Margaret Haddix - Among the Brave

“I didn’t say that, did I?” Mark asked.

“Sure did,” Nedley said, chuckling. “And then Mark was the one who came up with the idea to make it look like he was kidnapping everyone. He thought nobody would shoot at us if there was a chance of ‘innocent’ Population Police guards being hit”

“They shot at us anyway” They said. He stared into the fire, with its ever-changing flames.

“Well, yeah,” Mark admitted. “But maybe not as much as they would have otherwise.”

“So I took Mark on into the infirmary, and they set his leg and cleaned out his wounds,” Nedley said. “They weren’t gentle, either. They aren’t, with prisoners. But then five minutes later, Mark’s out hopping from truck to truck in the prison parking lot, cutting the tires. I would have laughed myself silly watching him, if I hadn’t been so scared we were going to get caught.”

“I can’t believe it worked,” Mark said.

“I can’t believe you got us and Mr. Talbot out of prison,” Lee said.

“That was thanks to Jonas Sabine,” They said. “He planned it all.”

They were all silent then, and Trey knew that the others had heard about the Sabines.

“Jonas was a good man,” Mr. Hendricks murmured softly “He was my friend.”

“Maybe they haven’t executed him yet,” Trey said. “Maybe they’re still interrogating him—”

“No, they announced his death on TV,” Mr. Hendricks said heavily “On the regular channels. The Population Police are trying to discourage all dissent by showing what happened to Jonas. It was — it was a horrible death.”

“God rest his soul,” Mrs. Talbot said. “God help us all.” And somehow this was the scariest thing of all, to hear.

Mrs. Talbot sounding so solemn and reverent She’d changed since the last time Trey had seen her, when she’d bragged about polishing her fingernails, when she’d smashed expensive sculpture just for spite.

I’ve changed, too, Trey thought We all have. But what did that mean about their futures?

For a week, Trey and his friends lived like invalids. They ate, they slept, they lay around. Sometimes they watched television, but it was almost always Aldous Krakenaur making glorious speeches in front of a cheering crowd. Sometimes Trey felt feisty enough to jeer back at the screen, “Oh yeah, and what are you not showing us? How many people starved today?” Mostly they all sat in silence, trembling before Krakenaur’s shouting image, until someone got up the gumption to snap the television off.

Trey knew his friends needed the time to heal and recover. Maybe he did too. He found himself reacting oddly to the bits of news that dribbled in. It was two or three days before he asked Mr. Hendricks anything about his fellow classmates at school.

“I know they wouldn’t be outside making noise,” Trey said. "But~they're all okay over there, aren’t they?”

Mr. Hendricks sighed heavily.

“No,” he said. ‘After the Government fell… after the Population Police took over… they closed down all the schools. Temporarily, they said. They came and took away all my students for work camps. They took away the ablebodied teachers, too….

Trey could do nothing but stare at Mr. Hendricks in horror.

“I guess my wheelchair saved me,” Mr. Hendricks said. “That and the garden Lee had all the students plant back in the spring.”

And then Trey understood that everyone was gone, that the Population Police had left Mr. Hendricks behind to die. They didn’t know that Mr. Hendricks had plenty of food to survive the winter — plenty, even with nine extra people around.

But Trey said nothing more to Mr. Hendricks. He just went and sat down to watch more television with Lee.

A few days later, Mrs. Talbot announced that Mr. Talbot was certain to make a full recovery.

“He’s sitting up and speaking coherently,” she raved. “It’s a miracle.”

And Trey just nodded, as numb to joy as he was to fear and pain.

That evening, Mrs. Talbot stopped Trey in the hallway outside Mr. Talbot’s room.

“He wants to see you now,” she said.

“M-me?” Trey stammered. “Are you sure he didn’t want Lee?”

“Nope,” Mrs. Talbot said, shaking her head with just a trace of her old playfulness. “He asked for you by name.”

Trey followed Mrs. Talbot into Mr. Talbot’s sickroom. Mr. Talbot’s bruises had turned a sickly shade of yellow, but he could open his eyes now. Where it wasn’t bruised, his face looked pale even against the white pillowcase.

“I — don’t remember some things,” Mr. Talbot rasped. “But I remember — you came to see me that last day. You were at my door when they were already in my house, ready to take me away. Why? Why were you there? What was so… important?”

“The Grants,” Trey said. “They—” He broke off. He couldn’t tell a man who’d just barely escaped death that two of his closest friends were dead.

“Theo told me about them,” Mr. Talbot said. He slumped against his pillows. “That was all?”

“No,” Trey wanted to say. “We were terrified and we wanted you to take care of us. To make everything better.” But he knew that wasn’t possible now. Mr. Talbot wasn’t the all-powerful, all-knowing operator anymore. He was a defeated, seriously injured man huddled in a bed in a tiny cottage. And if the Population Police found him now, he’d likely be killed.

“I was going to give you the papers I found in Mr. Grant’s secret office,” Trey said instead, with a shrug.

This news transformed Mr. Talbot. He sat up straight, as if he’d just been miraculously cured.

“You were? Do you still have them?” he asked.

They had transferred the papers from the truck into his flannel shirt, then into his first Population Police uniform, then into the second one when he took a shower and changed back at Nezeree. But he hadn’t really looked at them since that first day back in the limousine. He supposed they were still tucked into the uniform, along with the warden’s fax, everything crumpled on the floor in his bedroom, kicked into a corner to be forgotten.

“I guess,” he said.

“Can you bring them to me now?” Mr. Talbot asked eagerly.

“Sure,” Trey said.

He went and got them. He smoothed out the wrinkles and fold marks and handed the papers to Mr. Talbot.

“They’re just financial records,” They said dully. “Mr. Grant owed you money when he died.”

“No,” Mr. Talbot said. “They’re codes. Each of these numbers represents a third child with a fake I.D. Grant thought I was just running a black-market business on the side…. He thought we were laundering money; even he never knew the truth. But if Krakenaur had found this… if the Population Police had been able to decode this… there would have been no hope for any of us.”

Trey gazed down at the documents with new respect. He remembered how he’d wanted to put them in the knapsack, which the Population Police confiscated and the mob tore apart. He remembered how he’d thought of using them to bargain with the Population Police for Mark’s release. He remembered how he’d considering leaving them back at the Nezeree prison. It seemed like a miracle that he’d managed to bring them safely to Mr. Talbot.

“I brought these from your house,” he said, holding out the rest of the papers. ‘And there are more out in the truck. Are these codes too?”

“No. That one’s just a grocery list,” Mr. Talbot said, pointing. “And this was a math worksheet my daughter did when she was a little….. .“ His face softened. They looked down at the row of numbers, with the name “Jen” written crookedly on them. “Thank you for bringing this to me,” Mr. Talbot murmured.