The door slammed open against the wall, and a gust of summer air heated the living room. Nathan jumped from the couch and caught the brass knob before it enlarged the hole in the sheetrock. The stopper had already been broken from his sister’s last fit.
“What the heck, Abree?” He glared at the freckled-faced twelve-year-old standing on the porch.
A wadded ball of green paper hit him on the chest and fell at his feet. “I’m not going!” His sister’s hazel eyes locked onto his, her cheeks a brilliant pink.
“Not going where?” Nathan stooped to retrieve Abree’s projectile and unfolded it. He already knew where. Ivana had sent him a message earlier in the afternoon alerting him to the alleged National Emergency, and the government’s campaign to send elementary school children away. To where? No one knew. Abree’s note brought the reality home and her reaction was exactly what he had expected.
“You know where,” she said. Her lips curled into a sneer as she pushed past him and fell onto the couch. She was braver than most girls her age. She didn’t cry. It wasn’t her nature.
“You’re just a kid, Bree. You must do what they tell you to. I wish it weren’t that way, but it is.”
“Do you do what they tell you?” She squinted at him.
Nathan didn’t answer. His disdain for the men in the gray uniforms was nothing he wanted to feed his little sister. She had enough of her own resilience.
“See?” You don’t. Well, I’m not leaving Mom.” Abree jumped up again, bumping her knee on the coffee table as she did. Her face flushed as she rubbed the impending bruise. “What will the Privatol do to me if I don’t go?”
It couldn’t be good. The Grays were ruthless and intimidating. Nathan had watched the soldiers arrest his friend Roger Frankfurt the week before. No one had seen or heard from the teenager since, not even Nathan’s mom. Nathan never told Abree about Roger. Why scare her?
“Just do what you’re told and spare us the consequences.” Nathan pulled his phone from his pocket and thumbed a text to Ivana, wondering how her twin siblings, Carlos and Maria, were handling the news.
“Yeah right, do what I’m told!” Abree made a face and put her hands on her hips. “Go to boarding school like a nice little girl. Whatever! Singing songs, so happy!” She skipped around the house chanting, her act a too melodramatic for Nathan to conceal his smile. “Oh yes, we want to leave our mommies and our comfy bedrooms, and our bikes and skateboards and our brothers. I just can’t wait!”
“Abree!” Nathan shook his head. “Stop that.”
“Well? Is that what they expect?”
“Obviously not. That’s why they’re calling in the National Guard!”
It was fear that filled her eyes now, and Nathan immediately regretted what he said. “I’m sorry, Bree. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I didn’t know they were calling the National Guard? Are they going to kill us?”
“They better not. I’ll….” Playing along with her antics, he punched his fist into his hand and set his jaw. “I’ll slaughter all of them one by one. I’ll rip their heads off!” He contorted his face and grabbed the imaginary enemy by the neck, twisting his arms as if decapitating a body.
Abree laughed. “You look funny when you do that.”
Nathan smiled; glad he made her laugh, and glad he got her mind off the fact that within twenty-four hours she might be leaving home and living somewhere else. Neither he nor his mother would know where. He boiled inside and her laughter kept him from thrusting his fist through the wall. If he could kidnap her and Mom and hide away somewhere, he’d waste no time.
“No one’s going to hurt you, Bree. Maybe they’re just going to test you, like they’ve been testing me and Vana and the other kids in my class.”
“What kind of tests?”
Nathan shrugged. “Easy tests. You’re smart. You’ll ace them.”
“I don’t do well with tests. I hate tests.”
“The Grays don’t grade the tests. They’re more like the aptitude tests we used to take. Remember those? To see how smart you are and what kind of skills you’re good at? My class gets them every day now.”
“Every day?”
“Yep. At least one test a day, each one on a different subject. We had a test today that was about farming. Get this. They wanted to know what I knew about raising corn! I didn’t do well. I know nothing about farming, really.”
“You should. I do.”
Nathan chuckled but his smiled faded when he saw how serious she was. “What do you know about farming?”
“All there is to know. You put a seed in the ground, you water the seed, and it grows into a plant, which makes more seeds and then the cycle starts all over again. We learned that in kindergarten.”
“This test was a little more complicated then basic horticulture. Most of the questions were about genetic engineering, insecticides, pruning, and things like that. I was totally lost.”
“Oh. I don’t know about that either. Did you fail?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I might’ve got some answers right.”
“Why would they ask you about farming? There aren’t any farms around here. That’s dumb.” Abree bounced back on the couch and grabbed the remote from the coffee table. She clicked her way through the menus on the screen and loaded a video game. “Still I’m not going to a boarding school. Even if they did put this dumb bracelet on me.”
“What bracelet?”
Abree held up her hand. Wrapped around her wrist was a metallic black band with a row of lights blinking on and off. Nathan fell on the couch next to her and took her arm.
“What is it?”
“A tracer. They put one on every student at school, even the recess monitors.”
“Not good!” Nathan maneuvered the band around her wrist looking for a clasp. The instrument had an ominous final feel to it, like a brand on cattle. “I don’t like this at all!”
“It’s okay. We just have to wear it until we get on the bus tomorrow. They promised to take it off then.”
Nathan’s eyes widened just as the garage door hummed open.
Abree’s eyes narrowed as Nathan inspected the band. “Except I’m not going to be on the bus tomorrow. They’ll have to go without me.”
“Mom’s home. She’ll know what to do!” He tried to sound reassuring but with his own anger stirring, it wasn’t easy. “Maybe you’ll be away for only a couple of weeks or something.”
The kitchen door slammed shut and the sound of high heels on linoleum announced their mother’s arrival. Nathan jumped up from the couch and rushed into the kitchen. Molly Barber was pulling canned goods out of a grocery bag and setting them on the table.
“Mom,” he began. “We have a problem. Abree…”
Molly turned to Nathan. Panic paled her face and dried streams of mascara lined her cheeks. “I don’t know what to do,” she interrupted.
“About the boarding school?”
Abree appeared in the doorway. Nathan’s mom wiped her face with her sleeve and turned her back to Abree.
“Nathan, please get Bree’s suitcase out of the garage.”
“Mom!” Nathan protested. “You aren’t actually going to let her go, are you?”
“Just do as I say. We need two large suitcases. We’ll pack one with supplies and the other with her clothes. They gave us a list. We’re to send food. They wanted just about everything in our cupboards, more, in fact. I had to stop at the store.”
“What? You had to buy food for them? With the economy the way it is? That’s crazy!”
“Yes, Nathan. I know it’s crazy.”
“Isn’t anyone fighting this? What about the Johnsons? The Hunters? Everyone is just going to let the Army take their kids away? No one’s protesting?”
Molly glanced at Abree in the doorway. Nathan moved toward his sister, but Molly grabbed his arm, her whisper an angry hiss. “You are not going to cause trouble, do you understand? I’ll not have them take both of my children. Now get the suitcases. Go!” She shuffled through the kitchen, pulling boxes of dried food and jars of peanut butter out of the cupboard, stacking them next to the cans.
“No mom, this isn’t right. I’ll take her place!”
“They don’t want you, Nathan. They want the elementary school children. They wouldn’t accept the trade and we’d get in trouble for trying.”
Nathan hesitated. If he pulled the suitcases out of the garage he’d be giving in to the invasion. He’d be admitting defeat. He paused to catch his breath and control his temper, his words softer. “Why are they making you clear your cupboards, Mom?”
“How should I know?” she mumbled rummaging through the shelves. “They aren’t missing a single resource. I stopped at the grocery store and, lo and behold, another supply list. Ralph’s is just about sold out!” she said. “So efficient, aren’t they? So well organized and prepared for any National Emergency that might arise. What a world!”
“Mom?” Nathan eyed his sister’s scowl. She was dependent on him to change their mother’s mind. He turned his back to his sister, his voice trembled. “We can’t send Abree away.”
“Abree, go get your bathrobe out of the dryer, please.”
Abree remained frozen, staring them. “I’m not going.”
“Abree, do what I tell you.” Molly demanded. Abree’s eyes shot Nathan a plea and it broke his heart. He had no solution for her. She stomped her foot and ran down the hall.
“We can’t show her how upset we are, Nate. We can’t send her away afraid.”
“Why are we sending her away at all?”
“What else are we going to do? The streets are swarming with soldiers. You don’t know what’s happening out there, Nate! The media is not reporting all the hysteria. They’ve brought tanks in. You were in school so you didn’t hear, but traffic was held up today because of a protest downtown. People were shot. Kids your age. Killed! Maybe you knew some of them. Maybe they were your friends. I don’t know how many were killed or wounded. Worse, the Grays aren’t taking prisoners to the jail, Nathan. The protesters are being hauled out of town in swat trucks. Who knows what the soldiers are doing to them?”
Nathan’s blood turned ice. This news was far worse than he could imagine. “We can’t let them take Abree.”
“What do you propose we do? There’s no place to hide. No cellars, no attics, no tunnels that they don’t know about. They’ve got helicopters with infra-red lights hovering all over the city. Look at that!” She pointed toward the picture window. Outside a rumble of gray vehicles, a truck and a tank drove by, their motors roaring through the neighborhood as loud as a locomotive’s.
“I could get us out of here. Let’s just go, Mom--the three of us. We’ll sneak away at night. We don’t have to stay here.”
“Where are we going to go, Nathan? The moon?”
“We could leave the country.”
“Where to? Europe? The Privatol owns the world, Nathan. Be thankful for what little we have. At least they aren’t rationing the air we breathe. Not yet anyway.”
“Mom, there’s got to be an escape. This is crazy. You work for a lawyer. Can’t you do something?”
“Nathan, no. I can’t. No place is safe. The justice system has been overrun. The Privatol has instated their own judges. The lawyer I work for doesn’t have much of a voice either. He’s lost every one of his cases this month. I wouldn’t put my stock in him.”
“Then we’ll sneak away and hide in the woods behind the golf course. Tonight! We can make a shelter, hunt squirrel. I’m good with a slingshot. They’d never find us. I’ll take care of you.”
“You’re a romantic, son. We wouldn’t make it past Oakland Boulevard.” Tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped her face, and caught her breath. “You come up with something conceivable and I’ll go along with it. I’m just too stressed to even think of an escape. I don’t want to see anything happen to my daughter, or my son, but I sure don’t know how to prevent it!”
“Fine. Let me think a minute.” Nathan paced across the kitchen floor, his mind spinning. “We’ll hide in the park above the golf course. I know just the spot. We can leave tonight. It’s only an hour’s walk.”
“They’ll find us.” Abree had returned to the kitchen, her pink bathrobe bundled in her arms. She stood against the door that led from the kitchen to the garage, blocking the way.
“No, they....” Nathan spun around to argue with his sister, but stopped short when she held up her wrist.
“What’s that?” Molly asked and grabbed Abree’s wrist. “What is that thing?”
“It’s a tracer, Mom. We’ll fix this, right now. With a hacksaw.” Nathan reached for the garage door, stopped by his sister’s squeal.
“No!” Abree backed away.
“I’ll cut it off you.”
“No! It sounds an alarm! They warned us at school that if we remove our bracelets a siren goes off in every patrol car out there.”
“Who told you that?”
“The Grays! The ones who put the bracelets on us. They’ll come shooting. That’s what they said!” Tears rolled down Abree’s cheeks and she quickly wiped them. “We can’t cut the bracelet off because I don’t want them to shoot us.”
Nathan locked eyes with his mother. Terror paled her face.
“Maybe that’s just a scare tactic. Something they told you to keep you from taking the bracelet off,” Molly suggested, though the tremble in her voice told Nathan she didn’t believe it.
“I doubt it,” Nathan mumbled, reflecting on what his mother told him about the arrests that day.
“I know. It’s not worth the chance. What should we do, Abree?” Molly pulled Abree into her arms.
Abree shrugged. “Why do we have to do anything?” She wiggled away from her mother and pouted.
Nathan straightened, wondering if that could work, if they could just stay home and wait the day out tomorrow. Would anyone notice? “What about your tracer?” he asked. “When they come here to find you? Then what?”
“I’ll tell them I’m sick?”
Nathan rolled his eyes. His sister wasn’t a liar. She’d never pull a scam like that off.
“If the soldiers were going to look for Abree, they’d come here first.” Molly admitted. “I don’t think there’s much we can do, Nate.”
Abree clenched her fist. “If they come here I’ll crush them and pull their heads off!”
“Bree don’t talk like that.” Nathan took her by her shoulders and moved her the few inches he needed to slip into the garage. “Maybe this is only for a couple of weeks. Maybe we’re making a bigger deal out of this boarding school thing than what it really is. Maybe it’s better to just go along with what they’re doing. At least you’ll be getting an education.”
“I’m not going anywhere!” she screamed, stunning Nathan and Molly into silence. “They can’t do this. This is a free country. They can’t make me leave my family.”
“Abree dear, it’s just for a little while, I’m sure. And you can forget about the experience as soon as you get home, I promise. Besides, if you don’t go they’ll take us to jail and sell our home. Then there’d be nothing left for any of us. And you’d still be taken away.” Molly’s voice quivered and she bit her lip when she knelt in front of the unyielding freckled-face child. “Look, I don’t want you to go either, honey, but doing what we’re told right now is the best thing for us. There isn’t any other solution.”
Abree’s fists remained clenched.
“Abree,” Nathan knelt next to his mother. “If Mom and I can think of a way to get you out of this, we will. I promise you. But whatever we decide to do must be safe so no one gets hurt. Otherwise we’re not doing it. Can you understand that?”
He ignored the angry look his mother gave him, no doubt for making a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep.
“Your friends will be with you, Bree,” Nathan added. His temper was as hot as Abree looked, but his mother and sister needed him to stay cool. He swore to himself he would. For now. He whispered in her ear. “If I could shoot our way to safety I would. I would die for you, Bree.”
Abree nodded. Nathan stood.
Molly kissed her daughter’s hair. Nathan turned away when he saw tears streaming down his mother’s face.
“I know, honey,” Molly whispered. “Let’s get some dinner made and pack your bags. You can wear your new jeans tomorrow.”
“The ones with the rhinestones on the pockets?”
Before his own feelings gushed out in front of them, Nathan dodged into the garage to get the suitcases.
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