Children of Jubilee Read online

  At least, that was how it had felt to me.

  “It’s not our fault where we grew up,” Edwy said quietly. “None of us had a choice.”

  “We have a choice now,” Enu grumbled, pointing to a split in the hallway ahead. “Which way, Kiandra?”

  I automatically reached for my phone again—then drew my hand back. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  “Maybe . . . left again?” I said, my voice trembling. I hated not being sure. I hated the way my mind went fuzzy, trying to remember the blueprint of this basement.

  I hated not being able to hold a phone or a tablet or a laptop in my hand and instantly know everything I wanted to know.

  “It’s okay if you’re wrong,” Zeba said comfortingly. “We know you’re doing the best you can.”

  Why did that make me want to punch her in the face?

  It was a good thing Cana had such a tight grip on my hand, or I might have.

  All the younger kids obediently turned to the left. Enu narrowed his eyes menacingly at me but did the same.

  The new hallway was even dimmer and dirtier than the first. But ahead of me Rosi, Zeba, and Edwy all stepped confidently, as if they totally trusted me. I studied the straight, perfect part in Zeba’s hair, the strands on each side smoothed down into sleek braids. I watched Rosi grab Edwy’s arm when he started to slip on an oily patch on the floor. Once he was steady again, she patted him encouragingly on the back.

  Had I ever been that un-self-conscious?

  Probably not. Even when I was four or five—Cana’s age—I could remember worrying that if my hand brushed a boy’s arm in our kindergarten class, that boy would think I liked him, the other girls would tease me, the teacher would tell me I needed to keep my hands to myself. . . .

  What would I be like if I had grown up in a Fredtown? I wondered, not for the first time.

  It didn’t really matter. Either way, I’d be back on Earth now, and in danger from the Enforcers.

  “Kiandra was right!” Cana suddenly crowed beside me. She pointed to a door to the side, one we’d almost walked past. Someone had scrawled a label on the door: STOREROOM.

  “That kid knows how to read?” Enu muttered. “Isn’t she only five?”

  In our normal life, that would have been the cue for me to mock him: I can see why you’re amazed, since you barely know how to read now. But being right made me feel so good, I kicked back into take-charge mode.

  “Okay, here’s what we do,” I announced. “I’ll pick the lock, and then—”

  “Pick the lock?” Cana repeated. “You mean the door is locked, but you’re going to make it open anyway? That doesn’t sound like a good thing to do! When people put locks on things, you have to respect the other people’s belongings.”

  “But people are more important than things, and the people who own this room would want us to be safe,” Zeba explained gently. “And Kiandra thinks we need to go into this room to do that.”

  “Oh,” Cana said.

  I bit my tongue to keep from saying, The people who own this room wouldn’t care. I gave Enu a little kick so he wouldn’t say anything either. Then I balanced on one foot and pulled off the other sandal. I used the pointed part of the sandal’s buckle to poke into the lock on the door. Was the tongue of the buckle long enough?

  Click—success.

  I turned the doorknob.

  “Now, where did you learn that?” Edwy asked, his eyes wide and glowing.

  I couldn’t say, Breaking into Enu’s room when he wasn’t around, what else? with Enu standing right there. So I just bragged, “Stick with me. You’ll learn all sorts of things.”

  My swagger melted away as soon as I put my sandal back on and we all shoved our way into the storeroom. This room was clean and bright—too bright. It was full of gleaming chrome counters that reflected our shocked, dirty faces. Racks along the side overflowed with glistening strawberries, lettuce, grapes, radishes . . .

  Any place that sterile and well lit had to be cleaned regularly. Produce that fresh had to be switched in and out at least once a day. Maybe even hourly.

  “Quick,” I said. “Grab as much food as you can carry, and let’s get out of here.”

  Bobo poked his head up, so only his dark eyes showed over Rosi’s shoulder.

  “That would be stealing,” he said. “Stealing is bad.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to snarl back, You don’t even have green eyes, so what do you know?

  Good grief, where had that come from?

  I knew—it was the kind of thing my parents believed. So did many others back in my miserable birthplace, Cursed Town. Plenty of people in Ref City thought that way too.

  But I didn’t. I wasn’t like that.

  Rosi patted Bobo’s hair.

  “Don’t worry, little brother,” she said. “We’ll pay for everything we take. Then it’s not stealing.”

  Zeba and Edwy reached for their pockets. Distress flowed over both their faces.

  “When I put on these clothes, I thought I was just going to play a basketball game,” Zeba muttered, tugging on her T-shirt and patting her netted shorts. “I don’t have anything to pay with.”

  Enu started to pull up a pocket of his basketball shorts; then he shoved it down again.

  “We can’t leave a debit card behind,” he said. “Not with my name on it. We can’t let anyone know we were here. We can’t leave a trail. . . .”

  “Then we’ll leave a note promising that we’ll come back and pay,” Rosi said in a firm voice.

  “Except there’s no paper,” Edwy said, looking around. “Or anything to write with.”

  Seriously? We were running away from Enforcers who probably wanted to kill us, and these kids were going to stop and debate how to make it right to steal a radish?

  Bobo started to cry.

  “I’m so hungry,” he said.

  “We ran out of food, out in the desert,” Rosi said, as if to apologize for her brother’s whining and tears. “Bobo and Cana and I, we haven’t eaten since . . . since . . .”

  The corners of her mouth trembled, like she was about to cry, too.

  “So—eat! Here!” I grabbed a handful of strawberries and held them out to her.

  Rosi jerked back, as if I were trying to force-feed her poison.

  “I can’t set a bad example for Bobo,” she mumbled.

  Cana tugged on my arm.

  “What if we eat the food, and then stay here until the nice store owner comes?” she asked, gazing up at me, her green eyes wide and innocent. “We can hide until we’re sure it is the nice store owner, not someone who . . . who might want to hurt us. And we’ll tell the nice store owner what happened, and he’ll understand. And we’ll make sure he gets his money. So everybody’s happy.”

  “That’s a good plan!” Zeba exclaimed.

  Oh, right, I wanted to snarl. Except for about ten billion reasons it isn’t. Starting with—let’s just go with the basic—when are store owners ever nice? Did you kids even grow up on Planet Earth?

  No, they hadn’t. I didn’t know why I couldn’t keep that in my brain.

  It was just . . . the younger kids looked so much like normal human beings. Edwy might as well have been Enu’s clone from three years ago.

  I gazed toward Enu, because I knew he wouldn’t put up with this nonsense. But he shrugged.

  “Okay,” he said. “Whatever.”

  Bobo squealed and scrambled down. And then he grabbed a giant strawberry out of my hand and plopped the whole thing into his mouth.

  “There’s meat and cheese in the giant refrigerator over here,” Edwy exclaimed, opening one stainless steel door after another. “And . . . ice cream in the freezer!”

  As the younger kids ran around collecting food, I grabbed Enu’s arm.

  “You’re faking them out, right?” I said. “After our stomachs are full, then we have to find a safer hiding place. We can’t stay where everything’s so bright. And where other desperate fugitives might figure out
to come for food . . .”

  Enu stopped in the middle of cramming grapes in his mouth. He leaned close, so only I would hear.

  “Why are you acting like any of this matters?” he asked. He bit down hard on a grape. Some of the juice hit my cheek. “You can do whatever you want. I just decided I don’t want to die on an empty stomach.”

  In my mind’s eye, I saw the Enforcer vaporizing the Dumpster again—the Dumpster solid and heavy and there one moment, then zapped into nothingness the next. I could tell: That moment was scrolling again and again through Enu’s brain too.

  Enu thought we were going to meet the same fate as that Dumpster, no matter what we did. He already thought of us as nothing.

  Enu had given up. And he thought I should too.

  But I wasn’t Enu.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Bobo was still chewing when he fell asleep.

  “I’ll just tuck him in over . . . uh, over there?” Rosi murmured, peering around.

  She must have been looking for someplace safe and dark and hidden. But even the corners of the storeroom were brightly lit.

  “We can take turns standing guard,” Edwy said, wiping mustard off his face. “You can sleep first.”

  Was this really my brother being so sweet and noble? Edwy looked like such a mini-Enu, it threw me off whenever Edwy did something that wouldn’t have even occurred to Enu.

  How would Enu have turned out if he’d been raised in a Fredtown? I wondered.

  My throat ached as I watched Rosi wrap a towel around Bobo like a blanket. Or, no—she was hiding him. She wasn’t as stupid as I thought. Rosi, Zeba, and Cana curled up alongside the little boy, and Rosi began pulling towels over to hide Zeba’s orange T-shirt and basketball shorts and Cana’s green-and-brown dress as well.

  “Enu,” I whispered.

  Enu kept mindlessly cramming sandwich halves into his mouth.

  “I can’t . . . ,” I began. “I can’t stay here.”

  Enu’s eyes widened; even his dim-bulb brain had picked up on how I’d shifted from we to I.

  Automatically my hand reached for the phone in my pocket. Then, resolutely, I let my hand drop. How many times had I repeated this process since the other kids had started eating? Fifty? A hundred?

  “I mean, I can’t just stay here without knowing how much danger we’re in,” I said. “How likely it is that we’re going to be found. I have to know what’s going on . . . outside.”

  Enu’s eyes tracked the movement of my hand: reaching for the phone once again, then resolutely stopping.

  “You’re addicted to the Internet,” he said. “It’s like a drug that’s going to kill you. And the rest of us too.”

  So now he was accusing me of giving up?

  Food always had made Enu cocky.

  “I’m not going to check anything on my phone,” I said. “That’s too dangerous. But those stairs over there have to lead up into the store. There’d be TVs, I bet. Maybe even a computer I could hack into on some office desk. A computer that wouldn’t be linked to me, so no one would know I was the one using it. . . .”

  “Sounds like too much of a risk to me,” Enu complained through a mouthful of mushed-up bread and deli meat. “But . . . you’re going to drive yourself crazy if you don’t go up those stairs, right?”

  I guess Enu knew me as well as I knew him.

  Enu swallowed hard, probably gulping down an entire sandwich practically unchewed.

  “I’m going with you,” he said. “It’s not like you could protect yourself on your own.”

  Why did he always have to turn something sweet and kind into a put-down?

  “Edwy, get over here,” he said, motioning with his head. Edwy obediently left the other kids behind.

  “You two want to sleep too, while I’m standing guard?” Edwy asked eagerly, as if he could single-handedly fend off Enforcers.

  Well, he did do pretty well on his own out in the desert, while Enu was hiding in a cave and I was locked in the truck. . . .

  He’d also had Udans’s help, back in the desert.

  I couldn’t let myself think about Udans.

  Enu puffed out his chest, like he always did when he was showing off for Edwy. Just think how obnoxious Enu would be if he’d had a little brother idolizing him for the past twelve years, instead of just the past two weeks.

  “Kiandra and I are going to scout around a little, get the lay of the land,” he said. “You’re in charge while we’re away.”

  Right, because in Enu’s opinion, any room Enu was in belonged to Enu. So of course when Enu left, Enu got to choose the next leader.

  “Can’t I go too?” Edwy asked.

  Edwy was just a year younger than me. But the difference between twelve and thirteen was huge. Edwy still had rounded cheeks, almost like Bobo’s. His arms reminded me of twigs or maybe pipe cleaners—not the boulders that Enu’s biceps called to mind.

  But out in the desert, I’d seen Edwy bravely walk toward the Enforcers chasing Rosi, even though he seemed to have no chance of rescuing her. It had done something to my heart. Before I’d known it, I was acting insanely brave too.

  I couldn’t stand to see Edwy rushing toward danger again.

  “Didn’t you just promise to stand guard for the others?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Edwy said, his face flushing. He bit his lip, then blurted, “Do you really think it’s a good idea for us to split up?”

  “Sure,” Enu said, sounding as carefree as ever. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

  Edwy didn’t look like he believed Enu, which made me feel even more like I had to get away. Fast.

  “Out of our way, squirt,” I growled, scurrying for the stairs.

  So when I get to the top of the stairs and some trigger-happy Enforcer instantly vaporizes Enu and me, those are the last words Edwy’s going to remember me saying to him? I thought. I’m as bad as Enu.

  I couldn’t think about that right now. I couldn’t think about trigger-happy Enforcers, either, or else I would freeze completely.

  Enu and I reached the door at the top of the stairs, and I had to use my sandal buckle again to pick another lock.

  “No sudden moves,” I whispered to Enu. “We don’t step out into the open anywhere, until we’re sure it’s safe.”

  Enu made a sound that might have been a skeptical snort, because none of this was safe. We hadn’t been safe since we’d forced Udans to take us out into the desert.

  No, really, we hadn’t been safe since Edwy and the other younger children had come back from their Fredtowns.

  Maybe we hadn’t been safe since we were born. Maybe safety had always been an illusion.

  I opened the door a crack. I saw dark shadows, but they were only empty tables and empty chairs. Good. We weren’t facing into the store itself, just some employee workroom that was deserted.

  “Coast is clear,” I murmured to Enu.

  Both of us slipped into the dark room, leaving the door ajar behind us. The only light came from beside the door, where a giant screen displayed staticky lines and fuzz.

  “There’s a TV, but it’s broken,” Enu said, the disappointment heavy in his voice.

  “Or the Enforcers stopped all the broadcasts,” I muttered.

  “Could they . . . could they shut down the Internet, too?” Enu asked.

  “Sure,” I said, as though this didn’t make my stomach churn and my palms sweat.

  Maybe Enu was right. Maybe I was addicted to the Internet.

  I skirted past the flickering TV screen and tiptoed toward the door at the opposite side of the room. I had my hand on the doorknob when a voice suddenly boomed behind me: “Attention, Refuge City!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was just the TV.

  But who’s controlling it?

  Enu was reaching out to punch my arm. He was probably about to say something stupid like, Hey, look! The TV isn’t broken, after all! Do you see? Do you see it’s working now?

  But I was al
ready reacting. I whipped around and tackled him.

  Normally, Enu could have flicked me away like an annoying bug. He outweighed me by at least twenty-five kilograms of solid muscle. But I had the element of surprise on my side. I knocked him to the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Enu protested, but I already had my hand over his mouth.

  “Sometimes,” I whispered in his ear, “TVs work like spy cameras. While we’re watching them, they could be watching us.”

  Enu nodded, and I slid my hand off his face. We rolled over behind one of the chairs, and I lifted my head just enough to peek at the TV from across the tabletop. Enu crept up beside me.

  Normally, sitting beside Enu was like hanging out with a water buffalo. He took up all the room. Sometimes I swore he breathed in all the air, and there was none left for me. But right now it felt like Enu had shrunk. I leaned my shoulder against his just to make sure he was still there.

  A familiar face appeared on the TV screen: a TV anchorman named Daniel Brockteau. His smile was as self-assured as ever, his dark hair as slicked-back and perfect as always.

  “We are reporting live on the arrival of our rescuers in Refuge City,” he says. “The Enforcers have generously consented to stay as long as needed to ensure peace and prosperity.”

  I thrust my hand out to cover Enu’s mouth again, because it would be just like him to yell, They’re aliens, not rescuers! They’re not even human! They’re not being generous—they’re evil! People were running away in terror!

  But maybe I’d overestimated Enu’s processing speed. He just sat there with his jaw dropped, like he didn’t understand.

  And, really . . . I’m the one more likely to yell at a TV screen.

  “We have a special guest here in the news studio,” Daniel Brockteau announced, smoothly gathering up papers on the desk before him. “Sir?”

  The camera scanned to the right, where a second man sat at the adjoining desk.

  No, not a man, I thought. An Enforcer.