Among the Free

The building was dark inside; evidently, the crowd hadn't made it so far back on the grounds. Or maybe someone had checked it out early in the celebration and decided it was beneath the crowd's notice. Luke stood just inside the door, inhaling the familiar smell of hay and horse. And manure, too — the manure smell seemed a little stronger than usual, probably because Luke had been away from it for so long.

'Hello?' Luke called softly.

A horse whinnied in reply. Luke was so sure it was Jenny that he threw caution to the wind and switched on the light.

'Hey, girl. Did you miss me?' he whispered, striding toward her stall.

But all the horses were watching him now, some of them whinnying loudly and banging their heads against their stall doors.

'Hey, hey, what's wrong?' Luke muttered. 'Calm down, everybody — you'll have the whole crowd in here checking to see what's going on.'

Some of the horses began rattling their feed troughs. The empty pans echoed against the floor.

'Geez, you guys are acting like nobody fed you today,' Luke complained.

Oh, he thought. He remembered Simone in the TV broadcast saying that most of the workers at Population Police headquarters had left the day before. They left, and nobody thought about the horses.

Luke stared down the row of stalls — a dozen on each side, twenty>four altogether. He thought about how many stableboys had done the work of caring for the horses. His vision blurred a little. He stalked over to Jenny's stall. He pulled the pin out of the latch and swung the door open.

'There you go, Jenny!' he said. 'If the people are free, the horses are going to have to be free too! Go find your own food!'

Luke stood to the side, giving Jenny free access to the doorway. Jenny stared at Luke, then dipped her head down and nudged her feeding trough toward Luke. The horse might as well have spoken. I don't want to be free. I want you to feed me.

'Didn't you hear me?' Luke yelled. 'You're free! Free! Get out of here!'

Luke reached into the stall and gave Jenny a hard shove. Jenny balked, keeping her hooves firmly in place, right in front of the feeding trough. She raised her head again, looking pleadingly at Luke. Luke thought about how many times he'd been comforted by her gaze, how much sympathy she'd always seemed to carry in her dark eyes for his plight.

'All right!' Luke grumbled. 'I understand! You're just a dumb animal. You've never eaten anywhere but in your stall. You don't know what freedom is!'

He shut Jenny's gate again and strode toward the back of the stable to get the oats.

It took hours to feed all the horses and clean out their bedding. But when Luke finally collapsed in Jenny's stall, on fresh hay he'd shoveled himself, he could still hear the music and cheering outside.

It sure seems like those people are free, he thought, pulling his quilt around him. Why can't I be too?

Chapter Twenty-Two

Luke woke up the next morning still in Jenny's stall. At some point in the night she'd lain down beside him, as if she were trying to guard him. Or hide him.

'You're not just a dumb animal, are you, girl?' Luke muttered, reaching out and stroking her neck. 'We'll watch out for each other, okay?'

Luke got up and fed all the horses again. He was glad to have something to focus on, something he knew he had to do. But the sight of all the horses chewing reminded him that he'd had nothing but Eli's dry bread the day before.

Unless I want to eat oats, he told himself, I guess I'll have to go on up to the headquarters building.

That thought actually made the oats look appetizing.

Quit that, he told himself. What wouldjen say if she knew the Population Police were gone, but I was still scared to have the horse stables?

Remembering how filthy he'd looked reflected in Simone's camera lens the night before, Luke took time to clean off his hands and face at the pump by the water trough. Then he threw caution to the wind and put his whole head under the rushing water, scrubbing at his hair with saddle soap. He traded his stained, ripped, inside-out uniform shirt for a long-sleeved T-shirt he found in a stack at the back of the stables where the officers always changed after riding. It wasn't as warm, but no one would recognize it as Population Police clothing.

When he was finished, he stood in front of Jenny's stall.

'I look a little more presentable now, don't you think?' he asked her.

Jenny whinnied and rubbed her face against his shoulder.

'Yeah, I know,' Luke said. 'Mother would be proud that I thought about washing up. But Jen would know that I was just putting off leaving. Hey — careful there with the oat slobber! I don't want to have to change my shirt again!'

He backed away from the horse's stall and resolutely moved over to the stable door. He opened it a crack and peeked out.

The sun was shining outside, and it was a beautiful day. Somehow it seemed that spring had arrived overnight.

Luke poked his head out cautiously so he could see around the corner of the building. The crowd was still there, out on the great expanse of lawn, but no one was singing and dancing and cheering anymore. People seemed to be talking quietly, some of them just now waking up. At the front, near the gate, Luke could just barely make out a figure with a cam' era on his shoulder and another person talking into a microphone. So the TV coverage was continuing.

Well, at least it doesn't look like the Population Police came back in the middle of the night, Luke told himself as he stepped out of the stable.

The walk to the main building wasn't a long one, but he had to step over numerous bodies in his path — people who'd been so busy celebrating the night before that they'd just fallen over right in their tracks when they got so tired they had to go to sleep.

Lucky for them it's so warm today, Luke thought.

He was glad that he could see their chests moving up and down — glad that he didn't have to wonder if they were dead.

If the Population Police really are gone, if everyone really is free — how long will it be before I stop thinking about things like that? Luke wondered.

He reached the back door of the headquarters building and let himself in. He was in an unfamiliar room lined with aprons hanging from hooks.

'The food's in here,' someone hollered at him.

He stepped into a larger room, this one full of tables. It reminded him of the dining hall back at Hendricks School, but there were no cooks bustling about, doling out food. Instead, people were lined up in front of a long countertop stacked with apples and oranges.

'Yesterday there was made stuff, not just fruit,' a kid whined in front of him. 'Where's the bread? Where are the waffles? Why aren't there doughnuts anymore?'

'All the workers left, remember?' Luke said. 'Nobody's here to make bread or waffles or doughnuts.'

But he wasn't thrilled about having just fruit for break' fast either. He circled the countertop and headed into the kitchen.

'Nina?' he called softly, remembering that this was where she had worked. He would feel so much better if she popped her head out from behind the row of stainless-steel refrigerators, or sprang out from beyond one of the long cabinets. But the sound of her name just echoed in the silent, empty kitchen.

I didn't really expect her to be here, Luke told himself. She's free now,