Free Jewel of the East by Ann Hood Page A

blame Westerners for all of China’s problems.”
    Pearl’s mother said sadly, “Precious Cloud has gone to stay with a Chinese family. She doesn’t think it’s safe to stay with us anymore.”
    “No!” Pearl cried.
    Heavy footsteps pounded down the stairs, and Mr. Sydenstricker appeared in the doorway. His very presence silenced Pearl and all of them.
    “It’s official,” he announced. “The empress has officially asked the Boxers to rid China of all foreigners.”
    “She always gets what she wants,” Mrs. Sydenstricker said. She looked at her husband. “We must leave. We must take the children to safety at once.”
    “Nonsense!” Mr. Sydenstricker said in his booming preacher voice. “We must face the heathens head-on!”
    Mrs. Sydenstricker’s jaw muscles tightened and released as she stared at her husband in disbelief. Then, without a word, she turned and ran outof the room and up the stairs. The sound of her sobbing filled the house for the rest of the day and long into the night.
    “Maybe we should give her the box and go home,” Felix whispered to Maisie in the dark.
    “We survived a fire at sea with Alexander Hamilton,” Maisie reminded him. “Nothing bad will happen to us if we stay.”
    “I like it here, too,” Felix said softly. “But it sounds like it’s getting dangerous for foreigners.”
    Maisie didn’t answer. Felix sighed. He knew that the time would come for them to leave China and Pearl behind, and he knew that Maisie would resist.
    “Remember,” Maisie said, “Pearl Sydenstricker is probably going to grow up and do something wonderful. She isn’t going to get killed by these Boxers.”
    Now it was Felix who didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for his sister’s hand and took it in his own. They slept that way all night, holding hands, each of them dreaming their different dreams.

    First, Mr. Kung stopped coming.
    Then, foreigners from the north began arriving in Zhenjiang. Their clothes were ripped, their bodies bruised and broken. They told storiesof the Boxers beating them and burning their houses. Frightened, they arranged for junks to take them to Shanghai for safety. Many of them told stories of how their children had starved to death or died from sickness along the way. With each new story Mrs. Sydenstricker heard, she begged her husband to let them leave. Each time, he refused. More resolved than ever, he insisted he must stay and fight the heathens.
    Still, Mrs. Sydenstricker had Pearl, Maisie, and Felix fold all their clothes and leave them on a chair by their beds. “In case we have to leave quickly in the night,” she told them.
    Maisie and Felix wore the cotton pants, tunics, and cloth shoes that all the children wore. They folded them neatly along with the party clothes they’d arrived in. At night, they lay in bed, Felix trembling with fear and Maisie trembling with excitement. The sound of Pearl’s parents arguing rang throughout the house.

    On the day the empress issued an imperial edict calling for death to all foreigners, Maisie and Felix sneaked out of the house and walked to Horse Street. They did this every afternoon while Mrs. Sydenstricker napped and Pearl rocked baby Grace on the veranda. Both of them hid their hairunder hats just like Pearl did whenever they went out.
    “I think it’s time,” Felix said. “I’m really afraid of what these Boxers might do next.”
    Maisie didn’t answer.
    Out of habit, Felix reached into his pocket to touch the little jade box.
    “Oh no!” he said. “The box is missing!”
    He stopped walking and looked around the ground. “We have to retrace our steps,” he said. “Without that box, we’ll never get home.”
    Panicked, he began to walk back in the direction from which they’d come, his eyes desperately on the lookout for the box. What if the dirt spilled when the box fell from his pocket? Felix wondered. Was the dirt important, too?
    He turned to ask Maisie these very questions, but she was