Sneak (10 page)

Bridget nodded. “No more secrets.”

“I leave today.”

“Tomorrow,” Bridget revised. “Practice today. Get a few hours

rest before you head out. The last thing you need’s a broken arm only five miles into your trip.”

Logan stared at her.

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“You know I’m right. Come on. Just let me have the afternoon.

I can scrounge up a week’s worth of food for you in that time.”

“Tonight,” Logan bargained. “If not today, then tonight.”

“Logan, don’t be stupid about this. I’m giving you your ticket to Beacon. You could at least give me a few hours’ trust in return.

Haven’t I earned that much?”

Logan wasn’t sure.

“Come on,” Bridget said. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

5

It was midafternoon. Tyler and Meg were chopping wood like

maniacs while Jo supervised. In the stable, Eddie was feeding the horses and talking to the stallion, updating it on the morning, as if Eddie had made a new friend. Rusty and Dane were in the coop,

gathering eggs and giving fresh water to the chickens. And in the barn across the cornfield, Mama and Papa Hayes were showing

Peck and Blake how to milk the farm’s only cow.

“I hope you know how much it means to us that you’ve taken

us in. It’s been a rough month,” Peck said. And he and Blake shared a look while Blake switched his full bucket for an empty one.

Papa Hayes nodded and gave the cow a little pat. “It’s been a

rough month for all of us, Peck. But for you especially, we know.”

“You kids were helpful in looking after the Fulmart,” Mama

Hayes added. “We always did appreciate that, and we’re happy to repay you for it. Besides—we sure can use the help around here.”

“Of course,” Peck said.

Blake brushed his hair back with his forearm, taking a break

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from the milking and looking disgustedly at his hands. “You

know . . . Mama . . . I’m happy to be doing this . . . or whatever,”

he said, clearly not happy with it. “But I just have to ask . . . I mean . . . what exactly are we doing here? This farm’s pretty

meager. It isn’t even yours . . .”

“It’s for show.” Mama nodded. “The corn, the animals . . . in

case DOME comes looking. Jean would much rather do without

the hassle, but, well . . . Jean doesn’t much like taking chances, and having us around is risky enough even with all of this here as distraction.”

“Jean?” Blake asked.

“The owner of this land. She’s Marked. But she’s on our side.”

Papa leaned down and examined the milk bucket. Then he

gave Blake a nod, and Blake didn’t hesitate to stand up and be done with it. “Jean never was much interested in farming,” Papa said. “This farm was her husband’s love, but it was his alone.”

“Papa and Robert were in the States War together,” Mama

said. “Fought many battles, side by side.”

Papa nodded and untied the cow from its post.

“But when Lamson took over, they took . . . different paths.”

“Proverbs 2:12–13: ‘Wisdom will save you from the ways of

wicked men,’” Papa said distantly. “From men ‘who have left the straight paths to walk in dark ways.’” Papa laughed softly to himself. “Robert, you old fool . . .”

“You have to understand,” Mama told Blake. “This here was a

family farm. How many generations, Papa? Three? Four?”

“Four,” Papa said.

“Four generations. This land belonged to Robert’s great-

great-grandfather. You have to understand how
long
that had been . . . the
history
there . . .”

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“Oh, stop making excuses for him! The man chose poorly and

that’s that. Ain’t no accounting for life’s poor choices.”

“Well, anyway,” Mama said. “When Lamson came along . . .

when he teamed up with Cylis like that . . . it was either take the Mark or lose the farm.”

“‘Can’t sell crops without a Mark,’” Papa recited. “‘Can’t own land, can’t sell crops’. . . . How many times did I listen to those excuses?”

“Jean never wanted it,” Mama said to Blake. “Like Papa and

me, Jean knew something wasn’t right about Lamson, about Cylis, about their whole scheme . . . didn’t sit well with any of us. But this farm meant the world to Robert. So he and Jean Pledged,

along with just about everyone else.”

Papa sighed. “When Robert died a couple years back, Jean

found us out on Slog Row. Said she had some ideas on how we

might be able to use this land to help the Markless after all.”

“Help the Markless?” Blake laughed. “With what?
Milk?
”

Papa was smiling now. “Come,” he said. “Gather your friends.

I’d like to show you something.”

Outside the farmhouse, two large oak trees stood, bigger than any the Dust had seen in Spokie, and bigger than any of them normally imagined trees to be. Peck had rounded everyone up, and

the group looked at those trees now.

“What’s the biggest advantage the Marked folk have?” Papa

Hayes asked.

“Money?”

“Nuclear weapons?”

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“No, no!” Papa said. “Simpler than that. Think—what was
our
biggest advantage, back on Slog Row?”

“The Fulmart?”

“Canned food?”

“
Community!
” Papa said. “The Marked have
community
. Boil every thing else down, and that’s what you’re left with. That’s what they have right now that we don’t.

“And it’s no small thing,” Papa said. “To be able to talk with one another, to stick together, to share ideas, to plan . . .” Papa Hayes walked toward the trees now, placing his hand on one of the trunks.

“DOME’s driving us apart. They’re spreading us thin. Just look at you: you used to be inseparable, and now all you do is fight.”

The Dust looked around at one another sheepishly.

“We’re helpless without organization,” Mama added. “But

that’s exactly what makes our work here on this farm important.”

She pointed to the branches in front of them.

“Trees?” Tyler asked. “You . . . you want to start a new society in the trees?” He began to laugh until Jo punched him on the arm.

“Look closer, Tyler. What’s
in
these trees?”

The Dust looked more closely.

“Sap?” Eddie guessed.

“A birds’ nest.” Tyler pointed upwards.

“Wire,” Jo said, squinting up at the branches. “They’re strung up with wire.”

“That’s right!” Papa told her. “Antennas. The fact is, kids, this ain’t really a farm anymore. It’s a radio station.”

“A
what
?”

“A Markless radio station! Shortwave. With our equipment,

we can broadcast all over the globe. They’ve been doing it in the
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country side for years . . . but ours was the first in the New Chicago area.”

Dane, the one musician of the group, was visibly excited. The

rest of the Dust just stared.

“Shortwave?”

“Radio?”

Somehow the idea of it didn’t immediately light their imagina-

tions on fire.

Papa Hayes laughed deeply. “I’m showing my age, aren’t I?” He

clapped Blake on the back. “I know, I know, not exactly cutting-edge. But, kids—that’s the whole point. You don’t need tablets to hear a radio broadcast. You don’t need fancy computers or the Internet at all. No power, even! Just a foxhole radio made from junk you can find on the ground. Wire for the antenna and the tuning coil, a clothespin, a rusty razor blade . . . that’s all it would take for you to hear our broadcast anywhere from here to the other end of the city. Get a little fancier, maybe upgrade to a crystal radio or a vintage radio, like the kinds they used to sell in the pre-Unity days, and with the power supply we have on this farm, you’d be able to hear our station halfway across the country.”

The Dust looked up at the tree.

“So we can communicate,” Blake said. “Even with no money,

no shelter, no tech. We can still organize.”

Papa Hayes nodded. “You kids didn’t need to worry about this

stuff back on Slog Row. But trust me. It’s worth worrying about now. And with all their fancy equipment and satellites, shortwave is the last place in the radio spectrum DOME would think to listen.”

“Can I have my own radio program?” Dane asked, thinking

back to his glory days as lead singer of the Boxing Gloves. “Please?”

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Papa laughed, and for a moment, it even looked like he might

have been considering it.

“Finish your chores,” Mama said. “Then we’ll see.”

6

Another lonely day had passed at Spokie Middle. The final bell had rung, and Erin sat alone on the floor against the wall of the Arctic Wing, watching students file past under the slow, pastel rib-bon dance of the aurora borealis. Behind them, simulated icebergs crashed and fell into the sea. Erin studied each splash, imagining the glacier water spraying out of the screens and into the hall, imagining each student drenched and sopping wet and freezing with it, stranded in the real Arctic as lonely and miserable as Erin was now.

“Oh dear. We mustn’t be sitting in the hallways, please, Erin,”

Ms. Carrol said.

Ms. Carrol was the school secretary at Spokie Middle. Erin

hated her as much as everyone else in this stupid town, but she stood up all the same.

“Sorry, Ms. Carrol.” She waved, and left school for the day.

Three times on the walk home, clusters of Spokie Middle stu-

dents accosted Erin, pressing her for updates on Dane and Logan.

“Have you heard anything?” they asked.

“I heard it was your fault Dane got kidnapped.”

“I heard you’ve been arrested.”

“I heard your dad works for DOME.”

“I heard your mom works on Barrier Street.”

“I heard . . .”

“I heard . . .”

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“I heard . . .”

Finally, Erin swung around, her classmates piling up on top

of one another as they stopped short in the line that was following on her heels.

“It
was
my fault Dane got kidnapped,” she said. “I
was
arrested the night of his concert. And my dad
does
work for DOME. I was there the day DOME raided Slog Row; I was there the day Logan

flunked his Pledge. And I have
no
idea
if we’ll see either of them ever again.

“You all treated Logan like dirt when he was at this school,

and you’ve never treated me much better. So stop acting like this is all some personal tragedy to
you
, like your own stupid lives are the ones that have been ruined, and leave me alone before I give DOME
another
reason to arrest me
right
now
.”

She stood facing the group for some time, nothing but heavy

breathing between them.

Then one of the girls in the back of the group started giggling, and the giggles slowly spread among the clique. Eventually those giggles turned to laughter, and then the laughter turned to jokes among the friends.

Erin turned from the group, walking away with her head held

high, too quickly for any of them to hear her sniffle once and then again a second time.

Minutes later, Erin passed Wright Lane, Logan’s street, with its familiar buildings and shrubbery. She blinked a few times to see it through the mist in her eyes.

“Thinking about him?” someone said.

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Erin jumped. “I didn’t see you there.” Hailey had a knack for

showing up unannounced and starting conversations without say-

ing hi.

Hailey
is
a
great
spy
, Erin thought a little enviously. She really did respect that about the girl, even if she couldn’t ever say so.

“Sorry,” Hailey said.

Erin eyed Hailey for a moment. And suddenly she became very

embarrassed, and she turned away quickly. “No, no, it’s fine. And yes, actually. I was thinking about him. Logan was the only friend I had out here.” She sighed. “He might have been the best friend I had
anywhere
.” And as soon as she said it, Erin knew that it was true.

“I get it.” Hailey sighed. “I liked him too.”

They shivered quietly for a moment.

“He was such a dork though,” Erin said, laughing all of a sud-

den. “I mean,
man
, what a nerd.”

“I know!” Hailey laughed. “He was the worst.”

What was this? Were they really becoming friends? Erin didn’t

even know anymore how she’d feel about it if they were.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Hailey frowned. “Anything else bothering you?”

“It’s nothing,” Erin said. “It’s just . . . my dad’s just making me do something I don’t want to do, is all.”

Hailey nodded, trying hard not to reveal too much of her

interest. “It must be hard, just you and him out here alone.”

“We’re not alone,” Erin said. “My iguana’s out here too.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Hailey said. “I’ve seen him, haven’t I? The little guy you had in the park when we first met.
So
cool. I’d forgotten all about him!”

In fact, Hailey couldn’t have forgotten about Iggy if she’d

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wanted to, after seeing him so many countless times through windows, after hearing him through walls, after talking about him with members of the Dust . . . her forgetfulness was completely fake. And yet Hailey’s excitement wasn’t. She really did think Iggy was amazing, and that Erin was pretty cool for having him.