Among the Free sc-7

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Luke realized with a jolt that she was talking about Eli — Eli, who had handed the quilt to him, murmuring, "This is Aileen's handiwork.. "

  "My father did not die," Aileen continued. "When we saw the boy with this quilt on television two nights ago, my father sent me here to find him, to make sure he was safe. So I speak on behalf of my father and myself and our entire village — and in memory of the third child we betrayed. Let this boy tell his story!"

  "I—" Philip Twinings began to say.

  But there were others streaming up toward the stage now, chanting, "Let him speak! Let him speak!" Luke thought he recognized Ricky and Don and a few others who had been in the truck with him when he'd ridden to the celebration of the Population Police's overthrow the first night. One of the women chanting reminded him of the old woman in Chiutza who'd told him, "I have a choice." But the others were strangers, people he could have sworn he'd never seen before in his life.

  Luke had no idea what percentage of the crowd was standing at the front, chanting in his support. He had no idea what the ratio was between the chanters and the ones who stood stony-faced and angry behind them. He couldn't calculate the probability that he could win over anyone else.

  But he thought he had a chance.

  Philip Twinings was holding up his hand, trying to regain control of the crowd.

  "This is indeed irregular," he murmured, when he once again had everyone's attention. "I wanted this to go in an orderly fashion, to encourage openness and people speaking without fear. But—" He glanced toward the table where the three members of the screening committee were all glaring at him. "I fear the rules of orderliness became too restrictive. I was tricked once before, when we first faced the famines and droughts, when the government began to control my news station's coverage — to prevent panic, they said…" He seemed to get lost temporarily in his memories of the past. Then he shook his head, his old eyes clearing.

  "We will let the young man speak," he said.

  Luke stepped forward to the edge of the stage. The waiting crowd was still terrifying to look at, and his mouth went dry.

  "I'm just a kid," he said, trying to make excuses for himself, to explain why he wasn't going to do a very good job, why he wasn't the best person to be standing there defending the cause of third children. But then he saw how some of the people in the crowd looked more thoughtful when he said that.

  "Really," he went on, "I'm not any different from any other kid. I like football and baseball and just about any kind of game. I don't like sitting still, indoors. Third children aren't beasts or monsters or devils. We're just. . born third."

  Talking wasn't so bad as long as Luke kept going. He felt the crowd's eyes boring into him only when he paused to take a breath, to get his thoughts together. He gulped and forced himself to continue.

  "When I was born, my parents thought I was a miracle, a special blessing. A gift. But from the very beginning they had to hide me. They thought the Population Law would eventually be repealed. They never dreamed that I'd never be able to come out of hiding without a fake I.D…."

  To explain his fake I.D., Luke had to tell about Jen and her rally, about how he'd been in agony wondering what had happened to her. He told about meeting Jen's father and going to Hendricks School, and how bewildered he'd felt there, how dangerous the school had been. He told how the Grant family had wanted to use him, and how that was when he met Oscar.

  At first, Luke was careful not to say anything that would get anybody else in trouble. He didn't tell his parents' names; he was careful to refer to Mr. Talbot only as "Jen's dad." Mr. and Mrs. Grant were dead now, and Smits Grant was living under a different identity, so it didn't matter what he said about them. But when he got to talking about Oscar, he hesitated.

  Oscar is acting like he's going to he our country's next leader, Luke thought. People ought to know what they're getting.

  'And Smits's bodyguard was Oscar Wydell," Luke said.

  The whole crowd seemed to gasp. Too late, Luke thought that it might be dangerous to mention Oscar. Maybe his name would be the cue for Luke to be yanked off the stage. Philip moved over closer to Luke, but he just stood there protectively, and muttered, "Go on."

  Luke tried to be fair talking about Oscar. He said that Oscar had protected him, some of the time. He said that Oscar had thought Luke was too timid and cowardly. But he also said that Oscar had manipulated people; Oscar hadn't cared who got hurt as long as he came out ahead.

  "You're a brave young man," Philip murmured beside Luke. "You're the first person who's been willing to pro-vide us any insight into this mysterious man."

  Luke winced at that, but he couldn't stop talking now.

  He told about his friends Trey and Nina and Matthias, and what their lives had been like in hiding. He told how he'd been kept in a holding camp when the Population Police took over the entire government, and how Trey and Mark had managed to rescue him. He told how he and his friends had decided to join the Population Police, to sabo^ tage it from inside.

  "So yes, we were fighting the Population Police. But we weren't doing that just to be selfish, to hurt everyone else. We tried to give food away. We wanted everyone to be free," he said. He hesitated. "It's hard to know how everything fits together. Maybe we were even working with Oscar Wydell some of the time. Maybe we were on the same side."

  Some in the crowd mumbled angrily at that Luke swallowed hard, momentarily lost. I'm wrong, he thought. Oscar wasn't involved in our plans. He wouldn't have been willing to do the little jobs, take the small steps toward freedom. Oscar just came forward to take the credit when none of us did. When I was scared and wanted to hide again. .

  The crowd's murmurings grew louder. The rising tide of sound threatened to overwhelm Luke.

  Philip Twinings put his hand on Luke's arm.

  "Keep going," he said softly in Luke's ear. "What hap-pened next?"

  Luke shook his head, to clear it.

  "Chiutza," he said.

  And then he was able to talk about the woman who'd refused the Population Police orders, saying, "I have a choice." He told about how he'd run away rather than be forced to shoot her. He told about the fighting in Chiutza, and the fields and houses that the government had forced Eli and his friends to abandon. He started to tell how Eli had sent him away when the Population Police arrived, but Aileen interrupted him.

  "No, no, that wasn't the Population Police coming back that night — that was all of us who'd been taken away by the Population Police. We'd gotten free and we were bringing food back to our village. Eli tried to send someone after you, to get you to come back," Aileen said, "but no one could find you."

  "Oh," Luke said, blinking. He remembered how the wind had seemed to call, Lu-uke. Lu-uke, and how he'd thought it was a trick. "I was so used to being in danger, to having to be scared. I never thought that it might be… safe… to come out of hiding."

  Something about the way he said that made the crowd laugh, but it was friendly laughter. He hoped.

  "So," Luke said, "then I saw the news on TV in another village, and I came here. And everybody else was so happy, but I just couldn't be sure…."

  He told about seeing the signs in the secret room, and overhearing the conversation between Oscar and Aldous Krakenaur.

  "No! That's not true!" someone yelled from the crowd. "Oscar Wydell is not a — a collaborator!"

  "Shut up!" someone else yelled. 'Aren't the signs evidence enough?"

  And then lots of people in the crowd began shouting at each other and arguing. Some of the security guards at the front started to reach for their guns, but then they glanced at the camera and shrugged, as if to say, It's not our problem what people say. Who can stop them?

  Luke took a step back from the microphone. He shook his head dizzily, trying to understand what was happening. He'd lost the crowd's attention. But he couldn't tell if that was because most of them believed him or because most of them were on Oscar's side. He could do his trick of closing one e
ye and then the other, and the sides seemed to jump back and forth.

  Oscar's side is winning. . no, mine. . no, Oscar's. .

  "Ah, the lovely sounds of free speech," Philip Twinings said beside him.

  "They're just arguing," Luke said, still dazed. "The whole crowd is fighting."

  "Yes, but they're using words, not bullets," Philip said. "So much better than the stupefied silence of the past few hours. Or the past thirteen years."

  "You opposed the Population Police, then," Luke said. "Why didn't you say so? Why did you let all those speak' ers blame third children, all morning long?"

  Philip Twinings sighed. His ancient eyes seemed to hold decades' worth of pain.

  "I did sabotage the microphone, last night," he said. "But this morning — I was afraid. Things seemed to have changed. I was in exile for a very long time. I didn't want to go back. And — I was only one person."

  "Sometimes one person is enough," Luke said.

  "Yes," Philip said. 'And sometimes it takes a kid to show adults the truth."

  Luke started to tell Philip, "You did help me — you made sure I got a chance to talk. You risked your life too." But he broke off because the crowd's uproar had reached a fever pitch. A group of men seemed to have come to a conclusion.

  "We'll just get Oscar out here! He'll tell you!" Luke heard one of them shout.

  "You do that! I want to hear what he has to say for himself." someone else hollered back.

  Luke watched the men rushing back toward the Population Police headquarters.

  "Perhaps you should leave, young man," Philip said softly. "For your own safety."

  'Are you leaving?" Luke asked.

  "No. Of course not."

  "Neither am I," Luke said.

  He remembered way back in the fall, after the Grants had died, how he'd longed for a day of truth, when he and his friends could stand up proud and tell the whole world their true names, their true stories. He hadn't revealed his name, but he'd told everything else. No matter what happened, he was glad he'd done that. He had no intention of hiding again, of cowering back in the stables, dreading every approaching footstep. He was done with that life.

  Jenny whinnied behind him, and he went to stand beside her and stroke her mane.

  "It's all right, girl," he said. "Don't be afraid. I'm not afraid anymore."

  He understood now how the old woman in Chiutza had been able to look so peaceful facing the gun; how Jen could have gone off so bravely to her rally. They'd made their choices. They'd been free.

  And now so was he.

  The mob that had rushed into the Population Police headquarters came rushing back out.

  "He's gone!" the men were yelling. "Oscar ran away!"

  Out of the corner of Luke's eye, he saw the three former Population Police officials scrambling away from the screening committee table. He saw them slipping into the shadows, sneaking out the back door. He saw the security guards walking away from their posts. He saw the Oscar supporters in the crowd shrugging or slumping — giving up.

  It was over.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Luke's friends showed up that afternoon, while he was with a crowd pulling down the signs opposing third children. The words their fault came off in his hands, and he was tearing them to bits when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

  "Need some help with that?"

  He whirled around to find Nina, Trey, and Mr. Talbot standing there, and they ran to him, hugging and exclaiming.

  "Where were you guys?" he asked. "I kept looking for you—"

  "When the Population Police fell, we all went to Mr. Hendricks's house. We kept thinking you'd join us there. We didn't think there was anything else to worry about," Nina said apologetically.

  "But we turned on the TV this morning and heard the speeches and saw the signs — we came as fast as we could," Mr. Talbot said. "We just didn't know what we could do."

  "Then we turned on the radio in the car and heard this crazy kid telling his life story," Trey said. "You were great, Lee — you really were."

  The fake name sounded more jarring than ever, after everything Luke had been through. He looked around at the people tearing down the signs; at the noisy, still-arguing crowd; at Philip and Simone and Tucker standing before the cameras interviewing people again.

  "I'm free now," he said. "You can call me Luke."

  He remembered how baffled he'd been all along, trying to understand freedom. In the beginning, all he'd wanted was a chance to run across his family's front yard or ride in the back of the pickup truck to town, the way his brothers did. He'd seen how the Chiutzans acted like freedom just meant getting to shoot anyone they wanted to shoot; how Eli and the others in his village thought they were free because they were ready to die. He'd watched the people celebrating at Population Police headquarters as if freedom were just a matter of getting free food.

  But he understood now that freedom was more than that. In one sense, he'd been free all along.

  "Is it safe to talk like that?" Mr. Talbot asked, glancing around anxiously. "Have you heard — did they catch Aldous Krakenaur?"

  "No," Luke said. "He escaped with Oscar."

  "Then he could come back," Trey said. "He could get the Population Police back together, consolidate his power again—"

  "We're making sure that doesn't happen," Luke said. He pointed at a bunch of people gathered around a table someone had pulled out onto the grass. "That group is talking about writing a new constitution to guarantee everyone's rights." He pointed to another table at the other end of the yard. "They're talking about how to distribute food fairly until the next harvest." He watched a man and two women setting up another table nearby. "I'm not sure what they're going to talk about at that table, but this is our new government. The people."

  His friends stared at him in amazement.

  "Good grief," Mr. Talbot said. "We've gone from ideologues to idealists."

  "Don't you think it will work?" Luke asked.

  Mr. Talbot peered around at the crowd. Luke could see how he might be doubtful: Most of the people at the tables were pretty young; they were dressed in ragged clothes and had shaggy hair. They didn't look like a government.

  But Mr. Talbot grinned.

  "This is the best chance we have," he said. "Maybe I'll go check out that constitution they're working on…"

  He wandered off, and Nina and Trey settled in with Luke, pulling down the signs. The adhesive Oscar's supporters had used was very strong; it was difficult erasing every trace of every hateful word. But Luke and his friends were persistent, working side by side.

  "So I'm the only one who didn't go to Mr. Hendricks's house?" Luke asked.

  "All our friends are there — and lots of other third children who didn't have anywhere else to go. Your brother's there too," Nina said. "His leg's still in bad shape, but Mr. Talbot said he was in charge of protecting the younger children if anything happened."

  If anything happened… Luke shivered, thinking about how easily Oscar's plans could have succeeded. How easily, even now, the new freedom could be stifled if people didn't guard it carefully, didn't use it wisely.

  "Mark's disappointed that he never got to come back here and work undercover," Nina said. "He says he missed all the fun."

  "Fun?" Luke snorted. "Right. I would have traded places with him in a heartbeat. He could have ridden Jenny for me. He could have stood up on that stage."

  "No," Nina said, "he couldn't have. It had to be one of us."

  A third child, she meant. In the end, only a third child could have stopped Oscar.

  "Weren't you scared?" Trey asked, scrubbing at the shadowy backing left by the sign. 'Admitting you were a third child in front of that huge crowd — in front of the whole country, really—"

  "Of course I was scared," Luke said. "But I had to do it, you know?"

  He looked at his two friends, and he knew they understood. They had also taken some terrifying chances. They had also risked the
ir lives for freedom. It made the job of tearing down signs seem simple by comparison. Luke wondered if this was how it would be for the rest of their lives: that any other dangers or challenges they might face would pale in comparison to what they'd survived as kids.

  We'll have a "rest of our lives" now, Luke thought, surprise ing himself. We will. He'd never dared to think that far ahead before. But now he gazed back out over the vast crowd again, and he could almost see everything he wanted to happen, stretching out far into the future.

  He could see his family rushing through the crowd to find him — having seen him on TV, they wouldn't be able to sit at home, waiting, anymore. And instead of whisking him off home to try to keep him safe, they would decide to stay and help. He could see his dad telling the new government how to deal with farmers, his mother telling them about factory workers.

  He could see Matthew getting to raise hogs again. He could see himself playing football with Mark again— Mark's leg finally fully healed — and maybe with Jen's older brothers, Brownley and Buellton, as well, when they came back safely to the Talbots' house.

  He could see old, abandoned fields reclaimed, resplendent with new crops. He could see roads and bridges and houses all over the country repaired and rebuilt, all the warped framework set right, all the broken windows replaced.

  He could see Oscar Wydell and Aldous Krakenaur and all the other Population Police officials caught and tried and sentenced, so none of them could haunt his nightmares ever again.

  He could see Mr. Hendricks and Mr. and Mrs. Talbot working in the new government. Maybe one of them would be the new leader — a leader chosen by the people, not just forced into office through brute strength. Maybe someday he or Nina or Trey might even campaign to be elected, and then lead the country that had once said they had no right to exist.

  He could see Nina taking care of her grandmother and aunties the way they'd once taken care of her. He could see Trey becoming a college professor someday, and Matthias becoming a minister, and Percy an engineer, and Alia, little Alia — well, maybe someday she'd be a doctor like Mrs. Talbot.