Children of Exile

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  The missionary froze.

  “Is that what the Freds told you?” he asked in a strangely quiet voice. It made me think of ice that was about to crack.

  “Yes, of course,” I said confidently, using my school recitation tone. Coming home had been one challenge after another, but I could handle this. “Just as little children have to learn that hitting and lashing out is wrong and doesn’t work, humanity as a whole did, too. A long time ago, before people were civilized, they had wars. Of course now we know that there are always other, better ways to work out conflicts. We know that war is much too terrible.”

  I couldn’t remember any Fred telling me exactly when people had stopped fighting wars, but that was probably because it had been so long ago. Practically prehistory.

  The missionary let his eyes close—a sign of weakness? prayer? Then he opened them again.

  “Rosi, the last war ended only twelve years ago,” he said. “The day you were born. You and Edwy. Two newborn babies miraculously saved from the heart of a war zone. . . .”

  I couldn’t deal quite yet with that strange and horrible concept—war—as something that had occurred during my lifetime. But I could inch toward it. The Freds had always said that Edwy and I were taken to Fredtown on the very day we were born. But they also said that newborns were generally considered too fragile to travel great distances. If Edwy and I had been born during a war, of course the risks of leaving us in place were greater than the risks of travel.

  And if the war had ended, then the danger wasn’t as great for the children younger than us. As babies, they could be left in their hometown, cared for by Freds, until they were a little stronger. They just had to be taken away eventually because . . . because . . .

  Because their parents had once been in a war? Because they were still capable of war?

  Something odd happened in my brain—something like double vision in my mind’s eye. I could see the fighting I’d witnessed in the marketplace: the fists raining down on me, my screaming for Bobo, the glint of a knife slashing through the air. Was that what war was like?

  And I could see the father’s sightless eyes, his empty shirtsleeve; the mother’s scarred, paralyzed face. I could see all the other disfigured and disabled adults in my hometown, the wasteland of burned houses.

  Were all those signs of war, evidence of battles fought only a dozen years ago?

  I remembered scrambling onto the table and screaming about Edwy’s disappearance. I remembered swinging my own fists against the people hitting me.

  “Did I just start another war?” I whispered.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “No,” the missionary said, shaking his head emphatically. “No. You can’t put that blame on yourself. The people who started the fighting . . . they were just looking for an opening. They had too much hate in their hearts to tolerate their former enemies getting their children back. And anyhow, Enforcers came and stopped everything. . . .”

  He wouldn’t quite meet my eye.

  I remembered that back when there were wars, people died in battle.

  “Bobo!” I wailed. “Are you sure he wasn’t hurt? Did you see him for yourself? You’re not just telling me what you think I want to hear, are you? Please tell me. . . .”

  The missionary reached in through the bars and laid a hand on my shoulder.

  “I promise you, Bobo is fine,” he said. “Physically.”

  “But psychologically . . . ,” I whimpered.

  “I won’t lie to you,” the missionary said. “Of course he was shaken up. And worried about you. But your parents are taking good care of him. I did see him. I helped your mother bandage the scrapes Bobo got from falling. He’ll heal. Body and spirit.”

  I looked down at my own bloodied clothes.

  “But people were beating us,” I said. “And he’s so small . . . how could he be fine? He had to have gotten hurt!”

  The missionary’s eyes darted to the side and back again.

  “No,” he said. “The people who attacked you left him alone. As soon as he was away from you.”

  “You mean he wasn’t hurt because . . . because he doesn’t have green eyes,” I said.

  For a long moment, the missionary only looked at me.

  “You understand, then,” he said.

  “No!” I said, grabbing and shaking the bars again. “No, I don’t understand anything! What does it matter what color anyone’s eyes are? Why was that one of the first questions the father asked about me? Why did the mother lie and say my eyes were dark?”

  The missionary put his hands against the bars between us.

  “It shouldn’t matter,” he said. “It shouldn’t. But . . . how much history do you know?”

  “Nelson Mandela,” I said. “Mahatma Gandhi. Martin Luther King . . .”

  The missionary narrowed his eyes at me.

  “Do you really know about those men?” he asked. “About the challenges they faced? The battles they fought? Or do you only know their noble words?”

  “They fought?” I said in horror. “Even them?”

  “Nonviolently,” the missionary said quickly. “Although I think Nelson Mandela, in his early years . . . Never mind. Those three men really were notable for their nonviolence, as the Freds undoubtedly told you. But I don’t know how you can fully understand their achievements unless you know the hatred they faced, the discrimination their people struggled against. . . . And in this country, your people never had a Mandela or a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi. This country only had the hatred.”

  “How does someone start hating someone else’s eyes?” I asked. “Or the shape of their nose?”

  “It was never really about eyes and noses,” the missionary said. “I am an outsider, and people here will say to me, ‘Oh, you can see by that person’s face which side he was on. . . .’ And I can’t. There are people with noses that are both broad and long. There are people with eyes that are such a dark green that they’re almost black. . . . Of course, I don’t want to be able to see the differences.”

  That’s what a Fred would say, I marveled.

  “But—,” I began.

  “What people were really fighting over was history,” the missionary said. “Hundreds of years of history, hundreds of years of battles flaring up over one tribe of people having land or possessions another tribe wanted. Then it was people from one tribe remembering that the other tribe had killed their children, their parents, their friends . . . everyone they cared about. It was never letting go of a grudge, even after some people from the two tribes intermarried and the children inherited traits from both sides. Even then, one type of people decided another type of people had to be wiped off the face of the earth and tried to kill them all. . . .”

  I shivered. This was too awful to think about.

  “People aren’t types,” I said. “People are just people. Individuals.”

  “Yes,” the missionary agreed. “Don’t stop believing that. But you have to know now that some people don’t think that way. You have to know that, to understand what happened today.”

  My mind skipped around, lighting on a fact I hadn’t paid much attention to before.

  “But my parents—the mother and the father—they have different-color eyes,” I said. “And they both have injuries. How could that be?”

  “In the war a dozen years ago,” the missionary began slowly, “the dark-eyed people began killing the green-eyed people. The green-eyed people fought back; some dark-eyed people even fought on their behalf. To protect them. But then there was just killing and death. . . . Only the very strong and the very lucky survived.”

  Somehow I had not thought of the parents as strong. Or lucky.

  And which side did my father fight on?

  It was hard enough to think of anyone fighting. Then something worse occurred to me.

  “But the children,” I whimpered. “All the children who were here during that war, the ones who would have been only a little older than Edwy and me . . .�
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  The missionary winced.

  “Some escaped,” he said in a weak voice. “Their parents sent them far away, in the early days of the war, when it was still possible to leave. But then . . . the school was bombed. There was an epidemic, which doctors from outside could have treated, if it had been safe for them to come help. If sickness and warfare weren’t such good friends. If the children hadn’t already been so vulnerable. . . . The children who didn’t die in the fighting died of the fevers. Died miserably . . .”

  He didn’t sound like a missionary. He sounded like a man lost in sorrow.

  “But eventually the war ended,” I said, clutching for something to be cheerful about.

  “Only because the Freds came,” the missionary said. “They stopped the war. And they started taking away every new baby that was born. They didn’t think people could be trusted with their own children.”

  Something like hope sprang to life in my heart.

  “Is that going to happen again?” I asked. “Will babies and children be taken away now because of what happened in the marketplace? Who did you say stopped the fighting this time—the ‘Enforcers’? Is that just another name for Freds?”

  “No,” the missionary said, and now his face looked stern. “The Enforcers aren’t Freds. They’re . . . even crueler.”

  “Freds aren’t cruel!” I objected.

  A shadow crossed the missionary’s face.

  “I came to this town twelve years ago, right after the fighting stopped,” he said. “Right after the first babies were taken away.”

  “Me and Edwy,” I whispered. I remembered that I hadn’t asked about Edwy yet, but I didn’t think the missionary would answer me now. He looked like his mind was a million kilometers away—or maybe, more accurately, a dozen years in the past.

  “People were already devastated by the death and destruction of war,” he said. “But losing a baby— Babies are the future. Babies are hope. You probably look at this town as it is now and see only the things that are still broken. The scars and the missing limbs and the blinded eyes. The cracks in every foundation, the buildings that were never repaired. But I look around and see how far these people have come. They tried so hard to earn the right to get their children back. I was so proud of them. I thought God was blessing them. But now, sitting here with you, I see . . . exactly how much we made a deal with the devil.”

  I’d never heard that word—“devil”—before, but the way the missionary said it made fear crawl back into my heart.

  “Sitting here with me makes you think that, because . . . ?” I prompted him.

  He dodged my gaze for a moment, then grimaced and stared me straight in the eye.

  “My faith tells me that forgiveness and redemption are always possible,” he said. “But to get their children back, people had to agree that there would never again be second chances. They had to agree that anyone inciting violence would be imprisoned for the rest of their lives. And”—his voice dropped to a mournful whisper—“that’s what the Enforcers believe you did.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  It took my mind a moment to catch up.

  “They think I . . . ,” I began numbly. “But I wasn’t! I wasn’t trying to get anyone to be violent! I wasn’t asking to be hit! I wasn’t planning to hit back! I was just trying to find Edwy!”

  “I know, I know,” the missionary said soothingly. He reached through the bars and patted my back. “It’s not right. It’s not fair. You weren’t at fault. It’s just that the Enforcers look at things so broadly. . . .”

  “Then can’t you tell them?” I asked. “The Enforcers? Can’t I have, uh, an attorney to represent me, to prove my innocence?”

  The missionary kept patting my back. I waited for him to say, Of course. Of course that’s how it will work. We’ll get you out of here in no time.

  Instead, he sighed.

  “The agreement we made to get you children back . . . ,” he began. “Nobody thought it would affect a child. I guess people thought you would all be too peaceable, having been raised by Freds. Or just too young to cause anything. After twelve years, I think everyone forgot what children are like. We forgot that you would be just as human as adults. And that none of you would have learned to be cautious around enemies.”

  “In Fredtown none of us had enemies!” I protested. “We didn’t know what enemies were!”

  The missionary shook his head ruefully.

  “I wish you’d never had to find out,” he said. His eyes were glossy with unshed tears. “And I wish we adults had focused a little more on what would happen once you were home, and how your very presence could drive the sides apart again. Because people no longer had the common goal of getting their kids back. I guess we thought everyone would be too happy to do anything threatening right away. We thought there’d be a honeymoon period, a grace period. And . . . that there would be time to renegotiate the terms of the agreement before anything bad happened.” He grimaced, and swallowed hard. “But the rules we agreed to—they’re ironclad.”

  He raised his head and peered directly into my eyes.

  “There’s no appeals process,” he said. “No attorneys. No hope. One accusation of inciting violence and the Enforcers can put a person away forever. They believe that is the only way to prevent more war.”

  A deal with the devil, I thought.

  I thought I understood what the devil was.

  “Well, someone has to explain,” I said. “Can’t you go to these Enforcers and tell them what I was really trying to do? Can’t I talk to them?”

  “No,” the missionary said, shaking his head mournfully again. “That isn’t the process. This is what the Enforcers have planned for you, for the rest of your life. You will at least be kept separate from the ones who fought against you, who were also imprisoned. And you will have meals brought to you three times a day, along with other necessities. Once a week you are allowed to have a visitor, but only from a spiritual adviser—that would be me, unless you request someone else. Lights will go out every night at eight p.m., and come back on at eight a.m. Twenty-four hours a day, you will be watched by a video camera.”

  He pointed toward a corner behind him, where two walls met the ceiling. Maybe if the light had been a little brighter—or if my eyes had been able to open a little wider—I might have been able to see the glint of a camera lens there.

  “The Enforcers are also installing security cameras along the hallway that leads out of here,” the missionary went on. His voice had settled into a neutral tone, as if these were details that didn’t affect either of us. “They’re putting in video cameras to watch every part of this community, to make sure that no battle starts up again. It’s too late in the day right now, but I’ve been told that all those cameras will be up at first light tomorrow. And starting tomorrow, all of those cameras will have motion detection sensors. Even the one in here.”

  I barely heard him, because I was still stuck on an earlier detail: Once a week you are allowed to have a visitor, but only from a spiritual advisor. . . .

  Was he saying I would never get to see Bobo again? Never get to see Edwy or Cana or Peki or Meki? My mind circled back again to the worst possibility, the one that would hurt the most: Never get to see Bobo?

  “No,” I whispered. “No. That’s . . . unbearable.”

  As if on cue, the lights behind the missionary flickered.

  “And that would be the warning that lights-out is in five minutes,” he said. “If I don’t leave now, the Enforcers will come and get me. Listen, I know this is awful for you, but you have to pay attention: I’m going to leave you with something that can save you. You will still have a few minutes of light after I’m gone—so start reading this tonight. It will provide comfort you probably can’t even imagine right now. . . .”

  He slipped something through the bars and into my hands. A book. I looked down, and though my sight blurred, I could read the letters in gold print on the black cover: Holy Bible.

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bsp; “You think a book is going to save me?” I asked incredulously. “After everything you just told me?”

  “Yes, yes, I promise you,” the missionary said hurriedly. He was backing away from me now. “I’m sorry, so sorry, but really, just start reading. That’s all you need. . . .”

  He disappeared into the shadows and beyond my view. I heard his footsteps receding.

  “No, please . . . ,” I whimpered.

  Nothing.

  I threw the book he’d given me across the cage. Across my prison cell.

  “A book?” I raged. “A book is all I have left to me?”

  I waited, because maybe the missionary could still hear me; maybe he’d take pity on me and come back. I listened hard, but all I heard was the book hitting the floor with a thud and then a tiny echoing ping.

  Edwy had been right back in Fredtown: Missionaries were horrible people.

  Edwy . . . Bobo . . .

  I drew in a breath, because I wasn’t going to take this quietly—no way. If there was a video camera aimed at me twenty-four hours a day, then I would use that to make my appeal. I wasn’t going to read any book; I would talk about why I deserved to get out of there until I convinced the Enforcers—or whoever watched and listened through the video camera—to set me free.

  If he’d really wanted to help me, why didn’t the missionary suggest that? I wondered. Instead of just giving me a book to read . . . or throw. . . .

  Belatedly, something struck me about how the Bible had hit the floor. That little extra ping at the end—what was that?

  Books don’t ping, I thought. Not unless they have metal on them. Or in them.

  I’d only held on to the book for a moment before flinging it across the prison cell. But that was long enough to know there’d been no metal edging on its corners, no metal-tipped bookmark tucked inside.

  Maybe . . . , I thought. Maybe . . .

  I sat frozen, thinking hard. I waited the longest minutes of my life, until the lights suddenly blinked out. I waited until I was sitting in complete darkness.