Children of Exile (2 page)

Only, there was a little girl hiding in this window well now.

It was a little girl whose moss-green dress might as well have been camouflage, especially matched with her dark hair and dusky skin. All those shadowy colors blended in with the dappled light and pebbles and fallen leaves at the bottom of the window well. Still, I crouched down and tapped the little girl's back.

“Cana!” I whispered. “Quick—go hide somewhere else, someplace harder to find. . . .”

I was surprised that this particular little girl would make such a careless mistake. Cana was only five, like Bobo, but she was unusually quick and sturdy and smart. She'd probably had all the founding principles of Fredtown memorized even before she started kindergarten:
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
And
For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
And
A small
body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. . . .

See what I mean? Not easy words, not easy thoughts. But Cana was good at remembering.

She turned and peered up at me, her heart-shaped face tilted just so.

“Oh, I'm not playing hide-and-seek,” she whispered back. “I'm listening. Edwy told me to.”

I glanced past Cana, toward the blurry, distorted shapes behind the glass-block basement window. Everything fell into place. Those blurry shapes were Freds. They were having their meeting in the town hall basement.

And Edwy had bribed or tricked or swindled Cana into eavesdropping for him. Into spying.

“But that's—that's—,” I sputtered, too angry to explain. I held out my hand to Cana. “Here. Let's get you out of there before you get in trouble.”

And before Edwy lets you take all the blame if you get caught,
I thought.

Cana took my hand and I pulled her up. She stood on the brink of the window well and wrinkled her tiny face into a confused squint.

“We're allowed to hide there,” she said. “I wasn't breaking any rules.”

“Except that it's wrong to eavesdrop on the Freds,” I said,
still crouched beside her. “We're not allowed to hide there when the Freds are meeting.”

“Why?” Cana asked. “And why not?”

“Because we're children and they're adults,” I said. “Because there are things we're not allowed to know yet.” I'd spent my entire life in a town where practically every other kid was younger than me. I could answer “Why?” and “Why not?” questions in my sleep. But this time I couldn't stop myself from asking another question of my own. “But since you did eavesdrop . . . what did you hear?”

I need to know so I can decide whether to tattle on Edwy,
I told myself.
I have to know if Cana heard anything damaging, that would require her to see a counselor to banish dangerous images from her mind. I need to know because . . .

Because I was every bit as curious as Edwy.

That was the honest reason.

Cana tilted her head and gazed at me.

“Nothing
interesting,
” she said. “Edwy said the interesting stuff would be anything that was opposite what they told us, and there wasn't any of that.”

Edwy thinks the Freds are lying,
I decided.
Does he think we're not really going home? Not really going to meet the parents we've never known?

“So they just said stuff you already knew?” I asked Cana.

She shrugged.

The Freds kept talking about how we're all so innocent and trusting,” she said, blinking up at me.
She
certainly looked innocent and trusting.

She's five,
I thought.
She
is
innocent and trusting. That's how Edwy could trick her without really even trying. And . . . so could I.

I sighed and started to reach out to Cana, to pat her back reassuringly and tell her to run off and play with Bobo and the other little kids. But she wasn't done talking.

“One of the Fred-daddies said maybe they'd raised us to be too trusting,” she said. “He said . . .” She rolled her eyes skyward, as if searching her memory for the exact words she'd overheard. “He said maybe they'd just been setting us up for disaster all along.”

Disaster?

The word hit me like a thunderbolt. For a moment I felt like I'd had the air knocked out of my lungs.

Then I saw the way Cana peered at me, so anxiously. I didn't know if she'd understood what she'd heard when she heard it, but she understood now.

Probably because of the way I reacted.

“I'm sure he was only joking,” I said quickly. “Exaggerating. To be silly. Or talking about some kind of game. You know how some kids act like it's a disaster to get tagged out in Wiffle ball. Edwy does that.”

“Oh,” Cana said, wrinkling her nose. “I didn't think of that.”

She stood before me, a little girl in a moss-green dress. A little girl who was too smart to believe what I'd just said.

“Just don't eavesdrop anymore,” I said. “It's too easy to hear something that might just confuse you. Or upset you. For no reason.”

Cana still looked doubtful. I put my arm around her and led her toward the playground, toward the monkey bars where Bobo was playing.

If any of the Freds glanced out from the town hall just then, would they see two innocent girls, the older one looking after the younger, like she was supposed to?

Or would they see a whole park full of children headed for disaster?

“Last bag,”
Fred-mama said, easing my suitcase onto the back of the truck that was taking everyone's belongings to the airport.

“Thanks,” the driver called back to her. He went on to the next house, where the Fred-parents of the toddler twins Peki and Meki started loading up.

“That
was
everything, wasn't it?” Fred-mama asked me.

“Except for what you gave me to carry myself,” I said, turning around so she could see the little knapsack already strapped to my back. I'd peeked inside: It held a book to read on the plane, and lots of extra sandwiches and snacks. I'd seen Fred-mama pack a bulging knapsack for Bobo as well.

“Good,” Fred-mama said. But she didn't whirl around to head back inside to gather up Bobo and Fred-daddy, to get us all moving toward the airport. She just stood there, so I just stood there too.

“Mama,” I whispered, and it was the first time in my life I had ever addressed her that way.

“
Fred-
mama,” she corrected me, in that same gentle-but-firm tone she'd used with me my whole life. “I'm only your Fred-mama. Your real mama is waiting for you at home.”

“
You're
my real mama,” I said. “You. Not anyone else.”

It was like I had no choice: Either I had to spit out the angry words inside me or they would make me collapse; they would weigh me down and pin me to the ground, and I would never be able to get up.

“How can someone be a mama when she hasn't seen me in twelve years?” I asked. “When she's never even come to visit? How can you send Bobo and me—and all the other kids—back to a place we've never been?
And
expect us to call that strange place home?”

“Oh, honey,” Fred-mama said, wrapping her arms around me.

I buried my face against her shoulder. Fred-mama was wearing a dress I'd once told her was my favorite: It was soft cotton with a pattern of lilac sprigs. When I was younger, I used to study it and tell her which flower cluster I liked best; I used to ask if someday, when I was a grown-up lady, I could get a dress like that, too.

I expected the feel of that soft, familiar fabric against my face to be the only comfort possible. I expected Fred-mama
to offer me nothing but a hug and the same empty phrases the Freds had been giving us all along:
You're too young for us to explain everything. Someday, when you're a grown-up, you'll understand.

But Fred-mama took in a gulp of air that didn't sound comforting, confident, gentle, or firm.

“Oh, Rosi,” she whispered into my hair. “You're the one I feel sorriest for. Well, you and Edwy. Because you two are old enough to understand that something's wrong.”

I pushed away from her shoulder so I could stare her straight in the face.

“I am?” I said. “We are? Then tell me—”

Fred-mama began shaking her head. The motion looked regretful, apologetic. And a little sneaky. Her dark curls bounced against her cheeks, and her eyes darted about, scanning the quiet street. It was like she was checking to make sure Peki and Meki's parents had finished loading the truck and gone back inside their house (they had); she was checking to make sure the truck had turned the corner and driven away toward the airport.

It had, too. Except for us and the row of towering trees out in the boulevard, the street was empty.

“I'm sorry,” Fred-mama said. “I'm not allowed to tell you anything else. This is all very . . . complicated. But I know you can tell this isn't how things were supposed to be. Not
what we intended. Things . . . changed. All of us Freds—we want the best for you. Your parents undoubtedly want the best for you too.”

There was something in her voice I'd never heard before, something she'd never before let her guard down to reveal. Was it fear? Anguish? Grief?

It sounded like she was trying to convince herself, as much as me, that what she was saying was true.

“I don't even know my parents!” I said frantically. “They haven't seen me since the day I was born! How can they know what's best for me? How can they know anything about me?”

Fred-mama kept shaking her head.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “So, so sorry. But . . . just remember. You are a good person. You'll remember everything we've taught you.”

What was she really trying to tell me?

The door of our house opened just then, Fred-daddy stepping out onto the porch. He had Bobo perched on his shoulders, and the two of them had to duck down so Bobo didn't hit his head on the doorframe.

“It's time,” Fred-daddy said, and I could hear the strain in his voice too—the strain he was undoubtedly trying to hide for Bobo's sake.

Did he also feel sorry for me? If Bobo hadn't been there,
would Fred-daddy have dropped the pretense, just like Fred-mama had? Could the three of us have wept on one another's shoulders? And spoken freely?

It was useless to wonder about what-ifs. Bobo
was
there. Bobo was always there for me to think about; I was always responsible for my little brother. I would be more responsible for him than ever, now that we were going home.

“Ready for our big adventure?” I asked him. I tilted my head back to gaze up at him, perched high above me on Fred-daddy's shoulders. I made my voice artificially excited, too, as if I was thrilled by the events ahead of me and Bobo should be too.

I knew my duty.

Fred-mama patted my shoulder. The pat still held a lingering sense of apology, but it mostly just said,
Thank you. Thank you for protecting Bobo. Thank you for being such a good big sister. Thank you for letting us know we can count on you.

We started walking toward the airport.

Other kids and Freds spilled out of the houses we passed. It became like a parade, or a flowing river containing every resident of Fredtown.

I had never seen so many people—or, especially, so many kids—walk so quietly. For one long stretch, I could hear nothing but kids' knapsacks thudding against their backs; it
made me think of the sad tolling of bells. Even the youngest babies seemed to understand that something strange and awful was happening. They rode in their Fred-parents' arms, clutching onto sleeves and fingers; all the babies seemed to be looking around with huge eyes, as if somehow they knew they had only a little more time left to gaze upon the loving faces they'd learned so recently. Most of the children in the toddler-to-kindergartner range were like Bobo, perched on Fred-parents' shoulders. It was like some picture Edwy and I might have seen in social studies class, like watching a procession of solemn young rajas swaying atop the backs of elephants. Except these young rajas held on so tightly.

None of them are going to want to let go when they get to the airport,
I thought.

Neither would the elementary school kids walking alongside their Fred-parents, holding their Fred-parents' hands.

Neither would I.

I walked without touching anyone, but I could still
feel
Fred-mama and Fred-daddy on either side of me. We were separated by only a few centimeters and a scant scattering of air molecules—that was
nothing
. I had never been apart from them before for longer than a school day or an overnight at a friend's house. And even then, I had always known that they were close by, that they would be there instantly if I got hurt
or needed them for any other reason. How would this work when they stayed here and Bobo and I went home? How far away would I have to be before I knew I'd lost them?

“Rosi and Bobo! Two of my favorite children!”

We were passing the school; the principal, Mrs. Osemwe, was standing out front, passing out hugs. If I'd been paying attention, I probably would have heard her calling the kids in front of us favorites, too. That was one of the things Edwy mocked—the way Mrs. Osemwe and all the teachers used that word for everyone.

“ ‘Favorite' is supposed to mean you like someone best,” he'd argued, back when we were still speaking to each other. “For there to be a favorite, there has to be someone you like
less
. Someone you maybe even hate.”

“Nobody would
hate
another person,” I'd told Edwy, too scandalized by his use of that ugly word to dwell on technical definitions.