Tye was still sleeping as I lay her in her bed.
“Can I get in with you instead?” Kammi whispered.
“Course.”
We climbed into my bed with our coats on. The room was cold, and my sheets felt crisp as I covered us.
“Will we see Father again?” Kammi whispered. I knew she didn’t want Mother to hear.
“I think so.”
“Was that…bombing?”
“I think so.”
“Other places have been bombed. I’ve seen them in news pictures.”
“That’s true.” My mind had always struggled to understand the black-and-white newsprint photos; it looked like they showed the empty shells of buildings.
“But here was always safe. We were always safe. Father was always safe.”
“Shh…shh…” I ran my fingers down her face, smoothing her hair back, wiping hot tears off her cold cheeks. “It’s okay now. It’s okay. You can sleep.”
But I didn’t sleep until her breathing slowed and I was sure that she had gone first.
MY EYES FELT GLUED TOGETHER, but I didn’t try to go back to sleep.
No, something had woken me.
The kitchen was warm and smelled of coffee and milk.
My arms wrapped around him, my face pressed against his.
—
“Father!”
He laughed, setting down his steaming mug to hug me. “How’d it go, Big?”
“Fine. How did—” But I caught sight of Mother’s face and sat down at the table for my tea and toast.
Kammi appeared in the doorway and flung herself at Father like I had, but she stayed in his lap, even though she was eight years old, and Mother, smiling, brought over Kammi’s plate and mug and set them at Father’s place.
Tye showed up last and asked, “Why am I sleeping in my coat?”
And, despite everything, the rest of us laughed.
—
But as we got ready to head out the door to school, Father drew me aside. “Take Kammi down Heldig Street; don’t go any farther east than that.”
“Why?”
“Some of the streets that way got hit. I don’t want her to see it. Just head west, not east.”
“Okay.”
“Promise now?”
I nodded.
Dust—or ashes?—lined Father’s clothes. His eyes looked puffy and tired.
How had his night been? What had he seen? What had he done?
I pressed into him in a tight hug, first getting a whiff of that odor from the bombing, then searching out the smell I knew. The post office, where he worked during the day—paper and sealing glue and cedar sorting boxes. I found it, breathed in deeply, and relaxed.
“Be good, Big. Don’t forget which way to go.”
“I won’t.”
—
Kammi’s wooden soles slapped the frozen gray cobblestones as she hurried up the street ahead of me, though she turned around to look back every minute or so. Her bare knees between her skirt and kneesocks grew red and then white in the cold; her braids swung loose from her scarf.
I was curious about what had happened east of Heldig Street, but I wouldn’t break my promise to Father.
Though he’d only said not to take Kammi there. He hadn’t said anything about not going there on my own later.
“Mathilde!” Megs caught up with me. “I was worried that they’d cancel school.”
“Mother and Father seemed to think we were still having it.”
“I hope we are. I hope the school wasn’t hit.”
We continued up the street in silence for a few more minutes, past a closed bakery and one that was still open, though the window was half empty; past a cobbler who had doubled the size of the sign that said REPAIRS; past a butcher: MEAT TODAY—WHILE IT LASTS!; past the bookshop that hadn’t been repainted in years, the books themselves crumbling and yellow.
A lot of people were out, but they didn’t look like they were on their way to work. Some wore blankets around their shoulders instead of coats. They leaned against houses or on steps, holding steaming tin mugs. They all looked lost. Was it—was that man’s hair singed off?
There were children, too. Why didn’t I recognize them? They were from my neighborhood. But their eyes were big and scared, their faces smudged with gray dirt.
Kammi, several yards ahead, skipped along, not noticing these things.
We passed a poster: TAKE THE ADOLESCENT ARMY APTITUDE TEST!
“Megs?”
“Mm?”
“What do you think they’ll have the children do?”
“They’ll probably find them places to stay.”
“No, not these children. The ones who take the test.”
“Oh. On the test? Or…after?”
“After.”
“I don’t know.”
Aerials buzzed low overhead. We looked up to see our own blue-green crest markings on them.
A whole fleet of aerials, heading east.
To our borders.
Or perhaps beyond them. Into the expanding lands of Tyssia. We had been at war for a year already, though our borders had held. But with Tyssia joined with Erobern, we had to defend thousands more miles. Soon the only safe place in Sofarende would be up north, along the Cairdul Sea. Tyssia and Erobern didn’t have access to the sea.
We walked in silence for a few more minutes, and then she said, “They wouldn’t send children to the front lines. They wouldn’t.”
Nobody would bomb children in their beds, either.
At least, I used to think nobody would.
Megs kept her eyes straight ahead, her mouth set tight.
An I love you for her caught in my throat. To say sorry. That I hadn’t meant anything.
That I just didn’t want anything to happen to her.
She turned and squeezed my hand, looking much more like her normal self.
“Don’t,” she said before I could speak. “I already know.”
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 tha
t 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.”