Among the Free by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Author:Margaret Peterson Haddix
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

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:

Oh, ho, ho

No more Poppies

They’re all gone

We’re so glad

Oh, ho, ho . . .

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

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