Among the Brave sc-5

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Trey didn’t wait for Mark to answer. He grabbed Mark’s arm and began tugging.

  “We’ve got to hide!” Trey screamed frantically “Now!”

  Blindly he crashed back through the woods, pulling Mark along with him.

  “Trey! Shh! You’re — someone’s going to hear us!” Mark hollered.

  Trey stopped with a jerk — not because of Mark’s protests, but because eight lines of barbed wire stretched directly in front of him. He’d thought he’d been running deeper and deeper into the woods, but in his panic he must have gone in circles. He was back at the dual fences surrounding the Grant estate.

  He and Mark stared in silence at the gleaming silver barbed wire. Then Mark whispered, “They’re gone now.”

  “Huh?” Trey said. He was a little mesmerized by the barbed wire. One barb was suspended mere inches from his right eye. What if he hadn’t seen it? What if he hadn’t stopped?

  “The workers,” Mark said impatiently “They finished up and left. So…” He took one small step closer to the fence.

  Trey snapped out of his trance.

  “You still want to crawl through?” he hissed. “You’ve got to be kidding! It’s not safe! Not with the Population Police in there now. Look, Mark, I know you’re brave and all, but — you can’t save Lee!”

  “I have to try” Mark said quietly.

  “You won’t even make it through the barbed wire,” Trey argued frantically

  “Sure I will,” Mark said. “Don’t you know how many barbed-wire fences I’ve crawled through in my life? I’m practically the barbed-wire champion. Ain’t never — I mean, haven’t never — gotten a scratch since I was about three years old!”

  Trey didn’t bother telling him his grammar was atrocious, even without the “ain’t” Mark wasn’t waiting for Trey’s approval anyway He took another step forward, past Trey.

  “Just watch,” Mark said, a daredevil grin plastered across his face.

  He took off his knapsack and tossed it aside. Then he eased his right foot between two of the lowest lines of barbed wire. Neither wire touched his leg. Trey took a step back so he could see better as Mark crouched down and began moving the rest of his body through. With one hand, he reached for the wire above to hold it away from his head.

  “Aaahh!” Mark screamed. He dropped the wire, and it bounced against the entire length of his back. He jerked away, his voice cut off mid-scream. But he was still caught in the fence. His body sagged against the bottom wire.

  Without thinking, Trey grabbed a stick and poked at Mark’s body knocking him off the wire. The stick brushed the fence, and Trey’s wrists and knuckles tingled strangely He dropped the stick and jumped back, totally panicked. He’d been crazy to use a stick damp from the ground. Water conducted electricity. And the barbed-wire fence, he realized, had been electrified with dangerous amounts of voltage. He stared at Mark’s motionless body, sprawled on the other side of the fence. Trey wasn’t even sure that Mark was still alive.

  Above them, on the original stone fence, a light suddenly clicked on, flooding the entire area with an intense glow. Frantically Trey scuttled backward, desperately searching for shadows to hide in. Seconds later, he heard the sound of marching feet, coming right toward him. He dove into a bush, breaking branches. Trembling, he reached back to steady the leaves, to hide all signs of his frantic dive.

  “Intruder discovered in second quadrant,” a man’s voice boomed nearby.

  Trey dared to peek out through the leaves. Four men in uniform were standing beside the barbed-wire fence, staring down at Mark.

  “Deactivate fence so we can retrieve the intruder,” the voice boomed again.

  There was a buzzing, and then Trey saw one of the men bend down and pull Mark’s body under the fence. The barbed wire caught on his clothes, but the man didn’t seem to care.

  “Retrieval finished. Reactivate,” the first man said. Trey saw that he was speaking into a walkie-talkie of sorts.

  One of the other men lifted Mark and tossed him over his shoulder, carrying him like a sack of potatoes. Mark’s eyelids fluttered — he was alive!

  But then the lights went out. The men marched away and Trey was left alone once again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Trey didn’t move for a long time. He couldn’t. He was paralyzed. It was like he believed that if he stood there long enough, everything would reverse itself before his eyes: The light would come back on. The men would march backward and unload Mark onto the ground. Mark would crawl backward through the barbed wire, safe and sound, his clothes magically repaired, his body untouched by electricity.

  Except Trey wanted the reversal to go further than that He wanted Lee and Nina to be un-kidnapped, Mr. Talbot to be un-arrested, the Government to be unchanged. He wanted to be back at Hendricks — no, he wanted to be back at home.

  He wanted his father to be alive.

  Trey stopped there, in that cozy time when someone else made all his decisions for him, when someone else took care of him, when someone else told him what to do.

  He had nobody now. Nobody and nothing.

  Whimpering shamelessly, he wrapped his arms tightly across his chest. The papers he’d taken from the Grants’ and the Talbots’ rustled under his shirt. The fingers of his left hand brushed the top of his pants pocket and he reached on in and cradled his fake I.D. in his hand once again.

  Okay, he had nothing except papers and a fake identity card. So what?

  In the dimness of the woods, he staggered backward and almost tripped over the knapsack of food Mark had put down right before he climbed the fence. Even possessing food seemed pointless to Trey now. Bitterly, he kicked at the knapsack, and that actually felt good to him, as good as kicking a ball in a game back at Hendricks with Lee and the rest of his friends. He kicked the knapsack again, and it sailed so far away he didn’t know where it landed.

  He didn’t go looking for it, just collapsed in a helpless heap on the ground.

  Lee, I wanted to help you, he silently appealed to his friend — his friend he probably would never see again. I tried. But had he tried hard enough? Mark did. Mark did everything he possibly could. And Mark — I’m sorry I can’t save you, either.

  A familiar feeling seeped through Trey. Resignation. He felt the way he’d always felt playing chess with his father, back home. They’d be going along, Trey losing a few pieces, his father losing a piece or two — and then suddenly Trey would look at the board and realize he was trapped. Nothing he could do would prevent his father from winning. And then his father would chuckle — how Trey hated that chuckle! — and say, “It’s the endgame now.~

  Endgame. That’s exactly where Trey was. The Population rolice had Lee and Nina. They had Mark. They had the entire country lined up and ready to serve them. It was only a matter of time before they had Trey. Before they killed him.

  Except…

  Trey remembered a certain chess game he’d once played with his father. The very last one. He’d been moving his pieces around the board as usual, without much hope, agonizing over his father’s every comment: “Are you sure you want to leave your bishop there?”… “Where do you think I’m going to move my rook next?” And then something had changed in the game. Trey moved a pawn and his father fell silent. He moved his queen and his father gritted his teeth.

  And in the end, Trey won. He’d worked his way out of a trap he’d thought was inescapable. And he’d managed to set a trap of his own.

  Was there any way he could still win now? Was there any way he could rescue Mark and Lee — and stay alive?

  Not when I’ve got just a bunch of worthless papers and a fake I.D. It’s not like that’s going to help me get past those fences. There’s no way in.

  Except there was. The Population Police were letting hundreds of men and boys in through the front gates.

  Trey got chills as an idea seized him. He almost wished his brain didn’t work so well; he almost longed for the old paralysis of thinking there was no
thing he could do. This was the most dangerous idea he’d ever had in his entire life.

  But he was going to do it.

  He, Trey — the biggest coward in the world, a third child who’d spent most of his life in hiding — was going to join the Population Police.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Trey stood at the back of the line, his knees locked, his muscles trembling. It took every ounce of courage he had just to stand still, moving only every ten minutes or so — and even then, only inching forward, closer and closer to the fearsome gates.

  He needed to plan, to plot out exactly what he was going to do once he got inside. Would he put on the Population Police uniform and ask to be a guard, then set Mark and Lee and the others free at his first opportunity? Or demand to see someone in charge, then pull the papers from his shirt like a magician: “Voila! I have these secret documents from the homes of enemies of the state. If you don’t release certain prisoners, I will set them on fire, and those secrets will be lost to the Population Police forever!”

  He didn’t have a match.

  The papers weren’t secret documents. They were financial forms, business incorporation papers, grocery lists. Nothing the Population Police would bargain for.

  Nothing they couldn’t grab from his hand, regardless.

  What if I get to the front of the line before I have a plan? Trey’s panicked brain asked him. I should get out of line, think it all over, and come back when I know what I’m doing.

  But the line was hours long. He was already acutely aware of the seconds speeding by, the minutes melting away. Each passing moment made it more likely that Trey was already too late to help his friends.

  Could he get help from any of the people standing near him? He looked around at rags and filth, shirts with patches on top of patches. He didn’t have the nerve to look into anyone’s face, let alone try to catch someone’s eye.

  They’re joining the Population Police. What do I expect? I’m all alone in this.

  And yet, he didn’t quite feel alone. He kept hearing echoes in his mind: All the times Lee had said to him, "Come on, Trey! You can do it!” when he was trying to catch a football or hit a Wiffle ball, back at Hendricks School. All the times Mr. Hendricks had murmured, “You know, you really are an incredibly intelligent boy,” when he sent Trey on errands. All the times his own father had nodded and smiled and said, “Yes, yes, that’s right You’ve learned this perfectly,” when Trey recited his daily lessons, back home.

  Trey kept shuffling forward, kept quelling his panic, kept trying to plan, kept listening to the encouraging echoes in his mind.

  And then suddenly he found himself at the front of the line, before a phalanx of tables that blocked the entrance-way to the Grants’ gates.

  “I.D. card, please,” a man growled.

  Trey willed his hands not to shake as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the plastic card. He laid it on the table between him and the man.

  “Thavis Jackson,” the man read in a bored voice.

  Trey winced at the sound of the name that belonged to him, but wasn’t his. He braced himself for the man to squint at the picture and compare it with Trey’s face. And what if the man decided to test the I.D.2 Trey had heard there were special chemicals, certain types of acids that would burn through a fake I.D. but leave an authentic one unscathed. They were expensive, so they weren’t used often, but what if the Population Police chose to use them now, on Trey’s card? Should he be braced to run, just in case?

  But the man just tossed the I.D. to another man.

  “Squad 3-C,” the man announced, and the first man wrote something down on a pad of paper.

  “Go on in,” he said, lifting a hinged section of the table for Trey to pass through. “Report to the first room on the right, and they’ll issue your uniform.”

  Trey hesitated.

  “Don’t I get my I.D. back?” he squeaked.

  “You’re part of the Population Police now, kid,” the man said, chuckling. “You don’t have any other identity anymore.”

  “But—” Trey knew better than to argue. He knew he shouldn’t do anything that would fix his name or face in anyone’s mind. He shouldn’t do anything that would attract attention in any way But how could he just walk away and leave that I.D.? It was the only thing his mother had left him with. What hope did he have without it?

  The man didn’t hear him.

  “Next,” he called, as the second man added They’s I.D. to a huge stack in a box under the table.

  Trey stood still, trying to decide whether to speak up again or not.

  “Ya going to go in or get out of my way?” somebody snarled behind him. “‘Cause I’m hungry. Haven’t et in three days. I’m hoping they feed us first thing.”

  Trey swallowed hard.

  “Go in,” he said. Leaving his I.D. card behind, he stepped past the table and through the gates of the Grants’ former estate.

  The surge of other new Population Police recruits carried him along the driveway and up the stairs through the Grants’ front door. Until he was past it, Trey didn’t even think to look for the spot on the driveway where the huge chandelier had come crashing down, killing Mr. and Mrs. Grant and endangering Lee, before Trey rescued him.

  I was brave here before, Trey told himself. I can be brave again.

  He kept walking.

  When the press of bodies around him finally parted, Trey found himself inside a huge room he barely recognized. Surely he’d stood here before, the night of the Grants’ fatal party, but the room looked totally different now. They remembered silks and satins and shimmering glass; now the room was filled with racks and racks of gray uniforms.

  “Size?” a man asked Trey.

  “Um, I don’t know. I think I’ve grown since the last time I. .”

  “Never mind,” the man said, thrusting a uniform into Trey’s arms.

  The fabric felt scratchy against Trey’s skin. The Population Police emblem stared up at him from a sleeve of the uniform: two circles interlinked, with a teardrop shape beneath. They had heard all sorts of rumors about the meaning of the emblem. Some said the circles stood for two children, and the falling shape for the tears of mothers who had to kill their thirds. Others said the teardrop was actually a shovel, meant to bury the children the Population Police killed. Either way, being so close to the hated emblem made Trey’s stomach seize up. He let the uniform drop to the ground and he doubled over, retching.

  Suddenly someone slammed a fist into the side of his head.

  “Boy!” a man screamed. “You treat that uniform with respect! You pick that up this instant! You hear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Trey managed to choke out He scrambled to pick up the shirt and pants. The man was still screaming — something about “pride in the organization you have just joined” and “our noble cause.” Around him, They could feel the other recruits staring in shocked silence. Some had stopped in the middle of changing, standing half-naked, with only one arm or one leg shoved into the new uniforms.

  Nobody came to Trey’s defense.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” the man finished up.

  “Please — I just — is there a bathroom somewhere?” They managed to stammer.

  The man hit Trey again, knocking him against the wall. Trey tasted a trickle of blood in his mouth. He reached up and felt his face gingerly, but decided the blood came from a self-inflicted wound — he’d bit his tongue.

  “Now finish up in here and report to the next room immediately!” the man yelled — not just at Trey this time, but at all the recruits.

  “Yes, sir,” some of them yelled, and the room became a flurry of activity again, as everyone crammed on the uniforms as quickly as possible.

  Someone tapped Trey on the shoulder.

  “Bathroom’s over that way,” a boy who was already fully dressed told him.

  ‘Th-thank you,” Trey said.

  He crawled through the tangle of feet, no longer caring abo
ut humiliation or pain or even the need to rescue Mark and Lee. He just wanted to hide.

  The bathroom, when he found it, was a vision in elegant silver wallpaper, obviously left over from the Grants. Trey shut the door tight and stared at his pale, terrified face in the mirror.

  “What am I going to do?” he whispered to his reflection. Even his best ideas for bargaining or sneaking his friends out seemed like childish fantasies in the face of real fists and screams and all those gray uniforms.

  Someone rattled the door handle outside.

  “Hey! Give somebody else a turn!”

  Trey peered frantically around the bathroom, as if hoping that the walls themselves might swallow him up, hide him for good. He couldn’t face the world outside this room right now. He just couldn’t.

  But for all its elegance, the bathroom was fairly small and basic. It held a toilet and a sink. They were both stylized and sophisticated, but the sink didn’t even have a cabinet underneath that They might have hidden in. And there wasn’t a closet Just a vent above the toilet, covered in a huge, fancy brass grille.

  A vent. A covered vent.

  His mind racing, They stared at the pattern in the brass grille. Hadn’t he been wishing that the walls could swallow him up? Wasn’t a vent essentially a hole in the wall?

  Trey rushed toward the wall, tripping over his feet in his haste. He started to fall, but his knees hit the toilet, and he turned the fall into a faster way to climb toward the vent: He put the Population Police uniform on the back of the toilet and stood on the seat.

  The grille probably has screws holding it in place, and I won’t be able to take them off, he thought as he reached for the vent. But no — the grille was attached to the wall with a series of clasps and hinges that Trey figured out instantly He unhooked the grille in a flash, and pulled it back from the wall.

  I won’t be able to fit, he thought. My shoulders will be too broad. This is hopeless!

  But again, he was panicking for no reason.

  He climbed up from the seat to the back of the toilet, and stuck his head and shoulders through the hole in the wall. It wasn’t comfortable, and he had very little wiggle room. But he did fit.