Among the Brave

The official was holding the knapsack Mark had carried from the truck. It was the knapsack Mark had put down right before he’d tried to crawl through the barbed-wire fence, the knapsack Trey had kicked away in disgust.

The knapsack full of food.

“What do you mean, ‘How do you explain this?’” Mark asked. “I’ve never seen that before in my life. What is it?”

But his voice shook, and he’d waited a second too long in answering. It was all too clear that he had seen that knapsack before. That it belonged to him.

The official slowly loosened the knapsack’s strings and began pulling out its contents. A box of raisins. A bag of peanuts. An apple. Two apples. Three. Potatoes. Bananas. Peaches. Cereal.

“I’ll ask you again,” the official said. “Why were you trying to sneak into Population Police headquarters?”

“I wasn’t,” Mark said. But his voice was even weaker now. The most gullible fool in the world wouldn’t have believed him.

“You were,” the official said calmly. He seemed to be relishing his role. “And now I will pronounce your sentence. You will be executed at dawn.”

Mark gasped. Trey reeled backward, hitting the wall. He barely managed to avoid crying out in pain. This was all his fault Why had he kicked that knapsack and then just left it behind? Why hadn’t he taken it with him, or hidden it somewhere safe?

Even bravery’s not enough when you make stupid mistakes, Trey thought It was ironic — yes, now he truly understood that word. Trey had always prided himself on his brilliance and been ashamed of his cowardice. But now that he’d actually shown a little courage, his idiocy had condemned his friend to death.

All I’m really good for is remembering foreign languages, and they’re useless, Trey thought But then he had a flash of memory: When he’d been crouching in terror on the Talbots’ front porch, his knowledge of Latin had actually seemed to be the thing that saved his life. Why? What was so special about translating “liber” into “free”?

For the first time, Trey thought maybe he understood. What if “liber” and “free” were code words — code words for people who believed in more freedom than the Population Police allowed?

Trey waited until the official had walked away, and then he whispered to Mark, “I think I know how to save you. Yell, ‘liber!’”

“Huh?” Mark said.

'Liber,” Trey said. “It means ‘free.”’

“Liber!” Mark yelled.

“Do it again,” Trey whispered. “And again. And throw some ‘Free’s’ in there too.”

“Liber!” Mark repeated obediently. “Liber! Liber! Free! Liber! Free! Liber! Free!”

At first, he was just saying the words. But soon his voice took on a plaintive strain, as if he were truly begging for freedom. It gave Trey chills. He hoped the sound would seep through the broken duct and out the fancy grilles into Aldous Krakenaur’s office.

Mark yelled until he was hoarse. But the only thing that happened was that the guard turned the light out, and Mark fell.

Chapter Twenty-One

'Mark?” Trey whispered. “It’s all my fault. I left the knapsack out there. I kicked it away, and then I forgot about it.”

“I forgot about it too,” Mark whispered back in a husky voice.

“They gave me a uniform. Maybe if I put it on and pretend to be a guard, I could — oh, no,” Trey groaned.

“What?” Mark said.

“I left the uniform back in the heat duct on the first floor,” Trey confessed. He hadn’t pulled it along with him when he’d shimmied down the duct to the basement He hadn’t even thought about the uniform then.

“Oh,” Mark said. That one short word, a mere syllable, spoke volumes. Mark had given up. “You — you should probably go now,” Mark added. “So they don’t catch you, too.”

“No,” Trey said, finally sitting down, rather than crouching, behind the boxes. “Nobody’s looking for me, and you got the guard scared of mice and rats. I’ll stay until — as long as I can.”

He wasn’t about to say, “until they execute you.” Still, the unspoken words seemed to hang between them. After a few moments, Mark whispered, “Thanks.”

For all the bad things that had happened in Trey’s life, this was the first time that he’d known about a tragedy beforehand. His father dying, his mother abandoning him, the chauffeur leaving him behind, the Population Police taking over the Government — all of those calamities had been sudden and unexpected. It didn’t seem fair to know that Mark was about to die, and not be able to stop it

“Mark, what if you bend back the bars of the cage?” Trey asked. “You’re strong—”

“I already tried,” Mark said. “The cage is stronger.” He was quiet for a minute, then said, “I think I understand better now how Luke always felt It was like he was in a cage his whole life. And I just thought he was wimpy.”

This was no time to remind Mark that it was dangerous to call Luke by his real name, that the fake name, Lee, was safer.

“And then he came back, and it was almost like he’d grown past me,” Mark said, sounding as if he was in a daze. “He’d had adventures and he’d seen the world, and you know, that Peter kid — Smits — he treated Luke like he was the biggest hero ever.” Mark hesitated, then went on. “I think I was jealous,” he confessed.

Trey didn’t think Lee had seen anything of the world besides Hendricks School and the Talbot house, but he knew what Mark meant. Trey had always felt the same way about Lee. Back at Hendricks, Lee had even stood up to the traitor, Jason. And he’d run back into a burning building to save other boys. Trey had never understood where Lee got his courage. But — he thought of Mark as strong and brave as well.

“Mark, you came here trying to rescue your brother. You’re a hero too,” Trey argued.

“I didn’t succeed,” Mark whispered. “I don’t even know where Luke is. And they’re going to kill me, and my parents will never know what happened to either of us. Or — or maybe — maybe because of me, they’ll track down Mother and Dad and Matthew and punish them, too….” His voice cracked.

“Everything’s a mess,” Trey said. “But it’s not your fault.”

He didn’t even know how he was going to manage to escape after Mark was gone. But it seemed selfish to think about his own future when Mark didn’t have one.

“It was stupid to come here, to think I could help Luke,” Mark said bitterly

“No it wasn’t,” Trey argued. “We had to try.”

His words sounded false to his own ears. Whatever danger Trey was in, he wasn’t sitting in a cage, condemned to death, like Mark was. Who was Trrey to tell Mark they’d done the right thing?

But Mark didn’t seem mad at him.

“Trey?” Mark said. “If it’d been you in here and me outside — I wouldn’t have been brave enough to do what you did. I wouldn’t have thought of joining the Population Police. And crawling through those ducts? A small space like that? I couldn’t have done it. You’re braver than me.”

“People are brave in different ways,” Trey said. The idea had just occurred to him.

“But — why did you do it?” Mark said. “No offense, but before I thought you were the most chicken kid I’ve ever met. Why did you come into Population Police headquarters looking for me?”

Trey pondered Mark’s questions.

“I’m not sure,” he finally answered. “Maybe I just didn’t want to be left alone.'

Mark choked back a laugh.