Margaret Haddix - Among the Free

"What if someone saw you?" Luke asked.

"I'm not stupid like you, still wandering around in a Population Police uniform," the boy sneered. Luke felt his face go red. He hadn't thought to worry about his clothes. He'd just been glad the uniform fabric was thick enough to protect him from the cold.

"I tore the Population Police insignia off my shirt, see?" the boy said, holding out a piece of material as proof. Luke brushed his hand against dangling threads. 'And then I found this cloak on a clothesline, to cover it all up. I'm safe."

"What if the people are wrong, and the Population Police are still in control?" Luke challenged him.

"Well, then I can put the insignia right back on my shirt," the boy said. "I'm not going to throw it away. I could find a needle and thread, if I had to."

Luke frowned, not quite able to figure out why the boy's explanation bothered him so much. Was he just jealous that he hadn't thought to do that himself? Then he knew what he wanted to ask.

"But — are you glad if the Population Police are really gone? Or do you want them to stay in power? Which side are you really on?"

The boy laughed, as if Luke's question were the height of stupidity.

"Which side am I on?" he repeated. "What do you think? Whatever side feeds me — that's the one for me."

Luke kept his promise and stood up to leave the shed as soon as he'd heard the end of the boy's story.

"Well, uh, good luck," he said awkwardly. "Keep warm."

He waited for a second, half hoping the boy would say, Hey, why don't we stick together? Be a team? But Luke and the other boy hadn't trusted each other enough even to tell their names; Luke had no doubt that the boy would turn him in to the Population Police if he ever had a chance. So why did Luke's heart ache? Why did he suddenly feel so lonely as he moved toward the door?

I like being on a team, Luke thought. Even at Population Police headquarters, where he never saw anyone but Nina, he'd known he wasn't completely alone.

He was now.

Luke peeked out into the twilight gloom, then eased out the door and pulled it shut behind him. The merriment in the party house had gotten so raucous that he could hear shouts and bursts of song even through the thick walls.

Should I go try to join them? Luke wondered. Nobody wanted to get rid of the Population Police more than I did.

But Luke couldn't quite picture himself striding over to the house, thrusting open the front door, announcing himself to all those strangers who might or might not be on his side.

What if they've got no more loyalty than the boy in the shed?

Luke could imagine the room falling into a horrified silence, someone rushing over to beat him up. To kill him. He was still wearing a Population Police uniform, after all.

Luke stepped into the shadow of the woods and, despite the cold, took his shirt off. He shoved his arms through the sleeves backward, turning them inside out, and pulled the front panels of the shirt together that way. It was hard buttoning the shirt back up from the inside, especially with his fingers going numb in the cold. But he felt better with the hated Population Police insignia hidden.

Luke heard a door opening behind him, so he crouched down in the weeds and looked around. It was only the boy creeping out of the shed toward the party house. Luke watched, wondering how the boy intended to get any food from a closed-up house filled with people. The boy sidled up to a window that was missing several panes of glass. Some of the panes had been replaced by plastic and some by squares of cardboard. The boy pushed at one of the cardboard squares, squeezing his fingers under the bottom.

Even from a distance, Luke could see the triumphant smile on the boy's face. Luke imagined that the boy must have reached his hand into a bowlful of some great delicacy— raisins, maybe, or almonds. And then the boy's expression changed.

"Ow!" he howled.

He seemed to be trying to jerk his hand back, but his hand was caught somehow. The front door of the house opened and a horde of men rushed out, screaming, "Thief! Thief!" They circled the building, pulled the boy away from the window and threw him to the ground. Now the shouts were jumbled: One man growled, "There's Mary's cloak that was stolen," and everyone else seemed to be shouting, "Population Police! We'll show the Population Police who's in charge!"

"No, wait!" the boy shrieked. "I'm on your side! I'm the kid who risked his life refusing to shoot the old woman! It's because of me you got the gun—"

"We'll show you the gun!" someone shouted, and then everyone stepped back as one of the men pulled a gun out of his pocket and held it up in the air, where it glinted in the last rays of sunlight.

The man pointed the gun straight at the boy, making everyone else laugh. He stepped forward, pretending to be about to shoot, then lowered the gun at the last minute. He did this two or three times, and the men around him laughed all the harder as the boy squirmed on the ground in terror.

"Enough games," the man said, raising the gun yet again. "And enough of the Population Police, I say."

This time he cocked the gun and aimed carefully.

This is real, Luke thought. This is really going to happen.

"No, don't!" he screamed.

The man with the gun looked up, startled. His eyes searched the darkened woods. And then he aimed the gun at the tree where Luke was hiding and began shooting.

Luke ran.

Later he wouldn't remember much about the ground he covered, the logs he leaped over, the under ^ brush he trampled. His mind had no time to record such useless details. He ran with terror urging him on, a voice constantly in his head: They're right behind you. They've got to be. They're about to catch up. They're going to shoot again and this time they won't miss. There! Did you hear that? What was that? They're about to grab you —

He didn't turn around and look back. Even a second's lack of focus could have slammed him into a tree, snagged his feet on a root. He was so convinced he was about to be captured that he didn't worry about where he was running to —he just knew he had to get away.

So the sight of the mountain surprised him: The huge rock wall loomed directly in front of him. Automatically he veered to the right, then hesitated. Was that —? He saw telltale cracks in the rock, leading down to an opening at the mountain's base. He finally dared to slow down and glance over his shoulder — no one was directly behind him. He dived down and slid on his stomach across the rock floor.

Yes. It was a cave.

Luke had no way of knowing if it was the same cave he'd found before. He scuttled back into the darkness and huddled against a rock wall, his entire body shaking, his desperate gasps for breath echoing as loudly as a steam train. He finally captured enough air in his lungs that he could hold his breath for a few seconds and listen. Were those footsteps outside? Was someone even now about to duck down and crawl in after him? I'd be trapped. There's no escape… Luke stared at the thin sliver of gray light coming in through the cave's opening. No figure moved in to block the light. Maybe Luke hadn't heard footsteps. Maybe he'd been tricked by the sound of his own pulse beating in his ears.

His body had more tricks in store for him. His mind kept replaying the scene that he'd witnessed, slowing down for the final frame: the man turning, pointing the gun at Luke. Shooting. Luke tried not to let himself focus on the man and the gun. He kept trying to make himself remember what he'd seen out of the corner of his eye, right before fleeing. There, on the ground. Had the boy been crawling away? Had he slipped out between the men's legs while they weren't looking? Had he been able to escape?