“There’s an old saying,” Mr. Talbot said heavily. “ ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ I’ve been thinking about that a lot myself lately. Because I’ve been doing nothing, these past few months.”
“You were recovering from life-threatening injuries,” Mike said.
“And now I’m recovered,” Mr. Talbot said simply. “It’s time to get back to work.”
“Good,” Mike said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
The two of them shook hands as if they were making a solemn agreement. Matthias knew he’d just witnessed something important, but he was too caught up in his own dilemma to take much note of it.
“I never want to leave Percy and Alia again,” he said. “If I go anywhere to fight the Population Police again, I’d want them to go with me.”
Mr. Talbot frowned.
“They’re little children, Matthias,” he said quietly. “And they’ve already been through a lot.”
Matthias wanted to ask, What about me? Haven’t I been through a lot? Aren’t I a child too? But the words died in his throat. He wasn’t like Percy and Alia anymore. He’d crossed some line when he was apart from them. In the beginning, he’d been desperate to get back to them because he was lost without them; he didn’t know who he was if he wasn’t part of their cozy threesome. But now he knew just what Mr. Talbot meant. Percy and Alia were so young, so innocent—all he wanted to do was protect them.
“I’m thirteen,” he choked out. “They’re six and nine.”
The ages were arbitrary numbers, little more than guesses. And claiming to be thirteen had been a stretch back in November when Tiddy had asked his age. But it sounded right now.
Mr. Talbot nodded solemnly.
“Yes,” he said. “Thirteen is very different from six and nine.”
“So then—,” Mike said, as if expecting Matthias to announce eternal devotion to the cause now that he understood about Percy and Alia. Mike even had his hand half thrust out, as if he was ready to shake Matthias’s hand too.
But Matthias was thinking about how hard it was to do anything good in a country run by the Population Police. He thought about how many times he’d messed up, hurting innocent children, endangering Percy and Alia, risking Nina’s life when he protested her plan.
Oh, Samuel, he thought. When you said to stay out of politics, you meant that it’s easier to make sure you’re doing good when you stay completely away from evil. You were a holy man. But even you had to go out into the world. You couldn’t stand by when the Population Police were killing children.
Then he thought about how even Mike, who was working for a good cause, had forgotten about the guard left behind in the warehouse and had kind of hoped that the commander would be killed.
Can I keep working with someone like that? Matthias thought. But he’d been the one who’d saved the guard. What if he hadn’t been there?
Matthias sighed.
“I can’t leave Percy and Alia now,” he said. “Not when I just got here. But later on, if you need me . . .”
Mike nodded and clapped his hand on Matthias’s shoulder.
“We’ll need you,” Mike said. “We’ll need everyone who’s capable of helping.”
Matthias swallowed hard.
“Would I have to go back to Population Police headquarters?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Mike said. “We need to figure out our next plan.”
Matthias opened his mouth—then shut it again. He couldn’t know exactly what he was signing on to. He couldn’t know what choices he’d face, what agonizing options he’d have to decide between. But he knew he was doing the right thing.
Mr. Talbot put his hand on Matthias’s other shoulder then and gave it a gentle squeeze. The three of them—Mike, Mr. Talbot, and Matthias—were linked in a little circle around the kitchen table, as if they were holding some sacred ceremony. But Matthias knew the circle of people working for good extended far beyond that kitchen table: to Nina, Trey, Lee and all the “others” she’d mentioned back at Population Police headquarters, to Mr. Hendricks and Mrs. Talbot elsewhere in the house, maybe even to Percy and Alia someday if the fight continued that long.
Matthias thought about what Mike had said most people would do if they’d been in Matthias’s place at Population Police headquarters; he thought about the frightened people who’d taken their food back to the Population Police after the warehouse was destroyed. Most people, he realized, could see only the Population Police’s power. But he knew the force for good was even stronger.
Even if I have to go back to Population Police headquarters, he thought, even if I have to live among the enemy for years and years and years—even then, I will never be alone.
He reached up and put one arm around Mike’s shoulder and one arm around Mr. Talbot’s, and that was like his part of the ceremony, his sacred pact.
We will keep fighting this evil, he was saying.
We will win.
ALSO BY MARGARET PETERSON HADDIX
THE MISSING SERIES
Book 1: Found
Book 2: Sent
Book 3: Sabotaged
THE SHADOW CHILDREN SERIES
Among the Hidden
Among the Impostors
Among the Betrayed
Among the Barons
Among the Brave
Among the Free
The Girl with 500 Middle Names
Because of Anya
Say What?
Dexter the Tough
Running Out of Time
The House on the Gulf
Double Identity
Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey
Leaving Fishers
Just Ella
Turnabout
Takeoffs and Landings
Escape from Memory
Uprising
Palace of Mirrors
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 2005 by Margaret Peterson Haddix
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS and colophon are trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Also available in a Simon & Schuster Books for Young readers hardcover edition.
Designed by Greg Stadnyk
The text of this book was set in Elysium.
First Simon & Schuster Books for Young readers paperback edition October 2006
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Haddix, Margaret Peterson.
Among the enemy / Margaret Peterson Haddix.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A shadow children book.”
Summary: In a society that allows families to have only two children, third child Matthias joins the Population Police to infiltrate their system.
ISBN-13: 978-0-689-85796-6 (hc.)
ISBN-10: 0-689-85796-9 (hc.)
[1. Conduct of life—fiction. 2. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H1164Ale 2005
[Fic]—dc22 2004009645
ISBN-13: 978-0-689-85797-3 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 0-689-85797-7 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 9781439106723 (eBook)
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Margaret Peterson Haddix, Among the Enemy
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