Margaret Haddix: Among the Free

These people were strangers, but they had become very precious to Luke. He worried that they were too innocent.

"What if the Population Police come back?" Luke asked. "They could bring hundreds of men, hundreds of guns. It isn't safe, what you did, showing that you disagree. You should leave now, while you have the chance, run away—"

"We won't run," the woman on Luke's other side said. "Look at us. Don't you see that we're going to die anyway? If the Population Police come back, we will die a little sooner. But our consciences will be clear."

For the first time Luke noticed how thin all the people were. Their faces were gaunt, the hollows in their cheeks incredibly deep. The wrists and ankles that stuck out from their tattered clothes were little more than bone.

"You're starving," he whispered.

"We don't have enough food to survive the winter," the man said with a hopeless shrug. "We petitioned the Population Police for help, but they said it was our own fault, our own problem. We made a pact after that, that we would not listen to them anymore. We would not be… weak."

"You're giving up," Luke said in disbelief.

"We're free," the man replied.

As little food as they had, the people insisted on sharing it with Luke.

"This was our declaration of independence," the woman said. "We should have a celebration — a feast!"

The feast was hard bread served with broth that might have once had a passing acquaintance with a potato or two. But Luke sat in a warm room to eat it — these people had plenty of firewood. They clustered around him eagerly, telling him their names. The man who had done most of the talking was Eli; the woman was Adriana. Luke was also introduced to Jasper and Lett and Alice and Simon and Hadley and Sarah and Randall. He couldn't keep track of which identity went with which face, but he treasured the sound of the names piling up around him like so many golden coins. He hadn't known the name of anyone he'd met since he'd left for Chiutza.

'And you are…?" Eli asked.

Luke hesitated. He had two fake names he could use. At school he'd been Lee Grant; at Population Police head' quarters he'd been Wendell Smathers. But each name came with baggage; each carried dangers of its own.

"Luke," he said. "I'm Luke."

As soon as he said it, he thought that he could easily have just made up a name — it wasn't as though these people were going to check for identity cards or papers.

But if the Population Police come back. .

These people wouldn't turn him in. They'd already had their chance to do that.

They could have handed me over in exchange for food. Why didn't they think of that? What if they think of it now?

The room seemed too warm suddenly; the people were crowded in too closely, their bony elbows and shoulders and hips poking against him. When I have nightmares tonight, I'm going to dream about skeletons, Luke thought. The bread suddenly seemed too dry to chew and he began to choke.

Someone pounded him on the back.

"There, there," Eli said. "You might want to eat a little more slowly. Savor it, you know?"

He sounded so wistful that some of Luke's panic slipped away.

I don't think they'd turn me in, even now, he decided. But I still have to stay alert.

"How is it that you showed up in our village?" Eli asked. "Except for the Population Police, we haven't had an outsider here in ages."

Luke calculated what he could safely tell.

"I was running away from the Population Police. I wanted to go home. I fell asleep in an abandoned village over…" Luke wanted to point toward the ruins, but he'd gotten disoriented.

Eli nodded anyway.

"Over there," he said, pointing past the fireplace. "Yes. Go on."

"When I woke up, I heard voices — the Population Police. I… I panicked and ran away, and they heard me, and so I ran more…. It was just luck that I ended up here."

Eli kept nodding.

'Ah," he said. "Then you've seen our true homes."

"You mean that old village? The ruins?" Luke asked skeptically.

"They weren't ruins when we lived there," Eli said, shaking his head slowly, his white beard swaying. "We had beautiful houses, lush gardens. Then the droughts came. The Government said we had to move. They said we were too far off their main supply lines. We didn't fit in their plans. We were inconvenient."

"We thought they would save us from starving," Adriana said, "so of course we did what they said."

She poured more broth into Luke's bowl and watched him spoon it up to his mouth, as if she could get her nour^ ishment from watching him eat.

Eli went on with his story. "Then they said we couldn't have gardens anymore, because it was an inefficient use of the land. They said we couldn't grow flowers, because that was a waste. They said we had to grow soybeans instead of corn one year, corn instead of soybeans the next. There were rules on top of rules. Anything we grew had to go right back to the Government. Then they would give us what we were allowed to eat — if we met our quota."

"We never grew enough," Adriana whispered.

Luke thought about the cold, hard soil he'd fallen down on. Then he thought about the rich, dark, loamy dirt of his family's farm.

"Maybe your soil isn't right for corn and soybeans," Luke offered.

"That's what we told the Government, but they never listened," Eli said. 'They weren't people who knew about soil. They'd just point at numbers on their forms and yell at us, "We have you down for this many bushels this year. Got it?'"

Luke remembered how he'd pictured the Government as some big, fat, bossy man when he'd been a little kid. That image seemed so innocent now.

"Then they took away everyone they could to work for the Population Police," Adriana said. "We haven't seen any of them since."

"James," Eli said. "Aileen. Twila. Sue. Peter. Robin. Jonathan. Detrick. Lester. Sal…."

It took Luke a moment to realize that Eli was listing all the people the village had lost to the Population Police. Luke wanted to yell out, JYo, stop! Don't tell me! With each name he heard, he could imagine yet another person crowded into the room — ghosts joining the skeletons.

Eli finished the listing of names, and a silence fell over the room. Now that he had a little food in his stomach, Luke was thinking more clearly. He realized that he was the only one still eating, the only one who'd been given more than a crumb of bread and a swallow of broth.

It's just like the Population Police always said, he thought in horror. If food goes to third children, others starve.

Luke put his spoon down.

"No, eat," Adriana urged. "There is still hope for you."

"But do you think…" Luke had to be careful about what he said. 'The Government always said that if people followed the Population Law, there'd be enough food for everyone. Do you think you're starving because some people broke the Population Law? Do you think illegal third children stole your food?"

The people all stared at him as if those questions had never entered their minds.

"We're starving," Eli said, "because the Population Police don't care if we live or die. And they made our lives so miserable, we stopped caring too."

By the time the "feast" was over, the sun had slipped down over the horizon, and the scene outside the windows slid into darkness. Eli began to talk of making a bed for Luke in front of the fireplace.

"You're welcome to stay here as long as you want," Eli said.

Luke's eyelids felt heavy as he watched the other villagers leave for their own homes. His legs felt so sore that it hurt just to shift position in his chair.