Children of Refuge Read online

  “Refuge City? Huh?” I asked. “Where’s that? And what happens when I get there? I’m twelve years old! You trust this Udans guy to raise me? Udans and some boarding school . . . Would you and my mother even come to visit? Would I even have a family anymore? Every kid needs a family!”

  Sometimes I couldn’t help it, and something really, really Fred-like came out of my mouth.

  Rosi said her parents punished her for sounding like a Fred. But my father just bit his lip.

  “Unfortunately, your mother and I will not be able to visit,” he said. “But you will have family with you at boarding school. You’ll have your brother and sister.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Do you know anything about me? I don’t have a brother and sister! I’m an only child! I’ve always been an only child!”

  “Is that what the Freds told you?” my father asked, and now his voice was hard too. “Is that something else they lied about?”

  I waved my hands in the empty air before me, emphasizing that I was alone.

  “Did you get any other kids back from Fredtown besides me?” I taunted. “Would you have noticed one way or another? Oh, that’s right, you went twelve years without seeing your own kid, so maybe it’s hard to remember if there’s just one of me, or more!”

  My father slumped into the chair behind the desk.

  “Your brother and sister are both older than you,” he said. “But . . .” The fierceness went out of his face and voice. “We haven’t seen them in twelve years either. That’s how long they’ve been in Refuge City.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  For the first time in my life, I was actually speechless. I was pretty sure my parents hadn’t been allowed to visit me in Fredtown. But why would they have two other kids someplace else that they also hadn’t bothered visiting?

  How could I have a brother and sister I didn’t even know?

  How could I be the youngest kid in my family?

  What kind of family was scattered in three different places?

  My father held up his hands like he could tell I had almost recovered my powers of speech and was about to unleash a barrage of questions.

  “I thought there’d be time to explain everything,” my father said. “Later. Once you . . . trusted us a little more.”

  I was so stunned by his words I almost fell down to the floor again. He wanted to explain everything? Wasn’t he like the Freds, who always told me I wasn’t old enough to know any of the things I really wanted to know?

  Did my father think I was already old enough? Why was I old enough tonight, when I hadn’t been old enough earlier today?

  How could he think I would ever trust him?

  Somehow I managed to keep standing. Somehow I managed to take five steps forward and grab my father’s arm, holding him back from pressing the button under his desk.

  “Explain now,” I said. “If I really do have a brother and sister . . . why did you send them away twelve years ago? Why didn’t you send me with them, before the Freds got me? Why—”

  “There was a war,” my father said.

  I looked at him blankly. I vaguely recognized the word “war” from some history class back in Fredtown. But Rosi was the one who paid attention in history class. Not me. I think our teacher had been talking about war that time Rosi said afterward, walking home, “Edwy, you should have listened today. You would have enjoyed hearing about people fighting. You would have liked finding out all the horrible things people did, before they became civilized. You would have thought it was exciting.”

  Did war have something to do with fighting?

  No way the Freds would have taught us anything about fighting. The only reason I even knew the word “fighting” was because it was on their long list of things we weren’t allowed to do.

  “You mean, in ancient times,” I said to my father. “There was war a long time ago.”

  My father gave a barking laugh. It kind of hurt to hear.

  “I suppose to a twelve-year-old, twelve years ago is ancient times,” he said bitterly. “The war happened only twelve years ago. When it started, we sent your brother and sister, Enu and Kiandra, to Refuge City to keep them safe. You weren’t born yet. Not until the day the war ended. And that was the day the Freds started taking babies away.”

  It was like he was handing me puzzle pieces that didn’t fit right into the huge, gaping holes in my knowledge. This wasn’t what I wanted to know. Or was it?

  I remembered the scary scene Rosi and I had been running away from: the vast area of burned houses, destroyed homes. Was that the kind of thing that happened during war? From fighting?

  I couldn’t imagine it. My father had to be lying.

  But before I could say so, a box on my father’s desk crackled.

  “Guard location one, reporting in,” a voice said. I guess the box was an intercom. “The enemy has dispersed. Cloud cover is heavy. This is prime go time.”

  “Understood,” my father said.

  His arm jerked out of my grasp. I could tell: He’d pressed the button under his desk.

  The door swung open.

  “I won’t go anywhere,” I said. “I’ll scream. I’ll run away. I’ll fight.”

  My father lurched forward and held me tight . . .

  . . . just long enough for Udans to tie my hands together, jerk a blindfold over my eyes, and shove a gag into my mouth.

  And then Udans carried me out the door.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I struggled against Udans’s grip, but it was useless. I was like a bug caught in a spider’s web, a mouse under a cat’s paw—immobilized. (And why had the gentle Freds let us learn about bugs and mice, creatures that were doomed to die? What were they thinking? Why hadn’t they taught us more about war? Or . . . about how to fight back when someone kidnaps you?)

  “You’re only making it worse for yourself,” Udans muttered as he kept striding forward.

  And then he put me down. He didn’t bend over—it felt more like he’d laid me on a table or in some sort of cupboard roughly at the level of his waist.

  “It’s a long drive,” Udans said. “It’d be easiest if you just slept.”

  Drive? I thought. Had he just put me in a car or a truck? I rolled side to side and stretched out my legs, feeling for the dimensions of the compartment I was in. It wasn’t upholstered, like the seat of a car would be. It was more like a box.

  “There’s food and water beside your head,” Udans added. “You can figure out how to reach it. I wouldn’t recommend spilling anything.”

  And then I heard a clanking sound above me, as if he’d sealed off the top of my box. I twisted around, reached up my bound hands—and, yes, a plank of solid wood lay just centimeters above my face.

  The box I was in? It was about the size of a coffin.

  “No, wait—what if I’m claustrophobic?” I tried to yell up to Udans. I didn’t think I was, but he didn’t have to know that. “This is wrong! It’s not fair!”

  Thanks to the gag on my mouth, my words came out as gibberish. It probably didn’t matter, because I heard receding footsteps—Udans walking away from me?—and then the roar of an engine.

  Truck engine, not car, I decided, based on the intensity of the sputtering rattle. And in need of a tune-up.

  Rosi and I had had a course in basic auto mechanics last school year, and that was one subject I had paid attention to.

  The truck lurched forward, and I slid toward the back wall of my box. I didn’t know how long Udans intended to keep me here—his “long drive” didn’t sound promising—but I had no intention of rolling back and forth and slamming into walls every time he stopped and started. I curled my hands back and started picking at the knots binding my wrists together.

  “I am an amazing escape artist,” I muttered to myself.

  Either that was true, or Udans had not actually intended to keep me gagged and blindfolded and bound for much longer than it took to stash me in this box. The knots weren’t that
tight, and I freed myself quickly. As soon as I had my hands free, I shoved against the wood plank at the top of the box, but it didn’t budge.

  You are not claustrophobic. You are not claustrophobic, I told myself.

  But, really, how would I know? That was the kind of thing the Freds would never have let us test out, back in Fredtown. This box was the smallest confined space I’d ever been in.

  So what? You can take it! You’re Edwy Watanaboneset!

  Edwy Watanaboneset, whose own father had just had him kidnapped and sent away. Who was going to be stuck going to boarding school in some strange place called Refuge City if he didn’t find a way out.

  You always think of a way out, I told myself.

  I imagined the admiring looks of the cluster of younger kids who often followed me around back in Fredtown. They’d be so impressed if they ever heard about my escaping this. I could recast the whole story of this night to make myself into quite the hero. Okay, I might have to lie a little, but still. . . .

  Somehow the awed little-kid faces I was trying to imagine got pushed aside in my brain. Instead what I pictured was Rosi’s face, Rosi telling me, as only she could, Edwy, be careful! Not everything’s a joke, you know! I don’t want you to get hurt!

  It was strange. Those were almost exactly the words a Fred would use. I could easily have imagined my Fred-teachers, Fred-mama, or Fred-daddy saying those things. Maybe even my real mother, too, if it was true that she was too worried about me to say good-bye. If she actually, you know, cared. But it felt different to imagine Rosi worrying about me.

  Wouldn’t Rosi laugh, to know that I actually have feelings, I told myself.

  But thinking about Rosi calmed me down. It kept me from banging my fists on the wood plank above my head, or screaming and screaming and screaming—uselessly, because any sound I made would surely get lost in the rattle of the engine noise.

  Udans gave me food and water, I reminded myself. He doesn’t intend for me to die in here. I can probably even pee in an empty water bottle, if I have to. So I’m taken care of. I just . . . have to be ready to jump up and run away when he stops the car and opens this box. This coffin.

  I braced my legs against the side of my box. I was ready. Edwy the Amazing was prepared.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It’s really hard to stay braced and ready for hours on end, you know?

  I had no way of keeping track of how much time passed, but the truck’s engine was a steady rumble for what felt like hours. After a while I got hungry and ate some of the food stashed above my head—grapes and a tasty chicken sandwich and sweet clumps of what might have been cookies made of rice. The food distracted me from the rotting stench that still seemed to linger in my nose, from when Udans held his hand over my face for so long. The only thing available to drink was a huge bottle of water—so boring—but at least it kept me from staying thirsty. And you try gulping down any sort of beverage while lying in a shallow box and being jolted back and forth constantly. The water kind of doubled as a drink and a shower.

  After I’d eaten all the food I could lay my hands on, I rolled onto my side and imagined how I’d swing my arms out as soon as I saw the first crack of light above me. Everybody said I’d been the strongest kid in Fredtown; surely as soon as Udans unlatched the plank above me, I’d be able to sweep the plank aside, shove past him, and take off.

  The truck’s engine kept humming along. The darkness around me stayed constant. Unending.

  I don’t remember closing my eyes, but I was sound asleep when a bright light suddenly washed over me. I wasted a moment wincing and blinking, and then I could see Udans standing above me, a dark shadow in the glare of bright sunlight behind him. He had removed the plank entirely, exposing me to the world outside the truck.

  And the truck was stopped.

  I sprang up and took off running. My feet touched the flat surface of the truck’s bed only once before I leaped down to the ground. I hit with such force that I had to crouch for an instant and touch my fingertips to the road to balance, but then I was back up, sprinting away. There wasn’t even time to look where I was going—I was all about speed.

  I raced forward, stretching my legs out as far as I could, shoving off from every step with my full strength. But Udans was taller than me, and stronger, too. Was he a faster runner as well? How much time did I have before he caught up with me? How many seconds did I have before I’d need to shout for help, or to find a way to outsmart him and hide?

  I risked a glance over my shoulder, even as I kept running blindly forward.

  Udans was still back at the truck, leaning against the bumper. He wasn’t even chasing me.

  “Run all you like,” he said with a yawn. “Let me know when you get tired.”

  “You can’t catch me!” I yelled back. “When my dad finds out I’ve escaped, he’ll . . .”

  I finally noticed the scenery around me. Forget yelling for help—there was no one around besides me and Udans. Forget hiding—there was nothing in sight but Udans, the truck, and hectare after hectare of flat, scrubby land. The tallest plant I could see barely came up to my ankles. The ground was hard and dusty and cracked, as if eons had passed since the last time it rained. And this drought-stricken wasteland stretched all the way to the horizon.

  I could run all I liked. But there was nowhere to run to.

  There was nowhere for me to go.

  CHAPTER SIX

  My running flagged.

  “Done?” Udans said, stifling another yawn. “Figured out yet that you’ll die of thirst and starvation if you don’t come back to this truck? Or . . . if you wait to come back until after I decide to leave?”

  Something like panic rose up in the back of my throat—or maybe the chicken sandwich I’d eaten had gone bad and wanted to claw its way back out. But I couldn’t let Udans see that he’d beaten me.

  And how could I go back to that truck without admitting defeat? Without losing face?

  If Udans were a Fred, he’d have left me an easy way out, a way to avoid any shame, I thought. Instead of rubbing it in my face that he’s right and I just made a fool of myself. . . .

  I’d always hated it when the Freds did their fake little routines of pretending, Oh, look! Everyone’s a winner! As if I couldn’t tell that they were really saying, As long as you do what we want . . .

  But how was I supposed to give in when Udans hadn’t given me an easy way to do that?

  I slowed my pace to a shuffle, but I kept moving farther and farther from the truck.

  “Oh, kid, don’t be like that,” Udans said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “Would it help if I told you I came to get you so you could ride up front with me? Now that we’re past the border?”

  I stopped.

  “Why didn’t you say that before?” I said stiffly.

  “Did you give me time?” Udans asked. He stood up and brushed dust off his canvas pants, from where he’d leaned on the bumper. “Come on. I’ve got soda pop on ice up in the cab.”

  Did he think I could be bribed?

  Well, okay, I probably could be.

  “You answer questions, too,” I said stubbornly. “Then it’s a deal. What do you mean, ‘past the border’? Why did I have to hide before, but I don’t have to now? What border are you talking about? Why’s there a border? What is this Refuge City place, anyway?”

  Udans winced, as if my questions hurt his ears.

  “Kid, you’re going to make me reconsider,” he groaned.

  I was glad he said that. Now I could defy him by doing what I wanted anyhow. I dashed back to the truck, swung open the door to the passenger side, and scrambled in.

  “Too late,” I called back to Udans. I hung my head out the window like a dog. “I’m already here.”

  I was betting it would take too much effort for him to come around to my side of the truck, yank me out of my seat, and deal with me kicking and screaming while he tried to stuff me back into my hiding place in the rear of the truck.


  And I was right. Udans just sighed once. Then he walked around the truck, slid into the driver’s seat, and turned the key.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The scrubby, dry, flat landscape looked a lot better whizzing by at more than a hundred kilometers an hour while I sat in the cab of the truck gulping down a fizzy grape-flavored drink. I decided maybe I should be nice to Udans—or at least strategic about the best way to get him to answer my questions. So for a few minutes I just gazed around, taking everything in.

  The sun was high overhead now, so I guessed I’d been in my hiding place all night and then late into the morning. We had to be hours away from my parents and their hometown.

  The truck cab was dusty from having the windows open, but otherwise it was pretty tidy. Which maybe meant that Udans was as much of an annoying neatnik as my Fred-parents. A thick cooler sat between Udans and me, and when he’d opened it to give me the grape drink, I’d seen that it was well stocked (which I appreciated) and well organized (which I didn’t).

  The road ahead of us was unpaved, just a dusty set of tire tracks leading toward . . .

  Oh, wait, it’s not just flat, dry land everywhere, I realized. There’s a mountain up ahead! Is that where we’re going? Is Refuge City in the mountains?

  I opened my mouth to ask Udans those questions. Then I looked at his face—really looked.

  The whole time I lived in Fredtown, I’d never thought that much about how all the grown-ups—the Freds—always had pleasant expressions on their faces. I mean, it drove me crazy how many times they said things like, Oh, Edwy, we are disappointed in your behavior, but you know we always love you, don’t you? Even though you dyed the dog’s fur blue. Even though you didn’t do your homework. Even though . . .

  Well. No need to list everything I ever did wrong in Fredtown.

  What I never thought about was that all those times, the Freds’ faces really did look like they loved me, no matter what. They always gazed at me so kindly, their eyes so wide and sympathetic, their expressions so annoyingly gentle. . . . It was always a little hard not to feel sorry about what I’d done.