Little Lion (5 page)

Maisie paused, trying to figure out which building to go into. They all looked pretty much the same, so she finally chose the one closest to them, which was also the largest. The numbers on it were 56-57, and the sign outside said B
EEKMAN AND
C
RUGER
. She pushed open the wooden door and stepped inside, Felix close behind her. It was dark and cool, and it took a minute for her eyes to adjust.

Bolts of fabric filled shelves on one wall; heavy brown jugs stood in front of them; boxes held tools, rope, yarn, and pieces of wood.

“A general store,” Felix said, running his hands along burlap bags of rice and dried beans.

“Hello?” Maisie called.

Even though the door had been unlocked, the store appeared to be empty. Outside, behind the store, Maisie could see a large enclosed yard. But it, too, was empty.

“Maybe someone's upstairs,” Felix said, pointing to a stairway near where they'd entered.

They went upstairs and opened another door at the top. In a large office, a teenage boy sat on a stool at a high desk, writing with a gray feather pen in an enormous open book.

He didn't notice them.

Maisie and Felix waited. The boy had reddish hair, high cheekbones, and what their mother would call a strong chin. He looked very serious bent over the book like that.

Maisie cleared her throat.

Slowly, the boy looked up from the book to Maisie and Felix. His violet-blue eyes swept over them, sizing them up.

“Yes?” he said finally.

“I wonder,” Maisie began.

The boy climbed off his stool and walked boldly toward them. He wasn't very tall, only a few inches taller than Maisie. But he had such confidence that he seemed to be much taller.

“Yes?” he said again, standing in front of them now.

Maisie swallowed hard. The boy made her feel all discombobulated.

Felix glanced at his sister, startled. She was blushing! He had never seen any boy make her blush before.

“Could you please tell us the date?” Felix said, taking over.

The boy laughed. “You've come in here to find out the date?”

“Yes,” Felix said.

“It's October the second. 1772.”

“1772?” Felix said, his mind racing. The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776.
Four years from now
, he thought.

“Yes,” the boy said, curious now. “Have you been away at sea?”

“Yes!” Maisie said, delighted. “We have! How did you know?”

He pointed at Maisie's blue jeans. “You're dressed like sailors,” he said. The boy folded his arms. “You've been away at sea and landed here on Saint Croix because . . . ?”

“Saint Croix!” Maisie said, even more delighted. She didn't know anything at all about Saint Croix except that it was somewhere in the Caribbean.

“Have you landed in the wrong place?” the boy said.

“Yes.” Maisie laughed. “You could say that.”

“We have ships that go all over the world,” the boy bragged. “Perhaps I can help you get where you need to be.”

“Really?” Maisie said. “You can rescue us?”

The boy puffed up his chest. “I can do anything,” he boasted.

“Who are you that you can do anything at all?” Maisie said.

“Alexander Hamilton,” the boy said proudly, as if it meant something.

Alexander Hamilton

This guy is so full of himself
, Maisie thought. Even as she thought it, her stomach did a funny little tumble. Ever since first grade, when Felix announced he was in love with Tamara Berkowitz and intended to marry her, Felix could not help getting crushes on girls. Sarah Thacher from the Bleecker Playground. Adrienne Stone from the Carmine Street Pool. Charlotte Weinberg from Little League. And, Maisie suspected, that girl Lily from his class now.

But Maisie found boys mostly annoying, sometimes smelly, and, very rarely, fun to hang out with. So why in the world did this Alexander Hamilton, who strutted like a rooster, make her stomach do this tumble and her hands get kind of clammy? Was this what Felix felt for all those girls?

“I'm Felix Robbins,” Felix was saying, “and this is my sister, Maisie.”

“Where did you two come from?” Alexander asked.

Felix waited for Maisie to answer. She always had something to say. But she just stood there, looking a little pale and a lot confused.

“Um . . . Rhode Island?” Felix said.

Delight filled Alexander's face. “The colonies?” he said.

“I . . . I guess so,” Felix said thoughtfully, realizing that, of course, if the Declaration of Independence hadn't been signed yet, the United States didn't exist. “Yes. The colonies.”

“You must tell me everything about them,” Alexander said, slapping Felix on the back. “Of course, New York is the one that truly interests me. My friend Neddy is there at King's College.”

“There's no such college,” Maisie blurted, finally able to find her voice.

Alexander laughed. “Don't tell Neddy that. He's been studying there for two years.”

“We're
from
New York,” Maisie said. “King's College—”

Alexander pointed a finger at her. “I thought you were from Rhode Island,” he said.

“We are now,” Maisie said. “We moved there from New York.”

“Then you know it's between Barclay and Murray Street. Neddy says it sits on a bluff overlooking the Hudson.” Alexander sighed. “What I would give to get there myself.”

“Me too!” Maisie said, drawn even more to this young man.

“Ah!” he said, nodding. “So you are trying to get back there?”

“More than anything,” Maisie said. “Our mother wants to be in Rhode Island,” she muttered.

Sadness crossed Alexander's face. But then he took a breath and forced a smile at them.

“I'll buy you some of Saint Croix's best fish if you'll tell me all about New York. And Rhode Island, too,” he said.

“That would be great,” Felix said, his stomach grumbling. “We haven't eaten in a while.”

Alexander threw his arm around Felix's shoulder. “Come then,” he said. “Right across King's Street on the wharf we can get the freshest fish in Christiansted.”

They stepped back outside into the sunlight.

“Christiansted is the capital?” Felix asked. He kind of wished Alexander would take his arm off his shoulder, but the boy kept Felix firmly in his grasp.

“The capital of all nineteen miles of this island,” Alexander said. He motioned to the hills that rose above the town. “There are three hundred and eighty-one plantations up there, covering about thirty thousand acres.”

“What do they grow?” Felix asked.

“Sugar, mostly. But cotton, too. And coffee,” Alexander said.

The street was now even more crowded, but Alexander seemed to know everyone. Passing men tipped their hats to him or wished him a good day.

“You're pretty popular,” Maisie said as they pushed through the crowd.

“Yes,” Alexander said proudly. “I know just about everyone on the island. And I know about everything, too. I ran the entire business for Mr. Cruger when he got sick last year,” Alexander continued boasting. “For six months! I had to negotiate prices for cargo shipments to and from New York, collect the monies. Everything involved with imports and exports. When he came back from New York in March, he told me that without me he couldn't have kept things going.” Alexander straightened his back. “And all this at only seventeen years old. Impressive, eh?”

“It looked like you were just a bookkeeper or something,” Maisie said.

Alexander's violet eyes flared angrily. “I'm back to my old job as a clerk,” he said. “But not for long. Just watch me.”

By this time they had reached the wharf again, and the smell of fish and sweat was even stronger in the afternoon sun and heat.

“Which ship did you arrive on?” Alexander asked them.

Maisie and Felix exchanged a glance.

“It's gone already,” Maisie said.

Alexander looked out at the ships crowding the harbor.

“How odd to arrive and depart so quickly,” he said. “It was a bark?”

When they didn't answer, he said, “A schooner?”

Felix laughed nervously. “I'm not sure.”

Alexander pointed to a large ship that looked very much like one of the tall ships that had sailed through New York Harbor.

“That ship there is a schooner. The square rigged one beside it is a bark. Barks have three or more masts.”

Felix tried to look interested, but all he wanted was that fish they'd been promised. When Alexander kept talking, Felix groaned. This guy might never shut up.

“They say that when the first one was launched in the colony of Massachusetts half a century ago, someone watching said, ‘Oh, how she scoons!'” Alexander said. “In Scottish,
scoons
means to skip or skim over water. Well, the builder of that ship, Captain Andrew Robinson, replied, ‘A schooner let her be then!'”

Maisie thought she could listen to this Alexander Hamilton talk forever. He was a show-off and full of himself, but he was charming just the same.

“What's that one?” she asked him just to keep him talking. Maisie pointed to a smaller ship.

Felix glared at his sister.

“The small one?” Alexander asked. “That's a sloop.”

“Wow!” Felix said. “Great! Is that fish you were telling us about around here somewhere?”

“This way,” Alexander said, leading them past the people hawking food and wares.

He stopped at the small stand of a woman who was dropping fish dusted with flour into bubbling oil.

“Alexander,” she said, smiling at him. “How is Mr. Cruger treating you?”

“Just fine, Miss Liza,” he said. “My new friends here need to try the best fish in Christiansted.”

Miss Liza blushed. “Go on with you,” she said.

She lifted several pieces of fish from the oil with a small wire basket and placed them in cones made from newspaper.

“One for yourself, too, I imagine?”

Alexander laughed his hearty laugh. “You know I cannot resist your fish,” he said.

Miss Liza made a third cone and added fish to it.

As he took a few coins from his pocket, Maisie got a good look at them. No wonder the conch lady had looked so suspicious. These coins were smaller and lighter, nothing like the silver dollar she now had nestled in the front pocket of her jeans.

Alexander handed a cone of fish to Maisie and then one to Felix. The third cone he lifted up, pretending to read the newspaper.

“This one doesn't have my poem in it, I trust,” he joked. “I hope it's not meant to hold fish. Even fish as good as yours.”

Miss Liza grinned at him. “That poem, Alexander, made me blush. And I understand you lied about your age to the
Gazette
.”

“Only by a year,” Alexander said.

Miss Liza shook her head. “Alexander!” she pretended to scold.

After good-byes and thank-yous, Alexander brought Maisie and Felix to a dock where they could sit away from the crowds, facing the ocean.

“She puts sugar in the batter,” Alexander said as he took a bite of fish. “That's what makes it so delicious.”

It
was
delicious. Crunchy and sweet, the white fish inside flaky and fresh.

“Would you like to hear my poem?” Alexander asked them. “The one that ran in the
Gazette
?”

“I have a feeling you're going to recite it no matter what we say,” Felix said.

Alexander cleared his throat, then began in a deep, strong voice, “In yonder mead my love I found . . .”

As he recited the poem, Felix pretended to listen. But the poem wasn't to his liking. It was overly romantic, something about a shepherd boy falling in love.

When Alexander finished, Maisie applauded enthusiastically. “I love your rhymes,” she said.

Felix snorted. Maisie didn't care about rhymes or poetry. Why was she acting like this?

“Yes,” Alexander said, “they are good in that one. My second published poem was a bit more ribald.”

“Ribald?” Maisie said, disappointed she didn't know the word.

“Randy,” Felix said.

“My essay, ‘Rules for the Statesman,' which was published more recently, is a bit more serious,” Alexander said, talking to Maisie as if Felix weren't even there. “In it, I advocate for the British system of a prime minister with cabinet members as the best way to govern. What do you think about that system?”

“Yes, Maisie,” Felix said, stifling a laugh, “what do you think about that system?” He wondered what in the world Alexander even meant.

“Well, it sure looks like it works, doesn't it?” she said, hoping she sounded like she knew what she was talking about.

Alexander's face brightened. “Exactly!” he said.

Felix rolled his eyes.

“I suppose you know about the hurricane that hit here in August?” Alexander asked Maisie.

She nodded solemnly, causing Felix to roll his eyes again.

“It was the worst hurricane to ever hit our little island,” Alexander said softly. “The winds blew relentlessly for at least six hours. Ships were blown out of the water and were lying right there and there,” he said, indicating with his head. “The tides rose fourteen feet higher than usual, and crops from the hills were uprooted and blown into the streets here.”

“How terrible,” Maisie said.

“I've written an account of it,” Alexander boasted. “I sent it to my father on Saint Kitts, but Reverend Knox also read it, and he thinks the
Gazette
might run it.”

“So you're a real writer?” Maisie said.

Felix shuddered at the way his sister was fawning over this show-off.

“Yes,” Alexander said, grinning. “But I think I'll become a physician some day, like Neddy. If I can ever get to New York.”

Maisie sighed. “I understand the frustration there,” she said.

Alexander stood and brushed off his trousers.

“I need to get back to work now,” he said. “We've talked about poetry and ships, but I still know nothing more about New York.” He pointed his finger at Maisie. “When we meet again, you will give me details, won't you?”

Maisie blushed. She was grateful the opportunity hadn't come up to talk about New York. How could she explain subways and Times Square and how pretty the Empire State Building looked all lit up at night? No matter how hard she tried, she could not think of anything to tell Alexander here in 1772 that would make any sense to him.

“I will,” Maisie said. “Lots of details.”

Alexander smiled. “It's been very nice to meet you both.”

He bowed, taking Maisie's hand and kissing it. Maisie gasped, and when he released her hand, she stared at it as if it didn't belong to her.

Alexander shook Felix's hand. Then, without another word, he turned and walked away.

Maisie and Felix watched him go, until he got swallowed up in the crowd.

Felix turned to his sister.

“Well, Maisie,” he said. “If he's the guy we're supposed to give that silver dollar to, he just disappeared.”