by Susan Kim
She hesitated.
Then, gritting her teeth, she ran forward, leaping upward at the last second as she clung to the sheer expanse. Her fingers and toes scrabbling for a purchase, she began to scale the bricks, awkwardly at first, and then faster than a lizard.
The one in pursuit caught up to her seconds later and stood below, panting. He was openmouthed with amazement.
“Hey,” called Kai. “That’s cheating!”
At his voice, Sarah stopped climbing.
She twisted her neck around to gaze down on her brother and laughed, showing tiny, pointed teeth. “You have to tag me,” she called. “And you didn’t.” Letting go of the wall and pushing away at the same time, she dropped easily to the ground. “So I win?” She smiled up at him, her lavender eyes crinkling in the morning sun.
“You win.” Rueful, Kai laughed as well as he bent over, catching his breath. He was still winded from stalking his little sister through the city streets; she had more energy than anyone he knew, even their mother. “Who taught you that? Was it Skar?”
Bashful, the four-year-old shook her head and shrugged. “I just did it.”
Esther and Skar played with both children every day, devising long and engaging games through the ravaged streets and buildings of Mundreel. They were the kind of pastimes the two girls used to invent for themselves back in Prin.
Yet from the beginning, it was the little girl who excelled.
It was true that Kai was fast and tireless, as well, yet he had to practice over and over until he mastered each technique. For Sarah, everything came naturally. And she delighted in it all, as if the world with its obstacles were a giant playground devised for her entertainment.
An hour later, the children entered their home. As their laughter echoed in the vast space, they noticed their mother and her friend watching them from two levels up. Esther waved at them as they disappeared into the corner staircase. The older girls marveled at how Sarah forced her brother to catch up.
“She didn’t get it from me,” Esther said. “It must have been from Caleb.”
Skar smiled. “The skill was from him. The stubbornness was from you.” Then she squeezed her old friend’s shoulder with affection. Skar went off to begin her day’s work, and Esther started up the stairs.
It was too early for the place to be crowded, yet she knew it would be soon.
The days of the District as a marketplace were over. Gone were the luxury items, the soft and expensive articles of clothing, leather goods, and household objects. The stalls with merchants hawking their wares were a distant memory, as were the glass fragments themselves. Yet every day, dozens showed up, strangers as well as familiar faces. They still came to trade, but it was no longer just goods that they dealt in. They brought with them ideas, knowledge, and information.
The empty stores were now classrooms and workshops, where anyone with a skill or area of expertise could share what he or she knew: not only reading, history, and science, but art, music, and storytelling. Craftspeople revealed what they understood about building and repairing, cooking and irrigation, metalwork and carpentry.
With their help, each year, the library had continued to grow. As word of its existence spread, new visitors brought in hundreds of books, magazines, and other artifacts from miles around. The library was open to anyone who could read, and those who could not were welcome to learn from one of the teachers trained long ago by Joseph, Uri, and Esther.
The place where Saith had once received her visitors was now nothing more than an empty fountain, cracked and forgotten. Yet the need for spiritual comfort was real: More and more, Esther sensed that there was a force greater than she was, and she knew she was not alone in believing this. Although it was nothing like the grand altar Gideon had once planned, she had decided early on to set aside a small room on the ground floor. There, anyone who chose to could quietly pray alone or in groups.
The roof garden had become a model for others; Joseph still used it to show Outsiders how to design and construct them. There were dozens of flourishing greenhouses spread across the city, growing food, purifying rainwater, and supporting anyone who was willing to put in the work.
And, from the start, Esther had encouraged Uri to continue his scientific research.
Working alone, the boy had come up with an idea that he thought, risky as it was, would prevent the killing disease. Uri took careful scrapings from the lesions of a dying boy; then, without telling anyone, not even Joseph, he administered them to himself through a shallow cut in the arm. After waiting several days, he stood out in the rain, as Esther herself had done. Like her, he turned his face to the poisonous stuff, letting it drip into his open eyes and mouth.
Esther was horrified when she found out. Yet by the time he told her, it had already been a full week since his exposure and he had not yet fallen ill. After a month had passed, he began offering these “inoculations,” as he called them, to their friends.
Not surprisingly, most people were frightened and suspicious at first. And he was too late to save those who were already dying. But the continued health of Skar, Joseph, and the others who had received the treatment started to win over even the most fearful. Within months, dozens of new people were vaccinated. The results were extraordinary; there had been virtually no new cases in months.
In time, Esther sensed the disease would be vanquished for good.
Yet despite the newfound stability of the District, the girl was aware it took constant vigilance to maintain it.
Every few months, it seemed, an interloper would appear who wanted to take it over, using either subterfuge or physical force. Esther had learned from painful and bitter experience that doing nothing in the face of aggression could be disastrous; it wasn’t enough merely to do good. Turning a blind eye to Gideon’s plotting had led first to his cruel and unjust exploitation of the monetary system and then to Saith’s horrific rule.
Esther could never forget that it had also led to Aras’s death.
Knowing this, she and the group of elders with whom she now ruled the District—Skar, Joseph, Silas, Trey, and Uri—had figured out how to deal with such troublemakers. Early on, they had conferred in private and had discussed the possibility of punishing and even imprisoning them. But remembering how Saith had been corrupted by absolute power, they ended up voting unanimously simply to Shun these miscreants forever.
Esther was not afraid that the criminals would return, seeking vengeance. After all, she and the others could defend themselves if they had to. And she would have help doing that.
“Hey!”
Esther turned as she saw Trey coming around the corner, his back to her. He had his fists up, pretending to spar with Kai.
“Almost!” he called.
Kai jabbed at him, and Trey dodged the punch before reaching out and mussing the boy’s hair. Then he turned and kissed Esther before starting back toward the children’s school, which he ran with Michal. Kai jogged to catch up.
Esther knew that the gunman no longer carried his weapon, but kept it hidden in their room, in case of trouble. Yet he had never used it in the four years they had been partnered.
The girl continued up the stairs. At last, she reached the library and stood in the doorway, watching.
Joseph spent nearly all of his time there, cataloguing new books, accompanied by Stumpy. By now, he had a few silver threads in his dark hair, and the feline also showed signs of stiffness in her joints.
“You wanted to see me?” she asked.
Joseph looked up. He was poring over one of his handmade calendars, concentric circles on a wooden board punctuated by different-colored marbles set in shallow depressions. Stumpy rested in his lap, dozing. Joseph seemed particularly excited about what they denoted, muttering to himself.
“I thought you might want to know,” he said. “I was going over some dates, and it turns out . . . though I can’t be sure . . .”
“What is it?” she said, with more affection than impatience.
“I don’t know the exact date, but it’s soon. Either that, or it’s happened already.”
Joseph went on, discussing at length the challenge of pinpointing exact dates in the past, and accounting for something called a “leap year.” But soon it became clear what he was trying to say.
“Happy birthday,” Joseph blurted out.
Esther was twenty years old.
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epicreads.com
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
SUSAN KIM & LAURENCE KLAVAN cowrote the graphic novels City of Spies and Brain Camp.
Susan is also a five-time Emmy nominee for her work in children’s television and a Writers Guild Award winner for best documentary. She wrote the stage adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, teaches writing at Goddard College, and is a blogger for the Huffington Post. When she was growing up, her family moved a lot, and the combination of being a) shy, b) the constant new kid, and c) the only Asian meant she was often picked on. In Guardians, she explores her thoughts and feelings about not just bullies but how others deal with them . . . and learn to stand up for themselves.
Laurence has also written the novels The Cutting Room, The Shooting Script, and the Edgar Award–winning Mrs. White and a short-story collection, The Family Unit and Other Fantasies. He received two Drama Desk nominations for the book and lyrics to Bed and Sofa, a musical produced by New York’s Vineyard Theatre. Laurence was the baby in his family, the youngest of four brothers; even his twin brother was two minutes older. He learned that having little expected of you can be a source of power. So does Esther in Guardians: she has to finally accept being a leader of people before it’s too late. She is sixteen, after all.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY SUSAN KIM & LAURENCE KLAVAN
Wasteland
Wanderers
Guardians
CREDITS
Cover art © 2015 by Colin Anderson
Cover type © 2015 by Alex Beltechi
Cover design by Tom Forget
COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
GUARDIANS Copyright © 2015 by Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.epicreads.com
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kim, Susan.
Guardians / Susan Kim & Laurence Klavan.
pages cm
Summary: “In a world where teens die at nineteen and disease is rampant, Esther and her allies have created a haven within the District, the gleaming skyscraper that has become the center of all commerce; but as factions form and dangerous power emerges, the ultimate darkness is born from greed and Esther must save the citizens from themselves”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-211857-8 (hardback)
EPub Edition © February 2015 ISBN 9780062118592
1. Science Fiction—Juvenile Literature. 2. Action & Adventure / Survival Stories—Juvenile Literature. [1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Virus diseases—Fiction. 3.Mutation (Biology)—Fiction. 4. Science fiction.] I. Klavan, Laurence.
PZ7.K55992 Gu 2015
2014027406
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
AC
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15 16 17 18 19 PC/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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