Among the Brave by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page B

was also supposed to be gathering courage to go rescue Lee.
    Mark extinguished the lantern, and Trey stepped from the dark of the barn into the dark of the night. Mark led the way, holding branches back so Trey had a clear path. They were halfway to the Talbots’ house before Trey realized Smits hadn’t followed.
    “Shouldn’t we wait for Smits—I mean, Peter?” Trey asked.
    “I sent him to bed,” Mark said. “He’s just a little kid.”
     
    He’s a Baron, Trey thought He’s used to other people doing his dirty work for him.
     
    What if Trey adopted that attitude? What if he just sent Mark out alone to rescue Lee?
    It was a tempting thought
    Trey reached the door of the Talbots’ house, and Mark hesitated for the first time.
    “They don’t have any of those fancy alarms on this, do they?” he asked.
    “I just walked out this door fifteen minutes ago,” Trey said. “No alarms went off then. The electricity’s out, anyway. What are you, scared?”
    Trey enjoyed taunting Mark, but his bravado was false. For all Trey knew, there could be silent alarms rigged up on the door, ones that secretly alerted the police even without electricity. Would that kind of an alarm be battery-operated, or would the Talbots have needed a backup generator? If they had a backup generator, wouldn’t the lights have stayed on in their house even when the rest of the neighborhood lost power? What if it was all a trick?
    While Trey was still considering every possibility, Mark shrugged and stepped into the Talbots’ house. Nothing happened. Feeling sheepish, Trey followed.
    “Draw the shades, and I’ll light the lantern again,” Mark said.
    Trey pulled blinds down over the window he’d used for spying, and jerked curtains along a rod to cover the sliding door they’d just walked in through. Then Mark struck a match and lit the lantern. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened.
    “Those Barons must have lived like pigs,” he said, surveying the mess before him.
    “Their house was searched, remember?” Trey said. “Fifty guys in uniforms trashed it. I bet this house was a showplace before.”
    He didn’t know why he felt compelled to defend the Talbots. He just didn’t like the note of glee in Mark’s voice.
    “Well, get your papers, then,” Mark said.
    Trey had hidden them in the kitchen cupboard. He retrieved them and, straightening up, saw the avalanche of papers covering the counters.
    “I should take those, too,” he said. The thought had just occurred to him. He hadn’t read any of them, and they were probably worthless, since the uniformed men hadn’t carted them off and Mrs. Talbot apparently hadn’t wanted them either. But it seemed wrong, suddenly, to leave them behind. Trey’s father had taught him that nothing was more valuable than the printed word, and Trey couldn’t shake that belief now.
    Mark didn’t seem to be listening.
    “So much food,” he muttered, looking at the boxes and bags strewn about the kitchen. “It was true, then: they even had more food than we did—and we were the ones growing it.”
    “All that food’s not doing the Talbots any good now,” Trey said.
    Mark squinted, and the dim light from the lantern turned each squint line into a deep shadow.
    “S’pose it would be stealing to take some of it?” Mark asked. “Just in case, I mean—if we’re going to be gone a while....”
    Trey didn’t like thinking about how long they might be gone. He didn’t even like thinking about the fact that they were going anywhere.
    “Mrs. Talbot said other people were welcome to anything in this house,” he said, trying to shrug casually. “She left it all behind and didn’t care.”
    “Anything?” Mark asked, his eyes big.
    In the end, Trey took only some food and the papers, and bags to carry it all in. But after they’d stepped out into the darkness again, Mark kept casting longing glances back at the house.
    “Bet it’ll all be gone before I get home," he muttered