Among the Free

Chapter Twenty-One

Simone stared at Luke as though he'd slapped her.

"Well, ex-cuse me," she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "You don't have to be such a party pooper."

Luke brushed past her and her microphone and camera and tried to blend in with the crowd. He began trembling immediately and couldn't stop. He felt as shaky and endangered as he had after running away from Officer Houk, from the Chiutzans, from the Population Police in the abandoned village, from Eli's home.

It's okay! You didn't say anything. No one's chasing you. Calm down!

He tried to focus on the people around him, to distract himself, to remind himself that everyone else was celebrating and happy. In the bright lights, their colorful clothes seemed to swirl around him, too intense to look at directly. Someone started singing what seemed to be a made-up song:

A group of teenagers was dancing along to the music, ending each stanza with an elaborate stomp on the ground.

"That's right! Stomp those poppies!" someone screamed near Luke's right ear. "Stomp them all dead!"

The screamer moved on, disappearing into the crowd again. Luke went from trembling to feeling dizzy. The colors and sounds blurred together. Food might help, he told himself, and he fumbled to loosen the bag still tied around his waist. He drew out the last crumbly crust of bread that Eli had given him and brought it up to his mouth.

"Hey, kid, you don't need to be eating that," someone said beside him. "There's lots of good stuff up in that house. Free for the taking."

"That's okay," Luke mumbled, chewing the hard, dry bread.

Some of his dizziness subsided. He had energy now to shove his way through the crowd. If I can just find Nina or Trey, Luke told himself. Everything will be all right if I find them. Maybe Mr. Talbot and Mr. Hendricks had come to join in the celebration. And Luke's brother Mark might be there. And even his parents and Matthew. Everybody else in the entire country seemed to be crowded onto the Population Police grounds — why not Luke's family and friends?

Luke stumbled forward, looking right and left, pausing every few moments to scan the crowds cheering and dancing on top of the walls. When he'd first come out of hiding and gone to Hendricks School, he'd had a hard time telling people apart. One face looked pretty much the same as another to him, and he'd had trouble holding a mental picture of all the other students and teachers in his head. He had a momentary fear that a similar disorder might strike him now: In this crowd of strangers, what if even the familiar faces looked different to him, and he passed them by?

He reminded himself of what Nina looked like, with brown braids framing her lively features. And he could picture his parents' careworn faces, with wrinkles he'd memorized without realizing it. And Mr. Hendricks was in a wheelchair — how could Luke fail to notice a wheelchair gliding by?

He felt a little better, but he still didn't recognize any of the faces around him.

"Come on! Dance with us!" a girl called, reaching out and grabbing his hand. Luke pulled away.

"No, thanks — not right now," Luke mumbled, stumbling backward to get away from her.

He glanced past her and the other dancers toward the huge Population Police headquarters building. The first time Luke had come to this building, it had belonged to the Grants, the family who had donated his first fake name. Luke had felt terrified for most of the time he'd spent with the Grants, and he could still remember the panic that had gripped him when he'd returned to enlist in the Population Police. Now all the lights in the building were blazing, and he could see people passing the windows carrying food. They were laughing and hollering and cheering and dancing, just like the people outside on the lawn.

Where are the fierce Population Police officials who used to yell at us? Where's Aldous Krakenaur, the head of the Population Police? Luke wondered. Somehow he couldn't believe that all the top leaders would have run away, or given up so easily.

Luke's feet hurt, and the music and shouting were making his headache. He wanted to find his friends, but he was so tired of searching. After he circled the crowd a second time without luck, he backed away until he found himself under an isolated tree, away from everyone else. He squinted up at the tree stupidly, trying to figure out why it looked so familiar.

Oh, yeah, he finally thought. He was back by the stables. This tree was one he had often faced when he'd had to stand waiting for inspection. He swayed dizzily, staring up at the tree. Then he turned around and crept into the stable.

The building was dark inside; evidently, the crowd hadn't made it so far back on the grounds. Or maybe someone had checked it out early in the celebration and decided it was beneath the crowd's notice. Luke stood just inside the door, inhaling the familiar smell of hay and horse. And manure, too — the manure smell seemed a little stronger than usual, probably because Luke had been away from it for so long.

"Hello?" Luke called softly.

A horse whinnied in reply. Luke was so sure it was Jenny that he threw caution to the wind and switched on the light.

"Hey, girl. Did you miss me?" he whispered, striding toward her stall.

But all the horses were watching him now, some of them whinnying loudly and banging their heads against their stall doors.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong?" Luke muttered. "Calm down, everybody — you'll have the whole crowd in here checking to see what's going on."

Some of the horses began rattling their feed troughs. The empty pans echoed against the floor.

"Geez, you guys are acting like nobody fed you today," Luke complained.

Oh, he thought. He remembered Simone in the TV broadcast saying that most of the workers at Population Police headquarters had left the day before. They left, and nobody thought about the horses.

Luke stared down the row of stalls — a dozen on each side, twenty>four altogether. He thought about how many stableboys had done the work of caring for the horses. His vision blurred a little. He stalked over to Jenny's stall. He pulled the pin out of the latch and swung the door open.

"There you go, Jenny!" he said. "If the people are free, the horses are going to have to be free too! Go find your own food!"

Luke stood to the side, giving Jenny free access to the doorway. Jenny stared at Luke, then dipped her head down and nudged her feeding trough toward Luke. The horse might as well have spoken. I don't want to be free. I want you to feed me.

"Didn't you hear me?" Luke yelled. "You're free! Free! Get out of here!"

Luke reached into the stall and gave Jenny a hard shove. Jenny balked, keeping her hooves firmly in place, right in front of the feeding trough. She raised her head again, looking pleadingly at Luke. Luke thought about how many times he'd been comforted by her gaze, how much sympathy she'd always seemed to carry in her dark eyes for his plight.

'All right!" Luke grumbled. "I understand! You're just a dumb animal. You've never eaten anywhere but in your stall. You don't know what freedom is!"

He shut Jenny's gate again and strode toward the back of the stable to get the oats.

It took hours to feed all the horses and clean out their bedding. But when Luke finally collapsed in Jenny's stall, on fresh hay he'd shoveled himself, he could still hear the music and cheering outside.

It sure seems like those people are free, he thought, pulling his quilt around him. Why can't I be too?