Beautiful Blue World (17 page)

I WOKE SEVERAL TIMES
in the night, expecting sirens.

And aerial engines.

But waking was better than sleeping.

Sleeping only led to nightmares.

I wished I'd thought to stay with Megs.

I wished Annevi would wander by to check on me.

I wished Faetre still felt safe.

In the morning, I wasn't even tired. I silently trooped through our morning parade around the grounds. Megs stomped along next to me, knowing something was still wrong but not asking what.

I went to the living room with everyone else. I didn't want to see Rainer. Not ever again.

Megs, Brid, and Caelyn settled in to their pages, but I couldn't sit still. I wandered to the bookshelves, sliding out and shoving back every book I touched.

The Examiner came in, started talking with different children about their work. I watched her move about the room, and I moved, too, always as far away as I could get.

How could she think her plan of us being a school would work?

She doesn't know. That's why you have to tell her.

That's what she wants from you, isn't it?

My feet marched me over toward her, where she sat speaking softly with Fredericka on a couch. They smiled, poring over some information in the pages of a book in Fredericka's lap.

“You locked me up with a murderer!” I yelled.

They both looked up. Fredericka's mouth fell open as the book tumbled to the floor.

The room went still and quiet.

The one voice that carried on was Hamlin's, reciting a common prayer in Tyssian.

Not praying.

Testing the opening lines of the morning's first coded transmissions for something every Tyssian would know.

The Examiner picked up Fredericka's book and handed it to her. “If you'll excuse me, I think Mathilde needs a few minutes of my time.”

She placed a hand on my shoulder, and guided me out of the room. Everyone was looking at me.

She steered me along, but we didn't go to her office.

Were we going somewhere worse? Was she going to punish me for what I'd said in front of everyone?

She didn't take her hand off my shoulder until we were in the kitchen. I'd never been there before. She opened a drawer and took out a spoon. Held it up to me.

It was an awfully small spoon to be punished with.

“I'm not going to hit you. Take it.”

I took it.

She led me into a pantry, selected a jar, opened its lid, and set it on the table.

“We don't have your favorite raspberry glaze. Will raspberry jam do?”

I stared at her. “How—”

“Perhaps Megs didn't tell you I took her directly back with me? We rode the train together. She talked a lot.”

Megs.

She was probably worried.

My fist tightened around the spoon.

“We won't be safe here, if the Tyssians come, even if we pretend to be a school!”

The Examiner breathed in and out. “I very much want to hear what you have to say, but you need to stop yelling or I won't understand you.”

I didn't want to give in and eat the jam, but it shined so pretty red. I dipped my spoon in and had just the littlest bit. It
was
good. The sugar flowed through me as I licked the spoon clean and set it on the table.

“Try again.”

I swallowed. “The building in Rainer's paintings…it's a school. He had orders to burn it because the schoolmaster wouldn't conduct lessons the way the Tyssians said to. It sounds like…there were…”

The Examiner looked worried.

She never let us see her look worried.

“Why would he do it?” I asked.

“What do you think would have happened to him if he hadn't?”

“He still didn't—”

“No, think about it.”

But I knew what the answer was. If they were making an example of the schoolmaster, they would have done the same thing to their soldiers.

“More than anything, Rainer wants to live. He was afraid to defy his orders. He let himself be captured, even though it was dishonorable. He has as much to fear from the Tyssians as we do. Maybe he'll come around to help us.”

I closed my eyes.

I didn't want to think of Rainer as the victim.

He had done awful things.

“How does he feel about what he did?”

His crying had been terrible.

The most desperate I'd ever heard.

FISTS POUNDED ON MY
DOOR.
I gasped as I sat up in the dark.

“Coats on! Meet outside!” a boy's voice cried.

Hamlin?

I reached for my coat, feeling along the wall until I came to its hook.

There it was. My fingers fumbled numbly, trying to tug my arms through the sleeves and do up the buttons. I shoved my feet into my shoes.

Were we being bombed? Why would we need coats? The shelter was in the basement.

The pounding fists and call to meet outside continued along the hallway, the noise louder as I opened my door and stepped out among other children, also trying to get their coats on over their nightclothes.

When Hamlin moved on from our hallway, the silence was broken only by the quick slapping of shoes on the floor as we hurried.

A hand grabbed mine.

Megs, of course.

I squeezed back.

Someone found my other hand. Brid. With Caelyn hanging on to her already.

And then we were outside, swept along in the crowd of children.

The night glowed orange and flickering; the air was heavy, smoky.

Like at home, during the bombings.

If we were being bombed, why had they had us come out into the night? They'd promised Mother and Father I'd be under concrete and steel.

We walked onto the grounds toward a large fire, its flames licking high into the night. I looked up at the sky, trying to make out aerials through the smoke.

Nothing.

And no roar of engines.

We weren't being bombed.

Adults were around the fire. But they weren't trying to put out the fire; they were feeding it.

Our mapping tables.

Our charts and codes and papers.

Our books.

Were Tyssians here to burn Faetre?

No. The adults were in Sofarender uniforms and civilian clothes. They were
our
proctors, burning
our
things.

While we watched.

But hadn't our work been important?

As I watched the flames devour it, I realized that was why they
had
to burn it.

So it wouldn't be left.

So nothing would be left.

And there wouldn't be.

Not even us.

We were leaving.

Tyssia wasn't here yet, but they would be.

Pretending to be a school wasn't going to be disguise enough.

It was over.

When I finally looked away from the fire—was it the brightness or the smoke causing my eyes to tear?—and around me at the others, proctors were handing out packets of paper.

When they got to us, Megs and I dropped hands.

“Put these in the inside pocket of your coat. Keep them safe.”

We each nodded as we accepted our packets.

As the grown-up moved on, Brid whispered, “And what if something happens to us?”

I shrugged and did my best to squeeze the papers inside my coat.

The Examiner was talking, her voice loud. All the children turned, at attention, to listen.

“We're heading north to the next train stop; with so many of us, we'll have to go on foot, but we should be there by morning. A train will meet us. We'll continue up to the sea, where we'll board boats to take us across to Eilean.”

We were each handed a personalized yellow card. We all stared at them.

Leave Sofarende?

“These are your passes for the boats, in case something causes us to be split up. Get to the water and show this pass to any boatman, and he should take you across. Keep your military ID and clearance on you for entry into Eilean, but if Sofarende falls and you are taken by soldiers of Tyssia, it would be better to appear as child refugees, so destroy everything at the time that seems imminent: tickets, military ID, documents.

“If that happens, you were never here.

“This place did not exist.

“Let's go; keep up.”

With that, we turned to follow her out through the back gate, forming a moving column.

When the Examiner paused, eighty shuffling feet behind her also paused while she spoke to a figure by the fire.

“Tommy.”

He turned.

“You're coming with us.”

“No,” he said.

“Yes, Tommy, come on.”

“No. I work downstairs now. I'm staying with them.”

“There is no more downstairs. No one's staying. They'll all be dispersing for different missions. You're coming with us.”

He shook his head.

“We've promised your parents we would do our best to keep you safe.”

“Who cares? What's the difference now? I'm not a kid anymore.”

“This isn't about you being a kid. This is about us needing your brilliant mind when we get to Eilean. Your colleagues' work will be in vain if we don't get there to receive it. You're coming. It's an order.”

The young man with Tommy nodded to him, but Tommy still hesitated.

“
I'll
need you there, Tommy.”

Tommy stepped over to her, and accepted his yellow ticket.

I stood still as the group continued to move on, my own yellow ticket in my hands.

Where was Annevi?

Miss Ibsen had said it would be impossible to lose Annevi.

What about Gunnar? Where was he?

“Come on!” Megs called to me. People hurried to keep up with the Examiner, who was setting an alarmingly fast pace at the front.

My heartbeat thudded in my ears.

It is easy to protect yourself and your loved ones; it is harder to protect and care about others….

Because other people matter, too…

Every person matters….

“Wait!” I yelled.

Megs, Brid, and Caelyn stopped.

“I have to take care of something,” I said.

“No, you don't!” Megs said.

“It's part of my assignment.”

Megs shook her head.

“Go, I'll catch up. Stay with the group. I'll call you here”—I pointed to her breastbone—“and catch up. It will be only a few minutes.”

Caelyn moved first; she grabbed Megs's hand and ran, pulling her along. Megs looked back at me.

Once again, my
I love you
for her stuck in my throat.

She already knew, though. Didn't she?

I would be with her in just a few minutes.

I turned to run the other way.

I went into the garden shed, found what I needed there, and hurried back into the house.

Proctors still filled the main room, dragging evidence of our work outside. I carefully peeked down the hallway; all clear. I turned left to a back staircase.

Climbed the stairs.

Ran down another hallway.

And unlocked a door.