Deadly Read Online Free Page B

he seemed to be studying me as well.
    He tapped his desk slowly with his finger. “Your letter to me was a fine specimen of handwriting,” he said.
    â€œThank you, sir,” I said.
    â€œThis work demands a good hand,” he said.
    â€œYes, sir.”
    He cleared his throat and picked up my typing test. I raked my mind for a way to ask him about the job and what it might entail—I tried to call up words, but they seemed as ephemeral as clouds.
    â€œSo, I have all of your information, name, address, and such,” he said. He stood, as if to end the meeting.
    And then it came to me.
    â€œSir, did the Department of Health and Sanitation begin after Jacob Riis published his book
How the Other Half Lives
?”
    His eyes flickered to life then, as if I had brought him out of a dull routine.
    â€œTwenty years ago, the department was in its infancy,” he said. “We didn’t have such a branch for sanitation.”
    â€œI’ve always been interested in, well, in fighting death,” I said. I clutched my own hands, not daring to wipe the sweat from my upper lip.
    â€œThe causes of death are many,” he said. “Disease, ill health, accidents, childbirth.”
    â€œMy mother is a midwife,” I said, “and I assist her, and often I watch those girls suffer—and my brother—I want to learn, sir, I want to know what makes people ill, what causes sores to become infected, why people bleed, why they die.”
    I felt unable to stop this horrible declaration of my most morbid thoughts, but the man nodded, looking at me pensively.
    â€œPerhaps I should show you our laboratory,” he said. “It’s where we do all our experiments and sample testing. You’d be working often with the science fellows, so perhaps you should see. Come, it’s just down the hall.”
    I followed him to the other end of the hall, into the laboratory, a giant room, astonishing in its size and complication—dozens of tools and test tubes and microscopes, things I wanted to touch and look at. I could smell chemicals burning in the beakers. A good number of science fellows bent over tables, their work occupying them until I passed with Mr. Soper. As I listened to my interviewer, I felt watched. I felt aware of my face and hair, I felt light and off balance. I don’t think I’d ever been in a room with so many boys before.
    I forced myself to focus on Mr. Soper’s words.
    He stopped at a microscope and tapped it. He said, “Every living thing in the world is made up of tiny cells thatare invisible to the bare eye, cells one can see only through a microscope.”
    I thought of the article I had read with Marm about Dr. Golgi and the nervous cells. I thought of the science book my father gave me.
    I felt, listening to my interviewer, as if a door opened just a crack, and I could see the edge of a new world. I wanted to ask if I could look through the bronze microscope he touched and see how we are held together. I wanted to stay in that room for the rest of the day and explore like an arctic adventurer.
    â€œA microscope is just one of the many tools we use,” he said. “My position at the department is head epidemiologist, and a large part of our work is investigating the causes of disease epidemics. We want to know how these things start.”
    This struck me—that there exists a person who searches for the start of disease. Not a doctor, but more like a detective, sifting through scientific evidence.
    â€œI’m ready, sir, to help you in any way I can,” I said.
    â€œGood,” he said.
    I think I saw in him a smile.
    He had to return to work; we went back to his office and he offered to pay me five dollars weekly, if hired. That ismore money than I ever had—it would make our lives a good bit easier! We closed the meeting with a firm handshake. He said he’d notify me of his decision by next week. It seems I’m not