Beautiful Blue World (3 page)

MY CLASSMATE KARL
had gotten out of his house before it was bombed to bits.

But his uncle hadn't.

Now Karl didn't have a house.

Or an uncle.

Miss Tameron couldn't even tell us that he had stayed home, as he had no home to stay in. She just said, “Karl will not be in attendance today. It's my hope that he will be with us tomorrow. I'm relieved that all of you are here. I'm glad to see each of you.”

An emotional statement. People were either not sharing such thoughts or spreading rumors. Our teacher had entertained the idea that some of us might not make it through the night. A frightening thing for any adult to suggest.

But Miss Tameron smiled, and her gladness filled me, too. Saying she'd been afraid for us also meant she cared what became of us. That we each still mattered, separately. Not just our country. Us.

We settled in to comparing ancient poems from Eilean and Nor'land, our neighbors to the north, across the sea. As always, Megs answered all of Miss Tameron's questions.

I didn't answer any.

My eyes kept fixing on Karl's empty chair.

At the end of the school day, Miss Tameron handed everyone a form.

“Many of you have had your twelfth birthdays, so I'm obligated to give you these. Take them home and discuss this opportunity with your parents.”

Across the top of the paper was the same call to service as on the posters, with the date the test would take place at our school, three weeks from now.

But the form made promises that the poster had not: that your family would receive four hundred orins—the highest unit of our currency—plus twenty a week more while you served.

You would be provided with room and board for the duration of your service and, at eighteen, your university education.

Room and board—that meant you would no longer be at home.

Across the bottom were lines for name, date of birth, and permission from both parents. And the sentence “I understand that applying to sit the test commits me to service should I be selected.”

I scrunched up the paper and crammed it into my book bag.

I would show it to Mother and Father because I had been asked to, but I didn't want to sign up. I wouldn't go away from home.

Several of the boys were excited; on the way out, they mentioned flying aerials and boot camp and seeing some action and finally getting to take part. They'd been wishing the minimum age for the army was lower. They were tired of their fathers and older brothers being away while they could do nothing to fight the shortages or defend Sofarende.

Megs remained in her seat, studying the form. When she noticed me waiting, she folded it carefully, and put it inside her bag.

Megs, Kammi, Eliza Heller, and I left school together. We got to the end of the first block, and I started to slow.

“What is it?” Megs asked.

I shook my head at her and spoke to my sister instead. “Kammi, go home this way. Go straight there, okay?”

Kammi would be happy and safe with Eliza. It wasn't unusual for them to walk together. The two grabbed hands and started toward home.

Megs studied me as I watched them go.

“I want to see what happened,” I said. “During the night, I mean.”

“
Should
we go over there, though?”

“Were you told not to?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Just not to take Kammi.”

Megs bit her lip, considering.

“I just want to know. I just want to know what we're hiding from.”

She nodded. We headed east.

In the still-rising dust and smoke, our shoes crunched on the cobbles. Overnight, they'd been covered in gravel.

Megs reached for my hand, and I took hers, glad for the warmth of her fingers.

There was no sign of what had been two rows of houses.

Of homes.

Of families.

Just heaps and heaps of rubble, as if someone had knocked down a mountain.

Only a few blocks from where we lived. It could have been our street.

Maybe it would be, tonight.

We continued up the center of the street as if on a strange conveyor, afraid to stop, afraid to hurry.

Spots of orange emerged in the gray: helmets and vests of rescue workers. They shouted to each other.

They were still finding people.

Still moving rocks and charred timber to open pathways to the basements.

But they were also carrying stretchers covered with sheets.

A row of these stretchers lay on the ground.

A woman ran up to the men in orange vests.

“Have you seen my son? My son? My son and his children, they live on this street!”

Lived.

There was no more street.

Nobody lived here anymore.

The woman ran on to the next set of rescue workers.

“My son! My son!”

Her words stabbed me behind my breastbone. My eyes followed her frantic path up the street.

“Mathilde?”

Megs was tugging my arm.

“Mathilde, we should go home.”

I hung up my coat and scarf, tossed my shoes into the row by the door, and thundered upstairs.

I opened my math textbook and answer booklet on the small desk in our room. I sharpened my pencil, found my extra eraser, and wrote the assignment heading.

And then I just sat there, tapping the pencil.

I closed my eyes.

I could hear Mother's voice, pleading with the rescue workers:
My husband, have you seen him, he's on Street Safety Patrol? My husband!

I wrapped my arms around myself as if to shut out her imaginary screaming; I rocked back and forth. Sweat beaded on my upper lip.

The voice changed to be Father's as he climbed through rubble in an oddly orange, smoky dawn:
My wife, my daughters! We lived here, on this street!

“Big!”

The shock of the strength of his voice jolted my eyes open.

“Big!”

I jumped to my feet and flew downstairs—Father was home from the post office.

He hadn't even taken off his own hat yet, but he was holding one of my shoes.

“How did your shoes end up looking like this?”

My shoes were caked with white and gray powder, like Father's had been this morning. My coat and scarf were lightly dusted, too. I reached up and smoothed my hair; when I took my hand away, it was covered with the same grime.

“They must have—”

But my shoes wouldn't have gone anywhere on their own.

“I mean, I—”

“You disobeyed me.”

“No! I—” I stepped off the bottom stair, getting closer to him. “You said not to take Kammi, and I didn't; you can ask her, she came right home.”

“And you think I meant it was okay for you to go if you got rid of Kammi?”

I lowered my eyes and mumbled, “I wasn't getting around what you said. I really thought you weren't worried about me the way you were about Kammi.”

“Not about what you'd see. Just physical danger. Walls can fall down hours later, or keep burning, or—”

“I know. I…I
saw.
”

He nodded and handed me my shoe.

“Get the brush and clean these outside. Before your mother sees.”

I picked up the brush and my other shoe. I stepped outside without my coat and started knocking the powder off my shoes. My breath, too, rose white in the frigid night air.

I tensed, waiting for the sirens.

“NEEEEEOW PUD-D-D-D-D-D-D!”

One of the younger boys ran circles in the schoolyard, his arms out straight like an aerial's.

“Watch it, baby!” Kaleb, an older boy, yelled at him.

“You watch it!” the smaller boy yelled back. “You watch it because I'm going to sign up for that test as soon as they let me, and then I'll fly over your house and kill you!”

Kaleb cuffed him on the head, but not too hard. “Get out of here,” he said gently. The boy ran off to terrorize some girls his age, including Kammi. I hoped he wouldn't upset her. After three more nights of bombing this week, we were all tired.

“I'm going to do it for the money,” one boy said. “Take the test, I mean.”

“Me too,” a few other boys said.

Four hundred orins…a family could eat on that for a year.

If there was any food to buy.

Since Tyssia and Erobern had cut our train lines to most of the southern nations, there had been hardly any fruit. Pigs were thin because people had been eating the acorns we used to feed them. There wasn't much fat to cook in.

“My mother says signing your child up is like selling them for a currency that's going to be useless anyway when Sofarende falls,” Peggi said.

A shocked silence followed her words.

Saying that out loud was treason.

I squirmed my toes inside my shoes. You could be imprisoned for treason, or even put to death. Why would Peggi's mother say such a thing in front of her? Why would Peggi repeat it?

One of the boys said, “What do you care, anyway? The test's not for girls.”

“Says who? The sign says for
children
ages twelve to fourteen,” Megs said. “That means boys
and
girls.”

“What would they want girls for? What use are girls?”

Megs slammed her hands into his chest and knocked him over.

The other kids let up a cheer and formed a circle around them. Except for Kaleb. He leaned in and took Megs by the arm.

I stood in the middle of the circle, my heart thudding too fast.

Kaleb led Megs away by the elbow. I moved to catch up, but she turned and caught my eye. My feet stopped.

Megs looked mad.

Like she didn't want me to follow.

I took Kammi home, checked in with Mother, and walked over to Megs's house.

Something buzzed in my brain and fluttered around my heart, something that I couldn't quiet when I thought about trying to talk to her.

One of her little sisters answered the door.

“Come in, Mathilde!”

“Actually…” I held up my basket and looked into the house, catching Megs's mother's eye. “I was hoping Megs could come out to look for mushrooms.”

Mrs. Swiller nodded. “Good idea. The soup's a bit thin tonight.”

Megs looked from me to her mother; then she sighed, and got her coat and basket.

We set out to the edge of town in silence, our knitted scarves and hats bright against the gray afternoon and frosty bare trees.

Even through the frost and steam of our breath, the woods reminded me of summer, back when Megs and I could play outside for hours. When the war had seemed so far away.

I followed Megs off the path. She stooped to tug up mushrooms. Did she count each mouth as she plucked them?

She looked over at me, standing still and clutching the handle of my basket.

“Aren't you going to get any? Isn't that why you came out here?”

I knelt beside her and grabbed a couple of mushrooms, but their tops popped off into my hands, leaving behind the stumps.

“You're taking the test, aren't you?” I asked.

Megs sat back on her heels and looked at me. “I have to.”

“Your mother's making you?”

“No. I just—have to.”

“For the money?”

She nodded.

“Does she
want
you to take it?”

“I think she's glad she doesn't have to ask me to. That I just told her I would.”

If Megs sat the test, she would get the required score, whatever it was. She was top of our class in every subject. And she'd even beaten older students in that essay contest, “Why I'm Proud to Be a Sofarender.” She was working through next year's math book in the time left over in each math class when she finished her regular work early.

The sun was dropping rapidly. I stood up and pulled my coat tighter.

Megs added softly, “It could save us.”

“But what if we lose
you
?”

Megs's look was steady as she stood up.

“I told you before, I don't think they'd make us do something that dangerous.”

“But you don't
know
that.”

“Stop it!” She stamped her foot and the mushrooms jumped in her basket, some tumbling out. “Just stop it, okay? Why do you always have to worry about everything?”

I swallowed hard as her watering eyes stared into mine.

“That's not fair.” I dragged the back of my hand across my eyes, refusing to cry. “You wouldn't volunteer if you weren't worried about your family.”

“You don't know what it's like! Your father's still here!”

The words hung between us. Searing.

“Still here? What about at night, during the bombings? When I don't know where he is, or if he will ever come back? You say that I worry too much, and that I don't know what it's like to worry!”

I stared at her, my heart beating fast.

But we weren't really angry at each other.

Then she nodded. She understood.

And I had to understand, too. I had to accept what she was going to do. Even though she had said she would be there with me, whatever happened, and taking the test would be breaking her promise.

I stooped, picked up the scattered mushrooms, and dropped them back into her basket. My hands were steady.

“I have to,” she whispered when I stood back up.

“I know,” I said.

We both crouched down and started collecting mushrooms again, though I picked as slowly as I could without making it obvious that I was leaving them for her.

The war was eating up everything—our food, our sleep, our homes, our fathers…now even each other.

We picked until there was nothing left in sight. Then Megs linked her arm through mine, and we were swallowed by the darkness.