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Also By Gennifer Choldenko

Al Capone Does My ShirtsAl Capone Shines My Shoes

Al Capone Does My HomeworkIf a Tree Falls at Lunch Period

No Passengers Beyond This PointNotes from a Liar and Her Dog


First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Hot Key BooksNorthburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London EC1V 0AT

Text copyright © Gennifer Choldenko 2015

The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted.

All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or

otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-4714-0352-1

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This book is typeset in 11pt Sabon using Atomik ePublisher

Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, St Ives Plc

www.hotkeybooks.com

Hot Key Books is part of the Bonnier Publishing Group www.bonnierpublishing.com


To Kai—who knew it would be so fun to have a daughter?


San Francisco January 1, 1900

In the Palace Hotel, electric lights blaze as ladies in shimmering gowns and gentlemen in black waistcoats

waltz in a ballroom gilded with gold. On the cobblestones of Market Street, revelers jangle cowbells to ring in the new century for the city, the Pearl of the Pacific.

In the bay, a steamer from Honolulu is fumigated, scrubbed, and smoked—from the silk-seated parlors to the stinking steerage—and given entry to the port of San Francisco.

At the dock, thick with the smell of fish, rats slip off the ship. They scurry onto the wharf and climb the sewers to Chinatown.

One.Two.Three.Four.


Part One


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Chapter 1

The Cook, the Maid, Our Horse, and Papa

I find a spot on the bench in front of the line of carriages, buggies, and one stalled motorcar facing the wrong

direction, trying my best to ignore the other girls’ whispered plans as they climb into each other’s buggies after school. They’re going to wear split skirts and bicycle in Golden Gate Park, or carry parasols and wear hats and gloves to shop at the Emporium, or go to each other’s houses to try on new cotillion dresses. I crack open my book as more girls sweep by. A book is a friend you take with you wherever you go.

Gemma leans on her crutches next to the bench, resting her black-stockinged toe on the ground. Her sprained ankle is bandaged in a crisscross pattern—very different from the way my father does it. Gemma has blue eyes, reddish-blond hair, and full cheeks that always look feverish. “What are you reading about?”


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“Mucus,” I tell her. “Did you know your nose produces a flask full of mucus every day?”

Gemma makes a face. “A flask full . . . Don’t tell me you drink it?”

“Actually, I do. Everyone does.” I know I shouldn’t say things like this. Aunt Hortense says I try hard to be peculiar. But she’s wrong; I come by it quite naturally.

“Did Spencer ask you yet?” Hattie with the pouty lips calls to Gemma.

Gemma turns to answer. I don’t hear what she says. It isn’t intended for me. Nothing they say ever is.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a friend my age. I should be used to it by now. I was eleven when Aunt Hortense insisted I enroll in Miss Barstow’s School for Young Women, where every girl learns the virtues of patience, the proper use of calling cards, and how to marry a man of stature, which means he has money. Last year, Clara, my friend from church, moved away, and my big brother, Billy, turned mean and stopped letting me tag along with him.

Now I’m thirteen, and my friends are the cook, the maid, our horse, and my father. Luckily, tomorrow I get to go on calls with Papa, so I won’t have to face Miss Barstow’s for three whole days. I’ve been assisting my father for only a few months, but I’ve taken to it like butter to biscuits.

What Papa does is a lot more interesting than what we learn in school. There’s no science at Miss Barstow’s. No math after third grade. We take subjects deemed necessary for cultured young women destined to run a household of servants—French, elocution, dancing, music, geography,


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etiquette, and entertaining.I like geography the best, then French and elocution.

Etiquette and entertaining put me to sleep, and dancing is pure agony.

When I look up again, Jing is here in our black buggy with our filly, Juliet, who’s snorting and prancing like she hasn’t been out in a while.

Jing waggles his eyebrows at me, and I climb up beside him.He flaps the reins, and Juliet trots forward into the street. Bits

of foam fly where the lines rub against her shiny brown neck.Jing doesn’t have a long braid or wear baggy pants and

white socks the way most Chinamen do. He dresses like my father and speaks formally, never in pidgin English. We say he’s our cook, but he also takes care of our garden, our two horses, our nine chickens, and our cat, Orange Tom. But not the parrot, Mr. P. Our maid, Maggy Doyle, looks after Mr. P. Maggy does the work of three maids, but she has peculiar ways. “Addled,” Billy calls her.

We take the route by the sign that says painless piano-playing dentist. Painless, my foot. Papa says he plays the piano so no one can hear his patients scream.

Jing smiles slyly. “See anything in my ear?”I lean in. “No.”He turns his head. “How about the other one?”I peer in that ear. “Nope.”“Ahhh . . . what’s this?” He pretends to pull a tiny frog

out of his right ear and hands it to me.I grin at him, inspecting the live frog in my hand. It’s

bright green with a black mask.


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Jing always has something for me. A smooth black stone, a white feather or cookies baked in the shape of my initials. I keep his gifts on my windowsill, except for the ones I eat.

He asks me how Miss Barstow’s was today, and I try to think of a story that will make him laugh.

“Miss Barstow bought a new dunce cap. She tried it on to demonstrate what will happen if you flunk your French vocabulary test, but her hairpin got caught and she couldn’t get it off. Miss Annabelle had to help her.”

“Stuck dumb,” Jing says.“Dumbstuck,” I say, and laugh. “It serves her right. I

hate that thing. Not that I’ve ever had to wear it, but still.”We pass a workhorse pulling a big dray. On the corner,

white-ribboned temperance ladies pass out flyers, and newsboys hawk papers.

“Orange Tom has disappeared again. I have a hunch he has a lady friend,” Jing says.

The frog hops in my lap. I cup my hand over him to prevent escape. “I hope his lady friend likes rats.”

Orange Tom loves to hunt, but he kills more than he can eat. He’s fond of leaving dead rodents in Aunt Hortense’s fountain, in the backseat of Uncle Karl’s brand-new auto-machine, on our front step, and on top of Papa’s medical journals.

The farther we get from Miss Barstow’s, the more my mood improves. I settle back and enjoy the short ride up the hill to home.

Aunt Hortense and Uncle Karl’s house on Nob Hill is enormous—five times the size of ours—and built to look like


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a palace in Paris. Crystal chandeliers, paintings of angels, marble busts of famous old men, gold candelabras held up by gold cupids with gold twigs in their gold hands. Every night it’s lit with all electric light.

Aunt Hortense and Uncle Karl own our house, which is tiny compared to theirs but plenty large enough for Papa, Billy, and me. Aunt Hortense married sugar money. Her sister, Lucy, my mother, married a doctor who will care for patients whether they can pay or not.

My mother died five years ago. It started with a stomach-ache; Papa thought she had parasites, but it was cancer. No cure for that. Maybe I will discover one.

When my father is away on calls, Aunt Hortense steps in to oversee Maggy, Jing, Billy, and me. I’ve tried to convince Papa that now that Billy is sixteen, he should be in charge. Billy is bad-tempered, but I still prefer him to Aunt Hortense. I haven’t been able to persuade Papa yet.

Aunt Hortense never lets up—I’m not to come or go without her permission. I guess it’s because she can’t have children of her own that she thinks she owns us.

I watch her walk down the steps from her house, wearing a yellow dress that sounds like a bristle brush when she walks. She has on white lace-up boots and carries a pearl-handled parasol. Most of her clothes come from Paris. A few weeks a year, French dresses are brought to the Fairmont Hotel for ladies to purchase.

Jing reins in Juliet so I can climb out. I like it better when I get to help unharness her, but I can’t do that with Aunt Hortense standing here.


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I still have the frog in my hand, and contemplate handing it to her. How she’d jump! Aunt Hortense is terrified of amphibians and reptiles. She’s allergic to cats and doesn’t like dogs.

She peers at me. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Elizabeth. What did you do to your hair?”

“Trimmed it, ma’am.”“With a meat cleaver? They have better hairstyles at the

almshouse.”“Really? Well, I’ll sign myself up,” I say under my breath.“I heard that,” Aunt Hortense snaps. “Don’t you know

what a privilege it is to go to Miss Barstow’s? What did she say about your hair?”

“That I ought to keep it pinned up.”My father comes out the kitchen door with his brown

medical bag in his right hand and his black bag in his left. Papa is tall, like me, with hair the color of piecrust, and brown eyes like mine.

“Hurry and change, Lizzie. I just got word Mrs. Jessen is having her baby,” Papa says.

Aunt Hortense frowns. “Must you take her with you, Jules? It was bad enough when you took William.”

“She likes going.”“Where do the Jessens live?” Aunt Hortense asks.“Larkspur.”“Larkspur? She’ll miss school tomorrow.”“She’ll make up what she missed, won’t you, Lizzie?”

Papa asks.“Yes, sir.” I lean down to hide my smile, release the frog,


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and then run up the path to our house.Aunt Hortense shakes her head at Papa. “Even so,

Jules . . .”“It’s okay, Aunt Hortense. Childbirth is not contagious,”

I call back.“I’m just trying to keep you safe, Elizabeth. Don’t you

know that?”


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