Children of Refuge by Margaret Peterson Haddix

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I was lucky there was a computer in the back office of the soup kitchen. Or maybe the people at the soup kitchen were lucky, because I might have started throwing tables and chairs and turning the whole building upside down looking for a computer, if Zeba and her father hadn’t immediately grasped that I needed one.

“We can look up the names of the dead and the injured,” Zeba’s father said, leading me back toward the office and the computer. “And the names of the imprisoned combatants . . . I’m sure it will turn out that your friend is fine. A kid raised by Freds wouldn’t have been part of a battle. I take it you got out of Cursed Town before the fighting began?”

He was treating me like an invalid, like someone who might not even be able to stand up by himself.

Back in Fredtown, I’d always hated how my Fred-parents babied me when I was sick. But now . . .

Maybe I really wouldn’t be able to stand up if Zeba’s dad wasn’t holding on to me.

The soup kitchen’s computer was ancient and clunky and huge, and it seemed to take a year to boot up.

“Let’s see, the news coverage here was . . . suppressed,” Zeba’s father said, leaning over the keyboard. “Most people in Refuge City just want to hear sports scores and entertainment news. But some of the more serious news sites devoted a lot of time to this disaster. . . .”

“Something that happened in tiny little Cursed Town was that awful?” I whispered numbly, even as I sank into a chair. “Awful enough that people in Refuge City noticed?”

People who weren’t Enu, Kiandra, and me, anyway. Or Enu’s basketball-playing friends. I thought about my parents’ expressions when they’d assured Enu, Kiandra, and me that they were “thriving” in Cursed Town and everything was fine. They’d known about the fighting.

They’d known that they could get away with lying to us.

Zeba patted my shoulder from behind, but I didn’t look back at her. I kept my eyes glued to the computer screen.

Her father paused in his typing.

“The fighting in Refuge City set off . . . repercussions for the entire planet,” he said. “I think the newscasters can explain it better than I can. This is from last week, the first announcement.”

He hit the enter key, and a grim-looking woman appeared on the screen. She had on a frilly blouse and a bright gold suit. Her hair was stiff as a helmet, as if someone had spent hours turning it into an architectural structure. But her face sagged, and her skin had a grayish tint that made me think of dismay and distress. She looked as hopeless as the old people waiting out in the dining area of the soup kitchen.

“This is hard news to impart,” she said. “We’ve just learned that events in Cursed Town this afternoon have triggered the most controversial aspects of Agreement 5062.”

Someone gasped behind her in the news studio.

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