Children of Refuge

  The “sparkly thing” he was pointing at might as well have been a fleck of silver glitter on one red brick.

  I still thought Udans might be pulling my leg. But I acted cool, just in case.

  “A city that can put scanners and cameras everywhere still lets people get stuck in traffic like this?” I taunted. “And there’s not anything we can do about it?”

  “Well, the two of us could get out and walk,” Udans said. “We’re close enough. It beats sitting here for the next hour.”

  “You’d just leave the truck here?” I asked, amazed.

  “Not in the street—there’d be a big fee for that, too. But over there . . .”

  It took him half an hour to maneuver out of traffic, but then he was able to park the truck in a lot behind a fueling station. I slipped out of the truck—and realized for the first time that I had no suitcase, no backpack, nothing but the clothes I was wearing. Which, now that I thought about it, were kind of ripped and muddy from my running along the edge of the creek last night.

  “Um, my loving parents didn’t tuck any of my belongings into your truck before they sent you out to kidnap me, did they?” I asked.

  “They said you could buy new in Refuge City,” Udans said. “I don’t think they had a very high opinion of your old clothes.”

  I thought about the shirts and pants my Fred-parents had folded so neatly and placed so carefully into the suitcase they’d packed for me in Fredtown. There might have been a few places I’d torn out the knees of the pants a time or two, playing, but they’d been repaired.

  Who cares about clothes? I told myself.

  Actually, I did. New clothes were always too stiff and uncomfortable. My old clothes had been worn out just the right amount.

  It wasn’t that I was sentimental. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t know who I was in new clothes. It wasn’t that everyone who’d ever really known me—like Rosi—had known me in my old clothes.

  “I’m fine with new clothes,” I told Udans.

  For some reason my voice came out sounding fierce and bristly, as if I was saying something else entirely.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It should have felt good to stretch my legs after sitting in the truck for so long. But the sidewalks of Refuge City were crowded, and, oddly, I seemed to be the shortest person around. So my views tended to be of:

  One man’s or another’s bulging belly, pressed uncomfortably close to my face;

  A woman’s purse, right before it clipped my ear;

  Udans’s back, which I tried to keep in sight at all times.

  If I’d been, say, seven—or maybe even eight or nine—I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from whining, Udans! Wait for me! If I’d been even younger, I might have lost all dignity and begged, Please! Let me hold your hand so I don’t get lost! But I was twelve, and I was Edwy the Amazing, Edwy the Awesome, the one all the little kids back in Fredtown had always looked up to.

  So I darted around purses and bellies, and once or twice I even ducked under someone’s elbow. I told myself Udans was probably glancing back over his shoulder all the time to make sure I was still with him. Just . . . not ever when I was looking.

  Then came a moment when a woman in a towering hat—who seemed to have an entire garden growing on her head—stepped between Udans and me.

  When I zipped around her, narrowly missing trouncing on the pointy toes of her red shoes, Udans had vanished.

  I whipped my head back and forth, scanning the crowd ahead, catching glimpses of black-and-white checkered purses, men’s shirts with gaping buttonholes, and then, when she stepped past me again, garden-hat lady. She didn’t dodge my feet; her spiky heel stabbed right into the little-toe area of my right sneaker.

  “Ow! Ow! Ow!” I jumped up and down, clutching my brutalized foot.

  Garden-hat lady didn’t even turn around.

  But an arm darted out of a nearby doorway. I recognized Udans’s bulging muscles and the sleeve of his dark gray T-shirt. He grabbed me and pulled me into the doorway.

  “Did you see that?” I asked him. “Who does that? I think my toe’s broken. Maybe even severed. Don’t people here know not to walk on other people’s feet?”

  “Young man,” Udans began. He crouched down, so he could speak directly into my ear, almost as if he were sharing a secret. “You are not the son of the richest man in Refuge City, the way you were the son of the richest man back in your hometown. You can’t expect special treatment.”

  I jerked away from him.

  “ ‘Special treatment’?” I repeated. “Being able to walk around without anyone stepping on your toes should be, like, a basic right! No one deserves to have his toe speared like that. The Freds always said . . .”

  I stopped myself because, yikes! Had I really been about to quote the Freds? They probably did have about fifty different founding principles that would apply to this situation—they usually had at least fifty different founding principles they tried to apply to any situation, and at one time or another, I’m sure, they’d quoted every single one at me. They could come up with fifty different reasons it was a bad idea to brush my teeth for two minutes and fifty-eight seconds instead of the full three minutes.

  But I didn’t quote Fred principles.

  Also—Udans jerked back when I spoke the word “Freds,” as if it frightened him.

  When I stopped talking, he murmured, “That’s right. It would be wise to say as little as possible about them.”

  This is how my brain works: I suddenly had the desire to run down the street yelling, “Freds! Freds! Freds! Freds! Freds!” just to see what happened.

  But Udans’s next words stopped me. He said:

  “Anyhow, we’re here. Are you ready to meet your brother and sister?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I forgot about my sore toe. I forgot the Freds and my weird desire to run around shouting about them. For a minute I might have even forgotten about Rosi.

  “Um, sure,” I told Udans. “Is this where they live? Is this where I’ll live? Is this the school?”

  Now that I knew this wasn’t just some random doorway he’d pulled me into, I peeked past his shoulder, through a huge glass door. Beyond it was a sort of entryway—maybe it was a lobby?—that some artist might have thrown together and entitled Chrome and Mirrors: Variations. It was all so shiny, all so tricky with the mirrors throwing off dozens of versions of one another. I wondered how often the people who lived in this building walked into one of the mirrored walls thinking it was a way out.

  “You’ll see,” Udans said, smiling cryptically.

  I wanted to tell him that his cool-pirate act wasn’t going to work on me, but he was already stepping through the door, and I was a little afraid I’d lose him again in all the mirrored reflections. Somehow he knew that there was a button hidden on one of the mirrors, and when he pressed it, a door slid open.

  It was an elevator.

  “Ooh, is this a skyscraper after all?” I asked, stepping in.

  “Nope,” Udans said, reaching past me for the control panel. The door closed behind us. “This building is only ten stories. But”—he grinned, and this time the smile was a little friendlier—“Enu and Kiandra do live on the top floor. The penthouse suite.”

  “Enu and Kiandra—that’s my brother and sister?” I asked anxiously.

  Those were the names my father had said, weren’t they? Why hadn’t I asked more about them sooner? Why hadn’t I asked everything about them?

  I knew why. I’d been too scared of meeting them. I’d mostly been avoiding thinking about them. Just like I was avoiding thinking about Rosi.

  Udans nodded. And then—even though I hadn’t felt the elevator moving—the door opened again, revealing shiny silver wallpaper ahead of us.

  “This is the tenth floor?” I asked Udans. “Already?”

  He laughed and nodded. I followed him out of the elevator. Only one door stood ahead of us, and he knocked on it.

  “Use the doorbell!
” a muffled voice yelled from behind the door.

  “You know I never do that!” Udans growled back.

  The door sprang open.

  A boy stood before us. Or . . . a man? It was a little hard to tell. In both Fredtown and my parents’ village, Rosi and I, as twelve-year-olds, had been the oldest kids. So I’d never seen a teenager in the flesh before. My Fred-parents had given me the most annoying lectures ever to prepare me for my body going through some pretty amazing changes over the next few years. I would become an adult in a transformation just as incredible as a caterpillar turning into a butterfly—though, disappointingly, without the cocoon stage, when I could have done nothing but sleep. (Was caterpillar-to-butterfly the analogy they used? Or was it the tadpole-into-a-frog thing? It wasn’t like I really listened.)

  Of course, the spin the Freds put on it was that it wasn’t all fun and games and bulging muscles. They said adulthood required greater responsibility than childhood, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

  They believed way too much in accepting responsibility. Taking on responsibility. Stepping up to responsibility. Volunteering for responsibility. Shouldering responsibility.

  Responsibility—blech.

  Anyhow, despite all those lectures, I’d never really been able to imagine myself as an adult. Or even as an almost adult.

  But this boy standing before me—Enu, I guessed—was clearly older than me, though maybe not yet full-grown.

  He towered over me, and stood almost exactly eye to eye with Udans. His shoulders practically filled the doorway, every bit as wide as Udans’s. Enu had somehow not bothered to put a shirt on—just an odd pair of shorts that hung down to his knees—and so I could see the ripple of muscles in his chest.

  Oh man, I wanted to have muscles like that someday.

  Forget looking like my dad. Was there any chance I would ever look like Enu?

  He grinned, revealing a teasing dimple off to the side of his mouth that was a lot like mine. His eyes were a little darker than mine—more brownish-green than greenish-brown—and his hair was a little longer, standing up in thick, messy curls. But looking at Enu was like looking in some strange trick mirror: This might be what I would look like when I got a little older.

  As much as I was studying Enu so carefully, he did not even bother looking at me.

  “Udans!” he cried. “What’d you bring me? The usual?”

  I took a step back. I imagined all the Freds in Fredtown hearing Enu and instantly fainting dead away. Enu hadn’t even said hello—he’d gone straight to “What’d you bring me?”

  Maybe a two-year-old could have gotten away with such rudeness back in Fredtown. Er, no, not even a kid that little. Back in Fredtown, pretty much as soon as kids could talk, they were expected to know not to ask for presents. They were expected to know to make visitors feel comfortable and welcome; they were expected to know to extend hospitality, not requests, to anyone showing up on their doorstep.

  They were expected to know that life was about giving, not taking.

  Even I knew that, and I probably hadn’t listened to a Fred lecture all the way through since I was two.

  To my surprise, Udans didn’t scold Enu. Instead, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out . . . was that a check? Some kind of money? Or just proof of a bank deposit?

  Whatever it was, it looked official. I caught a glimpse of lots of zeros, in sets of three and separated by commas.

  “Your portion for the week,” Udans said, as he handed the paper to Enu.

  “You know, you could do everything electronically,” Enu said, pocketing it.

  “It’s good for you to be reminded of what your parents give you,” Udans said sternly.

  “Whatever.” Enu shrugged and held out his hand again. “I can take care of Kiandra’s, too.”

  “Oh no, you can’t,” a musical voice called from behind him. “Udans, don’t trust him!”

  A vision appeared in the doorway alongside Enu. I mean, it was a girl—a real girl—but it seemed like a vision, because the girl looked so much like a portrait that I’d seen back at my parents’ house. My real parents, that is, not the Fred ones.

  My parents’ house was crazy fancy, and in their ridiculously formal dining room they had a practically life-size picture from their wedding day some twenty years ago: my dad, back when he actually had a thick head of hair, and my mom when her face was unlined and her hair was in ringlets crowned with daisies.

  This girl—Kiandra?—wasn’t wearing ringlets, daisies, or a wedding dress. She had on tiny shorts, just as fitted as Enu’s were loose, and a T-shirt that said mine, not yours. And she was younger than the girl in my parents’ wedding portrait; it seemed possible that she was only a little older than me. But her face was so much like my mother’s face that I almost felt a pang of homesickness. (Which was crazy—I’d known my mother for barely twenty-four hours, and she hadn’t even said good-bye. Not to mention, I wasn’t homesick for anyone or anyplace. Not me.)

  “So . . . ,” Kiandra said. “Where’s mine?”

  Udans handed her a slip of paper like Enu’s, and she leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.

  “Okay, thanks, Udans,” she said. She didn’t glance my way either. I had never felt so invisible before. Or so young. “Now, we’re kind of busy at the moment . . .”

  She started to close the door.

  What? They didn’t invite Udans (or me) in? They didn’t offer tea or coffee or lemonade or milk? They didn’t ask Udans how he was, how his family was—or even how our parents were, back in their hometown?

  Not even when Udans was giving them money—or a check or whatever—from their (our) father?

  Udans held out his hand, holding the door open.

  “That’s not the only thing I brought you,” he said, in a voice that held just a touch of sternness. He turned, and yanked me forward. Not that I’d been hiding behind Udans or anything.

  Okay, maybe I was. Kind of.

  “Meet your brother,” Udans announced. “This is Edwy.”

  Kiandra and Enu both stared, as if they were noticing me for the first time. Then Kiandra started cracking up.

  “Oh, Enu, it’s like your mini-me! That’s exactly how you looked three years ago!”

  Enu glared at her.

  And then he tried to shut the door. Right in my face.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I stuck my foot in the doorway.

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked. “That’s not fair!”

  Back in Fredtown those words and that tone of mine would have struck fear in any kid around. The kids of Fredtown knew not to mess with me.

  Enu did let the door bounce back open when it hit my foot. But he also joined his sister in laughing. And she started laughing harder, doubling over with giggles.

  “I’d forgotten . . . Enu, that’s how your voice used to sound!” she exclaimed. “So high and squeaky, like you’d been sucking helium. . . . Say something else, Little Enu!”

  “My name is not Little Enu! I’m Edwy! And my voice is not high and squeaky!”

  But for the first time ever, I noticed . . . maybe my voice was a little squeaky.

  It certainly wasn’t as deep as Enu’s.

  I clamped my mouth shut and glared. I was the best glarer in Fredtown. Nobody could dispute that.

  I mean, I used to be, back when I lived in Fredtown.

  “Aww, I think you hurt his feelings,” Enu said mockingly. He elbowed his sister. “Shut up, Kiandra!”

  “Shut up, both of you,” Udans said. He shoved past me and across the threshold, into the apartment. “Your parents would want you to invite us in, so we’re not discussing any of this out in the hall.”

  Enu and Kiandra stepped aside to let Udans past. I trailed after him, and Enu swung the door shut behind us.

  My jaw dropped when I saw the living room before us. It was huge—and hugely messy. Discarded clothes lay draped over the couch, the chairs, and the floor. A collection of apple cores seemed to be playi
ng hide-and-go-seek in the potato-chip bags strewn across the end tables. A shallow cardboard box lay open on the coffee table in the middle of the room, with what looked like a fossilized slice of pepperoni pizza hanging halfway out. That pizza might have been there for years.

  I could tell one thing. If I lived here with Enu and Kiandra, I would never have to pick up after myself.

  Sweet.

  Udans shoved aside a shirt that said GO, TEAM! in huge white letters and sat down on the low, dark-colored couch. I sat down beside him, but when Enu and Kiandra kept standing, I got back up.

  “We have much to discuss,” Udans said. “Everyone, sit.”

  Enu and Kiandra rolled their eyes—and, though I’d never admit this out loud to anyone, they were much better at eye rolling than I’d ever been. I practically wanted to take notes. But then both of them plopped down into the nearest chairs, sprawling sideways in a manner that seemed to say, We’re just sitting down because we want to—not because you told us to. And there’s nothing you can say that will make us sit up straight and look respectful.

  “You too, Edwy,” Udans said, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me down.

  I would have fought against him, but . . . I didn’t want Enu and Kiandra to see me lose. I tried to imitate their style, even muttering, “Now that I think of it, I am a little tired of standing.”

  Kiandra snickered, and I realized that even as I bent my knees, I’d accidentally kept my back ramrod straight and folded my hands in my lap like . . . well, like a good little Fred-trained child, raised to sit up straight and act respectful. I sprawled backward, but my neck touched something unpleasantly wet and mushy—was there another apple core hidden behind me on the couch? And had it maybe gone a little rotten?

  I didn’t let myself look. I pretended I didn’t notice.

  “Your father has decided that Edwy will live in your extra bedroom,” Udans informed Enu and Kiandra.

  “What?” Enu protested. “We don’t have an extra bedroom!”

  Udans pointed silently at a half-open door.