The Peculiars (37 page)

The
Girandoni
was a remarkable pneumatic weapon—a twenty-two shot .46 caliber air rifle that produced no smoke and very little noise. However, to operate it, one had to pump it by hand (more than 1,500 times). It was made in Austria in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and was used during the Napoleonic wars (1803–15). It was later used by Lewis and Clark on their famous western expedition. You can see video of the Girandoni on YouTube.

Meriwether Lewis
(1774–1809) was an explorer and the official leader of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which began in Missouri in 1804. In 1805, the members of the expedition reached the Pacific Ocean. They returned to St. Louis on
September 23, 1806. As an explorer himself, Mr. Beasley would of course take a keen interest in Lewis and Clark’s journey.

Joseph Lister
(1827–1912) was a surgeon at Glasgow University in Scotland in the 1860s when he began using carbolic acid to kill germs and make surgery safer. He also insisted that doctors wash their hands using calcium chloride. This was met with skepticism, especially because the acid burned patients’ skin. Lister refined his techniques for preventing infection and introduced a carbolic acid spray that didn’t have to be applied directly to a patient’s skin. But it wasn’t until the 1880s, when he was chair of surgery at King’s College Hospital in London, that others began using his methods.

David Livingstone
(1813–73) was a British missionary and explorer best known for his explorations of Africa. He was a popular national hero noted for saying, “I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward.” He received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London and was made a fellow of that society. When he lost contact with the outside world for six years,
Henry Morton Stanley
(1841–1904) was sent by the
New York Herald
to find him. Stanley set out in 1869 but didn’t find Livingstone until 1871. By the late 1800s, the explorations of Stanley and Livingstone had reached mythic proportions.

Joseph Norman Lockyer
(1836–1920) was an English astronomer who, at the same time as Pierre Janssen, discovered helium. He also invented a method to observe solar prominences using
a spectroscope. Between 1870 and 1905, he headed eight government expeditions to observe total eclipses of the sun.

A. A. (Albert Augustus) Pope
(1843–1909) imported European “penny farthing” bicycles into the United States but soon began manufacturing them in Hartford, Connecticut. He founded the Pope Manufacturing Company in 1877, and it became the largest and most successful bicycle business in America at the time. As usual, Mr. Beasley was at the front of the curve.

Steam-powered carousels
were very popular in European fairs in the early twentieth century. I set the Pleasure Dome in Knob Knoster in the late 1800s. The animals and gondolas were in enclosed tents that often had tables and dance floors surrounding the rotating platform.

Each book has its own peculiar journey to completion, and I have been lucky to have many friends on this journey. I could not have traveled far without them.

Thanks go out to the Monday Writers for their insights, laughter, and faithful slogging through drafts: Lenora Good, Jeff Copeland, and especially Stephen Wallenfels, who is owed gallons of tea and a fair share of October. To Randy LaBarge, for unfailing encouragement. And to all my other early readers, for sharp eyes and kind hearts.

Most of all, my thanks to my family, who are my greatest fans: Dennis, whose patience and ideas rarely fail and who has read more drafts than a person should ever have to; Brennan, who champions everything I do; and Claire, who loves words.

Sandra Bishop, my agent, believed in me from the start. I’ve had the best of editors in Howard Reeves. Thanks to the entire Abrams/Amulet team.

Maureen Doyle McQuerry is an award-winning poet and teacher. She has taught for many years, specializing in young adult literature and writing. Her poems appear regularly in
The Southern Review, Atlanta Review
, and other publications. She is a founding member of Washington State’s Young Adult website,
www.ya-wa.com
. She currently lives in Richland, Washington.

This book was designed by Chad W. Beckerman.
The text is set in Adobe Caslon, a typeface designed by Carol Twombly. It is a variant on the original Caslon typeface, which was created by William Caslon, an English gunsmith and typeface designer. This font was made in 1990, and is specifically based on Caslon specimen pages printed between 1734 and 1770. Its versatility and its friendly, round letterforms make it a popular font for a variety of books and publications.