gate, but there’s no magical ring of keys hanging helpfully from a hook on the wall. There aren’t any bolt cutters for the huge links of chain that hold the gate shut. There’s no giant button that says: press me to escape! It’s just a tiny room with a broken swivel chair in it.
I’m guessing they don’t use this gate very much. I wonder if we could climb over it without getting spotted,but we’d have to deal with some wicked coils of barbed wire at the top, which would be the very opposite of fun.
I glance out the window as Drew crowds into the room with me. From this angle I can see clotheslines tied to the back of the dormitory tent, stretching between the tent poles and the fence posts of the animal enclosure. Several Alliance uniforms are hanging up to dry, most of them still pretty wet. I always thought the Alliance had plenty of access to electricity, since they control most of the fuel companies, but I guess even they save electricity by making their soldiers do laundry by hand. My family does that, too, but we pay someone else to do the hard work.
Drew figures out what I’m thinking without me having to say anything. “Let me get them,” he whispers. He darts out and runs to the clotheslines, where the flapping shirts and trousers hide him from sight for a moment. At least, from me and the rest of the camp, but I see the ostrich and a couple of the goats whip around and starebeadily at the laundry. Drew’s lucky they can’t get out, because they look like they’re itching to pick a fight with an intruder.
I turn my gaze to the prison. Now would be a good time to try to shake Drew and take off on my own, but I’ll be able to get closer if I’m disguised as a fellow soldier. So I wait until he comes scurrying back with two jackets, two pairs of pants, and a hat. We struggle into them, and of course they’re too big, although he clearly chose the smallest ones he could find. On the plus side, that means I can put them on right over what I’m wearing. He tosses me the hat.
“In case they make the girl soldiers cut their hair,” he explains, pointing to my long dark hair. I twist up my hair and tuck it under the hat. Fine, that was smart thinking. But I’d have come up with it myself; I don’t need him.
“Let’s split up,” I suggest. “I’ll go that way.” I nod toward the prison. “You see what’s going on in the other direction.”
He gives me a weird look. “The only thing that way is the prison. Let’s follow the fence and see if we can find a front gate to this place.”
“Okay, great idea. You do that,” I say. “I’ll catch up to you in a minute.” My gut says to stay with him and keep an eye on him, but I can’t fight how much I want to check that prison. I know it’s crazy. There’s a part of me that knows, logically, that there must be plenty of Alliance prison camps. What are the chances Wren will be in this one, where I happen to show up? But if I can find out anything about her … Knowing
something,
anything at all, would be better than the last three awful years of knowing nothing.
Drew studies me, and now he looks like Ivan again, but in the way Ivan’s know-it-all look could suddenly turn understanding. Ivan looked at Wren that way whenever she told him about her dreams of saving the planet — the protests she wanted to organize, the petitions and poems and videos, the evidence she wantedto take to the people in charge so they’d actually do something about all the homes that have been destroyed by the superhurricanes and earthquakes and rising oceans.
When Ivan looked like that, it was impossible to imagine he wasn’t on our side.
But I know better now. I’m not going to fall for a sympathetic expression again.
“What is it?” Drew asks. “What do you think you’re going to find over there?”
“No one,” I blurt, and his eyebrows shoot up. “I mean, nothing. Look, just do as I say. We don’t have time for arguing.”
I pull the hat
I’m guessing they don’t use this gate very much. I wonder if we could climb over it without getting spotted,but we’d have to deal with some wicked coils of barbed wire at the top, which would be the very opposite of fun.
I glance out the window as Drew crowds into the room with me. From this angle I can see clotheslines tied to the back of the dormitory tent, stretching between the tent poles and the fence posts of the animal enclosure. Several Alliance uniforms are hanging up to dry, most of them still pretty wet. I always thought the Alliance had plenty of access to electricity, since they control most of the fuel companies, but I guess even they save electricity by making their soldiers do laundry by hand. My family does that, too, but we pay someone else to do the hard work.
Drew figures out what I’m thinking without me having to say anything. “Let me get them,” he whispers. He darts out and runs to the clotheslines, where the flapping shirts and trousers hide him from sight for a moment. At least, from me and the rest of the camp, but I see the ostrich and a couple of the goats whip around and starebeadily at the laundry. Drew’s lucky they can’t get out, because they look like they’re itching to pick a fight with an intruder.
I turn my gaze to the prison. Now would be a good time to try to shake Drew and take off on my own, but I’ll be able to get closer if I’m disguised as a fellow soldier. So I wait until he comes scurrying back with two jackets, two pairs of pants, and a hat. We struggle into them, and of course they’re too big, although he clearly chose the smallest ones he could find. On the plus side, that means I can put them on right over what I’m wearing. He tosses me the hat.
“In case they make the girl soldiers cut their hair,” he explains, pointing to my long dark hair. I twist up my hair and tuck it under the hat. Fine, that was smart thinking. But I’d have come up with it myself; I don’t need him.
“Let’s split up,” I suggest. “I’ll go that way.” I nod toward the prison. “You see what’s going on in the other direction.”
He gives me a weird look. “The only thing that way is the prison. Let’s follow the fence and see if we can find a front gate to this place.”
“Okay, great idea. You do that,” I say. “I’ll catch up to you in a minute.” My gut says to stay with him and keep an eye on him, but I can’t fight how much I want to check that prison. I know it’s crazy. There’s a part of me that knows, logically, that there must be plenty of Alliance prison camps. What are the chances Wren will be in this one, where I happen to show up? But if I can find out anything about her … Knowing
something,
anything at all, would be better than the last three awful years of knowing nothing.
Drew studies me, and now he looks like Ivan again, but in the way Ivan’s know-it-all look could suddenly turn understanding. Ivan looked at Wren that way whenever she told him about her dreams of saving the planet — the protests she wanted to organize, the petitions and poems and videos, the evidence she wantedto take to the people in charge so they’d actually do something about all the homes that have been destroyed by the superhurricanes and earthquakes and rising oceans.
When Ivan looked like that, it was impossible to imagine he wasn’t on our side.
But I know better now. I’m not going to fall for a sympathetic expression again.
“What is it?” Drew asks. “What do you think you’re going to find over there?”
“No one,” I blurt, and his eyebrows shoot up. “I mean, nothing. Look, just do as I say. We don’t have time for arguing.”
I pull the hat
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