The Strange Case of Baby H (8 page)

Clara hesitated a moment, rereading the poster, then unpinned it from the tree. “I don't know who put up the notice, but I'm quite sure this is our baby.” She rolled the poster into a tight tube. “My parents need to see this.”

Clara went back to the message board. She had one more message to write. She used the black crayon to print neatly on another slip of paper:

Emmeline and family, where are you?? Curfmans'
Boardinghouse has room for all! Please come to us!

Love, Clara

“Curfmans' Boardinghouse?” read Edgar over her shoulder. “Room for all?”

“We run a boardinghouse,” said Clara. She hesitated. “I suppose you could come home with me, if you like. Seeing as you haven't anywhere else to go. We've got people in bedrolls all over the place now as it is.”

“Yes, please, I'll come,” said Edgar eagerly. “I don't have any money, but I could help out if your mother would find some chores for me—” He broke off and turned around swiftly. “There—I—oh, I have the feeling again! Of someone watching me. Uncle James—?”

Clara whirled around and glimpsed a flash of red disappearing into the crowd. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Then she gave herself a mental shake. Lots of people wore red. And now that she knew who the baby most probably was, there was no need to find the woman who had claimed to be the nursemaid. She would search for the parents themselves.

“Come on, then, Edgar,” Clara said heartily. “Come with me and let Mother put you to work.” She gave him a sudden grin. “Mother is extraordinarily good at finding chores for people to do. It's one of her particular talents.”

They laughed together and the sound rang in Clara's ears as if it were a foreign language. It was the first laughter she'd heard in days.

And then, somehow, everything was funny. As the two of them headed back to Clara's house, they giggled at the sight of the man coming toward them carrying two parrots, one on either shoulder, and pushing a third in a cage in a wheelbarrow. They tossed clods of dirt into the fissure splitting the street and shouted, “Helloooo down there!” They made jokes about the fog, the rubble, even the deafening explosion a few blocks away that shook the ground as yet another home fell to make the firebreak. The smoke in the distance was hilarious, and they ran, shrieking, for half a block without stopping, Edgar's wagon jolting along behind them. It felt so good to laugh.

They stopped only when Edgar's crates and brown suitcase bounced off and thudded across the ground. His suitcase popped open, spilling clothing and books into the road, and a large photograph in a glass frame cracked on the rubble. “Oh, no,” Edgar said, and there wasn't a trace of laughter in his voice anymore. He picked up the photograph, and Clara saw that the photo was of an elderly man with a quiet smile. “Uncle James,” Edgar murmured, and ducked his head.

He stood quietly, and Clara wondered uncomfortably if he might be praying for his uncle. She felt guilty about their silliness. How could they act as if tragedy hadn't happened—as if tragedies weren't still happening all around them?

Clara squeezed the rolled-up poster tightly in one hand while she watched Edgar trying to compose himself. She stuck her other hand into her pocket and closed her fingers around the silver rattle. She felt the little crumpled piece of paper—the mysterious message—and smoothed it against her palm.

We'll have you home soon, Baby Helen!
she vowed to herself.

She turned back and helped Edgar repack his belongings into the wagon. Then the two of them set off again, side by side, and neither of them felt like laughing anymore.

Back at the boardinghouse, no one was laughing either.

C
HAPTER
8

A
M
YSTERIOUS
M
ESSAGE

The house was in an uproar. At first Clara feared it was because Mother had discovered she was missing. But as she and Edgar entered the house, they realized the hubbub was centered in the parlor. The men who had marched away with the soldiers had returned.

And they had brought bad news. Clara and Edgar sidled into the room and stood by the broken windows to listen. Hiram Stokes, Geoffrey Midgard, Mr. Grissinger, and Mr. Hansen stood in the center of the room describing all they had seen and done while fighting the fires. Father sat in his wheelchair with Mother standing at his side, Baby Helen snug in her arms. Old Mr. Granger had his arms around the Wheeler sisters' shoulders. Miss DuBois seemed to have been sobbing, Clara noted with a sinking heart. Miss Chandler, pale and wide-eyed, stood alone in the corner by the grandfather clock. Mrs. Grissinger and Mrs. Hansen sat together, faces ashen. Only their children seemed happy, excited to have their fathers back.

“The blasting sounds like artillery fire,” Mr. Grissinger was saying, shaking his head.

“It's a war out there,” agreed Geoffrey Midgard, “and one we're not winning. The firebreak idea was good, but it just isn't working.”

“Oh, I think the fires may be out by the end of the day,” Hiram Stokes responded heartily, glancing at Miss DuBois. But Clara could tell he was just trying to comfort her, not sure at all that he spoke the truth.

“You're an optimist,” muttered Mr. Hansen. “The fires are raging, and nothing is stopping them!”

The soldiers had taken the men to join forces with all the others working to clear the streets of rubble. Pathways had to be cleared for the fire wagons. But water mains were broken, so there was no water to put out the fires, and the firebreaks weren't working. Flames progressed along city streets block by block, devouring everything in their path.

“I saw people waiting on their front steps till the fire was nearly upon them before they'd move,” marveled Mr. Grissinger. “Only then would they leave their homes and head for shelter.”

“The soldiers wouldn't let people stay anywhere near their homes where I was working,” reported Hiram Stokes. “They herded people out of their neighborhoods like cattle—trying to get them away before the houses were dynamited. Oh, Lordy, people were wailing and cussing at those soldiers something fierce!”

“Didn't matter in the end, though, all the dynamiting,” Geoffrey Midgard added. “Because the fire just swept through the neighborhoods anyway and reduced to ashes everything that wasn't already exploded.”

“Awful,” said Father. “Think how many homes might have been saved if the soldiers hadn't ordered people to leave! Folks might have been able to wet down their roofs, keep the sparks off—”

“In some places the fire was a mile high, a huge wall of fire coming right down the street! You couldn't have saved a house by pouring water on the roof—and there is no water anyway!” Mr. Hansen's voice was choked. “You didn't see it, Mr. Curfman, or you'd know it was hopeless! People were running everywhere, trying to get their families and animals to safety …”

Father muttered under his breath.

“Horses screaming,” continued Mr. Hansen, shaking his head. “I saw some of them—trapped under debris. Legs broken. Backs crushed. Had to be shot.”

Miss DuBois broke into fresh sobs.

“I hear the waterfront's been saved, though,” Geoffrey Midgard said hastily. “I was down that way last night, and they were spraying water from the bay. Fire boats came over from Oakland and up from San Jose. The whole East Side's gone, though.”

The men kept talking all at once, interrupting each other, their words overlapping, their voices mingling in a desperate attempt to convey the horrors they'd seen. They described weeping women, wailing children, men with broken limbs lying in the street. They described acts of heroism: The little girl who rushed back inside after her cat only to discover that the housemaid lay trapped in the kitchen. She had been able to save both of them. A woman who gave birth, assisted by neighbors, as the fire approached. She and her baby were whisked to safety moments after the newborn's first breath. A man who was suddenly strong enough to lift a toppled piano single-handedly off his son's legs and drag the boy out of the path of fire.

Mr. Hansen grew very quiet. He kept his head down, his arm about his wife's waist.
He's seen terrible things
, thought Clara.
Too terrible to talk about
.

“It's like a scene from hell down in Chinatown,” Mr. Grissinger said. “From hell, I tell you! Those poor folks have nothing left at all!”

Geoffrey Midgard's voice rose above his. “I heard there were a hundred thousand people homeless the first day after the quake, and who knows how high the toll is now!”

“Who knows how high it will go!” cried Mr. Granger in his shrill voice. “We're all doomed!”

“No, no, man,” said Hiram Stokes, going over to the old man and clapping him on the back. “No, I think we'll be safe on this side of the city. That's why they let us come home.”

Across the room, Father in his wheelchair beckoned to Clara.

“Where have you been, child?” he demanded when she joined him. “Your mother looked everywhere. We were very worried.”

“We most certainly were!” Mother said in a tight, angry tone. “I was about to come searching for you, but then all the men arrived back and it's been bedlam since.”

“I'm sorry, Mother,” Clara began. “I just went to the park—I posted a message for Emmeline's family, telling them to come to us. And while I was there, I saw this poster—here, look.” Clara unrolled the poster and handed it to Mother.

Mother read it swiftly, shaking her head. “It's not the same baby, I'm sure it isn't. The note in the basket said this child is an orphan.”

“But surely we should check, Mother!” objected Clara. “Father, certainly you'll agree we can't just keep this baby without contacting the Forrests.”

Mother's voice trembled. “I think the baby's true family perished in the quake, and anyone else trying to claim her will have to convince me they can give her a better home than we can.” She gripped Clara's shoulder with a heavy hand. “And you aren't to leave this house by yourself again, young lady, do I make myself clear? No going back to the park, and certainly not over to Oakland in search of these … Forrests. You're to stay right here with me. There are all sorts of dangers now—haven't you been listening?”

Clara couldn't believe Mother was being so uncooperative about searching for the baby's true family. It was all very well for Mother to want to adopt a child to replace Gideon, but if that child had been kidnapped … then Mother had no right! Clara looked at Father, sitting there so silently. Once he would have put his foot down. He'd been master of the house and head of the family, and his word was law. Now he wouldn't even
try
to take charge!

Father patted Clara's shoulder gently, but he did not say anything, except to Edgar. “Now who are you?”

“Edgar Green, sir,” said Edgar, sticking out his hand to shake Father's, then Mother's.

“Edgar's uncle has been killed, and now he has no family,” Clara told them. “I thought he could stay with us awhile. I'm sure, Mother, you can find some chores for him.” Maybe Mother should adopt
Edgar
, Clara thought mutinously, ignoring the sharp look Mother gave her. At least he could tell them who he really was and what had happened to him!

“Of course, lad,” said Father. “You'll be able to earn your keep, I daresay.”

“Oh, I'm a very hard worker,” Edgar assured him.

Suddenly Mr. Hansen broke his silence. “My parents will be frantic!” he cried to his wife. “I can't bear to think of my poor mother worrying—but how will we let our family back east know we're safe? We can't!”

“It's true the telephone lines are down, but at least the post office looks to be standing,” said Hiram Stokes soothingly. “And I heard that you can send letters for free now to anywhere in the world to let relatives know you're safe. Just take the letter to the post office and it will be sent.”

“Well, I heard it burnt down!” claimed Mr. Grissinger.

“Saw it myself,” said Hiram Stokes, “just two hours ago. There are a lot of rumors flying around, and it's hard to know what to believe until you go out and check. Why, yesterday I heard people saying that Cliff House had fallen into the ocean during the quake—but today I heard it's still standing strong.”

Cliff House
, thought Clara. She glanced at the baby, cradled against Mother's shoulder.

Baby H opened her mouth like a little bird and waved her tiny fists. “Look at our hungry starling,” Mother crooned. “I think we could all use some lunch, don't you?”

The Wheeler sisters and Mr. Granger headed out of the parlor with Mother. Miss DuBois and Miss Chandler followed. But the others were still discussing the calamity in rising voices. Clara and Edgar lingered to listen.

“The Nob Hill mansions are gone, all of them,” Geoffrey Midgard was insisting. “I was up there! The Hopkins Institute of Art—ashes now, too—but I saw people carrying out some of the paintings. So that's good.”