Among the Brave Read online

  But as familiar shame washed over him, Trey thought, No. I have to do this. Mrs. Talbot had warned that someone from the new Government might be taking over the Talbots’ house. What if Trey dallied and waited for Lee, and then the Government captured both boys—because of Trey?

  I can do this, Trey told himself. He’d never actually used a telephone, but he understood the process. He could call information, ask for Hendricks School…. The only hard part was getting the courage to leave his cupboard.

  Maybe there’s a phone in the kitchen, Trey told himself. Maybe I won’t have to go very far at all.

  That thought got him out of the cupboard. He picked his way past the pots and pans yet again and crawled along the floor. His cupboard—he was thinking longingly of it as “his” now—was under a counter smack in the middle of the kitchen. He circled this island, staring up at every counter and wall. Sometimes phones hung on walls, didn’t they?

  It was hard to tell, because the counters were covered with a blizzard of papers, hiding the walls from view. A closet hung open, with an avalanche of boxed food thrown out on the floor. Trey resisted the urge to stop and scoop some spilled cereal into his mouth.

  See, Dad? he thought. I’m not an animal.

  He worked up the courage to step into the TV room, where the lights were still on.

  The curtains are drawn, he reminded himself. You’re still safe. No one can see you.

  He circled the room, stepping over broken glass, ripped-up pillows.

  He found the phone on the floor, under a couch. He pulled it out easily—the hard plastic receiver, the curly cord, the—

  Nothing else came out from under the couch. The curly cord had been cut.

  Against all logic, Trey held the receiver up to his ear anyway. He listened to the sound of dead air, of no connection whatsoever to the outside world.

  Desperation made Trey brave. He searched the entire house. He found four more phones and a computer modem.

  All with severed cords.

  Holding the last phone in an upstairs bedroom, Trey began whimpering, exactly like a wounded animal.

  Lee, it’s all up to you now, he thought. Come quickly. Oh, please, come soon.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lee didn’t show up. Days passed, and Trey waited patiently, but he heard no doorbell, no knock at the door, no cheerful voice calling out, “Hey! Where is everyone?”

  Dimly, Trey knew he should be grateful that nobody else showed up either—no more men in uniform, no family newly authorized to steal the Talbots’ house. But it was so hard to wait, always wondering what had happened to his friends, to Mr. and Mrs. Talbot, to the entire country.

  The head of the Population Police is in charge of the Government now, he reminded himself. What do you think’s happening? Peace and joy and happiness?

  Most of the time, Trey felt the same near-panic he’d experienced barely a year earlier, waiting for his mother to return from his father’s funeral. He’d been too grief-stricken and bewildered then even to read, and he kept trying to imagine his life without Dad.

  Will Mom take over teaching me Latin and French and Greek? he’d wondered. Will she talk to me in the evenings instead of glaring resentfully while I study? In between his bouts of anguish, Trey had felt almost hopeful, imagining Mom finally taking care of him—loving him—like mothers did in books.

  It’d been beyond his imagination to think that she would get rid of him.

  Now, wandering aimlessly through the Talbots’ huge house, Trey kept wondering about Lee.

  Has he forgotten his friends? Has he forgotten how badly he wants to make third children free? Or is he too scared of the new Government to show his face in public again?

  It was this last question that worried Trey the most. If even Lee was scared, then Trey should be terrified, petrified, frightened out of his wits.

  Sometimes he was.

  On the third day, the electricity in the Talbots’ house went off. It happened at dusk, just as the lights that Trey had left on—one in the TV room, one in the basement—had begun to seem cozy and threatening all at once. In a split second Trey lost the lights, the refrigerator’s hum, the heating system’s purr.

  Cautiously, he stepped over to a window and peeked out. The whole neighborhood had gone dark—every huge house on the Talbots’ street had been plunged into blackness.

  Every single one of them looked dead.

  Trey moved to the back of the house, to a window in the TV room. Only one small house stood behind the Talbots’. It was dark too, but as Trey watched, he saw dim, flickering lights—candles?—spring to life inside, throwing shadows around tiny rooms.

  A woman stood at the back door of the small house, and a boy came up beside her. He said something to her, and she nodded. Then the boy scampered out the door, across the yard, and into another building—a barn?—off to the side.

  Trey blinked. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him. Maybe the uncertain light had fooled him.

  Or maybe the boy was someone Trey knew. Not Lee—Trey would have instantly run out of the house, screaming with joy, if he’d thought it was Lee. No, he thought the boy he’d seen was Smits Grant, the boy Lee had taken to safety.

  And wherever Smits was, Lee had to be too.

  Didn’t he?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Trey began thinking very strategically.

  First, he ate as much of the food from the stopped refrigerator and freezer as he could, before it spoiled. He drank nearly a gallon of milk, gobbled down a frozen dinner, forced himself to swallow a pint of ice cream—a delicacy he’d never had before, but that seemed cloyingly sweet after the first two bites. He ate it anyway.

  Then he set up a lookout station beside the TV room window. If the boy wasn’t Smits, Trey didn’t want to reveal himself. But if Smits and Lee had been staying in the house behind the Talbots’ the whole time … well, Trey wanted to get over there as soon as possible.

  The boy stayed in the barn for a very long time.

  When he came out, it was too dark for Trey to see anything but a shadowy shape. Disappointment bit at the back of Trey’s throat, but he forced himself to sit still and wait and watch some more.

  The boy went into the house, where the candles were still glowing in the windows. Maybe with the candlelight, Trey would be able to see—

  Somebody drew the drapes.

  Trey was so frustrated that he kicked over one of the few coffee tables that the uniformed men had left upright.

  But after a little while, the boy came outside again—Trey was sure it was the same boy. He stood in the doorway of the house and seemed to be saying something over his shoulder, to someone Trey couldn’t see.

  Trey dared to open the TV room window, just a crack. If he couldn’t see, maybe at least he’d be able to hear something. If only it was Lee’s voice …

  Faintly, Trey heard someone call out, “… too late in the year for fireflies.”

  And the boy in the doorway called back, “No it isn’t. I see one. There!” And he pointed at a tiny gleam of light hovering near a bush by the barn.

  Trey couldn’t tell if the voices were Smits’s and Lee’s; they were too far away. And besides, Trey’s ears weren’t working too well—every sound he heard right now was distorted by his hopes and fears.

  He’d have to go out there and see for himself if the boy was really Smits.

  Daringly, Trey reached over to a full-length glass door beside his spying window. With trembling hands, he unlocked it and slid it open. Then he took a deep breath and stepped outside.

  The night air felt cool and menacing on his face. Trey grimaced and reminded himself that he had the cover of darkness to protect him, that he was in no greater danger outdoors than he’d been while cowering inside the Talbots’ house.

  You’re probably even safer now, he told himself. You could have been trapped indoors if someone dangerous showed up.

  Trey could think that—but he couldn’t quite believe it. Ou
tdoors was always scarier than indoors, no matter what.

  Inching forward, Trey kept his gaze fixed on the boy. He was running around his backyard now, chasing a tiny pinpoint of light that flashed off and on. Trey reached a line of trees that separated the Talbots’ yard from the boy’s. Trey squinted, trying frantically to tell if the boy was Smits, but against the lights of the house, the boy was just a dark silhouette.

  Wrong angle, Trey thought. As long as the boy’s between me and the light, I’m never going to be able to see him clearly. Same principle as a solar eclipse.

  Pleased that his knowledge had been useful for once, Trey crept toward the barn and crawled behind a bush. Now he was closer to the light, but there wasn’t enough of it to illuminate the boy’s face, no matter where the boy was in the yard. Suddenly the boy dashed right past Trey’s hiding place, and, without thinking, Trey reached out and grabbed him.

  The boy screamed. Trey slapped his hand over the boy’s mouth, whirled him around, and held him against the side of the barn.

  “Smits!” he hissed into the boy’s ear. “Are you Smits Grant?”

  The boy began to shake his head violently. Trey moved his hand back a little.

  “No! I’m—I’m Peter Goodard! I’m—help!”

  Trey clapped his hand over the boy’s mouth again. No matter how much he denied it, the boy was Smits; Trey had finally recognized the voice. Now Trey just had to get Smits to recognize him.

  “Smits! It’s okay. It’s me—Trey. I’m just looking for Lee—”

  Out of nowhere, a fist walloped the side of Trey’s face. He lost his balance and crashed through the branches of the bush, plunging straight to the ground and pulling Smits along with him.

  “Hey, Peter,” a deeper voice said from above them. “This punk bothering you?”

  Trey looked up at the dark figure looming over him. Somehow, not being able to see the boy’s—the man’s?—face made him even scarier.

  “Anybody messes with Peter, you’ve got to answer to me,” the voice continued.

  Trey huddled in terror on the ground.

  “No, no, you don’t understand,” Trey pleaded. “I know Smits. Or Peter—whatever he’s calling himself now. I just want him to tell me where one of my friends is. Smits, come on, you’ve got to remember me….”

  Trey could see that the person standing over him was rearing his fist back, ready to punch Trey again. Trey flinched, waiting for the inevitable pain, and Smits tried to squirm away. Trey managed to keep his hand over Smits’s mouth until the last minute when he let go just so he could protect his own face with both hands.

  Then Smits called out, “Wait, Mark! Don’t hit him! This really is a friend of Lee’s. And a friend of mine.”

  Trey dared to peek out between his fingers. The hulking figure above him—Mark?—had relaxed his fists.

  “A friend? Why didn’t you say so sooner?” Mark growled.

  “Trey had his hand over my mouth and I couldn’t talk,” Smits said matter-of-factly.

  Great, Trey thought. I almost caused my own death by muzzling Smits. He felt totally drained suddenly. Aftereffects of an adrenaline surge, he told himself.

  “Look,” he mustered the energy to say, “Lee can straighten all this out. Just get Lee to come out here and explain.”

  Smits sat up. It seemed like the moon had risen just in the past few minutes, and now its beams fell directly on Smits’s face. Even in such dim light, Trey could tell that Smits looked baffled.

  “But, Trey,” Smits said, “I thought Lee was with you. The chauffeur came and got him that very first day.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Trey felt like Mark really had punched him again. He reeled back against the hard ground, then began to moan.

  “Nooooo …”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Mark asked.

  “I don’t know,” Smits said. “Trey, stop it! You’re scaring me.”

  Trey didn’t care. Why shouldn’t everyone be as frightened as he was?

  Mark slapped him, and Trey was stunned into silence.

  “Hey!” Mark said. “That really does work on hysterical people. Always wanted to try that.”

  He sounded so cheerful, Trey wanted to hit him back.

  “Everything all right out there?” a man called from the little house.

  “Sure, Dad,” Mark hollered back. “We’re just fooling around. We’ll go into the barn now so we won’t bother you.”

  He hustled Smits and Trey toward a door. Trey wondered if he should object—was this Mark guy dangerous?—but he didn’t have the will for resistance.

  “Mother and Dad are so freaked out right now, ’cause of the news,” Mark was saying. “And they don’t like strangers nohow. So—why tell them you’re here?”

  Trey kept silent as they stepped into the barn and Mark shut the door behind them. It was so dark Trey could have walked into a wall with no warning whatsoever. He stayed as close to the door as possible.

  “I know Dad’s got an old lantern around here somewhere,” Mark was muttering. “Oh, here it is.”

  He struck a match and a light flared, then settled into a dim glow. Now Trey could see pitchforks and hoes leaning against the wall. The lantern cast eerie shadows, making the pitchforks seem giant-size and terrifying. Trey had never been in a barn before, but this one seemed straight out of his worst nightmares.

  “Okay,” Mark said, as comfortably as if they were sitting down for tea in a cozy parlor. “Why’d you get so upset about L—uh, Lee, going off with that guy in the big fancy car?”

  Now that they were indoors—even in a terrifying indoors—Trey realized that Mark was barely taller than Trey, and probably not much older. He wasn’t some hulking muscle man, some horrifying monster—he was just another kid. He even had a little twang in his voice that reminded Trey of Lee.

  Was Mark Lee’s real brother?

  “You can call him Luke around Trey,” Smits said. “Trey knows that Luke was just pretending to be Lee. You’re a third kid too, aren’t you, Trey?”

  Trey stiffened. How could Smits act so casual about everything? Lee was Trey’s best friend, and even to him Trey had never actually come out and said, “I’m an illegal third child with a fake I.D. You are too, aren’t you, Lee? I’ll tell you my real name if you tell me yours.” Trey hadn’t known that Lee’s real name was Luke. He and Lee just understood each other. They both understood that if you slipped and revealed a crumb of information about your real life—your real family, your real past, your real name—a true friend would just nod and go on.

  “Whose question you gonna answer?” Mark asked. “Mine or the kid’s?”

  Trey looked from Mark to Smits and said, “I think Lee is in danger.”

  Smits screwed up his face like he was going to cry. Mark just leaned back against the wall, his posture clearly indicating, “Nothing you say’s going to bother me.”

  “Why?” Mark challenged.

  Quickly Trey explained what had happened when he’d arrived at the Talbots’, how the chauffeur had abandoned him and kidnapped the other kids.

  “He must have swung by here and picked up Lee right after that,” Trey finished. “Why didn’t anyone stop him?”

  Even Mark looked worried now. He didn’t answer.

  “The chauffeur didn’t kidnap Lee,” Smits said in a small voice. “Lee wanted to go. The chauffeur drove by, and stopped and talked to Lee, and then Lee came inside and said he had to leave right away.”

  From Smits’s forlorn expression, Trey guessed that for him, at least, Lee’s leaving had been a little more complicated than that. Regardless of what I.D. card he might carry now, Smits was a real Grant, raised in unbelievable luxury. But Smits had been devastated by the deaths of first his brother, then his parents. Smits had clung to Lee as his substitute brother. Smits had probably cried when Lee left.

  “It happened while I was at school,” Mark said. “Luke said he’d still be here when I got home. So why’d he go off again so quick?
”

  There was pain in Mark’s voice. He turned his face toward the shadows like he didn’t want Trey or Smits to see the pain in his expression.

  Maybe even this tough-guy Mark cried when Lee left, Trey thought. Nobody ever cried over me.

  “Reckon that driver guy tricked Luke?” Mark said fiercely, like he was determined to turn all his pain into anger. “Tricked him into thinking he had to go, no matter what?”

  “Yes,” Trey whispered.

  His whisper seemed to echo in the silent barn. The lantern flickered, making the shadows dance even more eerily along the walls.

  “Luke went back to the Grants’ house,” Mark said, his voice as hard as rock, and about as likely to betray any emotion.

  “He did?” Smits said. “I didn’t know that.”

  Trey saw a full play of sorrow and fear in the younger boy’s face.

  “I heard Mother and Dad talking,” Mark admitted. “They didn’t know I was listening. Why …” He paused, steadying his voice. “Why do you reckon Luke would want to go back there?”

  “I don’t know,” Trey said. “He wouldn’t. We’d just come from there.”

  And we’d seen people die there. We didn’t know if we could trust anyone there, Trey thought, but didn’t say.

  “The chauffeur was bad!” Smits said, his voice edging into hysteria. “What if he hurts Lee? What if he took him away to kill him?”

  “Calm down,” Trey said, trying to quell his own panic as much as Smits’s. “We don’t know anything about the chauffeur’s intentions. If the chauffeur was going to hurt Lee or the others, he could have done it before he brought all of us here.”

  “You were in the car then,” Smits said, pouting. “You were helping protect us.”

  Trey was so stunned by Smits’s interpretation that he couldn’t speak.

  Protecting you? He wanted to say. I was more terrified than anyone. During the whole trip from the Grants’ house to the Talbots’, Trey had buried his nose in the Grants’ financial records. All those numbers had seemed like Trey’s only lifeline to sanity. Had Smits actually been fooled into thinking that Trey wasn’t drowning in fear? That Trey might actually have been capable of taking care of someone else?