Margaret Haddix: Among the Free

They were the signs from the secret room.

It took every ounce of self-control Luke possessed not to scream out, N000000. . , not to run up to the wall and tear down every single sign, one after the other. As it was, he made a kind of whimper, deep in his throat, and suddenly all the people around him were peering at him suspiciously.

"Sorry," Luke muttered. "I'm. . It's. . nothing. Don't mind me."

He turned and fled, back to the stable, back through the door, back into Jenny's stall. He threw his arms around her neck and buried his face against her hide.

"It doesn't matter," he muttered into her mane. "Even if I tried to tear down those signs, the guards would stop me. They'd lock me up. Just like the Population Police would. Nothing's changed."

He was just talking, complaining, all but crying into Jenny's mane. But was it true? Had nothing changed? Even with the Population Police gone?

Luke thought about how the signs looked, all glossy and bright, the colors gleaming in the sunlight. They didn't look like signs that had been lying around in a dusty storeroom, left over from an old regime. They looked brand-new.

What if they hadn't belonged to the Population Police? What if they'd been created on someone else's orders? Like… Oscar's?

Luke's grasp on Jenny's neck began to slip. She shook her mane and nudged against him, as if she were nudging him to think some more.

"Maybe that's why Oscar was trying to protect the signs," Luke whispered. "Maybe he doesn't care at all about evidence against the Population Police. Maybe he just…"

Luke stumbled back from Jenny and slammed against the stable wall, staggered by the force of what he'd just figured out.

"Oh, no… oh, no… What if this is the code Oscar was talking about?" he cried out in a strangled voice he barely recognized as his own.

He remembered the few words he'd heard Krakenaur whisper to Oscar, during the only part of the conversation Luke hadn't been able to hear completely: "my loyal followers" and "loyal to you." Some code was supposed to make Krakenaur's followers switch their allegiance to Oscar.

"They're true believers," Krakenaur had said. "They'd understand that."

What would Krakenaur's followers understand better than hating third children?

Luke slumped down to the floor, his chin thudding against his knees, horrible realizations flooding over him. He hadn't been able to understand anything for the past twenty-four hours; now he didn't want to. He saw all too clearly how everything worked. Aldous Krakenaur had been overthrown, but Oscar wanted Krakenaur's old followers — the other Population Police officials — to follow him instead. Maybe he didn't think he could keep control without them. That was why he'd been willing to negotiate with Krakenaur. So Oscar and Krakenaur had agreed on a signal to let the Population Police officials know that Oscar wasn't completely against them, that he'd still let them have some power if they supported him. And the signs could do that, making them think Oscar hated third children too.

Does he? Luke wondered. Does he really think third children are the reason people starved?

Luke remembered how easily Oscar had lied about being a Baron, how he had managed to convince both Luke and Smits that he was on their side.

Oscar doesn't care, Luke thought. He doesn't care if third children are the enemy or not, just as long as blaming them helps him. He's like the hoy back in Chiutza, who didn't really believe anything, who chose sides based on who would fill his belly.

Luke picked at the straw beneath his feet, tearing the shafts apart down to their hollow core.

It’ s probably not even real to Oscar. It's probably just a code to use. But real people are going to be hurt.

Jenny whinnied anxiously, as if it bothered her to see Luke slumped over in the muck.

"What do you care? You're just a horse," Luke muttered. "You didn't even want to be free when I opened your gate. I do. I've wanted freedom ever since Jen told me what it was. And now everyone else is free. But I'm not. Third children aren't ever going to be free."

He kicked at the muck, his despair giving way to anger. A glob of manure flew up and hit Jenny in the leg. She whinnied again.

"I know, I know — it's not your fault. Sorry, girl," Luke apologized. "But what else am I supposed to do?"

Stop Oscar. It was like Jen's ghost was back again, talking in Luke's head. Stop him before he has total control.

"Oh, yeah, right. And how am I supposed to do that?" Luke had a vision of himself hunting Oscar down, tapping him on the shoulder, then mumbling, Hey, would you mind using some other code to attract your followers? The whole third-child theme hits a little close to home for me. Okay? And then he could picture Oscar punching him, casting him aside, throwing him into prison for the rest of his life.

Out loud, Luke moaned, "The Population Police were right about one thing. I am just a worthless stableboy wallowing in the muck. I can't do anything."

You're not worthless. Nobody's worthless. Do what I did.

It was Jen's voice in his head again.

"What, get myself killed?" Luke muttered bitterly.

No! I mean, you should go public with this.

Luke could have argued with that, too. He could have complained that Jen had planned her rally for months, while he had no time at all. He could have mentioned that she had had forty others marching with her, while he had no one: He was alone except for a horse and the ghost he argued with in his head. He could have pointed out that even with all her preparation, all her planning, all her calculations, and all her supporters, her rally had still been a tragic failure.

But the word "public" had given him an idea. Maybe, just maybe…

Luke stood up and brushed off the straw sticking to his clothes. He took a deep breath, then walked out of the stall, out of the stables, back out to the crowd gathered around the stage. He positioned himself carefully near a group eating muffins in the sunshine. The group consisted of three men and two women, and none of them seemed to be paying much attention to the people speaking up on the stage. One of the women was licking butter off her fingers. One of the men was demonstrating how he could toss a muffin in the air and catch it in his mouth.

Luke steadied himself with another deep breath.

Not everybody in the crowd was booing third children last night, he told himself. Not everybody joined in the chant.

"Hi," he said, forcing himself to smile and make eye contact with all five muffin-eaters.

"Want some?" the woman with the butter on her fingers asked. "We got extra, and if I have to watch Boris catch another muffin in his mouth, I think I'm going to be sick."

"Thanks," Luke said, taking one of the muffins she held out to him. He bit into it, but he was too nervous to really taste it. "This is all kind of weird, don't you think? I mean, all those signs that somebody put up overnight. Don't they look like what the Population Police tried to make us believe? I thought the Poppies were gone."

All five muffin-eaters looked at him doubtfully.

"Well…" one of the men said finally. "Those people up on stage have been saying the Population Police were kind of unfairly accused. Framed, you know? A lot of things we blamed them for, it was really the illegals' fault. I reckon if they're allowed to say that up on stage, and on TV and everything, there must be some truth to it."

"But the Population Police said lots of things on TV that weren't true!" Luke protested.

The muffin-eaters were all staring at him now. His voice had maybe soared a little too high, sounded a little too bitter.