by Kekla Magoon
Key slammed a fist into his palm. “Ousting Crown.”
“That’s a long way away,” Robyn said quietly. “That’s what the prison breaks were about. Freeing the people who could actually lead us.”
“Well, we failed,” Key said. “We couldn’t save them all. And that leaves us in charge.”
The other three looked at Robyn.
This was the kind of moment when a leader was supposed to stand up.
She was already standing. What was she supposed to do next?
Her plan for today had been pretty straightforward—try to find out as much as she could about the missing pieces of the moon lore. Meeting with Bridger was only the first step. She had to study Tucker’s books, and try to locate the other shrines. And then tonight, paint the arrows.
But Key, Scarlet, and Jeb were staring expectantly at her. Robyn’s mind worked the problem.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of guns. Waiting to be melted.
Weapons.
A way to show the MPs they wouldn’t always have the upper hand. That seemed important. Robyn had to think about what was best for the Crescendo. She had promised them she would no longer put herself first. Missing guns plus walls full of arrows? That was bound to unsettle the powers that be.
“It doesn’t matter if we never plan to use the guns,” Robyn said slowly. “It’ll frighten the MPs just to know that we have them.”
Key, Jeb, and Scarlet exchanged glances. “Sure,” Key said.
“It would,” Jeb agreed reluctantly.
“We don’t have to use them,” Scarlet said. “But think of the message it sends. The power it promises.”
She was right about that. Crown was so fixated on hunting Robyn that perhaps he’d forgotten the truth: the rebellion was much bigger than one girl. Maybe a score like this would be enough to take some focus off her and her parents.
“Okay,” said Robyn. “This fits our goal. We need to remind Crown that we are more than what he thinks we are. He wants to take me down, but this is only the beginning. We want him to imagine all the people who might be receiving those guns, and what they might do with them.”
“We are many,” Jeb agreed. “Sorry, I have to get back to work.” He handed them a folded piece of paper, pencil-sketched. A map of the warehouse location.
Robyn narrowed her eyes at him. “You came with a map already drawn? You knew we would decide to do this.”
Jeb turned his palms to the ceiling and coughed a little chuckle. Then he kissed Scarlet’s cheek, waved, and ducked out.
“How will we get the guns out?” Scarlet asked. “Another truck?”
Robyn grinned. “We’ve gotten good at boosting trucks.”
“But you haven’t gotten any better at driving them,” Key pointed out.
“Hey.” Robyn pouted. “We all survived, didn’t we?”
“Not all,” Key said quietly.
Robyn flushed with shame. “You know what I meant.” Of course she couldn’t forget how they’d lost Laurel and Tucker. How she had jumped behind the wheel and cemented the decision to leave them to the MPs. She suffered for it.
Key chucked her on the shoulder. “Don’t feel bad. We are all willing to sacrifice ourselves for the rebellion.”
Try not to forget you said that, Robyn thought. She shook her head. “I don’t want to sacrifice anyone.”
Key didn’t respond and Robyn was grateful. They left the truth unspoken: sacrifice had always been needed to make changes happen. Sacrifices would surely be needed again.
“Is it too big a risk to try trucks again?” Robyn mused.
“With all the new checkpoints, it’s going to be hard to find a clean path away from the factory,” Key agreed.
“Not to mention a safe place to dump them where we can walk away.”
They studied the map Jeb had given them. “Look at how close to Block Six it is,” Scarlet said. “There are probably a half dozen checkpoints in the vicinity.”
“We can only get lucky so many times,” Robyn reminded them. “This time, it’d be better to go in on foot.”
“Hundreds of guns? That’s a lot of weight to carry.”
“We’re not a small group alone anymore,” Scarlet reminded her. “We can call on all of Sherwood.”
“Nessa’s ready to broadcast,” Key said. “She can get us volunteers. We just have to decide where and when we need them.”
“Nessa’s working on the showcase protest,” Scarlet said. “We should take care of this ourselves. Today.”
Robyn sighed. Her vision of spending the afternoon hunting moon shrines burst like a bubble of soap. Scarlet was right. Now was the time. “They might move the guns again,” Robyn said. “Anyway it’s a pretty strong statement if we pull a big heist the same day Crown delivers an ultimatum against me.”
“True,” Key agreed. “But we need more bodies if we’re going to pull this off.”
“I have an idea,” Robyn said. “No broadcast needed.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A Store So Big
Laurel stood in the parking lot of the biggest store she had ever seen. The store was so large it took up a whole city block. The block was so long, it would have been two or three blocks, in Sherwood.
She wanted to go inside. Stores were usually safe enough, right?
Laurel didn’t have any money. She was very good at sneakily borrowing things from small simple stores, but she could tell from the store’s big fancy entryway that it would be very hard for her to shop here.
Still. Laurel loved shopping. It was too hard to pass up the chance to see what such a big store looked like on the inside. She darted through the sliding glass doors, straight into retail heaven.
The superstore had forty aisles. Laurel strolled through all of them, one by one. They seemed to sell everything here. It was a grocery store, and a clothes store, and an auto shop, and a drug store, and a toy store all in one.
Laurel gazed longingly at a blue and black bicycle with red and orange flames on the bars. She stood next to it and squeezed the rubber handles. Something like this would get her back to Sherwood much faster.
“Where is your mother?” said a man in a bright red vest. He loomed over her like a tree that had suddenly sprouted from the tile. “If it’s okay with her, you can take it for a test ride.”
Laurel scampered away quickly. She didn’t know how to ride a bike. Unless you counted clinging to the back of Robyn when they rode the moped Robyn’s dad had left for her.
Laurel turned in to an aisle full of camping gear. There were some hammocks and a couple tents of different sizes, all set up for people to try. All of these things would be very useful back in T.C.
Laurel sighed. This amazing place would be much more fun to explore if Robyn was here.
She returned to the food section. She had an idea. It would be impossible to take anything out through the scanning exit doors, but she could take it someplace else. The store was so big that many of its aisles were empty of people. She strolled through the food section and selected an apple, two bags of flavored chips, and a wrapped turkey sandwich from the deli section. There was a giant cooler of soft drinks, with more varieties than she could recognize. The lettering on the bottles was too hard to read, so she went by the prettiest colors. She picked a lavender-colored drink and one that was bright yellow.
With that, her arms were full. She scurried to the far back of the store near the car parts section. No one was around. The shelves were big and high and full of heavy things like rotors and cans of car wax.
Laurel climbed. All the way to the top of a set of shelves containing windshield wiper blades and tree-shaped air fresheners. They smelled faintly of pine, even through the plastic. It reminded her of home.
She pushed aside extra boxes of the air fresheners to make a small space for herself up high. From here, she could see much of the store. People’s heads bobbed through the aisles, and for a moment Laurel felt very conspicuous. But no one really looked up that high
while they shopped.
She ate the food she had collected, savoring every bite of the first full meal she’d had in a while. She polished it all off, and stuffed the trash into the empty chip bags.
She was really quite tired at that point. So she curled up, right there on the shelf, and fell asleep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Impromptu Heist
The swings at the elementary school were low to the ground. Robyn’s knees poked up against her chest, as she swayed and twisted, gripping the plastic-coated chains. It was sort of annoying, but it also made her feel large and important. She dug her toes into the gravel and waited.
Beside her Scarlet pushed off, attempting to swing properly. Her heels crashed into the ground immediately. Too low to pump. The girls giggled.
They stood up instead, and leaned against the sloping bars that held the swings off the ground. Scarlet, in her leather jacket, with the dyed-red tips of her black hair poking up over the collar, looked incredibly cool. Robyn hoped her own beret—the one with the braid sewn into it—made her look half as cool.
“We’re exactly the sort of ruffians no one wants around a playground,” Robyn said.
Scarlet laughed and shrugged. “We’re kids. It’s cool. It’s not like we’re peddling drugs or anything.”
“Ha. I’m sure they’d say we’re peddling something worse.”
The after-school bell rang. The muffled metallic sound echoed through the walls and windows.
“Here we go,” Scarlet said. She slid off the swing.
Soon, the doors pushed open and children began streaming out into the yard. Some ran straight for the playground equipment, while others fanned out alone or in small groups to walk home.
“Hey,” Robyn whispered as the first wave of kids reached the edge of the yard. “Want to help out Robyn Hoodlum?”
Across the schoolyard, Scarlet did the same.
“Pssst. Want to help Robyn Hoodlum?”
“Follow us. Keep it quiet, but pass it along.”
An excited ripple of murmurs shimmered over the crowd as word passed from child to child. Some, wide-eyed and terrified, scurried in other directions. But most followed along. From their backpacks, Scarlet and Robyn pulled packages of crisped rice treats and handed them out to the kids who joined the procession. They scarfed down the snacks greedily and smiled.
“What do we have to do?” someone asked.
“It’ll be easy.” Robyn told them. “You ever play bucket brigade?”
“Play what?”
“You’ll see,” she promised. “It’ll be easy, but we need lots of people to help.”
They led the children to the area near the factory, and lined them up over the course of several blocks.
“We’re going to pass the trash bags down the line, one at a time,” Robyn explained the plan over and over to small groups. “Until everyone has a bag. Once you have a bag, then you’re going to follow in a line. Okay?”
They nodded.
The code word is “Skedaddle,” Robyn told them. “If you hear us scream it, yell it as loud as you can, to pass it down the line. And then run.”
“Run where?” one little boy asked. “Anywhere,” Robyn said.
“Toward home,” Scarlet added. The children nodded again. They were used to following directions, Robyn supposed. And used to standing in a line. It was all going more smoothly than she had expected.
The factory spewed foul metal smoke from chimneys.
“Maybe we’re too late,” Robyn mused.
“I don’t think so,” Scarlet said. “The whole place is for melting down metal. It’s probably someone else’s stuff they’re destroying.”
“Of course.”
They lined up the last group of children right outside the factory. They climbed on top of the pile of crates they had prepared, and broke in through a high, cracked window. The inside of the factory was steaming hot. Robyn choked on the molten air. Sweat instantly beaded on her skin.
“Let’s not be in here long,” Scarlet whispered.
“Let’s find the gun bin.” Robyn pulled her backpack off her shoulder, and extracted a roll of black garbage bags. Ready to go.
The thing took time, but went smoothly. It hadn’t occurred to the MPs, perhaps, that anyone would want to steal scrap metal. The facility was completely unguarded. There were plenty of workers inside, who Robyn dodged on each run from the container. But they weren’t really looking.
Scarlet hauled herself into the container with the guns. She methodically checked that each one had no bullets, the way Jeb had taught her. They had all agreed—the guns must be 100 percent safe if children were carrying them.
She carefully filled the bags, but not too full—each had to fit out the high, narrow window, and be light enough to be carried by a child. The first child in line camped out under the window, and as Robyn scurried over with each pair of bags, the little girl grabbed them and hauled them out the window.
The children outside climbed the crates eagerly, passing the bags down the long line.
At the other end of the line, Key was waiting. When the first bag reached him, he started the procession away from the factory. As they received their bags, one by one, the children scurried along behind him, suddenly and powerfully a part of the rebellion.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Successful Shopping
Laurel woke with her mouth feeling clammy. She climbed down and made a beeline for the oral hygiene aisle. Even in a store as big as this, it was easy to find a toothbrush and toothpaste. Laurel stood for a long time just staring at the overwhelming selection of products. She had never seen so many fancy toothbrushes. Not to mention the dozen different kinds of dental floss.
There was even a bathroom in this store, but it was very near the customer service counter. Better to wait, Laurel thought, and get outside.
A mother pushed a shopping cart with a three- or four-year-old boy in the child seat at the top. His legs kicked through the holes and his arms flailed everywhere.
While his mom shopped from the list in her hand, the child leaned out of the cart and grabbed things, too. He swept a whole row of packaged cookies into the basket.
“Not so many, Davey,” his mother said absently. But she didn’t reach over and put any of it back.
Laurel followed the woman through several aisles. When she wasn’t looking, the boy added applesauce, chocolate drops, a package of swirly, fun-looking straws. His mother didn’t notice. Surely she would notice at checkout, Laurel figured. But the woman herself was adding lots of items to the cart. Soon, the boy’s additions were completely buried. He looked at Laurel and grinned.
Curious, Laurel followed them all the way to the checkout. But of course, there was no checkout. The stores in Castle District, like the newest ones in Sherwood, too, had automatic checkout. Castle District shoppers all had Tags on their hands. They would push the cart in between the doors, and get charged for everything in the space with them. Quick and easy.
Laurel had an idea. When the mom wasn’t looking, she stuffed her new backpack onto the shelf over the cart wheels. She stood back and held her breath. The mom pushed the cart through the checkout doors. The outer door opened and she kept walking.
Once the outer doors closed, the inner doors opened again. Laurel entered the checkout chamber. The doors closed around her and she was scanned. Since no items for purchase turned up on her, the outer door opened and Laurel ran through.
She rushed after the harried mom, and caught up to her near a white station wagon. While the woman lifted the squirming little boy out of the cart and buckled him into his car seat, Laurel retrieved her stowaway backpack and ran off through the parking lot.
The storeroom behind the braid shop was dusty and full of boxes. They had pretty logos on them, but hadn’t been disturbed in a while. Inside the salon, there were only a few customers. People in Sherwood had less and less time for things like haircuts and styling gel.
“Come on,” Key
said. He nudged the children one by one down the shadow corridor between the shops. They deposited the bags in a pile in the middle of the room. The bulky bags clattered and listed and slouched against each other. A giant, unruly mound.
A giant, unruly mound of death, Key amended his thoughts.
To defeat Crown, it was going to take everything. Key’s body flooded with rage and hate and other feelings he refused to name.
The children kept coming. The bags piled up.
One little girl juggled a bag that had somehow sliced open. When she set it against the others, it tore, and the weapons skittered out onto the floor.
“Sorry,” she whispered. Then her eyes grew wide at the sight. It occurred to Key then that none of the children probably realized what they had been carrying. The girl stared at him, her mouth rounding.
“Don’t tell the others,” Key said. “Some people won’t understand.”
The girl looked uncertain.
“We’re here to protect you,” Key reminded her. “You did a good thing today.”
“For Sherwood, we fight,” she said.
“Yes.”
She scurried away, leaving Key alone with the spilled guns.
There they lay, cold and vicious even in their stillness.
Key bent and swept them back inside the torn plastic, lest any of the other kids notice them.
The children kept coming. The bags piled up.
Key moved the ripped bag and its contents to the back side of the pile. There was almost enough plastic to tie it in a knot and seal the hole.
He pulled out one gun. There. Easy to tie.
The extra gun lay on the floor, expectantly. He could tuck it away, too, just hide it in the pile. But to defeat Crown, it was going to take everything.
So he slipped it under his shirt, into his waistband.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Arrows in Everything
It wasn’t long before the staff inside the braid shop noticed the strange parade. The shop’s glass door tinkled open and someone emerged. A young woman with a swirled tiara of hair twined atop her head.