Children of Jubilee Read online

  Of course I couldn’t force a single sound out of my mouth. I couldn’t do anything but keep eating.

  I have to find some way to drop the pebble before we’re outside, I told myself.

  I remembered how I’d managed the day before to move my fingers and toes just a millimeter or two.

  Maybe now, I thought. While the Enforcer just wants me to eat and eat . . . Maybe I can get my fingers . . . to . . .

  Just as I was willing my fingers to open and drop the pebble, I felt a hand on my back.

  “Kiandra?” someone whispered.

  Did the Enforcers know my name? Had they been watching and eavesdropping all along? What were they going to do to me for stealing the pebble? How would they punish me?

  Whoever it was tugged on my hand—my right hand, the one holding the pebble.

  The pebble plummeted to the floor, throwing light everywhere.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It was Cana beside me, grabbing my hand. It was only Cana.

  My relief died with my second thought.

  Are the Enforcers making her be the one to expose me? I wondered in horror. Are they going to make her do something to hurt me?

  I couldn’t even turn my head to look at Cana, so I only caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye. My face stayed pointed stubbornly down, aimed toward the feeding trough, placidly gobbling up gruel. But the light from the pebble flowed all around us—nothing was hidden now.

  Somehow Cana managed to tilt her head alongside mine, so she was peering directly at me.

  “Kiandra, what are you doing?” Cana asked. She lifted her head slightly, possibly peering at Rosi, Enu, and Edwy on the other side of me. “What’s everyone doing? Why won’t anyone look at me?” She put her head close to mine again, as if wanting to look me straight in the eye. “Why won’t you answer?”

  Could it be that she wasn’t under the Enforcers’ control, like all the rest of us?

  Because she’s not in the right prison cell? Because . . .

  I couldn’t think of any other reason.

  Cana stuck a finger into the gruel in the trough, held it up, looked at it, and tentatively licked her fingertip.

  “Yuck!” she said, sticking her tongue out and scraping it back and forth against her teeth, as if trying to get the taste out of her mouth. “My mommy and daddy would never make me eat anything like that. Not my Fred-mommy and Fred-daddy, and not my other mommy and daddy either.”

  She said this matter-of-factly, as if being raised by Fred-parents for five years and then being shifted back to her original parents back in her birthplace had been no big deal. Even if her birthplace was called Cursed Town.

  If she can adapt to that, then maybe she’ll be okay here, too, I told myself.

  Who was I kidding? We were in prison. She didn’t even understand what was happening, or why nobody would talk to her now.

  Not that I understand either . . .

  My mouth just kept gobbling gruel. I was almost down to the bare wood of the trough; my tongue began darting out, trying to catch the last drops.

  “Do you like that food?” Cana asked, wrinkling up her nose. Then I could almost see her make a conscious effort not to look so disgusted. “Different people like different things, and that’s okay. But . . . why won’t anybody talk to me? Am I having another dream? Sometimes in dreams people don’t act right. My Fred-daddy always said dream people are different, and we can’t be mad at real people for how the dream people act. They may look like the same person, but they’re not.”

  Okay, maybe that’s the best way for Cana to see things, I thought. Maybe if she thinks the rest of us are just dream people right now, she won’t be scared. Or . . .

  My upper torso jerked up, away from the food trough. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Rosi, Enu, and Edwy did the same thing, their movements coordinating exactly with mine.

  My body pivoted away from the food trough, toward the bars of our prison cell. Everyone but Cana did the same.

  “I don’t like this dream!” Cana protested. “I want to wake up! I want people to talk to me! I want to go home!”

  Cana ran around in front of me, clutching my legs.

  “Kiandra, help me!” she begged.

  I couldn’t even bend my neck to look down at her. Instead, I had to turn my head to watch as first Enu, then Edwy, then Rosi marched forward, toward the hallway and the stairs. This time the bars of the cage slid easily out of the way, letting them through. Probably the same thing had happened yesterday; I just hadn’t had any light then to see what was going on.

  “Kiandra!” Cana cried again, gripping my knees even tighter.

  I could see what was about to happen, but I couldn’t stop it. No amount of trying to resist would do any good. I felt my torso lean forward, ever so slightly. My right foot thrust out; my legs ripped themselves out of Cana’s grasp.

  “Why won’t you listen to me?” Cana wailed.

  My body marched relentlessly forward, knocking Cana to the floor.

  I heard her run after me, but the instant I stepped through the bars, they must have snapped shut behind me. Because all the way up the stairs I could hear Cana crying, “Let me out! Let me out! Come back! Somebody help me!”

  And there was nothing I could do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  All day long while my body worked—my muscles aching, my blisters multiplying—my mind kept darting around like a nervous ferret: Is Cana still crying? Did she understand that we weren’t leaving her behind on purpose? Why wasn’t she forced to come with us? Do the Enforcers even remember that she’s there? How are we ever going to get out of this place?

  Dozens of times I tried to reach for the phone in my pocket. I wanted to know what this planet was, what was happening back on Earth, what the pebbles I kept shoveling actually were, what rules allowed the Enforcers to keep us here, how we could get whoever controlled the Enforcers to make them let us go. . . . But I couldn’t get my arms and hands to do anything more than twitch—and then keep shoveling and picking through dirt, completely under the Enforcers’ control.

  And I knew the phone was dead and disconnected anyway.

  I shifted to trying to catch another pebble with my toes. What if the first one burned out? What if we’d have to find a pebble every day if we wanted any light at night? Regardless, wouldn’t it be good if we had backup?

  But my skill the day before must have been beginner’s luck. I couldn’t dribble any dirt on my sandals. I couldn’t edge my little toe off the sandal even to brush a pebble that landed right beside it, let alone grasp the pebble and hold on to it.

  I couldn’t get my body to do anything I wanted except twitch. And that movement was so small, so slight, that I might have imagined it.

  Maybe one of the other kids will go back with a pebble? Maybe Enu or Edwy or Rosi will manage to grab and hold on to something that will help us even more?

  I couldn’t even catch the other kids’ eyes, to signal what they should do.

  Finally the daylight dimmed, and I drove the point of the shovel into the ground one last time. We repeated the same routine from the night before: marching back to the stairs, getting hit with the blast of water, getting zapped with the blast of drying heat.

  The stairs and the hallway and the prison cell were completely dark again, the descent just as frightening as the two nights before. I hit the floor of the prison cell and immediately began calling, “Cana? Cana? Where are you?”

  Rosi called out the same thing. Enu swore, listing all the unspeakable things he wanted to do to the Enforcers. Edwy cried, “Wait, what are you talking about? Wasn’t Cana with us the whole day long? I didn’t see her, but I just thought the Enforcers weren’t letting me. Where is Cana?”

  Suddenly there was light everywhere, and Cana was right beside us, dancing around, giggling, and waving the shining pebble over her head.

  “Did I surprise you?” she asked, her face stretched into a grin, her green eyes glo
wing.

  Strangely, the grin, the giggle, and the dancing seemed authentic.

  “Were you waiting all day to pull that trick on us?” Rosi asked, smiling back. I could see the exhaustion and fear in Rosi’s eyes, but maybe Cana couldn’t. And how did Rosi keep her voice so gentle?

  “Nuh-uh,” Cana said, shaking her head emphatically. “When you all left me I cried and cried and cried. Then I remembered my Fred-mommy telling me that crying is okay for a while, but it doesn’t solve anything and you have to move on to doing something else. So I went exploring. And I made new friends!”

  “Exploring?” Rosi repeated, just as Edwy said, “New friends?”

  “She’s lying, right?” Enu muttered. “This isn’t a place for friends.”

  I punched him in the arm, our code for Shut up! My muscles were so rubbery from the long day of work that the punch carried no force. So I kicked him instead. It wasn’t like I exactly believed Cana either, but I wanted to hear what she had to say.

  Or maybe I just wanted to know how anyone could act so calm and happy in this prison cell.

  “Where did you meet these friends?” I asked. “Did they come here? What did they look like?”

  Cana bent her head and peered severely at me.

  “You are not supposed to worry about what somebody looks like!” she exclaimed, as if I’d said something shocking. “What really matters about a person is what’s inside. Their heart. But . . .” Her eyes darted around and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Is it okay that I noticed that they looked different? Really, really different?”

  “Like an Enforcer?” Enu asked. He crossed his arms over his chest. “She thinks she made friends with Enforcers?”

  “Shh! Let her tell her own story,” I shushed him.

  “Alcibiades and Melos and Arkan and all the others are not Enforcers!” Cana exclaimed, as if he’d suggested that up was down, or that the moon was the sun—or that we’d all chosen to be in the horrible prison.

  “Show us where they are,” I suggested.

  “I can’t,” Cana said, sticking her chin in the air. “They were on the other side of that door beside my cage, and it locks automatically every evening. That’s what Alcibiades told me.”

  “Then jam something in it tomorrow to keep it open,” Edwy suggested.

  “I can’t,” Cana said. “Alcibiades says that will just make the Enforcers patrol down here in person until it’s fixed.”

  “Oh, that’s convenient,” Enu mocked. “So there’s no way for us to meet your new friends?”

  Rosi hovered between Enu and me.

  “Sometimes little kids make up imaginary friends to comfort themselves when they’re scared,” she whispered. “Cana was all by herself, all day long. It must have been terrifying.”

  “So she is just lying,” Enu said under his breath.

  “It’s not exactly lying,” Rosi told him. “Lying is bad, but this isn’t.”

  She crouched beside Cana and stroked the little girl’s hair.

  “Never mind, Cana,” she said. “You don’t have to show us your new friends. I’m glad you have them with you to keep you company during the day while the rest of us are away.”

  Edwy knelt beside the two girls and patted Cana’s shoulder.

  “Get Alcibiades to show you ways to escape,” he said. “Get him to show you places to find more food.”

  I tugged on Enu’s arm and took a step back, so we were separated into groups once more: Enu and me on one side of the cage, the three kids raised by Freds on the other.

  “They’re acting like a five-year-old with an imaginary friend is going to save us?” I snarled at Enu.

  It felt good to snarl. It felt like rebellion, like fighting back.

  “We’re all going to die,” Enu said, and then I didn’t feel good anymore.

  It felt like he was the only one telling the truth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Cana insisted that “Alcibiades” had explained why she hadn’t been forced to go out and work with the rest of us: “It’s because I’m too little and young,” she said. “He says I have to grow first. Just wait until I’m big and strong like the rest of you!”

  You’ll never grow big and strong living here, I thought. We’ll have to escape for you to survive at all, and there’s no way to do that. . . .

  That made it so I couldn’t say anything to Cana. I also couldn’t let myself meet Enu’s glowering gaze again. I just sat there, like a lump.

  But Edwy and Rosi kept chattering away. No matter how much Cana insisted it wouldn’t matter, they wanted to test a different theory, the same one I’d thought of before giving up in despair. What if sleeping in a different prison cell was enough to trick the Enforcers’ system? What if one of us older kids slept in the wrong cell that night? What would happen then? Would that mean one of us got to stay behind during the day?

  Edwy and Rosi discussed this endlessly, long after Cana gave up protesting and fell asleep on the floor. Finally they walked over toward Enu and me.

  “Enu, do you think you and I should—” Edwy began, just as Rosi said, “Kiandra, would you like to help me by—”

  “Kiandra and I are not going to help you with your stupid ideas!” Enu growled at the younger two.

  Edwy and Rosi sat in shocked silence for a moment. Then Rosi took Edwy’s hand and said, “Come on.”

  I saw them go to separate cages farther down the hall. They were not just risking the Enforcers’ anger; they were also each going to spend the whole night alone.

  How could they be so brave? Or stupid?

  I felt like I lay awake the entire night, feeling the distance between Enu and me and the younger kids, feeling how badly he and I had failed at protecting everyone back in Refuge City. And there wasn’t anything we could do to protect anyone, here on this desolate planet.

  And then there are Bobo and Zeba left behind in Refuge City, in danger. And Udans . . .

  In the morning when the Enforcers took control of my body, it was worse than ever, because I couldn’t look around to see what had happened to Edwy and Rosi. Enu and I ate the awful food in the wooden trough, and I was relieved to see Cana poking hesitantly at it. At least she’d get some nutrition.

  Cana held the light up high for Enu and me, and when I spun around I caught a glimpse of Edwy and Rosi standing in the hallway. They both stood so stiffly they might as well have been machines, not humans. Or some minor tool not even as advanced as a machine—they might have been hammers or pliers or wrenches.

  So Cana was right, I thought. Their experiment was useless. It just made everyone fight over nothing.

  The force controlling my body made me step past Cana and out of the prison cell. But it didn’t make me line up with Edwy and Rosi. Instead it made me crash into Rosi, knocking her down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Enu do the same thing with Edwy. Both of the younger kids dropped without throwing out their arms to catch themselves. Rosi’s shoulder slammed into the wall. Edwy fell to his knees.

  The Enforcers did that on purpose, I thought. They’re punishing us all.

  And yet I couldn’t apologize; I couldn’t explain. I had no control at all.

  Surely Rosi knows I didn’t want to hurt her, I thought. Surely she understands it was the Enforcer using me.

  Digging was worse than ever that day. It felt like the four of us spent a hundred hours working in the hot sun. Maybe a thousand. But finally the Enforcers marched us back through the doorway, into the harsh spray of water, and down the stairs into our cage. And finally, as soon as we dropped to the floor, I could control my own mouth and sputter out, “I’m sorry, Rosi. I’m so sorry. . . .”

  “I know it wasn’t your fault,” Rosi murmured, even as she rubbed her shoulder.

  “You can’t do that again,” Enu thundered, and I could tell that was his way of apologizing to Edwy, too.

  “No, because if we sleep in different cells, they don’t feed us,” Edwy said, rubbing his stomach ruefully. “At le
ast not me—what about you, Rosi?”

  “Nope,” Rosi said.

  Cana danced up beside us.

  “But Alcibiades told me to look in my old prison cell, and look what I found!” she crowed. She held out her hand, displaying a small cake of dried grains. “I was saving this for all of us to share tonight, but if Rosi and Edwy didn’t get breakfast at all, then . . .”

  “Then they should have it all,” Enu finished for her.

  Maybe I should have been mad that Enu was acting once again like he had all the power to make a decision on behalf of us all. But I was so relieved that Enu wasn’t just screaming and snarling. I was so relieved that Rosi and Edwy hadn’t been hurt worse. I was so relieved that Cana could stay happy, even trapped in the awful prison.

  I looked at Enu over the tops of the younger kids’ heads, and mouthed two words: Thank you.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Days passed, and they were all the same. We were jerked awake each morning by losing control of our bodies. Then we were forced to eat the nasty slop in the feeding trough, forced to dig pebbles all day from the desolate soil, forced to be sprayed clean, forced to descend the stairs and drop to the floor again in our grubby prison cell. I didn’t have a single moment when I wasn’t bone-tired, achy-muscled, rubber-limbed, sick, sore, and starving.

  I would have said I didn’t have a single moment when I wasn’t full of despair, but . . . somehow there was a golden moment I looked forward to every day: the moment Enu, Edwy, Rosi, and I got back to our cell, regained control of ourselves, shared the small, crumbly food that Cana brought us from her former prison cell, and heard Cana’s gleeful retelling of her day with Alcibiades and her other friends.

  “Alcibiades says if you hold your breath while you eat, the food doesn’t taste so bad,” she told us the second night. “Because that way you can’t even smell it, and smelling things is a huge part of tasting them.”

  “Yes, that’s what the Freds taught us, back at the Fredtown school,” Rosi said wearily. I could see her making an effort to smile at Cana through her exhaustion.