’ of us bein’ Irish an’ all. Only he’s gone now and I’m not that little anymore, so you c’n just call me Mick.”
“Okay, Mick—how old are you?”
“Twelve years, miss,” he answered without a pause.
I raised a very skeptical eyebrow. “How old are you really? I’m not going to refuse to hire you because of your age—I just want to know.”
“Nearly nine,” he said.
“Try again.”
“No really—I’ll be nine in August,” he said.
Given that it was October, he seemed to be stretching “nearly nine” to the breaking point, but at least that age seemed plausible. I tried to think up a story that an eight-year-old would buy, one that might keep him close and quiet until I was ready for the jump home. My mind flashed back to a book I’d read in middle school about Nellie Bly, the famous girl reporter of the 1880s who had traveled around the world on her own in seventy-two days. I was pretty sure she had been about my age when she started reporting.
“Okay,” I said, bending down closer to his eye level. “Here’s the deal I can offer, Mick, and it’s not open for negotiation. I’m Kate—I’m a journalist, a writer… for a newspaper back East. I usually work with a partner, my photographer, but he’s been delayed. I could use an assistant, but you’ll have to do exactly as I say—no questions and no talking to anyone about this, because I’m working on an exclusive, okay?”
His brow creased a bit at the last part. I suspected that he wasn’t quite sure what an exclusive was but didn’t want to admit it. “A reporter? Followin’ them other two, right? The man an’ woman who came up before you? What’s he then, a criminal or somethin’? He looked shady, he did—”
I gave him a sharp look and cut him off. “No questions, remember? Five dollars for the time I’m here,” I continued. “I might be leaving today, but I could be here tomorrow as well, depending on how long it takes to get my story. I’ll pay your expenses, too—meals and the like. And the first stop we make is to the gentlemen’s necessary, and you scrub up—I want an assistant that’s clean and presentable. Then you help me get to the Midway before ten o’clock.”
He nodded again and grabbed my elbow, pulling me to the left, toward a cluster of large white fountains. “This way, Miss—”
“It’s Kate,” I repeated.
“This way, Miss Kate. I know the very bes’ route.”
As we walked along, Mick flipped into tour-guide mode and it was soon obvious that he hadn’t been padding his credentials. He really did know a lot about the Exposition and had memorized details about the various buildings and displays.
“This,” he said, as we approached a waterway, one end of which was lined with enormous white fountains, “is what they call the Gran’ Basin.” Mick pointed toward the centerpiece of the fountains as we passed, a large classical sculpture of a ship. “Tha’ one there is the Columbian Fountain—MacMonnies, the guy who designed it, tol’ me it’s s’posed to be a symbol for the country and how much progress we made since Columbus came. Those people rowin’ are s’posed to represent the arts—y’know, like music an’ paintin’ an’ stuff? The big guy there is s’posed t’be Father Time, steerin’ the boat to the future with his big…” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Me mom always called it a speal—what d’you call it in English, the thing they cut hay with?”
“A scythe?” I asked.
“Yeah, tha’s it,” he said, pulling me slightly to the side to dodge a small pack of middle-aged women who, like me, were looking up at the statue and not paying much attention to where they were walking. “A scythe. I don’ remember what the woman at the front is s’posed to be. Or those cupids. Maybe just decorations.”
“Now that buildin’ over there,” he said, “is the bigges’ buildin’ in the world—the Manufactures Building. And that one we passed on the way over here? The ’Lectricity Buildin’? There’s stuff in there you wouldn’ believe even if you saw it. Got a frien’ who works over there sweepin’ an’ he says there is this machine called a telautograph where someone can sen’ a picture say from back East and that machine’ll draw it for you here, just like you was gettin’ a telegraph. He also says they have this new thing by Mr. Edison that makes pictures move so it looks like you’re watchin’ this guy sneeze, ’cept you’re just lookin’ into this tiny little box. An’ just wait ’til you see it at night, that place is all lit up—you never seen anythin’ so pretty. Like a million lanterns, but I looked at ’em in the daytime an’ turns out they ain’ nothin’ but these little glass balls with a tiny wire inside.”
It was odd to think that almost all of the magnificent structures Mick was pointing to were temporary buildings, made of a material slightly sturdier than papier-maché. The exhibits would be removed and the buildings would be torn down or burned in a matter of months. Only a few buildings would remain, along with the gardens—which were amazing in their own right, since the area had been a swamp less than a year ago.
We walked around the edge of the lagoon, where several colorful gondolas were docked, boarding their first passengers of the day. Looking across the water, I could see the Japanese Tea House through the trees of the Wooded Island.
Most of the way, we kept to the sidewalks, passing the U.S. Government Building and the Fisheries Building, where Mick was delighted to give me a full and imaginative description of the huge shark that was on display. He then cut through the grassy area in front of the national exhibits for Guatemala and Ecuador, and I had to walk on my tiptoes a bit to keep the edges of the boots from sinking into the damp sod.
My right shoe was already beginning to rub a blister on my heel and I was increasingly suspicious that Mick’s “bes’ route” was not the most direct path to the Midway. I could see the Ferris wheel in the distance, and we seemed to be walking past where we should have turned.
“Yes’m,” he said, when I pointed to the big wheel on the horizon. “But you don’ wanna be usin’ the necessaries over there. They ain’ fit for a lady. The ladies from London were very impressed with the necessaries in the Fine Arts Palace. It’s right up here, the very nex’ buildin’. Said they were the nices’ they ever seen.”
“But the… ‘necessary’… was intended for you to clean up. I really don’t need to go right now.” I was dreading the thought of trying to negotiate a toilet in my current dress, and had decided that it might be a good idea to just limit my intake of fluids for the rest of the day.
“Oh… sorry,” he said. “I can use the ones on the Midway where you don’ hafta pay the nickel, but… I thought maybe you just needed to… Some ladies won’ say, y’know. One of the ladies from London never would say and she nearly—”
“Girl reporters aren’t prissy,” I said, giving him a little smile. “We say what we think. So if I need to go, I’ll tell you straight-out.” I glanced over at the steps leading up to the ornate portico of the building. “We’re already here, so we might as well step inside. I’ll just wait for you in the lobby.”
We had a brief disagreement with the attendant at the gentlemen’s lavatory. He took one glance down his long nose at Mick’s attire and suggested he find another toilet. Mick argued with him for a moment and then I settled the dispute by handing the guy a quarter—well beyond the nickel charge for using the facilities. His attitude changed, but he still followed the boy inside, as though he was worried Mick might run off with the towels.
I sat on a black upholstered bench and looked around at the wide variety of statues in marble, plaster, and bronze. According to the clock inside the rotunda, it was only a few minutes after nine. We still had plenty of time, but I was too nervous to sit still, so I wandered over to examine a few of the works on display. One of the larger-than-life statues depicted a man who was about to punch an eagle that was attacking him. Nearby, a smaller bronze work with a French title showed a young child sitting on a riverbank. It was beautifully detailed, and I was surprised to see that the artist was a teenage girl from Boston, Theodora Alice Ruggles.
Mick emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later and had actually managed to remove most of the grime from his face and arms. His cuffs were a bit damp from his efforts to scrub them clean, but they showed a definite improvement as well. He had apparently made good use of the complimentary toiletries—his hair was now parted neatly down the middle. It was also slicked down with something that smelled like the bergamot oil they use in Earl Grey, and I was reminded of sitting half asleep in my dad’s lap on weekends as a kid, while he read the paper and sipped his morning cup of tea.
The boy was again standing in inspection mode, so I gave him a quick nod. “Very respectable, sir. I think you’ll pass quite nicely as a journalist’s assistant.”
He gave me a wide grin, and we left the Arts Palace. This was apparently not an area where Mick had much expertise, as he didn’t say anything about the many statues and paintings we passed on our way outside, but he perked up again as we turned left on the sidewalk.
“The Midway’s not very far at all, Miss Kate. So how do you know they’ll be there at ten? What were they doin’ over by the Hunter’s Camp anyway? I seen him there before, a coupla times. He’s always comin’ out of those bushes… I nearly tol’ the cops, ’cause some ladies have been disappearin’, but then I noticed it’s the same woman with him each time. An’ she’s here at the Expo a lot. They got somethin’ hidden in there?”
He glanced up when I didn’t respond. “Oh, right. You said no questions. Me mom always says I’ll get a lot further in life if I learn to button me lip.”
“My mom tells me the same thing,” I laughed. “I don’t usually listen to her either. But it probably is good advice, you know.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but me dad said th’ only way to learn is t’ ask questions. An’ it’s hard to do that with buttoned-up lips. Anyway, I c’n tell that one you’re followin’ is a bad bloke. He has those eyes. He always give me the evil look when he comes up that hill, kinda like you did this mornin’, but I could tell you was jus’ scared. Not mean.”
“I was not scared,” I said.
“’Course you were,” he replied matter-of-factly. “You’re new here and followin’ some bad guy. But you got a good guide now, so you’ll get your story and then your boss’ll be happy, right?”
It seemed pointless to argue with an eight-year-old kid, especially when he was essentially correct, so I just buttoned my lip and followed.
The Midway Plaisance was already noisy, dusty, and crowded at nine thirty in the morning. The buildings weren’t as immense as those in the main Exposition, but what they lacked in size they made up for in color and design. In the space of a few city blocks, we passed replicas of an early American log cabin, an Irish castle, a collection of Asian-looking huts, and a smaller version of a Turkish mosque.
We stopped at a small concession stand just past the German Village, where I bought two lemonades. After a few minutes, we found a spot on one of the benches in front of the buildings.
Unlike the rest of the fair, where the visitors were mostly white, the Midway looked more like a modern city, with a wide array of races and nationalities. I looked a bit farther down the street and watched a man in Arabic dress pulling a camel toward us along the main road. A middle-aged woman was sitting sidesaddle atop the camel’s hump, clutching tightly to the edges and looking as though she was quite ready for the ride to end.
Mick followed my gaze. “That’s Cairo Street, down there. You should come back here when they do the Arab wedding this afternoon. It’s really—”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to have much of a chance to sightsee, Mick,” I said. “I’m here on assignment and I don’t have much time.”
I was a bit surprised to realize that I was genuinely sorry about the need to rush, since there was a lot that I would have loved to see if this were a pleasure trip. I felt a surge of jealousy for Katherine’s job, which had simply been to learn as much as she could.
“Too bad,” he said. “You c’n spend a week here an’ not see all of it. Not that you could really spend a week now, with it closin’ an’ all. It’ll be cool to walk through here again when all the people have gone—like it was when they was buildin’ it. I don’ really like the big crowds. An’ then ever’body here will get to start tearin’ it all down, I guess, and then go home.”
“Where’s home for your family, Mick? I mean, before you came to America.”
“County Clare—tha’s in Irelan’,” he said. “Town called Doolin. Pretty place me mom says, but the only work is fishin’. We been here since I was three or four. I kinda remember comin’ over on the boat, but not Irelan’.”
“So where will you go?” I asked. “I mean, soon there won’t be much work here for you and your mom, right?”
He nodded, with a rueful twist of his mouth. “Lady at church is tryin’ to talk me mother into movin’ back to the big farm we worked at when we first came to America, and she’s thinkin’ ’bout it. I can tell she is.”
“But you don’t want to go?”
He shook his head. “It was clean and we had more space an’ all, an’ it was great workin’ in the open air, but I don’ wanna go back there. Me dad didn’ wanna be on that farm—he didn’ trust ’em an’ neither do I. I’d rather stay in the city to work the fac’tries, even if it means bein’ cooped up all day.”
“What about school?” I asked, sipping the lemonade, cool and nicely tart, through a tall paper straw.
“Done with that,” Mick said, rubbing a line in the dust with his shoe. “Went to classes for ’bout two years on the farm before the fair started and me dad died. I c’n read an’ write just fine. C’n do my numbers, too. Anythin’ else I need to know I c’n learn on me own. I’m old enough now to help earn me keep.”
He lifted his chin proudly as he spoke and I was struck by how hard he was trying to be all grown-up. “When did your dad…,” I began hesitantly.
“Back in July,” he said. “After the fair started and the buildin’ work was finished, he got a job puttin’ out fires. You get a lot of little fires in the rest’rants and some of the ’lectrical buildins. Then there was a big fire in the Cold Storage Buildin’—weird to have a buildin’ with so much ice inside catch fire. Don’ know what caught it, but the flames was huge. All of the firefighters workin’ for the Exposition died and a bunch of those who came in from the city died, too. Took a long time, but they put it out, so none of the other buildins went up.”
“I’m sorry about your dad, Mick.”
“Yeah, me too. I miss him.” He was silent for a moment, and then he finished off the lemonade, his straw making a loud slurping sound as he pushed it around the ice to get the last few drops.
“I’m really not all that thirsty,” I said. That wasn’t entirely true—the air was dusty and I would have happily finished off the last half of the glass if not for the looming specter of trying to navigate a bathroom while wearing a bustle and ankle-length skirt. “You can finish mine, if you’d like.”
That earned me another grin. “You’re nicer than me other boss. She only gave me a peppermint one time, and that was ’cause she said me breath smelled like onions. Which prob’ly was true.” He quickly polished off the last few ounces in my glass and took the two empties back to the booth.
We worked our way down toward the Ferris wheel, which seemed even more enormous as we drew closer. It was easily five times as high as the one I’d ridden on at the county fair last year, and it cast a shadow far down the Midway. I sank gratefully down onto a vacant bench just around the corner of the next building, which afforded us a clear view of the ride’s loading dock. The blister on my heel was becoming annoying and I really didn’t want to stand about while we waited for Katherine’s party to arrive.
“So we’ll just sit here an’ wait ’til they come? I c’n help keep an eye out… Are we gonna follow ’em when they leave an’ see where they go, or what?”
He seemed to be growing increasingly impatient with the no questions rule, and I decided it couldn’t hurt to lay out the basic game plan. “Well, I actually need to get close to the woman—the one who’s with him? They’ll be in a big group, about a hundred people, along with the mayor, so it shouldn’t be hard to spot them.”
“Oh,” he said, nodding sagely. “It’s a political story you’re writin’ then. The bad bloke’s tryin’ to buy off the mayor, is he?”
“No, no.” I shook my head. “I’m not writing about the mayor. I just need to speak with the woman for a couple of minutes without the ‘bloke,’ as you call him, overhearing us.”
“Okay, tha’s easy enough,” he said. “I’ll get Paulie to put us in their wagon.”
“In their… what?” I asked. “And who is Paulie?”
“The wagon on the big wheel,” he said, nodding toward the carriages where people were now entering. “You said there was about a hundred in the group? Twen’y of ’em at leas’ will be too chicken to ride, you’ll see, an’ the wagons hol’ sixty people each. So it’s just a matter of us gettin’ on the right wagon.”
I looked up to the very top of the wheel and thought he was probably right about the people who chickened out. The pit of my stomach tightened at the thought of going up that high in something that had been built in the 1890s, long before those comforting little signs that show a carnival ride has passed inspection.
“So Paulie,” Mick continued, “he knows me—he can just shove us in wi’ the rest of ’em. The ladies may all ride in one so the men can smoke, but if they’re together, then I’ll distract the bloke and you can have a chat wi’ the lady.”
“But I don’t think there will be any children in this group,” I said. “It’s a lot of mayors and their wives…”
He shrugged. “Won’ matter,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “I sneak on all the time withou’ payin’. Lotsa kids do it—just gotta find a coupla ladies wi’ big skirts an’ sorta squeeze between ’em. Paulie don’ care so long as nobody sees me. Most times, the ladies keep your secret when they do notice you, if you ac’ like you ain’ never been able to ride it before. An’ if they do complain, Paulie’ll just yell at me when we get off and call me a buncha names, maybe throw somethin’ at me, so he don’ get in no trouble.”
“Well,” I laughed, “at least you won’t have to sneak on without paying this time.” I handed him a dollar and a quarter. “Buy us two tickets and give Paulie the quarter as a tip for his help.”
“Right.” He hopped up from the bench. “You jus’ stay here, since your foot’s hurtin’, an’ I’ll be back.”
I had to give him credit for being observant. I hadn’t said anything about the blister, and if I was limping, I wouldn’t have thought it was enough that anyone would notice, since I was covered pretty much from head to toe.
Mick sprinted over to the booth and waited in the short line to buy the tickets, then paused for a minute to talk with Paulie, a boy about my age. They both looked in my direction, and Paulie gave a little wave, then Mick headed back to the bench.
“All set,” he said with a grin. “If you’re sure they’ll be here at ten fifteen, we don’ have but a coupla minutes, maybe five. When you see the mayor headin’ this way, we’ll go over and you just kinda blend in toward the end of the line. If there ain’ no other kids, I’ll keep outta the way ’til you start t’ get in an’ then slip in beside you.”
It was as good a plan as any I could think of. “Even if they realize we aren’t part of the mayor’s group,” I said, “they can hardly evict us once the wheel starts spinning, right?”
“I don’ think the mayor would be too fussed,” Mick said. “He likes kids. Tried to get the fair bosses to let poor kids in Chicago see the exhibits for free, but they said no.”
“Buffalo Bill, though,” he added, nodding off toward the end of the Midway, “was differ’nt. See those tents over there? That’s his Wild West Show. He tol’ the mayor he’d do it—had a waif’s day where all the kids in the city got a free show, free candy, free ice cream. That was some day. ’Course,” he noted with a serious look, “they make a lot of money over there—I bet the fair bosses wish they’da let Bill’s show be part of the Midway. Said he was too ‘low class.’ But they got Indian shows at the Expo, too—just nowhere near as good as Buffalo Bill’s.”
He fell silent then, alternating between sitting on the bench and walking over to the corner of the building every thirty seconds or so to peer around the edge.
After the third or fourth trip to the corner, he sat down again and slid a bit closer. “There’s a big group down just pas’ the lemonade stand. It’s them. You can never mistake the mayor; he’s a big guy and he’s got this hat—well, you’ll see.”
I did see, about two minutes later, when a tall, rather portly man in a slouchy-looking black hat rounded the corner and approached the ticket booth. Mick was right—he wore a professional suit, complete with the typical waistcoat and pocket watch, but Carter Henry Harrison definitely had his own style. All of the men wore hats—a wide array of bowlers, straw boaters, and a few top hats in the mix—but Harrison’s hat had a slightly disreputable, cowboyish quality. It reminded me a bit of the fedora that Indiana Jones wore.
The mayor waved his hand toward the large delegation behind him and paused to hear something that one of the women was saying. Her hair was light brown with a few streaks of gray, and she wore a navy dress with a white lace bodice. She was an attractive lady, with wire-rimmed glasses, about my height and build. The mayor laughed heartily at whatever she had said and patted her on the arm before turning back to the crowd.
“If any of you are concerned, like Mrs. Salter here, let me assure you that the wheel is perfectly safe. The very first passenger was the inventor’s own wife, and no, Mr. Ferris wasn’t seeking to get rid of his good lady.”
There was a polite chuckle from the group, and then Harrison continued. “I will just need a moment to speak to this kind person to arrange our passage, and then”—he motioned dramatically toward the top of the wheel—“the sky is our only limit.”
Several of the women followed his arm upward with their eyes, and one of them, a plump middle-aged woman in a pale pink bonnet, gasped out loud. I don’t know if she had actually not looked at the wheel until that moment or if the reality had only just sunk in, but she wrenched her arm away from that of the friend next to her. “I’m sorry, Harriet. I know I said I would go up with you, but there is absolutely no way that I am stepping foot inside that steel monster.” She shuddered visibly and shook her head. “No. I’ll wait for you here.” She walked over to join a dozen or so women, and a couple men, who had gathered to watch their braver compatriots from the other side of the street. After a few seconds, her friend looked up at the wheel and, with a rather pained expression, decided that she, too, would remain on the ground.
Searching the crowd, I found Saul first, standing with a large cluster of men. A few seconds later, I spotted Katherine’s feather, directly behind the woman in the navy and white dress who had just been talking to the mayor. They were near the center of the group, which, with the exception of these two women, seemed to have mostly separated by sex, with the women congregating on one side of the platform and the men on the other. Several members of the women’s group were eyeing the two gender traitors, with tight-lipped expressions that made their disapproval quite clear.
I nudged Mick with my elbow. “That’s her. I’m not sure about the other woman she’s talking to. It might be the woman mayor they invited…” It seemed the most likely possibility, although I wouldn’t have described the vivacious woman as “a meek little mouse,” as Katherine had done.
“A woman mayor. If that don’ beat all.” Mick squinted a bit to try and get a better look, but both of the women were partially blocked from view by several of the men standing between us. “I’m gonna head over near Paulie, so you just slide into whichever wagon she goes an’ I’ll follow.”
I moved toward the gender line demarcating the two groups and pretended to be looking through my bag for something as the men’s group stepped aside and gallantly allowed the women to board first. I could pick out Katherine’s higher-pitched voice among the lower rumble of the men’s conversation. She was talking to the other woman, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying, and as they made no effort to join the women’s group, I hung back as well.
The door was closed on the first cart, and several women laughed and waved gloved fingers at the men in the delegation. I shifted toward the outside of the platform, near the back of the line. A few of the men gave disapproving looks to Katherine and her companion, and one gave a haughty sniff in my direction as well, as we moved toward the “men’s” car and began to board. It seemed Mick was right. They’d been looking forward to a quick smoke and weren’t too happy that they would now have to ask permission from the women on board.
I looked around the platform for Mick, hoping that he could sneak in next to my skirts, but it was soon clear that he had already boarded. Just as I stepped into the car, he let out a loud howl of pain and the woman in the navy blue dress burst from the back of car, dragging him by the ear. She was twisting hard, judging from the expression on Mick’s face, as she pushed her way toward the men who were still lined up to enter the wagon. “We have a little stowaway,” she said sternly, pulling up on his ear so that he had to stand on his tiptoes. “If you gentlemen could just step to one side, I’ll toss him out.”
I took a deep breath, hoping I wasn’t making a colossal mistake. “He’s not a stowaway, ma’am. I have his ticket right here.”
I held up two ticket stubs, and everyone turned to stare at me, including Katherine. Her eyes were fixed on my upraised wrist, specifically on the hourglass charm that she had given me on my birthday. I caught her eye for a brief moment and then turned back to the woman who had the death grip on Mick’s ear.
This was my first chance to get a close look at her and I had a sudden flash of recognition. The resemblance was still quite strong, although not as striking as it had been in the images on the stained-glass windows because she’d altered her hair color. And, up close, it was easier to tell that the eyes, now hidden behind wire-rimmed glasses, were a bluish-gray instead of green. I glanced down to look for the Cyrist symbol, but her hands were gloved, like my own had been until I managed to coat them in mud coming up the hill on the Wooded Island.
It was hardly the manner in which I’d expected to meet my long-lost aunt. I’d always envisioned her as the same age as my mother, so it was odd to meet this younger version. The gray streaks made her look a bit older to the casual observer, but now, on closer inspection, I doubted she was much beyond twenty-five. Her expression made it clear that she knew exactly who I was as well. Her eyes flashed briefly and then she slipped back into her character, a tiny, unpleasant smile inching across her face.
Mayor Harrison stepped forward. “Thank you, Mrs. Salter, but since the boy does have a ticket perhaps we should just…”
Prudence released Mick and pushed him toward me. “Funny,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she continued to stare at me. “I don’t remember you being part of this group.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I purchased the tickets this morning and we didn’t realize this cart was exclusively booked.” I nodded toward Mick. “He’s my assistant… I’m writing a story, for my… my newspaper.”
She sniffed and arched one eyebrow. “He’s your assistant, all right, but you’re not writing any story for a newspaper. Mayor Harrison, you might want to call fair security and have them evict these two from the grounds. They attempted to pick the pocket of a gentleman this morning as I was entering the gates. The young lady was distracting the gentleman so that this little tramp could do his work. If I hadn’t rapped him across the bottom with my parasol, the two of them would have made off with the old man’s wallet.”
“That’s a lie,” I said vehemently. “That never happened, and you know it.”
It was, however, a common enough ruse that it rang true for most of the people in the compartment, and I could feel the atmosphere shift. A few of them had seemed sympathetic a moment earlier, but now even Mayor Harrison was looking at me with a hint of suspicion.
“Why didn’t you call for security then?” I asked. “If you thought we were doing something illegal—”
A soft voice from behind interrupted me. “What paper do you write for, miss?”
I turned toward Katherine with a panicked expression, and I stammered the first thing that came into my head: “The Roch… Rochester’s Worker’s Gazette. It’s just a small weekly. We write mostly on labor issues.”
“Oh, I know that paper,” she said, stepping forward to stand next to me. “Your editor wrote an excellent piece on the complexities of dealing with child labor a while back. There was a short excerpt in the Woman’s Journal just last month. Are you here to interview some of the younger workers at the Exposition?”
“Yes,” I said, giving her a grateful smile. Her ability to pick up the tiny thread that I had dropped and weave a plausible story was impressive. “Mick knows a lot of young workers here, and he’s been helping me. I thought I would take him on the Ferris wheel as an extra token of my appreciation.”
“I always dreamed ’bout ridin’ the big wheel,” Mick added, looking down at his shoes with a plaintive expression. “But me mom needs all the money I c’n make.” He glanced around at the others and then back at me. Those big brown eyes—with long black lashes that were going to make him a real heartbreaker in a few years—were all the more effective because they were still brimming with tears from the ear twist. “But it’s okay, Miss Kate. I don’ wanna make no trouble for you.”
Mick was a convincing little actor, and I could feel the mood in the car shifting again as several of the people around me relaxed. Some of the men were glaring at Prudence, although I noted that they were generally the same bunch that had been looking unhappily toward her and Katherine as we’d entered.
“Dora,” Katherine said, leaning forward, “don’t you think it’s possible you were mistaken this morning? Perhaps you misjudged the situation—it’s so hard to tell what’s going on when a place is teeming with so many people. I hardly think this young lady looks or sounds like a common thief…”
Mayor Harrison stepped in at that point. “Perhaps we could just ask you and your… young assistant… to take the next car? It seems like this was an innocent mistake, Mrs. Salter—and they do have tickets, as you can see.”
Prudence knew she had lost the vote and shot an annoyed look toward Katherine as she huffed toward the back of the car. I paused on the pretense of slipping the tickets into my purse and whispered out of the side of my mouth to Katherine. “I need to speak to you alone. Today. And that’s not Dora Salter.”
Her eyebrows rose the tiniest bit and she gave me a small nod as I turned toward the door of the compartment, pulling Mick with me. Several apologetic smiles later, we were outside, and the rest of the men in the mayoral group, including Saul, boarded the car we’d just vacated. It was clear from Saul’s face that Katherine hadn’t exaggerated his motion sickness—he was already pale and kept glancing at the cluster of more timid souls across the street as though he might bolt at any moment. Paulie closed the door and shifted the lever to move the remaining cars into position for boarding.
“Thanks anyway, Paulie,” Mick said as we entered the next car along with a throng of other passengers. We pushed toward the back of the car and Mick slumped against the side of the compartment, his face miserable.
“It’s okay, Mick,” I said. “I was only able to speak to her for a second, but she knows now that I need to talk to her later.”
He didn’t say anything and I bent down a bit to look him in the eye. “You did a good job. A really good job. I’m not sure they’d have believed us if you hadn’t chimed in…”
Mick shook his head. “It ain’ that, miss. I just got problems now.” He closed his eyes for a moment, rubbing his temples with his fingers in a circular sort of motion. It was a very adult gesture, and somehow very familiar, although I couldn’t quite place it.
I waited a moment to see if he would elaborate, but when he opened his eyes he just stared out the window at the gears of the giant wheel. A few seconds later we jerked upward again, after loading another group of passengers.
It tore at me to see a kid so young looking like the weight of the entire universe was on him. “So tell me about it. Maybe I can help.”
He looked even more miserable and then shrugged. “Me mom’s gonna be furious an’ you’re gonna hate me, and you prob’ly should. But I like you an’ I don’ really like her anymore.”
“Your mom?” I asked.
“No,” he said, clearly shocked at the thought. “No. I love me mom. It’s that witch what pulled me ear. I didn’t recognize her at firs’ on account of how she dyed her hair to look older an’ all, but it’s her. She’s me other boss.”