Among the Betrayed (10 page)

“Do you know how to swim?” Percy asked.

“No,” Nina admitted. She stared out across the wide river. Was it deep, too? “I'll stay close to the edge.”

She untied the food bag from around her waist and hung it on a branch high over the others' heads. She hoped they wouldn't notice that she didn't trust them. Then she took off her boots and stockings and, still in her dress, eased into the water.

Mud squished between her toes, and she hesitated. Could she get clean, or would the muddy water only make her dirtier? But the water felt cool and wonderful against her skin. She took another step forward, bent down, and scooped water onto her arms, rubbing off the prison grime. She splashed water up against her face and into her hair.
She unbraided her hair and dipped her whole head in. She lifted her feet from the river bottom, and the current carried her downstream a little. She put her feet down again.

“Come on in,” she urged the others. “It's great!”

She saw Alia glance questioningly back at Matthias. Matthias shrugged. Alia began taking off her heavy boots.

“Look! I'm swimming!” Nina shouted, moving her arms the way she'd seen swimmers do on TV. She lowered her head and felt her hair stream out behind her, floating on the water. She felt happier than she'd felt since she'd been arrested, since she'd found out that Jason had betrayed her, since the hating man had asked her to betray Percy, Matthias, and Alia. Water flowed past her, and the current seemed almost strong enough to carry away all her hurt and anger and suspicions. Behind her, she could hear Alia giggling.

“I'm a fish!” Nina said, and ducked underwater. Her dress weighed her down and the skirt tangled in her legs, but it didn't matter. She floated with the water bugs, then surfaced to let the sun warm her skin again.

“Don't go out too far,” Percy warned from the side.

“I'm fine!” Nina yelled back. “It's not over my head. The bottom's right . . . right . . .” She reached her foot down—and down—and down. No friendly mud touched her toes. The next thing she knew, her head slipped underwater.

She flailed her arms and thrust her head up long enough to gulp in some air. Her clothes felt even heavier now, pulling her down, down, down. The current pushed
at her, faster and faster, carrying her away from Percy, Matthias, and Alia. Frantically Nina shoved at the water, trying to fight her way back to the shore.

And then she put her foot down again, and miraculously, there was solid ground there again.

“I'm okay!” Nina called back to the others. “Don't worry!”

She stood still, savoring the feel of mud squishing through her toes—lifesaving mud. Everything had happened so fast, her mind hadn't had time fully to grasp what might have happened, but she could have drowned, fooling around. How silly it would have been, to survive Jason's betrayal, to survive the Population Police's jail, only to die taking a bath.

She looked around, appreciating every safe, wonderful breath she drew into her lungs, every chirp of birdsong she heard in the trees around her. And then her eyes began to register the view in slow motion. It wasn't just trees and river and sky around her. The river had carried her around a bend. Right in front of her was a bridge, a huge, ugly Government-made concrete bridge. And on the bridge, leaning over the edge, were two men in uniform. Two men in uniform, leaning over, opening their mouths, yelling.

Nina seemed to hear their words at a slower than normal speed, too.

“You there! In the river! That's not allowed! Come out and show us your I.D.!”

I
f only Nina could swim. She wanted to dive back into the water, swim for miles without surfacing once. Escape.

Failing that, she needed to jump out of the water, run through the woods, hope she could disappear into the trees. But the Population Police would only start a manhunt here, comb through the whole area. She didn't have a chance.

All those images—swimming, running, being caught—flashed through Nina's mind in an instant. She even saw Percy and Matthias and Alia being caught with her. It would be all Nina's fault. She had betrayed them after all.

Nina froze in agony. Her mind wouldn't supply a single response she could give to the uniformed men, a single method of buying even a second more to think.

Then she heard Alia's voice behind her.

“Just a minute,” the little girl said. “My sister and I left our I.D.'s with our shoes on the shore.”

Okay
, Nina thought, a part of her mind surprisingly lucid despite her terror.
That gives me an extra minute or
two. I should have thought of that. But won't it make the policemen angrier when they discover she's lying?

“Get your I.D.'s, then,” one of the men on the bridge growled.

Nina looked back over her shoulder. Alia disappeared around the bend.

It's not fair,
Nina thought.
Now Alia and the boys are going to be safe, and I'm not.
She could just imagine Alia and Percy and Matthias running now, getting as far away from the river as possible. Sure, Alia had given Nina a little extra time—but what good was that? How long before the Population Policemen on the bridge realized Alia wasn't coming back? What would they do to Nina then?

But there was Alia, wading back toward Nina, carrying two plastic cards in her hand. Nina gaped, strained her neck to see what Alia was holding. Alia drew even with Nina, slipped her fingers into Nina's hand, and pulled her along.

“Don't look so surprised,” Alia hissed out of the side of her mouth. “Let me do all the talking.”

That wouldn't be hard. Nina was so stunned, she didn't think she even had a voice anymore. For she'd glimpsed the cards in Alia's hand, and they looked like ordinary I.D.'s. One was stamped, S
USAN
B
ROWN.
The other said, J
ANICE
B
ROWN
.

And they contained Alia's and Nina's pictures.

No—Nina looked again—it wasn't really their pictures. But the resemblance was so close, Nina was sure the
policemen would be fooled. As long as she and Alia didn't make any mistakes.

Alia held the I.D.'s as carelessly as if they were just some pretty leaves she'd picked up off the ground.

They reached the shore, and still Alia marched forward, Nina trailing by a few steps. The brush growing at the water's edge poked her ankles and pricked her feet. She stepped gingerly, half stumbling. Alia's strong grip held her up.

“It's illegal to swim in that river,” one of the men said sternly. “That's Government property. We could arrest you for trespassing.”

Alia held out the I.D.'s for his inspection. He took them, glanced at them quickly, then handed them to the other man.

“Well?” the first man said. “Aren't you scared of being arrested?”

“Oh, please don't arrest us,” Alia said, her little-girl voice sounding even more sweet and childish than ever. “We're going to visit our grandmother, and we slipped in the mud. We couldn't let her see us like that. We thought we could just wash off quickly—we didn't know we were breaking any laws. We're sorry.”

“Where does your grandmother live?”

“Terrazzine,” Alia said confidently. Nina had never heard of the place.

“Doesn't your sister talk?” the second man said, handing the I.D. cards back to Alia. Alia stuffed them in her pocket.

“No, sir,” Alia said, just as Nina was opening her mouth to answer. Nina closed her mouth and hoped nobody had noticed. “My sister's mute, sir. And not quite right in the head, if you know what I mean. I have to take care of her, my mother says.”

“Well, you're a brave little thing,” the first man said. “We'll let you off, this time. But you be careful, and stay on the road from now on, you hear? We're not far from the Population Police prison, you know. I've been saying for years, if any of those prisoners escaped—”

“I know, sir,” Alia said, seeming to quell a shiver of fear. “My mother has told us about the prison.”

The policemen turned in one direction, and Alia and Nina went the other way. Nina noticed for the first time that Alia had her boots and Nina's looped around her neck, tied together by the shoelaces.

“Here. Let's put our shoes back on, Janice dear,” Alia said, a little too loudly.

Dumbly Nina stuck out first one foot and then the other, and let Alia cram her stockings and boots on. She heard a car roaring away behind her. The policemen were gone.

Nina sagged against a tree in relief.

“What . . . how did you—”

“Shh,” Alia said. “Sometimes they come back and check out your story. It's not safe for you to talk yet. But keep walking.”

She tugged on Nina's hand, and Nina obediently kept
pace beside the younger girl. They were walking down the middle of the road now, in plain sight, for anyone to see.

“Can't you explain as we walk?” Nina grumbled, trying not to move her lips.

“Nope,” Alia said.

The sun beat down from overhead. The woods fell away alongside the road, and they walked past scattered houses and scraggly fields. This was countryside Nina had seen twice before—coming to school and then leaving it—but she'd been inside a car and numb with fear both times. She was beyond numbness now. Her mind kept replaying her moments of terror—the water pulling her under, the policeman yelling, “Come out and show us your I.D.!” And Alia coming to her rescue.

“When it's safe to talk,” Nina said quietly, “when we meet up with Percy and Matthias again, the three of you are going to tell me everything. And . . . and I'm going to tell you everything, too.”

Alia flashed her a look that Nina couldn't read. It might have meant, “Quit talking.” It might have meant, “You're crazy if you think we're telling you anything.”

But it also might have meant, “All right. It's time to share.”

A
lia and Nina had reached the driveway to Harlow School for Girls before Alia deemed it safe to talk.

“Is that your school over there?” Alia asked quietly when they rounded a bend in the road.

Nina stared out at the expanse of grass and the imposing three-story brick building. The school had no windows—that had seemed so natural from the inside, when Nina wasn't used to seeing out windows anyhow. But from the outside the lack of windows looked odd, as if the building were supposed to be a monument or a memorial, not any place that people could live.

“That's it,” Nina said. “And the woods are behind the school.”

She pointed. Alia nodded and detoured around the school, skulking behind bushes and shrubs.

“What about Percy and Matthias? And . . . and our food?” Nina didn't want to seem more concerned about her food sack than the two boys. But it was hard not to be, what with her stomach growling.

“They'll find us,” Alia said confidently.

A few minutes later they entered the coolness of the woods. Alia sat down on a stump, and Nina sank onto the ground beside her. She took off her boots and rubbed her sore feet.

“How far do you think we walked?” Nina asked.

“Couple of miles,” Alia said.

“How did you know how to get here?”

“There aren't that many roads in use anymore,” Alia said. “Percy thought this would be the right way.” She looked around the woods and said cheerfully, “This is a nice place.”

“I guess,” Nina said doubtfully. She watched a spider climb into her boot. Were spiders poisonous? Would she survive the Population Police prison, a near drowning, and the long escape only to die of a spider bite?

Alia reached over and shook the spider out of Nina's boot. The spider scampered away.

“Thanks,” Nina muttered. She wondered if she'd ever get used to being outdoors. It didn't seem natural not to have four walls around her, a ceiling above her head, and a solid floor beneath her feet. Jason had always teased the kids who were scared of the woods.
No, no,
she chided herself,
don't think about Jason ever again.
Still. The woods were unpleasant enough now, in the warm sunshine. What would they be like when it was raining, or when winter came?

Alia obviously didn't care. She began whistling, sounding as carefree as a bird. Her whistle evidently tricked
birds, too, because one called back to her, “Tweet-tweet,” in answer to her “Tweet-tweet-tweet.”

And then Nina realized it wasn't another bird, but Percy and Matthias. They stepped up quietly behind her.

“Safe?” Alia asked.

“Safe,” Matthias answered.

The boys sat down beside Nina. As if they'd all agreed ahead of time, Percy opened the food bag and handed out what seemed to be a feast: a box of cereal, a box of raisins, and an apple for everyone. Nina didn't object. Matthias raised his apple like he was making a toast: “To our new home,” he said.

“To roughing it,” Percy said.

“To Nina's idea,” Alia said.

Nina looked from face to face, then raised her own apple and said, “To my new friends getting us here safely.”

Eating required full concentration. Chewing and swallowing was such a joy that no one spoke until they were down to the cores of their apples, picking out the last bits of flesh from among the seeds. Then Nina said what she'd worked out during her long, silent walk with Alia.

“The three of you are used to roughing it,” she said. “I don't know where you lived before you were arrested, but it was outdoors. And I don't know how, but you made fake I.D.'s for third children. That's what Percy and Matthias went to get last night when we were running away. When you brought back the flashlight.”

Nina waited while the other three exchanged glances. Alia nodded, ever so slightly at the other two.