Margaret Haddix - Among the Enemy

Fake I.D.'s.

Matthias picked up one in disgust and threw it against the wall.

"I could make these myself, if I needed to," he muttered, and started to slam the door of the safe. Then he reconsidered. If someone found them hiding here in this secret room, they'd be in even bigger trouble if they didn't have identity cards. The identity cards could be "proof" that they weren't the three kids who had slipped away from the Population Police truck.

Matthias forced himself to slow down and search through the stack, until he found cards with pictures that bore some resemblance to himself and Percy and Alia. Most of the cards were for adults, so it took quite a while. By the time Matthias held three suitable I.D.'s in his hand, Percy was moaning.

"Over here, I think there's a cabin ahead. Oh no! Bullet! Shot! Climb hill! Hide!" he said, his voice crescendoing to a shriek. In his dreams, he seemed to be reliving the attack of the night before. He thrashed around on his bed so violently that Matthias feared he'd hurt himself even worse. Matthias put his hand on his friend's forehead, to calm him down and smooth the hair out of his face. But Percy's forehead was fiery hot; Matthias jerked his hand bade as though Percy's skin could burn him.

"You've got a fever," Matthias said. "Thaf s all. Just a little fever. I—" His voice shook. "I'm going upstairs to look for medicine there."

His legs trembled as he climbed the stairs and pushed up on the trapdoor. He was surprised by the bright sunlight that greeted him. It was still very early morning, but the woods outside the splintered door and broken win-dows seemed to sparkle. Percy's prediction had been right: It had snowed overnight.

Matthias refused to let himself be dazzled by the scene. He gingerly shut the trapdoor and focused his eyes on the ruined cabin.

It had probably not looked like much to begin with, but now it was a nightmarish place of overturned chairs and dark stains everywhere.

Bloodstains. Bloodstains from where seventeen rebels had fought and died.

Why didn't they just stay hidden in the secret underground room? Matthias wondered. But he thought he knew the answer. If they hadn't fought back, the Population Police would have come in and searched the place; they would have found the secret room anyway — and probably the safe with all the fake I.D.'s. The rebels had protected that room and that safe with their lives.

Was it worth it? Matthias wanted to know., He went out and looked at the pile of bodies the Population Police had made. With the dusting of snow on their clothes and faces, the bodies didn't look like real people anymore. They looked like statues or sculptures, somebody's twisted idea of art. The sign saying Enemies of the People flapped in the breeze on a post beside the bodies.

Matthias had seen dead people before. He'd seen plenty of awful scenes when he'd lived in the city: children beaten by their parents, starving people screaming for food. But he'd had Samuel to protect him then — Samuel to protect him, and Percy and Alia to cuddle with at night. His life had been cozy in the midst of death and horror.

Now all that had been ripped away. The dead bodies seemed to stare at him, their tortured expressions seemed to whisper, Percy will be joining us soon. Alia will be joining us soon. .

"No!" Matthias screamed.

He whirled around and ran back into the cabin. He tore through it, ceiling to floor. He even searched between the cracks in the floor, in case some stray pills had fallen there. But the cabin contained no medicine. He had no way to help Percy and Alia. Not here.

"We'll leave, then," he muttered, lying on his stomach on the floor after searching the last crack. "We'll go somewhere else for help."

But he couldn't carry both of his friends at once. He'd barely managed to drag the two of them down the hill the night before.

He let his head fall, defeated, against the wood floor. His cheek rested against a bloodstain. Some people prayed this way, he remembered, their bodies absolutely flat on the ground. But Matthias wasn't praying. He was coming to terms with an awful truth.

I have to go away to get help for Percy and Alia, he thought. I have to.

But I have to leave them behind.

Matthias fed his friends before he left. He changed the makeshift bandages over their wounds — Percy's was soaked with blood, Alia's with yellowish pus. He tried to shake each of them awake, in turn, so he could explain what he was doing.

"It's too cold out there for the two of you," he choked out, trying to sound matter-of-fact. Trying to sound cheerful. "You get to stay in this nice, warm room and sleep all you want. Isn't that nice? I cut up some food and left it right here beside your beds. So you won't have to get up when you're hungry. And I'll leave the lantern burning. There's plenty of oil. Don't worry about anything — I'll be back soon. Very soon. With help."

Alia winced as if the sound of his voice pained her. Percy stared up glassy-eyed, then let his eyelids slip slowly down. Matthias couldn't be sure that either of them understood what he'd told them, but he didn't have time to wait around and try to explain some more. He didn't have the voice for it either. A huge lump seemed to have grown in his throat. He could barely breathe, let alone speak.

He ripped off a square section of a sheet, wrapped some of the remaining food in it, tied the corners together, and slung it over his shoulder. He climbed the ladder on unsteady legs. He carefully latched the trapdoor behind him, pausing only to admire the way the planks of the trapdoor fit perfectly into the rest of the floor. Invisibly.

Nobody could know the room is down there, he told himself. It was just luck that I found it. Nobody will find Percy and Alia.

He meant to run as soon as he got out of the door of the cabin, but he couldn't make himself hurry past the pile of dead bodies. The rattle of the enemies of the people sign against its post was too hypnotic and sad.

"You weren't enemies of the people, were you?" he whispered. The dead bodies stared back at him.

After a few seconds, Matthias jerked the sign down. He turned it over and went back into the cabin to get a pen. On the back of the sign, he wrote in big letters, THE POPULATION POLICE DID THIS.

He propped the sign up against the pile of dead bodies and slipped into the shadowy woods.

Once, back at Niedler School, Matthias's history f teacher had told a story about a soldier who ran twenty-five miles to tell his king about a victorious battle. The soldier covered all that distance at top speed, delivered his news, and immediately dropped over dead.

If this run is going to kill me, Matthias thought as he raced through the woods, let me be like that soldier. Let me deliver my news first.

Within a few minutes of leaving the cabin, Matthias got a stitch in his side. His feet got wet when he failed to see a stream until he was already in it. He could get his breath only in ragged gasps. But none of that worried him as much as the danger of being caught. He forced himself to slow down, look around, strive for silence.

Under different circumstances — if Percy and Alia were healthy and by his side, if he weren't worried about the Population Police chasing him — Matthias knew he could have appreciated his constantly changing view of the snowy woods. Samuel had taught the three kids to soak up beauty wherever they found it. But on this day, even the most beautiful trees were only obstacles and potential hiding places for enemies. The snow was only a threat: It melted into a wet, slippery mess as the day wore on, then turned to dangerous ice as evening approached. Matthias lost track of the number of times he slipped and fell. But he always forced himself back up onto his numb feet, forced himself to keep plodding onward.