Beautiful Blue World

Eight Keys

Listening for Lucca

Love, Aubrey

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2016 by Suzanne M. LaFleur

Cover and map art copyright © 2016 by Jensine Eckwall

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Visit us on the Web!
randomhousekids.com

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
RHTeachersLibrarians.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: LaFleur, Suzanne M., author.

Title: Beautiful blue world / Suzanne LaFleur.

Description: First Edition. | New York : Wendy Lamb Books, [2016] | Summary: Sofarende is at war and the army is paying families well to recruit children, so if twelve-year-old Mathilde or her best friend Megs is chosen, they hope to help their families but fear they will be separated forever. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016021125 (print) | LCCN 2015046201 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-307-98033-5 (eBook) | ISBN 978-0-385-74300-6 (hardback) | ISBN 978-0-375-99089-2 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-307-98032-8 (pbk.)

Subjects: | CYAC: War—Fiction. | Survival—Fiction. | Best friends—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / General. | JUVENILE FICTION / Family / General (see also headings under Social Issues).

Classification: LCC PZ7.L1422 (print) | LCC PZ7.L1422 Be 2016 (ebook) | DDC [E]—dc23

ebook ISBN 9780307980335

Random House Children's Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v4.1

ep

For Amy

with gratitude for days spent at Bletchley Park and Dover Castle and on countless other adventures

Due to the continued conflict with Tyssia, please be advised of new mandatory safety instructions.

Be on alert at all times for the sirens.

At the sound of the sirens, proceed immediately to your assigned shelter. Do not leave your shelter for any reason. Remain there until the all-clear siren sounds.

Shelter assignment:

Residence: Joss, 52 Raken Street, Lykkelig

Shelter: Heller, basement level, 54Raken Street, Lykkelig

MEGS AND I FROZE
on my front step.

We'd seen the notices on our walk home, pinned to every door, fluttering in the chill winter breeze: white butterflies tacked down, wishing to fly free.

It was better to think of them that way, like butterflies.

Because they also looked like white flags of surrender.

“Did you get one?” I asked, craning my neck to check two doors down, where Megs lived.

“Everyone did.”

I looked at her, my best friend and opposite-twin, her dark braids mirroring my light ones. She realized the edge in her tone. It had snuck in, at least once a day, since her father had left to fight. Been ordered to fight.

It's not you she's mad at.

Her bright blue eyes, watering in the cold, took me in. A smile came to them as one appeared across her pink, chapped cheeks. “Come on, let's see what mine says.” She offered her hand, led me past the Hellers' between us, to her own house. “See, we're assigned together! Whatever it is, it won't be so bad, Mathilde.”

“But—why do we need shelter assignments?”

Mother, waiting for me to get home, opened our front door. She saw me and smiled, lifted her hand to wave. But then she spotted the notices across the street and turned to read ours. She grew very still; her smile disappeared.

Mrs. Heller opened her door, too. She read her notice, looked around at all of us. Her face swelled like a boiled red potato.

“Now you're going to be living at my house?”

“Living? How long do you expect us to be down there?” Mother asked.

“Who knows? Maybe forever. But your family's not to become a burden on our family; you'd better send over some food stores—”

“Food stores? I'm not sending my food stores over to your basement. You'll eat them!”

“Are you accusing me of being a thief?”

“That's what you've implied I am!”

My little sisters came to the doorway: Kammi, who had beaten me home from school, and Tye, blouse untucked and short braids falling out. I raced home, Megs at my heels. “Come on,” I said to my sisters. “Come inside.”

I quickly shut the door. The house was cold. There wasn't enough fuel for fires during the day anymore.

“Here, Tye, let's find your sweater.” A sweater that had once been mine, and then Kammi's, and now had patches on the elbows.

“Catch me!” Tye shrieked.

She didn't need to know that I felt wobbly, that we might be headed to live in the basement next door. I chased her into the living room, grabbed her by the ankles, and held her upside down.

“I'm upside down! I'm upside down!” She giggled.

Poor Tye had never known the world right-side up. Before Tyssia decided they wanted all of it for themselves; before they took over the Skaven lands, before they joined with Erobern.

Before they were coming for us.

Mother came in and slammed the door. I dropped Tye, who rolled away, laughing.

“Why are we going to the Hellers' basement?” I asked Mother.

“Ours is too shallow.”

“Too shallow for what?”

I followed her into the kitchen, where she loaded up a box with tins and jars. There hadn't been that much in the pantry to begin with.
Don't grumble, don't grumble,
I told my stomach as the shelves emptied.

Mother handed me the heavy box, adjusting the red scarf around my neck and freeing my braids. “Take this next door.”

Was she afraid, like Mrs. Heller, that we were going to have to
live
in their basement?

For how long?

Forever?

I looked at Megs, who shrugged.

“Why don't you do your homework at Megs's house?” Mother said.

“Why is she mad at you? You didn't ask the government to send those notices.”

And wouldn't Mrs. Heller want to help us, if there was some kind of emergency? She was our neighbor. Kammi played with her daughter.

Mother smiled, grazed her knuckle down my cheek. “Don't you worry. Run along.”

Megs and I walked to the Hellers' in silence. Megs knocked. When Mrs. Heller answered, she looked less like a boiled potato, but she took our box with a huff and slammed the door.

“It's probably like a drill,” Megs said as we walked to her house. “Like fire drills at school. We practice those all the time, and have we ever had a fire? No. We'll probably never have to go to her stupid basement.”

She ripped down her family's notice on the way through the door. She stopped to look me in the eye.

“Even if we do, we'll be together. Whatever happens, I'll be with you.”