The City of Ember: The First Book of Ember

by Jeanne DuPrau

  So that afternoon she set out for Night Street. She took Poppy with her. Poppy had learned how to ride piggyback—she wrapped her legs around Lina’s waist and gripped Lina’s throat with her small, strong fingers.

  On Budloe Street, people were standing in long lines with their bundles of laundry at the washing stations. The washers stirred the clothes in the washing machines with long poles. In days past, the machines themselves had whirled the clothes around, but not one of them worked anymore.

  Lina turned up Hafter Street, where the four streetlamps were still out and a building crew was repairing a partly collapsed roof. Orly Gordon called out to her from high on a ladder, and Lina looked up and waved. Farther on, she passed a woman with bits of rope and string for sale and a man pulling a cart full of carrots and beets to the grocery stores. At the corner, a cluster of little children played catch with a rag ball. The streets were alive with people today. Moving fast, Lina threaded her way among them.

  But as she went into Otterwill Street, she saw something that made her slow down. A man was standing on the steps of the Gathering Hall, shouting and howling, and a crowd of people had gathered around him. Lina went closer, and when she saw who it was, her insides gave a lurch. It was Sadge Merrall. His arms flailed wildly, and his eyes were stretched wide open. In a high, rapid voice, he wailed out a stream of words: “I have been to the Unknown Regions!” he cried. “There is nothing, nothing, nothing there! Did you think something out there might save us? Ha! There’s only darkness and monsters, darkness and terrible deep holes, darkness forever! The rats are the size of houses! The rocks are sharp as knives! The darkness sucks your breath out! No hope for us out there, oh no! No hope, no hope!” He went on like this for a few minutes and then crumpled to the ground. The people watching him looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “Gone mad,” Lina heard someone say.

  “Yes, completely,” said someone else.

  Suddenly Sadge sprang up again and resumed his terrible shouting. The crowd stepped back. Some of them hurried away. A few of them approached Sadge, speaking in calming voices. They took him by the arms and led him, still shouting, down the steps.

  “Who dat? Who dat?” said Poppy in her small, piercing voice. Lina turned away from the miserable spectacle. “Hush, Poppy,” she said. “It’s a poor, sad man. He doesn’t feel good. We mustn’t stare.”

  She headed toward Night Street, which ran along Greengate Square. There a stringy-haired man sat cross-legged on the ground playing a flute made out of a drainpipe, and five or six Believers circled him, clapping and singing. “Soon, soon, coming soon,” they sang. What’s coming soon? Lina wondered, but she didn’t stop to ask.

  Two blocks beyond, she came to a store that had no sign in its window. This must be the one, she thought.

  At first it looked closed. Its window was dark. But the door opened when she pushed on it, and a bell attached to its doorknob clanked. From the back room came a black-haired man with big teeth and a long neck. “Yes?” he said.

  Lina recognized him. He was the one who’d given her the message for the mayor on her very first day of work. His name was Hooper—no, Looper, that was it.

  “Do you have pencils for sale?” she asked. It seemed doubtful. The shop’s shelves were empty except for a few stacks of used paper.

  Poppy squirmed on Lina’s back and whimpered a little.

  “Sometimes,” said Looper.

  Poppy’s whimper became a wail.

  “All right, you can get down,” Lina said to her. She set her on the floor, where she tottered about unsteadily.

  “What I’d like to see,” said Lina, “are your colored pencils. If you have any.”

  “We have a few,” said Looper. “They are somewhat expensive.” He smiled, showing his pushy teeth.

  “Could I see them?” said Lina.

  He went into the back room and returned a moment later, carrying a small box, which he set down on the counter. He took the lid off. Lina bent forward to look.

  Inside the box were at least a dozen colored pencils—red, green, blue, yellow, purple, orange. They had never even been sharpened; their ends were flat. They had erasers. Lina’s heart gave a few fast beats.

  “How much are they?” she said.

  “Probably too much for you,” the man said.

  “Probably not,” said Lina. “I have a job.”

  “Good, good,” the man said, smiling again. “No need to take offense.” He picked up the yellow pencil and twirled it between his fingers. “Each pencil,” he said, “five dollars.”

  Five dollars! For seven, you could buy a coat—it would be an old, patched coat, but still warm. “That’s too much,” Lina said.

  He shrugged and began to put the lid back on the box.

  “But maybe . . .” Lina’s thoughts raced. “Let me look at them again.”

  Once more the man lifted the lid and Lina bent over the pencils. She picked one up. It was painted a deep clear blue, and on its flat top was the blue dot of the lead. The pink eraser was held on by a shiny metal collar. So beautiful! I could buy just one, Lina thought. Then I could save a little more and buy a coat for Granny next month.

  “Make up your mind,” said the man. “I have other customers who are interested, if you aren’t.”

  “All right. I’ll take one. No, wait.” It was like hunger, what she felt. It was the same as when her hand sometimes seemed to reach out by itself to grab a piece of food. It was too strong to resist. “I’ll take two,” she said, and a faint, dazzly feeling came over her at the thought of what she was doing.

  “Which two?” the man said.

  There were more colors in that box of pencils than in all of Ember. Ember’s colors were all so much the same—gray buildings, gray streets, black sky; even the colors of people’s clothes were faded from long use into mud green, and rust red, and gray-blue. But these colors—they were as bright as the leaves and flowers in the greenhouse.

  Lina’s hand hovered over the pencils. “The blue one,” she said. “And . . . the yellow one—no, the . . . the . . .”

  The man made an impatient noise in the back of his throat.

  “The green one,” said Lina. “I’ll take the blue and the green.” She lifted them out of the box. She took the money from the pocket of her coat and handed it to the man, and she put the pencils in her pocket. They were hers now; she felt a fierce, defiant joy. She turned to go, and that was when she saw that the baby was no longer in the store.

  “Poppy!” she cried. She whirled around. “Did you see my little sister go out?” she asked the man. “Did you see which way she went?”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t notice,” he said.

  Lina darted into the street and looked in both directions. She saw lots of people, some children, but no Poppy. She stopped an old woman. “Have you seen a little girl, a baby, walking by herself? In a green jacket, with a hood?” The old woman just stared at her with dull eyes and shook her head.

  “Poppy!” Lina called. “Poppy!” Her voice rose to a shout. Such a little baby couldn’t have gone far, she thought. Maybe down toward Greengate Square, where there were more people walking around. She began to run.

  And then the lights flickered, and flickered again, and went out. Darkness slammed up in front of her like a wall. She stumbled, caught herself, and stood still. She could see absolutely nothing.

  Shouts of alarm came from up and down the street, and then silence. Lina stretched her arms out. Was she facing the street or a building? Terror swept through her. I must just stand still, she thought. The lights will come on again in a few seconds, they always do. But she thought of Poppy alone in the blackness, and her legs went weak. I must find her.

  She took a step. When she didn’t bump into anything, she took another step, and the fingers of her right hand crumpled against something hard. The wall of a building, she thought. Keeping her hand against it, she turned left a little and took another step forward. Then suddenly her hand
touched empty air. This would be Dedlock Street. Or had she passed Dedlock Street already? She couldn’t keep the picture of the streets clear in her mind. The darkness seemed to fill not just the city around her but the inside of her head as well.

  Heart pounding, she waited. Come back, lights, she pleaded. Please come back. She wanted to call out to Poppy, to tell her to stand still, not to be afraid, she would come for her soon. But the darkness pressed against her and she couldn’t summon her voice. She could hardly breathe. She wanted to claw the darkness away from her eyes, as if it were someone’s hands.

  Small sounds came from here and there around her—a whimpering, a shuffling. In the distance someone called out incoherently. How many minutes had gone by? The longest blackout ever had been three minutes and fourteen seconds. Surely this was longer.

  She could have endured it if she’d been on her own. It was the thought of Poppy, lost, that she couldn’t stand—and lost because she had been paying more attention to a box of pencils. Oh, she’d been selfish and greedy, and now she was so, so sorry! She made herself take another step forward. But then she thought, What if I’m going away from Poppy? She began to tremble, and she felt the sinking and dissolving inside her that meant she was going to cry. Her legs gave way like wet paper and she slid down until she was sitting on the street, with her head on her knees. Trembling, her mind a wordless whirl of dread, she waited.

  An endless time went by. A moan came from somewhere to the left. A door slammed closed. Footsteps started, then stopped. Into Lina’s mind floated the beginning of the worst question: What if the lights never . . . ? She squeezed her arms around her knees and made the question stop. Lights come back, she said to herself, Lights come back, come back.

  And suddenly they did.

  Lina sprang up. There was the street again, and people looking upward with their mouths hanging open. All around, people started crying or wailing or grinning in relief. Then all at once everyone started to hurry, moving fast toward the safety of home in case it should happen again.

  Lina ran toward Greengate Square, stopping everyone she passed. “Did you see a little girl walking by herself just before the lights went out?” she asked. “Green jacket with a hood?” But no one wanted to listen to her.

  On the Bee Street side of the square stood a few people all talking at once and waving their arms. Lina ran up to them and asked her question.

  They stopped talking and stared at her. “How could we have seen anyone? The lights were out,” said Nammy Proggs, a tiny old woman whose back was so bent that she had to twist her head sideways to look up.

  Lina said, “No, she wandered away before the lights went out. She got away from me. She may have come this direction.”

  “You have to keep your eye on a baby,” Nammy Proggs scolded.

  “Babies need watching,” said one of the women who’d been singing with the Believers.

  But someone else said, “Oh, a toddler? Green jacket?” and he walked over to an open shop door and called, “You have that baby in there?” and through the door came someone leading Poppy by the hand.

  Lina dashed to her and lifted her up. Poppy broke into loud wails. “You’re all right now,” said Lina, holding her tightly. “Don’t worry, sweetie. You were just lost a moment, now you’re all right. I’ve got you, don’t worry.” When she looked up to thank the person who’d found her, she saw a face she recognized. It was Doon. He looked the same as when she’d last seen him, except that his hair was shaggier. He had on the same baggy brown jacket he always wore.

  “She was marching up the street by herself,” he said. “No one knew who she belonged to, so I took her into my father’s shop.”

  “She belongs to me,” Lina said. “She’s my sister. I was so afraid when she was lost. I thought she might fall and hurt herself, or be knocked over, or . . . Anyway, thank you so much for rescuing her.”

  “Anyone would have,” said Doon. He frowned and looked down at the pavement.

  Poppy had calmed down and was curled up against Lina’s chest with her thumb in her mouth. “And your job—how is it?” Lina asked. “The Pipeworks?”

  Doon shrugged his shoulders. “All right,” he said. “Interesting, anyway.”

  She waited, but it seemed that was all he was going to say. “Well, thank you again,” she said. She hoisted Poppy around to her back.

  “Lucky for you Doon Harrow was around,” said Nammy Proggs, who’d been watching them with her sideways glare. “He’s a good-hearted boy. Anything breaks at my house, he fixes it.” She hobbled after Lina, shaking a finger at her. “You’d better watch that baby more carefully,” she called.

  “You shouldn’t leave her alone,” the flute player added.

  “I know,” said Lina. “You’re right.”

  When she got home, she put the tired baby to bed in the bedroom they shared. Granny had been taking an afternoon nap in the front room and hadn’t noticed the blackout at all. Lina told her that the lights had gone out for a few minutes, but she didn’t mention anything about Poppy getting lost.

  Later, in her bedroom, with Poppy asleep, she took the two colored pencils from her pocket. They were not quite as beautiful as they had been. When she held them, she remembered the powerful wanting she had felt in that dusty store, and the feeling of it was mixed up with fear and shame and darkness.

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  The Box in the Closet

  It was strange how people didn’t talk much about the blackout. Power failures usually aroused lively discussion, with clumps of people collecting on corners and saying to each other, “Where were you when it happened?” and “What’s the matter with the electricians, we should kick them out and get new ones,” and that sort of thing. This time, it was just the opposite. When Lina went to work the next morning, the street was oddly silent. People walked quickly, their eyes on the ground. Those who did stop to talk spoke in low voices, then hurried on their way.

  That day, Lina carried the same message twelve times. All the messengers were carrying it. It was simply this, being passed from one person to another: Seven minutes. The power failure had been more than twice as long as any other so far.

  Fear had settled over the city. Lina felt it like a cold chill. She understood now that Doon had been speaking the truth on Assignment Day. Ember was in grave danger.

  The next day a notice appeared on all the city’s kiosks:

  TOWN MEETING

  ALL CITIZENS ARE REQUESTED TO ASSEMBLE

  IN HARKEN SQUARE AT 6 P.M. TOMORROW

  TO RECEIVE IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

  MAYOR LEMANDER COLE

  What kind of important information? Lina wondered. Good news or bad? She was impatient to hear it.

  The next day, people streamed into Harken Square from all four directions, crowding together so close that each person hardly had room to move. Children sat on the shoulders of fathers. Short people tried to push toward the front. Lina spotted Lizzie and called a greeting to her. She saw Vindie Chance, too, who had brought her little brother. Lina had decided to leave Poppy at home with Granny. There was too much danger of losing her in a crowd like this.

  The town clock began to strike. Six vibrating bongs rang out, and a murmur of anticipation swept through the crowd. People stood on tiptoe, craning to see. The door of the Gathering Hall opened, and the mayor came out, flanked by two guards. One of the guards handed the mayor a megaphone, and the mayor began to speak. His voice came through the megaphone both blurry and crackly.

  “People of Ember,” he said. He waited. The crowd fell silent, straining to hear.

  “People of Ember,” the mayor said again. He looked from side to side. The light glinted off his bald head. “Our city has experienced some slight diffcushlaylie. Times like this require gresh peshn frush all.”

  “What did he say?” people whispered urgently. “What did he say? I couldn’t hear him.”

  “Slight difficulties,” someone said. “Requires great patien
ce from us all.”

  “But I stand here today,” the mayor went on, “to reassure you. Difficult times will pass. We are mayg effn effuff.”

  “What?” came the sharp whisper. “What did he say?”

  Those near the front passed word back. “Making every effort,” they said. “Every effort.”

  “Louder!” someone shouted.

  The mayor’s voice blared through the megaphone louder but even less clear. “Wursh poshuling!” he said. “Pank. Mushen pank. No rrrshen pank.”

  “We can’t hear you!” someone else yelled. Lina felt a stirring around her, a muttering. Someone pushed against her back, forcing her forward.

  “He said we mustn’t panic,” someone said. “He said panic is the worst possible thing. No reason to panic, he said.”

  On the steps of the Gathering Hall, the two guards moved a little closer to the mayor. He raised the megaphone and spoke again.

  “Slooshns!” he bellowed. “Arbingfoun!”

  “Solutions,” the people in front called to the people in back. “Solutions are being found, he said.”

  “What solutions?” called a woman standing near Lina. People elsewhere in the crowd echoed what the woman had said. “What solutions? What solutions?” Their cry became a chorus, louder and louder.

  Again Lina felt the pressure from behind as people moved forward toward the Gathering Hall. Jostling arms poked her, bulky bodies bumped her and crushed her. Her heart began to pound. I have to get out of here! she thought.

  She started ducking beneath arms and darting into whatever space she could find, making her way toward the rear of the crowd. Noise was rising everywhere. The mayor’s voice kept coming in blasts of incomprehensible sound, and the people in the crowd were either shouting angrily or yelping in fear of being squashed. Someone stepped on Lina’s foot, and her scarf was half yanked off. For a few seconds she was afraid she was going to be trampled. But at last she struggled free and ran up onto the steps of the school. From there she saw that the two guards were hustling the mayor back through the door of the Gathering Hall. The crowd roared, and a few people started hurling whatever they could find—pebbles, garbage, crumpled paper, even their own hats.