But he hadn’t been sitting there very long before he saw Kenny coming up the road, and when Kenny spotted him he came over and sat down. “I saw you,” he said. “You pulled Torren in from the tree.”
Doon nodded.
“I knew you were that kind of person,” Kenny said. Bits of ash sprinkled his blond hair, as if someone had shaken pepper on his head.
“What kind?” said Doon.
“The brave kind,” Kenny said. “The good kind. Not like that other boy.”
“What other boy?”
Kenny leaned back against the trunk of the tree and stretched out his legs. “The one who was yelling for people to fight. That one with the pale eyes.”
“Tick,” said Doon.
“Yes. I knew he wasn’t a good one, ever since I saw him in the woods that day.”
“What day?” Doon said.
“That day when he was out there with bags on his hands,” Kenny said.
Doon turned to stare at Kenny. “Bags? Why? What was he doing?”
“Cutting vines,” said Kenny.
“What kind of vines?” Doon asked. His heart was starting to pound.
“Well, I wasn’t close to him. I’m not sure. But it was something he didn’t want to touch, I guess. Like poison oak.”
“Poison oak? Why would he cut poison oak vines?”
“I heard what happened,” said Kenny. “About the leaves on the hotel steps. They thought we did it, but I don’t think so.”
Doon’s thoughts were racing. He was remembering things: how Tick had an itchy patch on his arm days before the stuff appeared on the hotel steps; how he led the cleanup but didn’t participate himself; how he had smudges on his neck the morning that “GO BACK TO YOUR CAVE” was written on the hotel walls; how he stirred everyone up, fed their anger, by reminding them of those two attacks over and over again.
And as if his mind had been full of clouds but now was clear, he understood. Tick needed all that anger and outrage. The more upset people were, the more of them would want to fight. And the more fighters there were, the more people for Tick to lead. Tick wanted power. He wanted glory. He wanted war, with himself in command. He had raised his army by attacking his own people.
Doon was breathing fast. His hands were cold and shaky. He knew, suddenly, that this changed everything. It meant that the people of Sparks had not attacked the people of Ember after all. Their fears and suspicions had made them unkind and selfish, but—except maybe for the muddy words in the plaza—they had not attacked. And if there hadn’t been the writing on the wall and the poison oak, there probably wouldn’t have been the riot in the plaza. And if there hadn’t been the riot, the town leaders might not have decided that the Emberites had to leave.
Doon jumped to his feet.
Startled, Kenny said, “What’s the matter?”
“You’ve told me something important,” Doon said. He held out a hand and pulled Kenny up. “I have to—I have to—” What did he have to do? He had to talk to someone. He had to explain. “I have to get going,” he said to Kenny, and he headed back up the road toward the village center again, thinking about whom he should talk to, and what he should say.
The doctor was standing out in front of her house with Poppy at her side when Lina and Mrs. Murdo arrived. Poppy came galloping toward them. “Wyna!” she yelled. “I saw fi-oh! I saw fi-oh!”
“Are you hurt?” Dr. Hester asked.
“Just tired,” said Lina.
“And dirty,” said Mrs. Murdo.
“Dirty, dirty,” said Poppy, tugging at Lina’s shirt and trotting along beside her.
Torren was sitting on the sofa with his feet in a tub of water.
“What happened to you?” asked Lina.
“I got burns on my feet,” Torren said.
“On your feet? How did you do that?”
“You didn’t see?” said Mrs. Murdo.
“See what?” said Lina.
So Mrs. Murdo told her. “I don’t know why Doon was up in that tower to begin with,” she said, “but it was a lucky thing for Torren that he was.”
Lina raised her eyebrows at Torren. “Doon told me what you said about him. Aren’t you ashamed, now that he’s saved your life?”
Torren didn’t answer. He stared down at his feet.
“You lied,” Lina said. “You blamed Doon for something he didn’t do.”
Torren slumped down into the sofa pillows.
“He didn’t throw those tomatoes!” said Lina. “He would never do such a thing. Why did you say he did?”
“It was a mistake,” said Torren in a muffled voice.
“Well, who did it, then?”
“Someone else.”
“Who?”
“Just someone. I’m not telling.”
“You are telling something, though,” said Lina. “Maybe you won’t tell who did do it, but you have to tell that Doon didn’t.” She shuffled through the clutter on the table and found a scrap of paper. “Here,” she said, handing it to Torren with a pencil. “Write on here that you told a lie about Doon. Sign your name.”
Scowling, Torren wrote. He handed the note to Lina, who headed for the door. “I’m going back to the village,” she said. “Just for a little while. I’ll be home by dinnertime.”
After dinner that evening, Lina did a lot of talking. Mrs. Murdo and the doctor wanted to know what was out there in the Empty Lands, and how it was to be a roamer, and what the city was like. Maddy, sitting on the window seat with a cup of tea, put in a word now and then, but mainly she let Lina tell the story. Torren sat on the couch with his feet stretched out—the doctor had wrapped them in rag bandages—and pretended not to listen, but every now and then he couldn’t help asking a question. Usually his questions had to do with Caspar.
“I don’t understand,” he said, “why you two came back and not Caspar.”
“He hadn’t finished what he wanted to do,” said Lina. “His mission.”
“What was his mission?” cried Torren. “You must have found out.”
“We did find out,” Lina said. She glanced uncertainly at Maddy.
“Your brother,” said Maddy, “is looking for something he will never find. When he realizes that, he will come home.”
“But what is he looking for?” Torren said. He reared up on his elbows and glared at Maddy.
“He is looking for a treasure,” said Maddy. “But he doesn’t recognize it even when it’s right in front of him.”
“Did he forget his glasses?” Torren said.
“No, no. But he has trouble seeing even with his glasses on.”
Lina didn’t like Torren any better than she ever had, but she did feel a little sorry for him. So she fetched glasses of honey water for him that evening, and she gave him the little red truck she’d found as a roamer. Poppy seemed to think all this was a kind of party for Torren. She joined in by bringing him things to play with—spoons, socks, potatoes. When it was bedtime, they carried him into the medicine room, and then Lina went with Mrs. Murdo and Poppy up into the loft.
Mrs. Murdo unpinned her hair, which fell around her shoulders in strands clumped together with soot. “I have something to say to you,” she said to Lina.
Lina’s heart sank. Whatever it was, she was sure she deserved it.
“I saw what you did,” Mrs. Murdo said. “You did a remarkable thing, running out alone like that. Quite courageous.”
“Well, I had to,” said Lina.
Mrs. Murdo raised her eyebrows questioningly.
Lina was too tired to explain about trying to do a good thing to change the direction, and how she had hoped that someone else might do it so she wouldn’t have to, but nobody did. So she just shrugged her shoulders and said nothing.
Mrs. Murdo ran a comb through her hair. “I believe a great many of us were thinking of doing the same thing,” she said. “But no one quite had the courage. Only you.”
“I didn’t feel courageous,” said Lina. “I felt afraid.”
/> “That makes it all the braver,” said Mrs. Murdo.
Lina felt a glow, like a little flame inside her—no, not a flame, a light bulb, that was better. A little light bulb was glowing in her heart.
“I believe I’m more tired than I’ve ever been in my life,” said Mrs. Murdo. “And tomorrow there’s more to face.”
“Tomorrow?” For a moment Lina couldn’t remember what had to be faced tomorrow.
“Well, yes,” said Mrs. Murdo. “I suppose tomorrow we’ll find out if they’re still planning to make us all leave.”
The Fourth Town Meeting
That night, the wind cleaned the smoke from the air, and in the morning the sky was a brilliant blue and the air felt tingly. The sunlight was warm, but it had a new quality, thinner and sharper. The season was changing.
A messenger from town arrived at the hotel that morning. Doon, who happened to be the first person up, ran into him on the hotel steps. “Tell your people,” said the messenger, “that the leaders of Sparks wish to meet with the people of Ember at noon today. They will come to the hotel ballroom.”
Doon conveyed this message to the next several people he saw, and they told others, and soon every-one knew. At noon, they assembled in the ballroom. Doon stood with his father in the midst of the crowd. All around him, he heard uneasy murmurings. Would this be more bad news? He heard Miss Thorn whisper to someone, “I’m so nervous, I have a stomachache.” He was nervous, too; his hands were damp.
At a few minutes after twelve, Mary Waters and Wilmer Dent came into the ballroom. With them were four men carrying a stretcher on which Doon saw a blanket-draped figure. The stiff gray beard jutting up from the chin told him it was Ben Barlow. Dr. Hester walked beside him, and with her were Mrs. Murdo, Lina, and Poppy. Other townspeople followed, lining up around the edges of the room—Doon recognized storekeepers and team leaders (including Chugger), along with many of the families of Sparks. The Partons were there; he saw Kenny trotting behind his parents.
Doon raised his arm and called to Lina, and she came to stand beside him. “Is Ben badly hurt?” Doon whispered.
“I think so,” Lina whispered back. “The doctor says he was hit in the shoulder. She said the blast almost blew off his arm.”
“Listen,” Doon said. “I have to tell you something important.” And in the next few minutes, as the town leaders and the men carrying Ben mounted the steps to the stage, he whispered to Lina what he’d discovered about Tick.
“Really?” she kept saying. “Really? How could he? I can’t believe it!”
“And last night,” Doon whispered, “I went and found Tick, and I told him I knew, and he said—”
But at that moment, Mary Waters held up her hands for quiet. Doon stopped whispering and turned his eyes to the stage. The men had set the stretcher down and propped one end of it on a chair, so that Ben lay at a slant. A bandage covered one of his eyes. He glared out at the audience with the other.
When Mary spoke, there was a slight quaver in her deep voice.
“We are here to talk of serious matters,” she said. “Ben was badly injured yesterday, but he has insisted on coming. We all wish to speak with you face to face.” She paused. “First of all, I must tell you this.”
Doon felt his stomach lurch.
“We have realized,” Mary said, “that we cannot ask you to leave here. Your generosity yesterday has helped us remember our own.”
No one spoke, but the people of Ember glanced at each other and let out breaths of relief. Doon bumped his shoulder against Lina’s, and they grinned. “Yesterday,” Mary went on, “when our Weapon exploded and the fire went out of control, a child of Ember crossed the line that divided us from each other. We are grateful to her for leading the way.”
“Lina! Lina!” cried a few scattered voices—Lina thought she heard Maddy’s voice among them. Doon startled her by yelling, “Lina the brave!” right in her ear.
“I want to say,” Mary continued, “that we have made mistakes and we are sorry for them. We had good intentions, at the beginning. We did our best to help you. But when it got hard, we closed our hearts.”
Wilmer Dent smiled apologetically. “We were worried—” he began.
Ben interrupted him. His voice was hoarse and weak, and he seemed to be having trouble breathing. Doon strained to hear him. “We were justifiably . . . concerned,” he croaked. “About critical . . . food shortages. Attempting to ensure . . . the safety of . . . our own people.” He made a kind of wheezing, gasping sound. “Under . . . standably,” he added.
Wilmer shrugged his shoulders, still smiling nervously. “It was just that we were—”
“Afraid,” said Mary. “We were afraid, let us say it right out. We were afraid that you would ruin everything for us. We were almost on the edge of prosperity. We feared that you would push us back into deprivation.”
There was a silence then in which no one knew what to say.
“So we tried to get rid of the problem instead of solving it,” Mary went on. “Fortunately, both our plans and yours were thwarted.” She stepped forward and gazed out at the crowd. Her eyes met Doon’s and held them for a second. “Just last night,” she said, “I learned two things that have changed my picture of what has happened here. The first is this: we still don’t know who wrote the muddy words on the plaza—we may never know—but the other attacks on the people of Ember, the ugly writings on the walls of the Pioneer and the poison oak on the doorstep, were not carried out by Sparks villagers at all.”
The Emberites turned to each other with puzzled looks and murmured confusedly. “But how could—” “But who would—” “What does she mean?”
“It was young Doon Harrow who explained it to me,” said Mary. “I’d like him to explain it to us all, if he will.” She nodded to Doon and gestured upward with her hand.
So Doon stood up. He told the assembled people the same thing he’d told Mary the night before when he came to her house late in the evening.
“It can’t be true!” someone cried out—Doon thought it was Allie Bright, who had been Tick’s right-hand man.
“It is true,” Doon said. “Tick told me himself last night. He said it was just good strategy. He said he knew there was going to be war, and he needed to raise a strong army. When people are attacked, he said, they get mad, and angry people are the best warriors. So he decided to make people angry. He told me he got a good idea for how to do it when he saw those muddy words in the plaza.”
At that, a roar swelled up and filled the ballroom. People shouted, “Where is he?” and twisted around to look for Tick. A few of them began barging through the audience trying to find him.
Doon called out, “Wait! Listen! He isn’t here.”
The commotion quieted down. People turned toward Doon.
“Last night when I talked to him, Tick was stuffing everything he owns into a sack,” said Doon. “He told me he was leaving. He said he couldn’t live anymore with cowards and traitors. He’d heard a roamer was coming through the village today, and he planned to catch a ride with him. Some others are going, too. They’re going to the settlement in the far south, Tick said, where they hope to have a better welcome than they got here.”
A great clamor greeted this announcement. Some people laughed, some shouted, “Good riddance,” and some just grumbled and shook their heads.
Finally Mary raised her hands again and called, “Please! Quiet! I have more to say.”
People grew silent again and listened.
“I said that I had learned two things,” she said. “The second is this: the incident that set off this chain of violent events did not happen as we thought. It was not Doon Harrow who destroyed those crates of tomatoes.”
This came as no surprise to the people of Ember, who had never believed Doon guilty in the first place. But the villagers at the meeting looked startled. Doon saw Martha Parton flick her eyes toward him, her eyebrows flying upward, and he saw Ordney give him a quizzical look. Behind them,
Kenny smiled a sunny smile.
“Torren Crane has taken back the statement he made,” Mary said. “He did not, after all, see Doon Harrow throw those tomatoes. He still refuses to say who did throw them. We must make up our own minds about that. But I believe we can be sure that it was not a person from Ember.”
At that, a cheer arose from the crowd, a loud, disorderly cheer, and Doon was so astonished that he nearly fell over. Lina grabbed his arm. “I made him write it down on paper!” she yelled into his ear. “I took the paper to Mary last night!”
When the cheering subsided, Mary continued. “We should take note,” she said, “of how easy it is to bring out the worst in us. The actions of a few troubled individuals fanned resentments into violence. Only an accident kept us from murdering each other.”
She turned around to face Ben, whose head was lolling sideways, his eyelids drooping. “Ben has something to say now. Ben? Are you able?”
The doctor, standing next to Ben, nudged his shoulder gently, and Ben opened his eyes.
“Can you make your statement, Ben?” asked Mary.
Ben frowned at the ceiling. The audience waited. Finally he spoke. “I have been told,” he said, “. . . that Doon Harrow . . .” He stopped. Frowned again. “I wish to thank . . . young man named Doon Harrow . . .” He took a shaky breath. “For rescuing . . . foolish nephew.”
What? thought Doon. What’s he talking about?
Ben scowled. He appeared to be gathering his strength. “Foolish nephew Torren Crane,” he rasped, “in the . . . pine tree. Who could have been killed . . .” Ben’s voice sank to a whisper, and the audience strained to hear. “. . . By my foolish actions.”
Doon stood stunned. Torren was Ben’s nephew? That was a surprise. But it was even more of a surprise to hear Ben almost apologizing for what he’d done.
Lina was thumping Doon on the back. Someone behind him cried out, “Three cheers for Doon!” and three cheers rang out in the ballroom. Doon just stood there, with what he thought was probably a silly smile on his face.
Then Mary stepped forward and called for quiet again. Her voice grew steady and businesslike. “Now,” she said, “we must look to our future. You will not get everything you want. Neither will we. All of us will suffer, perhaps even be in danger. There will be more mouths to feed—but more hands to do the work, too. And though we may have a shortage of food, we have no shortage of work.” She paused. She smiled a little. Her eyes passed over the people in the room, and Doon felt her gaze almost like a reassuring touch. “The main thing,” she said, “is this: we will refuse to be each other’s enemies. We will renounce violence, which is so easy to start but so hard to control. We will build a place where we can all live in peace. If we hold to that, everything is possible.”
The People of Sparks: The Second Book of Ember (Books of Ember) Page 21
