Among the Betrayed

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

*ff- he other three kids didn't even look surprised. Nina felt more ashamed than ever, that they had expected her not to know, expected her to be stupid and ignorant.

"Calm down," Matthias said, none too gently. "We can think this through." He looked over at Percy expectantly.

"The place you think is safe, it's by the school you used to go to, right?" Percy asked.

Nina nodded.

'And the Population Police brought you to prison from your school, right?"

Nina nodded again.

"What time of day was it when they brought you here?"

For a minute Nina was afraid she wasn't even going to be able to answer that question. But she recovered quickly, her mind supplying a frightening jumble of images.

"Morning," she said. "They arrested me at breakfast." She could still smell the oatmeal, could still see those three lonely raisins hiding among the oats. The memory made her want to gag.

"Okay. Good," Percy said encouragingly, like he was talk' ing to a really little kid, even younger than Alia. "Now, think carefully. When they were driving you here, what side of the car was the sun on?"

"The sun?" Nina wasn't sure she'd heard the question right. Then she wasn't sure she could answer it. She'd just been arrested by the Population Police, she'd been terrified out of her wits — who in their right mind would pay attention to the sun at a time like that? Then she remem' bered the splat of water on the car window beside her, the flow of drops on the glass. "The sun wasn't even out," she said triumphantly. "It was raining."

Percy and Matthias exchanged glances. Nina got an inkling that she shouldn't be feeling so triumphant.

"Why does it matter?" she asked.

"If we knew what side of the car the sun was on," Matthias explained, "we'd know which direction you were traveling. The sun is on the east side of the sky in the morning. If it was raining and the sun wasn't out, we don't know where you were coming from."

"Oh," Nina said. Though she couldn't see clearly enough, Nina had the distinct feeling that Matthias had spoken through gritted teeth.

It wasn't fair to expect Nina to know about the sun and the sky. She'd seen so little of either of them in her lifetime.

What made Percy and Matthias such experts?

"Can you think hard?" Percy was asking patiently. "Was there any part of the sky that was brighter than the rest of the sky that morning?"

This was like Aunty Lystra's detective shows. The detec-tives were always saying things like, "I know it's a strain, ma'am, but it's important for you to remember — are you sure you heard Mr. X leave his room before midnight?" But in Aunty Lystra's shows the witnesses were always sure of themselves: "Oh, yes. I heard his door open just before the midnight train went through, just before the clock chimed." Nina hadn't been looking at the sky when the Population Police brought her to prison. She'd been look' ing down, at the cuffs on her wrists, the chains on her ankles. But if she'd looked out long enough to see the rain…

"It was still dark when we left the school," Nina said slowly. "But then, I think… I think there was kind of a glow in the sky, through the rain, out my window."

"Sunrise," Matthias muttered.

"The sun rises?" Nina asked. She'd never thought about how it got up into the sky. In pictures and on TV it was just there, overhead.

Percy ignored her question and asked one of his own: "Which side of the car were you on?"

"Left side. In the back," Nina said.

"So the left side's east — you were going south," Percy announced.

"If you say so," Nina said.

"Her school's probably right off Route One," Matthias said. "North of the city. Do we dare walk alongside the road?"

"If we don't, we'll be lost for sure," Percy said.

Nina noticed how they didn't even pretend to ask her opinion. At least both boys glanced quickly at Alia, long enough for her to nod her agreement.

Nina told herself she didn't care. She just hoped she was right about the direction of the sunrise.