• • •
Apparently, my mother wasn’t the only person who bought the paper that day. By evening, New York was in a frenzy. Sidewalk vendors sold T-shirts emblazoned with the words: I Am Kiki Strike, Girl Detective. Within a week, entire grade schools were forming Kiki Strike hunting parties. Much to the disappointment of their parents, hundreds of girls (and a few boys) dyed their hair white and took up kung-fu.
For a while, the bizarre events that regularly take place in New York received new attention. A cat burglar nabbed in a Fifth Avenue apartment? It must be the work of Kiki Strike. A flock of South American parrots set loose in Queens? Kiki Strike again. (Actually, Luz was responsible for that one.) When Kiki saved a woman’s poodle from an electrified manhole cover, the ungrateful wretch used her cell phone to place a call to the New York Times before Kiki could even leave the scene.
It was funny at first, but eventually, we had to put a stop to the madness. All it took was one phone call to the intrepid reporter at News Channel Three.
“Good morning, Janice! I’m reporting live from Murray Hill on a stunning development in the case of Kiki Strike, Girl Detective. I’m here with Svetlana Jones, owner and operator of Samizdat Stationery and Printing. Now, Ms. Jones, you say that you personally printed the business card that’s become so famous. Could you tell us a little about the person who placed the order?”
“Certainly, Adam Gunderson,” said Svetlana Jones, a child-sized woman with a cane and a thick Russian accent. She pushed her unfashionably large glasses back and patted her hair, which was the color and texture of an enormous dust bunny. “She was sixteen years old. She had red hair like borscht. And her words flowed as fast as the Volga.”
“I’m going to show you a picture, Ms. Jones. Is this the girl who ordered the business cards from your shop?” Adam Gunderson held up a photo of Penelope Young to the camera.
“Yes, that is the girl. I remember her. She said she was going to sell a story to the newspapers and become very rich. Then she laughed like crazy person.”
“Ms. Jones has just identified a photo of Penelope Young. I’m sad to report that Kiki Strike, Girl Detective was just a hoax concocted by another greedy schoolgirl. Reporting live from Murray Hill, this is Adam Gunderson for News Channel Three.”
Following Adam Gunderson’s groundbreaking report, the newspapers and television stations turned their attention to actual news. But try as we might, the legend of Kiki Strike couldn’t be stopped. In a few short weeks, she had attained the level of fame that it took Bigfoot decades of sightings to achieve. But with New York’s intrepid reporters no longer roaming the streets in search of a tiny girl with white hair, the Irregulars were finally able to get back to business.
• • •
As soon as Kiki Strike was able to leave her house unnoticed, we secretly returned the money the Princess had stolen from the Chinatown Savings and Loan and destroyed the entrance to the Shadow City beneath Oliver Harcott’s warehouse. After that, we relaxed and watched as justice was served.
Naomi and The Five traded their designer clothes for the less tasteful uniforms of a juvenile justice detention facility, where they reportedly had a little trouble making new friends. Thomas Vandervoort and Jacob Harcott graduated from juvie to jail and were soon joined in the big house by Jacob’s father. Oliver Harcott had been captured as he tried to smuggle himself across the Canadian border while hidden in a barrel of pickled herring. All three men could be seen riding the daily ferry to Hart Island, where they spent the long, hot summer digging graves for the city’s dead. Even Penelope Young received the punishment she deserved. Fleeing from the reporters who hounded them day and night, Penelope and her parents moved to a small fishing village in the coldest, dreariest county in Maine. Though Penelope was too far away to cause the Irregulars much trouble, we’d heard that she quickly made a nuisance of herself by trying to convince any fisherman who would listen that Kiki Strike was not a hoax.
As for the Princess and her mother, they were last spotted in St. Petersburg, sunbathing at the palatial summer home of a well-known Russian gangster. A few days later, they boarded a train bound for Noril’sk and disappeared into the Siberian wasteland. We all suspected they’d be back someday, but for the moment, New York and its Shadow City were safe.
Copyright © 2006 by Kirsten Miller
Frontispiece illustration copyright © 2006 by Eleanor Davis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in the United States of America in June 2006
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
E-book edition published in April 2011
www.bloomsburyteens.com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Miller, Kirsten.
Kiki Strike: inside the shadow city / by Kirsten Miller.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Life becomes more interesting for Ananka Fishbein when, at the age of
twelve, she discovers an underground room in the park across from her New York City
apartment and meets a mysterious girl called Kiki Strike who claims that she, too, wants
to explore the subterranean world.
ISBN-10: 1-58234-960-6 • ISBN-13: 978-1-58234-960-2 (hardcover)
[1. Underground areas—Fiction. 2. Crime—Fiction. 3. Identity—Fiction. 4. New York
(N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M6223Kik 2006 [Fic]—dc22 2005030945
ISBN 978-1-59990-577-8 (e-book)
Kirsten Miller, Inside the Shadow City
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