by Susan Kim
Alarmed, Eli glanced up. But Gideon had already pushed past him and was running for the lobby.
When Esther first heard the shouts, she was in her room, putting Sarah to sleep. She ran to the corridor, where she pressed herself against the window in a vain attempt to see what was happening on the ground floor. Then she raced to the stairwell and bounded downstairs.
As she entered the main lobby, she saw that a large crowd had already gathered. A group of terrified Insurgent guards stood clustered by the side doors, trying to hold them shut. One panel had already been smashed in the scuffle; glass shards littered the marble floor. Perhaps two or three dozen Outsiders were shouting and shoving, attempting to force their way in.
“Who’s on the roof?” From where Esther stood, she could see that Gideon’s face was flushed with anger as he screamed at his guards. “Who let them get so close?” There was no answer, and in his fury the boy pushed his way through the crowd. Esther had already joined him, and when she finally emerged, she saw the Outsiders face-to-face, separated by only a cracked piece of glass. She was braced to see a band of vicious marauders. Instead, she was so startled, she caught her breath.
The Outsiders were children—little children.
Although a handful of them were in their teens, most of them were no older than ten or eleven. Many were younger, not much bigger than Silas or even little Kai, swallowed up in the filthy hooded robes they wore as protection against the sun. And they were all clearly starving, their outstretched hands filthy and shaking. As the children shouted in hoarse and ragged voices, they revealed toothless and blackened gums, and the sound of their cries made Esther’s insides wrench. They were near death, all of them . . . and they were begging for food.
Gideon had yanked a guard close and was attempting to fumble something out of the boy’s waistband. Esther grabbed his arm.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
“We scare them off. If they don’t run, then we shoot to kill.”
Vehement, Esther shook her head. “No. Just give me ten minutes.” Skar had materialized next to her; and at her questioning look, Esther nodded. “Let’s go.” She tapped one of the Insurgents, a boy named Tau, and he joined them. Then the three began pushing their way back out through the crowd.
“You get more guns?” Gideon had to shout to be heard.
Esther didn’t even look back. “Not guns.” Then she and the others took off.
With Tau not far behind, the two girls matched each other stride for stride, elbows pumping as they raced to the metal door at the end of the lobby. Then all three burst into the dark stairwell, and, taking two steps at a time, they sprinted upward. Several flights up, Esther thought she could hear the door clanging far below; someone else had clearly joined them. And yet she didn’t slacken her pace.
When the three emerged onto the roof, Joseph and the others looked up at them, startled.
“What’s happening?” Her old friend’s long face was flushed in confusion. “We heard something happening outside.” But Esther had already seized two baskets, which she handed to Skar.
“We need help,” she said. “I’ll explain later.”
Working quickly, she and the others loaded three baskets with food: tomatoes, squash, carrots. By the time Esther had filled two buckets with clean water, she could see out of the corner of her eye who had arrived on the roof. Gasping for breath, Gideon stood there, his face flushed.
“What you doing?”
Esther didn’t answer. “You start with those,” she said, nodding at Skar and Tau. They each picked up a basket and headed for the stairs, ducking past Gideon.
Esther had already grabbed the buckets, their precious contents sloshing, when Gideon approached her. “But wait . . . that ours.”
Only then did she glance at him. “They’re dying. And we’ve got enough to share.”
Gideon made as if to stop her, but she slipped away and reentered the stairwell. The containers were heavy and she didn’t want to waste a drop; still, she was able to outrun Gideon in the dark.
By the time Esther made it back down, the situation on the ground floor had grown worse. Someone had pushed a few benches against the doors; several of the guards were now leaning against them with all their might. But this only seemed to make the Outsiders even more frantic as they redoubled their efforts to force their way in. As people screamed, the ones in front of the mob were in danger of being crushed to death. One of them, a boy who looked no more than six or seven, was pressed so hard against the door, he had been lifted completely off his feet. Unconscious, he dangled against the glass as if pinned there, his thin arms and legs drooping.
Esther and her people had already made their way through the crowd. “Open the door!”
“What?” One of the Insurgent guards gestured outside. “They get in here, they kill us all.” But Esther shook her head.
“If we feed them, they’ll back down.”
By now, Gideon had arrived. The guard’s eyes, wide with terror, flickered over to the boy for confirmation.
Gideon hesitated; perhaps he could feel that everyone was staring at him, including Esther. Then he shrugged. “All right,” he said to the boy. “But only her.” Then he raised his voice. “Go ahead. Let her out!”
Clearly uneasy, two of his people pulled back one of the benches, allowing Esther to slip through the gap in the chained door. She carried one of the buckets in her arms as if for protection; it splashed against her, making the front of her T-shirt glisten.
The Outsiders drew back and grew silent.
At first Esther hesitated. Now that she was outside and alone with them, she felt a sudden stab of fear. There was only one of her and dozens of the Outsiders. Although they had stepped back, she could still feel the heat rising off of them, smell the dust and desperation that rose from them like a cloud. Even though they were young, they vastly outnumbered her. If they attacked, she would have no chance to fight back, none at all.
She tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat. Swallowing hard, she raised her voice so that all would hear.
“Here,” she said. “It’s clean.” For a moment, she was not even sure whether they understood words, and so she demonstrated, hoisting the bucket and taking a sip. “This is for you.”
There was silence; no one moved. Then a girl next to Esther, her hair filthy and matted, reached out a trembling hand. With unexpected delicacy, she took hold of the rim and tipped the container as she bent forward to drink. When she lifted her head, wiping her mouth, Esther could see the lump in her thin throat rising and falling as she swallowed. Then the girl smiled.
Esther passed over the bucket. After a second, the Outsiders took it: boys and girls, some so little they needed help drinking. A few lunged forward, shoving and elbowing, but most did not. Most waited their turn and accepted the gift of a single sip of water before handing on the bucket so that everyone could share.
By now, Esther had retrieved the other bucket and the baskets that Skar had passed to her. Although they had clearly never seen anything like them, the Outsiders seemed to understand that the fruits and vegetables were meant to be eaten. It wasn’t much: just a single tomato or beet per person, maybe a carrot or a few radishes. But they began devouring it all, the sounds of their ravenous biting and chewing filling the air. More than a few were crying, silent tears carving clean lines on their filthy faces.
“Eat slow,” cautioned Esther. “Chew it carefully, or you’re gonna get sick.”
The containers were empty, and only then did Esther turn to head back inside. Behind the cracked glass, she saw that Gideon and his people were staring at the scene before them in utter shock. When she slipped her way in through the door, even the Insurgent guards parted to make a path for her.
In the silence, one boy’s voice spoke up. “Now we got less.”
“Then we’ll grow more.” Esther felt resigned, but not apologetic.
The others nodded, considering it. Then as they wa
tched Esther go, they smiled and whispered among themselves.
Baffled, Gideon turned away, replaying over and over what Esther had just done and how she had been received.
Yes, she had squandered their precious stores of food. But without using force, strength, or even common sense, Esther had not only defused a potentially deadly situation, she had done so by winning the affection and respect of everyone around her. He didn’t know how she had managed it or if she even knew what she was doing. But Esther clearly possessed something he didn’t: the knack to win the hearts of the foolish, the weak, and the desperate. In other words, the majority.
For the first time, he saw her as possessing something that had always eluded him. Something he craved more than anything: authority.
As Esther began to head upstairs, Gideon ran to catch up with her. Keeping his voice down, he spoke in the tone he always used with her: one of warmth and sincerity. “You right,” he said. “We feed them, we ain’t got need to fear them.”
His flattery had never failed him before. As he knew she would, Esther smiled back at him with gratitude.
THREE
A FAINT RUMBLING FILLED THE AIR.
At first, Joseph was too absorbed to notice. He was nearing the end of an exciting book, its yellowish pages pleasantly musty. A group of young boys had been abandoned on an “island,” a piece of land surrounded by water. Although many of the words were strange to him, Joseph understood enough to figure out that there was a battle going on: between the good boy, Ralph, and the bad one, Jack.
This was the fourth time Joseph had read the book, one of the few left over from the fire set by the Insurgents that had nearly destroyed the mall’s library. It had taken him this long to decide that it was a made-up story; although it seemed so believable, it wasn’t real, like the many newspapers he had saved and read over the years. In fact, those were the stories that truly seemed fantastical; after all, they described a terrible disease, the Spanish flu, which had poisoned the earth’s water and killed off so many people. That seemed far more unreal to Joseph than the events of this book, which spoke a kind of truth.
Then he felt something bump against him. The noise had grown more persistent, and this time, he felt a soft paw tugging at his jeans.
“Stumpy!” he exclaimed.
Putting aside the book, he scooped up the tabby cat that was milling between his legs. She was small yet determined, with gray and orange markings on her round and indignant face. Joseph glanced at the four watches on his wrist and recoiled. It was much later than he realized.
“Sorry,” he said to the cat as he stood, reaching for her carrier. “Time for your breakfast.”
When they had first arrived at the mall months before, it had been virtually impossible for Joseph to feed his cat. The building was kept so clean, there were no vermin; and since they weren’t allowed outside, there were no places for him to set squirrel traps, either. Thanks to Silas, he discovered that the parking garage downstairs, where garbage and other noncompostable waste were thrown, was filthy and teeming with rats. Although Joseph hated leaving his home on the fourth floor, he admitted that some things couldn’t be helped, no matter how distasteful. Now he and Stumpy made daily pilgrimages to the basement.
Joseph groped his way down the dark staircase that led to the lower floors, the padded leather carrier bumping against his side. Then he slipped through the main atrium of the mall. As he passed, he noticed there was a commotion going on by the front entrance. Unfamiliar people were gathered outside, thin and filthy faces pressed close to the glass.
Joseph recalled Esther mentioning it at dinner: Outsiders were now regularly coming to the mall looking for help. She was giving them food and water, which struck Joseph as the right thing to do; as with Stumpy, one was obliged to help those who couldn’t help themselves. But after a few weeks of handing out provisions, it seemed there was now a problem with the arrangement, a question of whether there would be enough to go around. Even as he picked his way unnoticed down the last steep stairway, the one with grooved metal steps and rubber handrails, Joseph could hear distant voices raised in anger and confusion.
Rattled, he decided to ignore the conflict. People were more complex yet less interesting than cats, he thought. As he headed across the food court, past tables and benches embedded in the tiled floor and the dim recesses of restaurants beyond, Joseph could tell that Stumpy could already sense where they were heading. At the dented metal door, he fumbled with the key and felt her shifting forward in the carrier, eager to be set free.
Opening the door to the garage was always an unpleasant shock; no matter how much Joseph tried to prepare himself, the stench was so powerful, it was like a blow to the stomach. But Stumpy didn’t mind. Before he could even finish unzipping her bag, the plump tabby had wriggled her way free and taken off into the cavernous darkness.
Joseph closed the door behind her and waited, checking his watches. As he always did, he marveled at the hunting efficiency of cats; he never had to wait more than ten minutes for Stumpy to locate, kill, and eat her food. After fifteen had passed, he opened the door, expecting to find her waiting just outside, licking her chops.
She wasn’t there.
Joseph called her name again and again. Then, exasperated, he closed the door and waited some more. But after ten more minutes had passed and she had still not shown up, he realized with a sinking feeling that he had to go in and find her.
Joseph had never been inside, for it wasn’t only the smell that bothered him. He knew that the garage had once held terrible and dark secrets, had been where the adults had hidden their dead, and he was nervous about what he might see. He was also aware that the rats that lived inside were large and fierce. Although Stumpy was an inimitable hunter, he didn’t like taking any chances.
Joseph took a deep breath. Then he opened the door, propping it so it wouldn’t slam shut. He fumbled in his pockets; to his relief, his hand closed on a slim plastic firestarter. He clicked it, and the small flame that blossomed out of one end gave him courage. He lifted it high as he stepped into the garage, his other hand trembling as he pressed it against his mouth and nose in a vain attempt to block out the smell.
The light threw deep shadows across the immense space. As the object grew hotter in his hand, Joseph saw that he was surrounded by towering mountains of garbage, heaped to the ceiling. Despite the hellish squalor, the trash seemed to be roughly sorted: dented cans in one pile, moldering heaps of flattened cardboard in another, tattered shopping bags in a third. Extreme anxiety made him sensitive to the tiny sounds that came from all directions: the skittering of claws, an occasional sharp squeak, the shifting of objects. The air seemed heavy and poisonous, a thick blanket of rot that caught in his throat and made him gag.
“Stumpy?”
He saw a dark object skulk low to the ground, and a pair of eyes glittered at him. Was it her? As he held up his light, he saw to his horror that it was an immense rat. He stumbled back and stepped on something soft that squished beneath his sneakered feet. Leaping sideways with a shout, he felt the firestarter scorch his fingers and he dropped it, plunging the garage back into darkness.
Joseph was shaking all over. Finally, he was able to scrabble around on the ground and locate the firestarter. He clicked the tiny wheel once more and raised it.
He saw something huge glinting in a distant corner that threw off its own illumination, green and oddly beautiful. Curious, Joseph moved closer in order to investigate. It was a large heap of something he didn’t recognize. He reached out a hand and his touch triggered a tiny avalanche of sliding pebbles, twinkling in the meager light. But they weren’t stones. Picking one up and examining it, Joseph realized that it was a minute piece of glass, clear but deep green, the color of leaves and grass. It was irregularly shaped but smooth-cornered, about the size of his thumbnail.
Broken glass was a part of their world; it was as common as air. And Joseph knew it often came shaped this way: in pieces that were s
mall and uniform as opposed to sharp and jagged. Yet he had never seen any glass as rounded as this or in such a pretty color.
On an impulse, Joseph scooped up a handful and slipped them into his pocket; the fragments were dusty, but cool and pleasing to the touch. Only then did he notice Stumpy, sitting a distance away, washing her face with an impressive lack of fear or interest. When he picked her up, her stomach was distended and she let out a small belch.
“Don’t run off like that,” he admonished.
By the time he made it back into the food court, he had forgotten all about the fractious strangers outside; he was too busy thinking about the treasure in his pocket. But as he trudged to the main level, he could hear that the struggle was still going on. He hesitated, the carrier back on his shoulder.
He saw that Esther, Skar, and a boy were holding baskets that were partly full of food from the garden. They seemed to be waiting. Nearby, Gideon was arguing with someone who stood outside, a scrawny girl with matted hair. As Joseph watched, Gideon turned to Esther, a look of concern on his face. He tried to keep his tone polite, but Joseph could tell it wasn’t easy.
“She already got food,” he said. “I’m sure of it.” Joseph couldn’t hear what Esther was saying in reply, but he saw a look of uncertainty on her face. Skar and the boy rested their containers on the ground, as the crowd appeared increasingly restless.
Joseph thought he understood what was going on. And as he did, a new thought came to him.
“Excuse me,” he said in a faint voice.
No one heard him, which was just as well; Joseph was still struggling to pin down his thinking. But as he fingered the glass in his pocket, the idea he had, so vague and unshaped, blossomed and began to grow clearer and sharper in his mind. “I said, excuse me!”
It was practically a shout. Gideon and Esther stopped and turned around to take him in.
Esther was surprised by her old friend asserting himself. She couldn’t imagine what Joseph could have to suggest, but was happy to give him a chance. She was eager for any help at all these days.
