Children of Refuge

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  How were we supposed to get past something we couldn’t properly see?

  “I don’t see any birds,” Zeba murmured.

  “Weren’t you listening?” Kiandra said. “The Enforcers have exterminated as many of the birds out here as they can, because they mess up the border.”

  That was what Kiandra had found out, hacking into the Enforcers’ own website about the border. The border rose high into the sky—meant to discourage even people trying to fly over it. Someone who flew a plane into the electrically charged border would only crash.

  But birds, being smaller and more agile, didn’t crash. Instead they repeatedly made the charge on the border short out.

  If someone happened to cross the border at the exact right moment, just as a bird flew overhead, nothing would happen to that person. He or she might even believe that the border was gone. Because, for that one instant, it ceased to exist.

  Enu had jokingly asked if Kiandra thought we could quickly train a bunch of birds to fly over our heads constantly. Kiandra said scornfully, “No, stupid. Though I’m sure that’s the best you could come up with.”

  Her idea was that if someone threw rocks at just the right point of the border, that would have the same effect as birds.

  “Are you sure this will work?” Enu asked Kiandra now, even as he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  “No, I’m not sure it will work,” Kiandra snapped at him. “This is an untested scientific theory. I won’t know if it works or not until we try it.”

  “Who’s going to be the guinea pig?” Enu asked. “Before we try with the whole big truck, I mean . . .”

  “I will,” I said.

  But I didn’t reach for the door handle to get out of the truck. That shimmering haze that I could barely see was somehow scarier than a solid wall would have been.

  But not scarier than if there were a row of fearsome Enforcers ready to attack us, I reminded myself. And if you wait too long, maybe that’s what will show up. They do patrols here, twice a day.

  Kiandra had dug up that little fact too. She’d also come up with pictures of the Enforcers in their dark, forbidding uniforms.

  “I’ll throw the rocks at the border while you walk through it,” Zeba told me.

  “Remember, she’s got an awesome throw,” Enu assumed me. “She won’t hit you.”

  Did he have to give me something else to worry about?

  But I yanked the door open and slipped down to the ground along with Zeba. She went around to the back of the truck and pulled out a large bag of rocks that we’d gathered from the side of the road, in the first stony area we’d found. Zeba opened the bag of rocks and winged one high into the sky. There was a soft sizzling sound, and for a split second I could see a grid of red lights—lasers, maybe?—that blinked out as soon as they appeared. If I hadn’t been looking so closely, I might have thought the grid was an optical illusion, maybe just an odd reflection of the orange basketball shirt Zeba still wore.

  “At least nothing exploded,” I told Zeba.

  “Are you sure you’ll be safe doing this?” Zeba asked.

  “Of course!” I lied.

  I turned around and gave Enu and Kiandra the okay sign, my thumb and forefinger pressed confidently together. They still sat in the cab of the truck, and it occurred to me that it would be very easy for them to just drive off anytime they wanted.

  “I’ll throw this rock exactly the same,” Zeba said, holding one up. “Except the second it leaves my hand, I’ll throw another one. And another. And another, until I see that you’re through.”

  “I’ll run and dive,” I said. “And then—”

  “Don’t dive; jump,” Zeba said. “Like you’re doing the pencil jump, not a belly smacker, I mean. So you spend the least amount of time precisely in the border zone.”

  The pencil jump, I thought, and for a moment I was transported back to the Fredtown swimming pool, the sun beating down on my neck, the scratchy surface of the diving board rough beneath my feet as I ran toward the water. I never did the pencil jump. I was the one who dared all the other kids to try to make the biggest splash, smacking their arms, legs, bellies, or backs as hard as possible against the water.

  Rosi was the one who liked the pencil jump. She could disappear under the water leaving barely a ripple behind.

  I blinked hard and told Zeba, “It’s now or never.”

  She reared back her arm, and I ran forward with my head cocked, watching the rock spinning overhead. I stayed precisely under it as I leaped, my arms pressed tightly to my side, my knees locked together, my legs as straight as I could make them. I saw a flash of red right before I landed. And then the rock started falling past me.

  “You did it!” Zeba screamed. “You’re across!”

  I looked back at Enu and Kiandra, certain they’d be clapping and cheering too. Maybe they’d even get out of the truck cab. It would probably be a little harder than this to get the truck across the border—Zeba would have to throw a lot of rocks, really fast. Enu or Kiandra would have to help her while the other one drove. Maybe I would too. But we’d do it. We’d get everyone and the truck across the border. And then we’d find Rosi, Bobo, and Cana. And then . . .

  Enu and Kiandra were not clapping and cheering. They weren’t even smiling. They were frowning and pointing off into the distance, far beyond me.

  I turned around to see what they were pointing at. I squinted, trying to make sense of the billows of dust spinning at the horizon. I could make out three shapes—two much shorter than the first—and behind those shapes, a row of dark figures.

  Kiandra shouted something. I don’t know if the border distorted sound waves, or if my ears just weren’t working right. But I had to shout back, “What? What did you say?”

  This time her words reached me: distant, tinny—but understandable.

  “Is that Rosi, Bobo, and Cana?” she called. “Being chased by Enforcers?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “No!” I screamed. “We were supposed to find them before the Enforcers did! We were supposed to be able to smuggle them out without the Enforcers even knowing. . . .”

  “Come back!” Zeba yelled at me from the other side of the border. “Come back, and we’ll drive away before the Enforcers even see us!”

  “What?” I called back to her. “And leave Rosi to be captured by the Enforcers?”

  “How are you going to stop them?” she yelled. “What good does it do to have you captured too?”

  I knew the Fred-approved answer to that: None. The Freds were all about self-sacrifice and helping others only when there was some value to the help and the sacrifice. Even their big dramatic Albert Schweitzer quote—The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others—had to do with serving some purpose, accomplishing something.

  But I wasn’t like the Freds.

  “I’m not turning around!” I yelled at Zeba.

  “Please, please . . . ,” Zeba called.

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see Enu, still in the truck cab, waving his arm at Zeba and me.

  “Get Edwy out of there!” he yelled at Zeba.

  “Let’s go!” Kiandra yelled.

  I shook my head and started running. But I ran toward Rosi and the Enforcers, not back toward the truck.

  “Edwy!” Zeba screamed behind me. “What are you doing?”

  I thought I could hear Enu’s voice again too, a bass rumble that blended with Zeba’s higher-pitched shrieks. But I couldn’t make out actual words—maybe because he was so far behind me now, on the other side of the border; maybe because the blood was pounding in my ears so dramatically as I ran, drowning out other sounds.

  Then I heard the roar of the truck engine.

  They’re leaving me? I thought. They’re just driving away and leaving me—and Rosi and Bobo and Cana—in danger?

  What else should I have expected?

  My feet kept slapping against the ground; I kept dashing to
ward the Enforcers and Rosi and the two little kids. How much time did I have before the Enforcers saw me? How much time did I have to come up with a plan?

  Oddly, the roar of the truck engine seemed to get louder and louder. I told myself it was some sort of sonic trick, some side effect of the border, taunting me. But it unnerved me enough that I glanced back over my shoulder, trying to sort out the sounds I heard behind me: not just the truck, but a constant thumping.

  Enu was standing beside Zeba now, and they were both throwing rocks at the border.

  As if that will do any good, I thought. As if that will do anything but put them in danger for no reason . . .

  Then I saw that Kiandra was behind the wheel of the truck. She was revving the engine; she was speeding forward. . . .

  She was crossing the border under the hail of Zeba and Enu’s rocks.

  She zoomed toward me, catching up easily. She had the windows down, and she screamed out at me, “Get in! We’ll deal with those Enforcers together!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I dragged myself over to the passenger side of the truck and climbed in. I panted hard—maybe just from running, maybe more from being surprised.

  “Wh-why?” I asked, as soon as I could speak. “I thought you’d run away! Why didn’t you?” A spark of hope ignited in my mind. “Do you have another brilliant plan?”

  Kiandra winced.

  “Not yet,” she said. “But . . . I couldn’t let you do this alone. Maybe I have started thinking of you as a little brother. One I have to protect.”

  “Hey!” I started to protest.

  “Or . . . maybe I’m just as reckless and stupid as you are,” she muttered. “Maybe you’re my mini-me, not Enu’s.”

  “Or you’re my maxi-me,” I countered. “I’m the original. You’re the copy.”

  “Whatever,” Kiandra said. “Doesn’t matter now.”

  She pointed out the window: Two of the Enforcers had turned their heads toward us. They knew we were here.

  Kiandra hit the accelerator.

  “By my calculations, we have about two minutes to come up with a plan,” she said.

  “Go faster!” I yelled at her. “Let’s keep distracting the Enforcers! Before they capture Rosi and the two little kids! Or hurt them!”

  Now that we were closer, I could see that the Enforcers held long sticklike shapes. But they weren’t actually sticks—or any other type of weapon that could be used only if you were right beside a victim.

  They were guns.

  And those guns meant that we couldn’t swing by, pick up Rosi, Bobo, and Cana, and drive off before the Enforcers had a chance to react.

  They would shoot us all, if we tried that.

  They could shoot any of us right now, if they wanted to.

  “I think if they were planning to shoot your friends, they would have already done that,” Kiandra said, as if she’d noticed the guns too and was trying to comfort me. She didn’t speed up. “I bet the Enforcers are planning to trap your friends at the border. They want to take them alive. To interrogate them, just like their parents were interrogated.”

  “What?” I asked. “Why would they want to do that?”

  And then suddenly I knew what information the Enforcers might want from Rosi and the two little kids. I’d been slumped in my seat, but now I straightened up.

  “Kiandra, I know you were probably checking things on your laptop while I was crossing the border,” I said. “Did you see anything new? Any information that changed?”

  “Um, no . . . ,” Kiandra said.

  She seemed to be struggling to keep the truck going at a steady pace, headed in a straight line. I remembered that, unlike Enu, she probably didn’t even have video-game driving experience.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “Just play along . . .”

  We pulled up alongside the Enforcers. There were four of them: Two split off and pointed their guns at Kiandra and me. Two kept chasing Rosi, Bobo, and Cana.

  To Rosi I yelled, “Run this way! Get in the truck!”

  To the Enforcers I yelled, “Don’t shoot anyone! I have information you need! I know . . . I know where your missing patroller is!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Of course I was lying. But if I’m good at anything, it’s lying.

  Now I just had to make the Enforcers keep believing that lie until I figured out something else.

  “Why are you here?” one of the Enforcers gasped.

  “To help you find the patroller,” I said impatiently, as if I were annoyed by his dimness. “The one who vanished from Cursed Town.”

  Now two Enforcers had their guns pointed only at me, not at Kiandra. But I pretended I didn’t care.

  “Edwy?” Rosi gasped, looking over her shoulder at me.

  “One and the same,” I said, reaching for all the cockiness I’d ever exhibited back in Fredtown.

  Rosi turned and raced toward me, shepherding Bobo and Cana along with her. The Enforcers chasing her also turned.

  Now there were four guns pointed in my direction.

  Rosi acted as if she didn’t care either. As soon as she got close, she flung herself at me.

  “You kept your promise!” she cried.

  “Yeah, there’s a first time for everything,” I muttered.

  “No, really,” she repeated, grabbing my shoulders. “You kept your promise to watch out for me! You came to find me!”

  “Works both ways,” I said. “You promised to watch out for me, too. And you were trying to do that, back in the marketplace. . . .”

  “I was hoping to find you . . . ,” Rosi murmured dazedly.

  It was wonderful to see her, but she looked awful. She had always been—disgustingly—the neatest kid in the history of humanity. If she wore a dress with a bow, you could be sure that it was always tied perfectly, each side of the bow equally perky, the ends of the sash dangling the exact same length. Back in Fredtown I had never once seen her with a hair out of place; her dark curls were always under control or precisely pulled back into braids or a ponytail. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her with so much as a smudge of dirt on her face.

  But now her entire face was dirty. Her dress was ripped and practically in shreds at the hemline, as if she’d run through particularly sharp thorns and briars. Long, tangled strands of hair blew across her cheeks, and she made no attempt to push them back.

  Still, her green eyes were as warm and hopeful as ever. That was what I wanted to keep looking at.

  Rosi surprised me by wrapping her arms around me, drawing me into a hug. When her mouth was near my ear, she whispered, “Remember the fur? Your Fred-father’s? Enforcers have something like that. Faces under mask faces. And they can’t breathe if you knock off the masks.”

  What was she talking about? Was she just babbling nonsense? Had a week and a half as a fugitive in the wilderness made her lose her mind?

  Then I remembered how I’d once tried to tell her that I suspected the Freds’ faces hid something else underneath. She’d refused to believe me, back in Fredtown. I hadn’t even quite believed my own eyes, until I’d talked to Enu and Kiandra about it.

  But Rosi hadn’t forgotten. And she believed me now.

  She also knew that the Freds were aliens. That the Enforcers were too.

  And did she think, now that I was here, the two of us could just rush around ripping the Enforcers’ faces off?

  I turned, back toward the Enforcers with their guns. I made myself imagine I was in one of Enu’s video games.

  If I took even a step toward the line of Enforcers, they would probably shoot.

  I’d learned something from Enu’s video games too.

  “Is this boy telling the truth about our missing patroller?” one of the Enforcers asked the others.

  “Do the scan,” another said.

  The first Enforcer pulled some sort of electronic device out of his uniform pocket and aimed it at me. I saw laserlike beams of red light coming toward me, and my first instinct wa
s to jump out of the way. But by the time I’d had that thought, the Enforcer was already lowering the scanner; the light had already vanished.

  Yeah, right, I thought. It wasn’t like I was going to move faster than the speed of light.

  The Enforcer looked down at the scanner and shook his head.

  “The boy is lying,” he said matter-of-factly, as if he was absolutely certain. As if his scanner was never wrong.

  The other three Enforcers swung their guns toward me, as if I’d just become the one they hated the most.

  I resisted the urge to call out, Weren’t you chasing Rosi? Isn’t she the one you really want?

  I didn’t know how else to stop the Enforcers from killing me. But I repeated to myself: I won’t betray Rosi. I will not be a coward when I die. I will be every bit as noble as any Fred ever tried to be. I’ll be just like Albert Saintly Schweitzer, if I have to. But I won’t be a coward!

  Then I heard a thud behind me: Kiandra jumping down from the truck.

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “How long have you even been on Earth? A week and a half? How much contact have you really had with humans, when all you do is aim guns and bark orders? I bet that scanner was designed as a lie detector for your own species. Are you really that confident that human brain waves work the same as yours do, when we lie? What if the brain waves you’re picking up only show that you’re scaring the poor boy to death, pointing guns at him?”

  I’d never been so grateful to have a big sister. But then she spoiled it by adding, “These kids were raised by Freds! All you have to do is raise your voice, and they think the world’s ending. Look, why don’t you check out what the boy’s telling you, and then make up your minds about him?”

  The Enforcers conferred, and I was disappointed that they did it in some language I didn’t understand. That didn’t give me anything to work with.

  They also didn’t stop pointing the guns at me. But I could imagine them shooting Kiandra or one of my friends just as easily. Whimpering, Bobo clutched Rosi’s waist. A slow, silent tear crawled down Cana’s face. Rosi clenched her teeth.