Children of Refuge

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Kiandra pointed the tip of her purple fingernail at that label. “See?”

  “You could have hacked into that site and just made it say that,” I accused, still doubtful. “That makes more sense than someone naming a place Cursed Town on purpose.”

  “That wasn’t the original name of the town,” Kiandra admitted. “But the name changed after . . . you know. The war.”

  I remembered what my father had told me about the war in his hometown. I tried not to let Kiandra see me shiver.

  “Oh yeah?” I challenged. “Well, if this map’s for real, what’s that?”

  I pointed at the thick black line that separated the territory between Refuge City and Cursed Town.

  “The border,” Kiandra said, and even she sounded serious and scared. “The line that almost no one is allowed to cross. The line that Udans just smuggled you past. Our father must have spent a fortune bribing everyone to make that happen.” She hit my shoulder again, this time with her hand balled up into a fist. “A fortune that should have been part of Enu’s and my inheritance.”

  “Well, excuse me,” I muttered. “I didn’t ask to be smuggled here. I didn’t ask anyone to spend money on me.”

  Kiandra’s eyes widened. I could see the flecks of green in her dark iris.

  “You really are dumb, then,” she said. “You should have asked. You should have begged. You should have known the minute you arrived in Cursed Town that it’s a despicable place. And . . . dangerous.”

  Rosi, I thought. Rosi’s still there.

  Was Rosi in danger?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “You any good at basketball, pipsqueak?” Enu asked, emerging from my room.

  I did an amazing somersault: One minute I was hanging backward and upside down on the couch; the next I was landing on my feet and facing Enu. I looked down at Kiandra to see if she was impressed. I shouldn’t have—she still had a solemn expression on her face from talking about Cursed Town and danger.

  She was probably just teasing, I told myself. Telling spooky stories just to scare me. So she could laugh at me.

  I’d, um, done that a time or two to little kids back in Fredtown. But not the ones who would cry. Just the ones who could take a joke.

  Does Kiandra think I can take a joke? Does this means she likes me?

  I wasn’t used to worrying about things like that. It was so weird being the youngest kid, not one of the oldest.

  “Am I any good at basketball?” I repeated Enu’s question. “I was the best twelve-year-old boy in all of Fredtown!”

  That wasn’t technically a lie. Not at all. Enu didn’t have to know that I’d been the only twelve-year-old boy in all of Fredtown. Which made me both the best and the worst of the twelve-year-old male basketball players.

  I could have just said “best twelve-year-old,” except . . . well, Rosi was actually better at basketball than I was. In the past year she’d grown taller than me, and that made her a lot better at rebounds.

  My Fred-parents said sometimes girls got their growth before boys. They predicted that I would almost certainly be taller than Rosi when we were both adults.

  Not that I’d ever said I was worried about my height back in Fredtown.

  Or about Rosi now . . .

  Enu didn’t have to know any of that.

  He paused in the kitchen and downed half a carton of orange juice in what seemed to be a single gulp.

  “If you promise not to talk about that Fredtown, you can come play with my guys,” he said. “We’re down a player because of Wong Li’s broken ankle.”

  “That’s what happens when people jump off cars,” Kiandra muttered.

  I wanted to ask, Did one of your friends really jump off a car? From the roof or just the hood? Or the bumper? Was the car moving when he jumped?

  I wanted to ask, Why can’t I talk about Fredtown? Why did Udans warn me about that too?

  But I also wanted to go play basketball with Enu and his friends, and I was afraid he wouldn’t let me if I asked too many questions.

  “And don’t say you’re twelve,” Enu said. “If anyone asks, say you’re a stunted thirteen-year-old.”

  Why? Because . . . then there’s no way I would have come from Fredtown? I thought.

  Rosi and I were the oldest kids who’d been taken to Fredtown. The Freds started taking babies there the very day we were both born. (And yes, it was really annoying that she and I shared the same birthday.)

  But why did Enu care?

  “No one’s going to believe that kid’s thirteen,” Kiandra scoffed. “Not with that squeaky voice.”

  “Obviously he got the leftover genes in the family,” Enu said. “The subpar ones. After I took all the good ones. Because I was born first, I got the best.”

  “Genes don’t work that way!” Kiandra protested, even as I complained, “That’s not fair!”

  Enu dumped the last half of the orange juice carton down his throat.

  “Deal or no deal?” he asked.

  “Are you playing at the AZ?” I asked.

  I wanted Enu or Kiandra to marvel, Wow! He knows people call the Athletic Zone the AZ! It’s like he’s lived in Refuge City his whole life!

  But Enu just grunted.

  “Where else?” he asked.

  Twenty minutes later—after waiting for a delivery from an athletics store of all the “gear” Enu said I needed—I changed into net-fabric shorts and a light T-shirt and brand-new basketball shoes, tugged a backpack over my shoulder, and followed Enu out the door. We took the elevator down to the street, and I braced myself for a repeat of the challenges of walking behind Udans.

  But Enu took up half the sidewalk; the crowd parted before him. He strutted, and people got out of the way.

  It was really easy to walk in his wake.

  I couldn’t resist asking why.

  “How do you do that?” I asked.

  “Do what?” he muttered.

  “Get people to clear a path for you,” I said. “Get them to move away as you’re coming toward them.”

  “Do they?” he asked, as if he hadn’t noticed.

  “Um, yeah,” I said. A woman teetering on crazy-tall shoes and a man wearing a business suit moved to the side in front of us. “Nobody did that for Udans.”

  Enu snorted.

  “Udans is a country chicken,” he said. “His clothes shout bumpkin. And he walks around like he’s afraid someone might notice him and send him home. Watch.”

  Enu hunched over his shoulders and kept his gaze low, peering back and forth.

  The crowd started pressing in on us.

  Enu threw his shoulders back again, lifted his head—and glared straight at a man who was about to brush against Enu’s shoulder.

  The man instantly veered to the right, out of Enu’s way.

  “Udans looks like a pirate,” I said, feeling a weird sense of loyalty.

  “A pirate?” Enu scoffed. “Maybe one who’s not any good at finding treasure. One who’s scared to do anything but follow the captain’s orders.”

  “Our father’s the captain, you mean,” I said, stretching out my legs trying to keep up with Enu. He really was a lot taller than me.

  Enu rolled his eyes.

  “Duh,” he said. “Our father’s a crime lord. He’s cool.”

  Did “cool” mean something in Refuge City that it didn’t mean back in Fredtown or, uh, Cursed Town? Was having a father who was a crime lord something to be proud of?

  What was a crime lord, anyway? Just a thief?

  “Down here,” Enu said, pointing me toward a set of stairs that descended beneath the sidewalk. “We’re taking the subway.”

  At the bottom of the stairs we passed into a gleaming white passageway. Doors opened, and Enu tugged me into a train car. The seats sparkled, and I started to sit down.

  “Don’t bother,” Enu said. “We’re only going one stop.”

  The doors shut and opened again a moment later; we were someplace new.

  I s
tepped out into a passageway painted bright orange, right on Enu’s heels.

  “How does that work?” I whispered in amazement. “I didn’t even feel the train move!”

  “Who knows? Who cares?” Enu said with a shrug. “It works. That’s all that matters.”

  That wasn’t at all how Freds would have seen things. If any Fred had been with us, they would have said, That is a great question. Let’s think about this. Do you think it’s hydraulics? Pulleys? Magnetics? Make your guess, and then we’ll do some research and test your hypothesis. . . .

  I never wanted to agree with the Fred way of doing anything but . . . I did want to know how the train worked.

  Maybe I could research it on my own. Later.

  Enu led me out onto the street. One of the towering domes I’d seen from Udans’s truck hovered directly in front of us. Enu started bounding up the stairs toward the dome; then he stopped and turned around.

  “One other thing you shouldn’t talk about,” he said, bending toward me and talking softly, even though no one else was around us. “Don’t say anything about the fact that all my friends are different colors.”

  “Different colors?” I repeated blankly. “Isn’t everyone different colors? I mean, my eyes are green and my hair is brown and my lips are kind of browny-red and—”

  Enu punched my arm. I was starting to think that that was Enu’s favorite way to communicate. Kiandra’s, too.

  “Don’t be a smart aleck,” he said. “I mean they all have different-colored skin. Wong Li and Alphonse Xu are mostly Asian, and Hector Goodleaf must be, like, almost pure African, and I think Jorge Colon’s family came from somewhere in South America, and—”

  “You really think I’d say something about what color skin people have?” I asked indignantly. “Who would do that? Who would care?”

  Enu met my gaze with narrowed eyes.

  “Someone from Cursed Town would do that,” he muttered.

  “I’m not from Cursed Town!” I protested. “I was there for barely twenty-four hours!”

  Enu jerked his head back and forth, looking around as if he was afraid someone might have heard us.

  “Chill, dude,” he said. “You’ve got to admit, I don’t really know anything about you. You could be anyone.”

  “I’m your brother,” I said, and it was embarrassing, how much it sounded like I was begging him to agree. “We’re here in Refuge City together. We’re family.”

  “It’s Ref City,” Enu corrected me. “Nobody calls it Refuge City except country bumpkins like Udans. And our parents. And . . . try to act like you’ve always lived here. Don’t say anything about where you did or didn’t come from.”

  So I wasn’t supposed to say anything about Fredtown or Cursed Town.

  What was I allowed to say?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Enu’s friends were all giants. Considering that I’d only ever played basketball with little kids, Freds, and Rosi, it turned out that I might as well never have played basketball before in my life. From the first tipoff I could tell: In this game here at the AZ, I might as well have been playing with giant sequoia trees that could run. I might as well have been a little bug crawling around on the ground squeaking, Please. Don’t anybody step on me.

  But I did know all the rules of basketball—oh, how the Freds liked us knowing rules. So when the monstrous creature I was supposed to be guarding caught the ball, dribbled once, then took three quick steps without dribbling again, I squeaked out (from my position halfway back the court from him), “Hey! That’s traveling! You have to forfeit the ball!”

  “Nobody cares,” the gigantic kid said lazily, even as he sank the ball into the basket.

  He was so much taller than me, it felt like he could have stepped on me and flattened me completely. I waited for the rest of his team—which included Enu—to turn on him and scold him for bad sportsmanship. That’s what would have happened in Fredtown. Then there would be apologies, and I would be expected to pretend to forgive the kid, and . . .

  The other team didn’t scold him. They cheered.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” I protested. “Didn’t anyone else see? He just cheated!”

  “Dude, shut up,” Enu hissed at me, running up beside me. His face was red. “You’re embarrassing me. Everybody cheats.”

  “Not—” I began, then clamped my mouth shut. Because I’d been about to say, Not in Fredtown. Not my friend Rosi. Not ever.

  “Keep playing,” Enu yelled at all his friends.

  He gave me a little swat on the rear.

  “Be cool,” he whispered. “Or I’ll send you home. I will.”

  Did he mean home to the apartment we share with Kiandra? Or did he maybe even mean home to Cursed Town? Home to Fredtown?

  I’m never going back to Fredtown or Cursed Town, I told myself. Refuge City—I mean, Ref City—this is where I belong.

  The ball zipped past me, over my head—zooming from the fingertips of one giant sequoia tree to another—and I jumped for it. I might as well have been jumping for a rocket ship in orbit around the Earth. But at least I was trying.

  After that I ran up and down the court, doing my best to keep up. But it was like my complaining about the cheating had made me invisible. Nobody on my team passed to me. The opposing team didn’t bother sidestepping me. They just knocked me down when I was in the way. And nobody gave me a hand back up. They didn’t even glance at me.

  This was not how I was used to being treated. Back in Fredtown I’d been Edwy the Amazing, Edwy the Bad Influence, Edwy Whom All the Younger Kids Wanted to Imitate. Even when I got in trouble, I had all these kids watching me, their eyes wide and awed, as if they were all thinking, Edwy’s so much braver than me! Someday I want to be like him! I want to break the rules too!

  Was there any punishment that was worse than being ignored?

  “Water break!” someone called, and everyone went to the sidelines to gulp down whole liters of liquid in a single swallow. I’d just managed to extract my own water bottle from my backpack when a whistle went off and everybody else was back on the court.

  Nobody waited for me. Not even Enu. Even he didn’t call out, Wait! Edwy’s not ready yet!

  I took a sip of water, but it tasted tinny and disgusting in my mouth. I was panting too hard to swallow.

  What if I threw up?

  How much would that embarrass Enu?

  Suddenly I wanted to embarrass him. I wanted to embarrass everyone. At the very least I wanted to force everyone to look at me.

  One of the opposing sequoia monsters came dribbling down the court, just the other side of the line from me. I stepped across the line and buried my head in his stomach, knocking him off course, practically knocking him to the wooden floor. The ball bounced wildly, and I snagged it from his grasp. I held the ball the way a little kid might—with both arms wrapped around it, not bouncing it at all. I took off running toward my team’s basket, and as soon as I was close, I flung the ball into the air.

  The ball teetered on the rim and then slipped in.

  “Three points!” I screamed, holding my arms in the air. Even here this had to be the sign of victory.

  I’d shot from much too close to get more than two points for that basket. I’d traveled. I’d fouled the opposing team’s player. I’d practically tackled him, and I could hear a Fred voice in my head scolding, Now, what do you think would happen if everyone tried to play that way? Wouldn’t you get mad if your opponents did that? Think how you’d feel if you had a breakaway that someone else ruined, not even playing fair?

  But the sequoia trees around me laughed. My own team gathered around me and high-fived me. They slapped me on the back.

  “Way to show him!” someone called.

  “This kid’s got heart!” someone else marveled.

  “How’d you sink that basket?” someone asked.

  I puffed out my chest: Oh yeah! Go, me! I’m so bad I’m good!

  But that Fred voice kept talking in my head. No�
��maybe it was Rosi’s voice.

  People are cheering for you because you cheated? And that makes you happy?

  What’s wrong with you?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Enu taught me how to play video games. I destroyed lots and lots of virtual spaceships. I killed lots and lots of virtual astronauts. I even learned how to cheat at those video games.

  Kiandra showed me how to sign up for classes and fake doing my homework.

  That was a kind of cheating too.

  I learned how to order any type of food I wanted, anytime I wanted it: pizza at midnight, fried rice at three a.m., banana splits for breakfast.

  This felt like cheating at food.

  I went back to play basketball again and again with Enu’s friends—Wong Li’s broken ankle was taking a long time to heal. Now they said I was a “scrappy” player; my teammates said I was so good because I could run between the opposing team’s knees.

  And because I could cheat really well.

  Enu’s friends kind of became my friends. At least, they rubbed my sweaty head at the end of every game and muttered, “See you next time.”

  They wouldn’t have done that if they didn’t like me, right?

  I knew they weren’t like Freds, pretending to like everyone.

  Sometimes, when the basketball games ended after dark, Enu and I would walk home through the well-dressed crowds, and the lights of the city would already be cranked up to their greatest intensity. The enormous TV screens in the public squares hovered high above our heads, showing the actions of people who looked as tall as skyscrapers. The streets stayed as bright as day, even without the sun; it was like all of Ref City was one big glow. Sometimes the blinding lights and the noise of Ref City made my eyes blur and my ears ring. Sometimes then I’d hear the whisper in my head that I still thought of as Rosi’s voice: Edwy, what are you doing? What about that huge, dead, burned place we saw in our parents’ hometown? What do you think it means? Are you even trying to find out? And don’t you remember how we promised to watch out for each other?