Children of Refuge Read online

  The first time I ever saw an adult with a mean expression on his face was the day all of us Fredtown kids got on the plane to go back to our real parents’ hometown. The men on the plane—they glared. They snarled. They slammed a door in Rosi’s face.

  And even though I’d maybe been known to slam a door in Rosi’s face once or twice myself, to have an adult do that seemed unbelievable.

  Unfair.

  Totally wrong.

  Then we all got to our parents’ hometown, and lots of people there looked mean or angry or nasty or upset.

  Cruelty looks a lot scarier on an adult’s face than on a kid’s, you know?

  That is, if I even understood things right. It was like there was some secret code I’d missed learning, because I’d grown up in Fredtown: See the downward slope of an eyebrow—oh, that person’s mad. See the curl of a lip—that person’s ready to say something mean. See the sneering wrinkling up of a nose—is it possible that that person hates you?

  Maybe none of us kids had ever looked that mean or angry or nasty or upset back in Fredtown. Maybe it was too late for me to really learn the code.

  Last night Udans had looked mean, in the few glimpses I’d gotten of his face. He’d been mean, grabbing me and stuffing me into the secret compartment in the back of the truck.

  Today he’d let me out of that horrid claustrophobic box. But his face stayed twisted. Was it just because he had a little scar on his right cheek, a small X pulling his skin back toward his ear? Was it just because he was squinting into the bright sunlight?

  Or was he mean? Did I need to be on guard the entire time I spent with him?

  Last night all I’d really noticed about Udans was that he had a lot of muscles. Now I took in the fact that he was really tall—the top of his head bumped up against the roof of the truck cab. And, even with the scar—maybe because of the scar—he looked really cool. With his hair pulled back into a little tail at the base of his neck, he looked like a pirate from one of those storybooks we had back in Fredtown.

  The pirates in those storybooks only ever pretended to be bad.

  I decided maybe Udans was like that too. I decided maybe I could trust him. For now.

  “About that border you were talking about . . . ,” I said over the roar of the air coming in the windows.

  I hoped Udans appreciated that I wasn’t spitting twenty-seven questions at him at once, like I really wanted to.

  Udans glanced toward me, tilted his head as if considering, then started rolling up his window.

  “Roll yours up too, and we can turn on the air-conditioning, so I don’t have to shout to be heard,” he said.

  I didn’t have to be asked twice. By the time I had my window up, the truck cab was a lot quieter, and we had cool air blasting at us from the dashboard.

  “Your father says I should know that not every boss lets his employees use a truck with air-conditioning,” Udans said. “He says I should appreciate his generosity.”

  “Is that true?” I asked. “Is it generosity?”

  Udans grinned, like I’d passed some test.

  “Between you and me, I think he just happened to steal a truck with air-conditioning,” Udans said.

  Once again I wanted to know how my father got away with stealing things. But Udans was wincing again.

  “So,” he began. “You want to know about the border. Your father really should have told you.”

  “Maybe he thought you’d do a better job of telling,” I said, as smarmy as any Fred I’d ever met.

  Udans reached across the cooler between us and punched me in the arm.

  “Oh, it’s going to be like that?” he asked. “You really are the old man’s son.”

  Was he saying I was like my dad?

  “The border . . . ,” I prompted Udans again.

  “You know about the war?” he asked.

  I nodded, pretending I knew everything.

  “During the war, the countries around us sealed off their borders from us, so the fighting wouldn’t spill over into their lands,” Udans said. His voice was thick with bitterness. “They didn’t care what happened to us, as long as it didn’t hurt them.”

  “But my father told me the war ended,” I said. “Twelve years ago. The day I was born.”

  Udans shot me a glance I didn’t understand.

  “Yeah, well, the borders stayed closed,” he said. “Our neighbors still don’t trust us. Because of our history. The only ones allowed in or out, past the border, are people like me, delivering supplies. That’s why I had to smuggle you across, hidden under a vat of our nation’s smelliest cheeses. The border guards never want to touch those.”

  Maybe that explained why Udans’s hand on my mouth had smelled like puke last night. Maybe that explained why I’d kept smelling that odor, down in the secret compartment.

  Udans was watching me too carefully, his eyes steady on my face, not on the road ahead. Had I missed something?

  Suddenly I understood. Or thought I did.

  “Wait a minute, are you saying my parents and . . . and everyone else in their town . . . it’s like they’re prisoners?” I asked. “They’re trapped forever?”

  It wasn’t really my parents I was worried about. It was Rosi.

  Udans nodded.

  I reached out and grabbed the steering wheel, yanking it as far as I could to the right.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “What the—?”

  Udans shoved my hand away from the steering wheel so fast and so hard that my whole body slammed against the door. He jerked the steering wheel back to the left, so the truck did nothing more than wobble, rather than spin around in the opposite direction the way I’d intended.

  “Are you completely nuts?” he asked. He let out a stream of words under his breath that I was certain had to be curses. “And here I thought your old man was the crazy one. . . .”

  “Turn around!” I yelled at him. “We’ve got to rescue—”

  “Oh, now you choose to become the loyal son, who wants to rescue his parents?” Udans hollered at me. “Now, when you could have flipped the truck and killed us both?”

  I really hadn’t thought about that before I’d grabbed the steering wheel. I really hadn’t thought much at all before I’d acted.

  The Freds always told me I had a problem with that.

  “There’s no way anyone could smuggle adults into Refuge City,” Udans went on. “There’s too much red tape, too much paperwork. . . . But don’t feel too bad for your parents. Did you see the size of their house? Did you see how many cars they have parked in their driveway? They might as well be king and queen of the restricted zone. Your father pretty much is the king. The crime king, anyway.”

  I’d had twelve years of Fred lectures about how material goods didn’t really matter that much, once you had your basic needs. Was that why I kept seeing my father’s face in my mind, how sad he’d looked when he said he hadn’t seen my brother and sister in twelve years?

  “Don’t worry, kid,” Udans said, as if I were the one looking sad. “The forged papers your father bought are good enough to get you into Refuge City.”

  He patted the pocket of his shirt, as if he had all the papers stowed there.

  I swallowed hard.

  “What about . . . the other kids?” I asked. I wasn’t going to say Rosi’s name. “There were a lot of us who came back from Fredtown. What if some of them are my friends? What if I want to get them out?”

  “You think you could . . . ? Not possible,” Udans said with a shrug. “But don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll make new friends in Refuge City. That’s just how life goes. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

  I gaped at him. That’s just how life goes? There’s nothing you can do? Who said stuff like that? Who would believe it?

  That was pretty much the anti-Fred philosophy. The Freds were all about, You can make a difference! You can change the world! You can always help your friends! You have a moral obligation to take care of the peop
le around you!

  I mean, I’d tried really, really hard not to memorize all their namby-pamby precepts and founding principles and words to live by. But except for the past few days, I’d spent my whole life in Fredtown. Their stupid sayings were stuck in my brain like bugs on flypaper.

  “If my friends wanted to get forged papers of their own . . . ,” I tried again. I could imagine sending a letter or something back to Rosi, telling her what to do.

  “They’d better have rich parents of their own,” Udans said. “Parents every bit as rich as your dad.”

  He might as well have added: And nobody else back in your hometown is that rich.

  I’d seen where Rosi’s family lived. It was pretty much a plywood box with a corrugated tin roof.

  They weren’t rich. They were probably just happy not to be the poorest people in town.

  “Maybe my parents could pay for—” I began.

  Udans cracked up.

  “Oh, that’s a good one!” He laughed so hard I was a little afraid he’d drive off the road. “You really think your dad would pay for someone else? Instead of getting more money for himself? How much time did you spend with your father?”

  Enough, I thought.

  I slumped against the door. The grape-soda taste left over in my mouth seemed too sweet now. It tasted almost as bad as Udans’s hand had smelled last night.

  “Hey, hey—don’t be like that!” Udans said. “You are going to love it in Refuge City. Everyone does. The lights, the food, the tall buildings, the parks . . . it’s the best place ever.”

  “So why don’t you just stay there all the time?” I muttered.

  “You think I have the right authorization to live permanently in Refuge City?” Udans asked with a snort. “If only I did! I could do without this drive twice a week. I could do without . . .” He turned his squint from the road to me. “Oh, never mind.”

  “Never mind what?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Never mind me,” Udans said smoothly. “Just think about how lucky you are to be going to Refuge City!”

  I didn’t feel lucky. I felt . . . sad. Like I missed Rosi. Which was crazy, because for probably half the time we’d ever spent together, either she was mad at me or I was mad at her.

  But I don’t know if she got home safely last night. I don’t know if anyone lunged at her and grabbed her out of the darkness. I don’t know if she’s okay.

  I stared out the windshield, the dry, dead land rushing toward me.

  “So did you run out of questions?” Udans finally asked, in a way that made me think maybe I’d been staring out the windshield thinking about nothing for a very, very long time.

  Besides the ones about Rosi, you mean? I wondered.

  I did have a lot of other questions: What had the war been like? What did that really mean, that there’d been a war? Had people actually fought? What had my parents done, when there was fighting going on? Why had my parents decided to send me away so quickly after I’d just gotten home? Why had the Freds taken all the other kids and me away from our parents in the first place? Did it have anything to do with the war? Why had we been sent back home? Why hadn’t my brother and sister been sent home at the same time? How could I ever learn how to deal with mean people—or just people who said, There’s nothing you can do, when the Freds had always said there was always something you could do?

  What if there really was nothing I could do to help Rosi?

  Or what if there was, and I was too much of a coward to do it?

  All those questions led back to Rosi somehow. So I couldn’t ask any of them.

  I sighed and came up with a question for Udans. A safe one. One I didn’t even care about.

  “When was the last time you gave this truck’s engine a tune-up?” I asked.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Refuge City glittered.

  Udans pointed out the glow on the horizon while we were still far, far away. Then as we got closer, he started naming landmarks: “Oh, look, there’s the Crystal Tower. . . . See those five domes at the foot of the mountain? That’s a sports complex, the Athletic Zone—people call it the AZ. Or sometimes the Azzz. There’s always some game to watch or play there, day or night. . . . When the road turns to the right in a little bit you can see straight down the Gulch—that’s the biggest row of skyscrapers. . . . Last I heard, Refuge City had seventy buildings taller than seventy stories. . . . People made a big deal about the matching numbers, but I think there are even more now. . . .”

  Just being close to Refuge City made him talk more, sit up straighter, drive faster.

  In spite of myself I felt a jolt of excitement, of anticipation. Refuge City looked like the kind of place I’d dreamed of, 1back in dreary little Fredtown. I remembered that first meeting in Fredtown when the Freds had said, You’re all going home, and the little kids had started asking about playgrounds and toys and everything they didn’t want to leave behind. I’d mostly thought about what lay ahead: I’d pictured towers and skyscrapers and sports domes, scenes from big, exciting cities I’d only read about. I’d wanted that, even if I hadn’t trusted the Freds to give it to me.

  Maybe Refuge City was the type of place I really belonged.

  Maybe I was being silly worrying about Rosi. The Freds loved her; they never disapproved of anything about her. If she was in any actual danger, back in our hometown, they’d swoop in and take care of her. It really wasn’t all up to me.

  “Is my boarding school in one of those skyscrapers?” I asked. Fredtown hadn’t had any buildings taller than three stories, and the only elevator I’d ever been in was at the town hall. (For some reason, my Fred-parents almost always wanted me to use up as much energy as possible by taking the stairs.) It wasn’t like the town-hall elevator was that big of a treat, anyway: You could fall asleep waiting for it to go from the first to the second floor. But if Refuge City had buildings that were more than seventy stories tall, wouldn’t they have really fast elevators? Elevators that were as cool as amusement-park rides?

  “Your school? Er . . . no,” Udans said. “It’s not in a skyscraper.”

  “Then could I—”

  “You know what? I’ve got to focus on driving right now,” Udans said. “Save your questions for your brother and sister, when you meet them. Yes, that’s it. They can answer your questions.”

  My stomach lurched, but it couldn’t have been because I was nervous about meeting my brother and sister. It was probably just because Udans jerked the steering wheel abruptly to the right, to avoid a tiny convertible that had darted past his front tires like a bug trying to zip past a bull.

  We were on the outskirts of the city now, and all the traffic around us swooped and zoomed over hills, around curves, and into and out of tunnels. Udans’s truck had seemed so impressive out in the wilderness—it had air-conditioning and everything! But now it couldn’t seem to keep up. It suddenly seemed old and old-fashioned with so many sleek, gleaming cars around us.

  A shiny red sports car cut us off, and Udans had to drive up onto the curb to avoid it, before lumbering back onto the street.

  “Are we almost there?” I asked. “To the school, I mean? Or . . . where my brother and sister live?”

  “It’s not too far,” Udans said.

  But then we rounded a corner, and the road ahead looked like a parking lot, every car and truck at a standstill.

  “I thought they’d finished the construction here. . . . Ugh,” Udans muttered.

  I opened my mouth to suggest changing lanes, but I got distracted because the red sports car in front of us suddenly revved its engine, as if the driver thought he’d still be able to keep speeding forward. Maybe even straight through the semitruck in front of him.

  “Is he crazy? There’s nowhere to go! He’s going to crash—” I began.

  The car did zoom forward—and upward. It launched right up into the airspace above the semi. And then, while I watched, the sports car zipped out of sight, high over every stopped truck and car.
<
br />   “Sweet!” I cried.

  I knew there were such things as flying cars, but I’d never seen one in real life. Back in Fredtown the Freds always said we had enough territory around us that we didn’t need them—there was plenty of space for roads and highways down on the ground.

  Here it’s just an unnecessary risk, my Fred-dad always told me.

  And then once I got to my parents’ hometown, it had been pretty clear that everything there was even more primitive and backward.

  “Why isn’t every car and truck ahead of us doing that?” I asked Udans. “Why aren’t we?”

  He chuckled as if I’d said something funny.

  “Do you know how expensive the fees are for the upper lanes?” he asked. “That’s for billionaires only. And even your dad couldn’t steal us a truck with hover capacity.”

  “I didn’t see that guy pay any fee!” I protested, pointing after the vanished sports car. “He just . . .” I lifted my hand and zoomed it off toward the window, imitating.

  Now Udans guffawed.

  “Just because you don’t see something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” he said. “The minute that guy lifted off, the money came out of his bank account. Just like the minute we drove into Refuge City, the entry fee to the city came out of your dad’s bank account. And your papers—and mine—were scanned electronically. Along with our genetic makeup.”

  Okay, that was a little scary.

  “But how . . . ?” I began. I narrowed my eyes at Udans. “You’re saying the papers were scanned through your shirt pocket? And our genetic makeup was scanned through our clothes and . . . and the truck windows? You’re just pulling my leg, aren’t you?”

  Udans lifted his hands from the steering wheel, a gesture of innocence.

  “It’s true!” he said. “There are scanners and cameras everywhere in Refuge City. See that little sparkly thing on that building?” He pointed to a brick structure off to the right. “I bet that’s one. You just have to know where to look.”