Children of Exile (18 page)

That isn't a choice,
I told myself.
Even if I knock again, that woman won't let us in. I have to do something else to help Edwy.

“Come on,” I said, taking Bobo's hand.

“But—Edwy!” Bobo protested. “You said I could play with Edwy!”

“Think of this as . . . we're playing hide-and-seek with Edwy,” I told him. “Or having a scavenger hunt, and Edwy is the prize.”

“Ooh, I love scavenger hunts!” Bobo said. “What's the first clue?”

Why hadn't I just stuck with “hide-and-seek”?

“We have to look for it,” I said.

Obligingly, Bobo began shoving aside branches of the bush we'd just climbed out of. I looked back at the enormous, forbidding house.

“It'd be too obvious for there to be clues at Edwy's house,” I said. “We have to look somewhere else.”

“Where?” Bobo asked.

In the place where there are likeliest to be answers,
I thought.
Which means . . . the place where the most people are clustered together. The place the father didn't want me to go today.

I swallowed a lump in my throat.

“Come on, Bobo,” I said. “Let's go look for clues at the marketplace.”

We went back
to walk along the creek, because that was the only way I knew to get to the marketplace. Bobo whined a little about going in the wrong direction again for sailing his boat, but then I got him to look for scavenger-hunt clues along the creek.

“Look, this branch is broken off like someone ran into it really, really fast,” he said, pointing first at a bush, then to the ground. “And this grass is all smashed down, like a lot of people were running here.”

I thought he was just goofing around, making up stories. But the grass was oddly mashed, and a lot of the branches sagged, half broken. Had there been a lot of running here the night before? Had the men chased Edwy past the turnoff for his own street?

What if he hadn't actually been kidnapped? What if he had just hidden from the men and was too scared to come out yet?

That didn't sound like Edwy. He wasn't afraid of anything.

“This is a hard scavenger hunt,” Bobo complained, dragging his feet in the dirt. “Aren't there supposed to be
word
clues? Things written down that we can figure out?”

“I guess whoever set up this scavenger hunt thought you could handle a harder one now,” I told him. “One without words.”

“I'm not that grown-up,” Bobo said, so serious it was almost comical. “I'm only little. I'm not ready for hard stuff.”

Me neither,
I thought. In my head I saw the mother's hand slapping my face, the ruins of all the burned houses, the hiding place under the floor. I didn't want to be ready for any of those things. How could anybody be ready for those things?

But I told Bobo, “That's why we're working on this together. That's why you have me to help you.”

I wished I had someone to help me.

Maybe the father . . . ?
I thought.
Or if the mother's still there . . .

Would they help? Could I count on them to be that much like my Fred-parents?

I was still trying to formulate a plan when we reached the place where the creek curved like a hairpin and we needed to turn off toward the marketplace. I remembered how Meki,
our old neighbor, had wanted to come out and give me a hug the day before, and how her father had yelled at me. I didn't want anyone yelling at Bobo.

“Piggyback ride the rest of the way!” I announced to Bobo. “And I'll gallop!”

“Hurray!” Bobo cried, clambering up onto my back.

He left muddy footprints on my skirt, but I didn't bother brushing them away. I took off, bouncing up and down, dodging the broken pieces of sidewalk.

By the time we got to the marketplace, my back ached and I was out of breath. And my knees were sore from all the times I'd stumbled and half fallen on the uneven pavement. But at least we hadn't run into anyone who yelled at us.

“That's a lot of people,” Bobo whispered in my ear as he stared wide-eyed at the crowded market.

“No more than at the marketplace back in Fredtown,” I told him, trying to sound soothing. If I'd counted, the numbers might have been the same as in Fredtown. But back in Fredtown the marketplace was always such a bright, cheery, welcoming place. People waited patiently in line; people took turns. People said, “Oh, no, no, you go first. I insist.” Here, there was grabbing and shoving, elbowing and glaring. A bad feeling hung over the marketplace like a cloud.

You just think that because you're worried about Edwy,
I told myself.
The people here just . . . practice different customs than in Fredtown. That's all.

Still, I told Bobo, “You can keep riding on my back while we look around here. You don't have to be down where you can't see.”

“Okay,” Bobo said, tightening his grip around my neck. He nuzzled against my back. “And, Rosi? You don't have to keep pretending that we're doing a scavenger hunt. You can just look for Edwy.”

It took my breath away that he'd figured me out.

Had he also figured out how scared I was?

I stepped into the swirl of the marketplace crowd, my muddy skirt brushing against tables full of dark clothes and dirty-looking vegetables. Something was different from the day before, something I couldn't quite identify.

No, I could—it was that, except for Bobo and me, there were no children here today. We were the only ones.

This is how the marketplace here would have looked for the past twelve years, before all of us kids came back,
I thought.
Maybe yesterday everyone discovered how hard it is to shop with little children running around. Maybe they just hadn't known that before.

I didn't think that was the reason.

How could I find out anything?

Listen,
I told myself—the word that Edwy had kept hissing at me yesterday.

People around me were talking about the price of cassava root. They were grimly bargaining for packets, for extra portions of manioc flour. There was none of the cheery chatter I remembered from the Fredtown marketplace:
Oh, did you hear? Our little Nelly started walking yesterday! And now we're crawling around behind her, trying to keep her out of trouble!
And
You know what my little Lotu started calling his brother? Big Guy. It's so funny how he runs around the house calling, “Where Big Guy? Big Guy home from school yet?”

Had all of the happy chatter in Fredtown been about us kids? And had the people in my hometown just lost the habit of happy chatter because they'd been without their kids for so long?

I got a little lost in the crowd, a little lost in my plans and fears. Was Bobo really safe on my back? Would he stay safe, even if I took a few risks to find Edwy?

I turned a corner, dodging the sharp edge of a table. I slammed into somebody's bony arm.

“Oh, sorry,” I murmured. “Next time I'll watch where I'm going. I'll—”

Then I saw who I'd run into. I recognized the dress, the purse, the hat.

It was the mother.

“Rosi?” she said
, whirling on me, her eyes wide with horror. “And Bobo? Why are you here? Why did you disobey me? I told you to stay home!”

“I—,” I began.

She wasn't listening. She grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the worst of the crowd. She dragged us to the edge of the marketplace, where the father was packing up apples.

Packing up early, just like yesterday, when I got scared.

What were the mother and the father afraid of?

“Look!” the mother exclaimed, shoving Bobo and me toward the father. Even though looking would do him no good. “Look who showed up! Our children! What are we going to do?”

She was trembling. Her voice shook too.

“Take them home immediately,” the father said. “Don't wait for me. Hurry!”

“No,” I said, pulling away from the mother. “I came here for a reason. I'm sorry I disobeyed, but I had to. Edwy . . . Edwy's missing, and I have to find him. He and I promised we'd look out for each other.”

“Edwy Watanaboneset,” Bobo chirped helpfully from my back.

The mother looked like we'd slapped her. She looked like she was going to slap us.

“Don't say that name here!” she said, frantically glancing around.

“Why not?” I asked. “Everybody should hear it. Everybody should know he's missing. Everybody should be looking for him right now!”

I felt sure that was what would have happened in Fredtown if anyone had ever gone missing—even without that scary word “kidnapping” attached to the disappearance. There would have been search parties assigned and precise search areas mapped out. Every possible hiding place would have been examined in no time flat.

That was what needed to happen here. That was how I could help Edwy.

If the adults weren't organizing anything like that, then the responsibility fell to me.

The mother was still staring at me in stunned horror. I edged away from her. With Bobo still on my back, I scrambled
onto the nearest table. It was just boards laid across a pair of sawhorses, so it buckled beneath my feet. But the boards held and I dared to stand up, rising to my full height. Now Bobo and I towered above the crowd. I could see the tops of everyone's head. I could see everyone staring at me.

Good,
I told myself.
That's what I wanted.

“Everybody!” I cried out. “Listen! A boy has gone missing. Maybe he's even been kidnapped.” I thought that was keeping the maid's confidence. I wasn't giving away that I'd talked to her. “It's Edwy Watanaboneset. He's twelve, the same age as me. Please help. Please, we've got to organize a search. . . .”

And that was when the first person punched me.

The punch knocked
me backward. It landed in my gut, right at the edge of my ribs, and I doubled over, the weight of Bobo on my back throwing me off-balance.

Stay upright!
My brain screamed at me.
Keep Bobo from falling! Keep him higher than the crowd, away from anyone who might hit him. . . .

“Bobo, close your eyes!” I screamed. “Think about happy things and ignore . . .”

I didn't think he could hear me, because he was already screaming in my ear, a drawn-out howl of terror.

I'd failed. I hadn't protected him well enough. He was already traumatized.

Was there any way to protect him from whatever was going to happen next?

“Stop!” I wailed blindly to the crowd around me. “Stop! Hitting people isn't the way to solve anything! Let's just talk. . . .”

But my voice—my words—were useless. Hands grabbed at Bobo and me, pulling us down from the table, down into the dirt.

“Don't hurt Bobo!” I cried. “Be careful with Bobo!”

People surrounded us, pressing close, blocking out the sun overhead. A man screamed, “Did you hear her? Acting like she can tell us what to do? For one of
them
?”

It reminded me of what Edwy and I had overheard the night before, in the wasteland. Maybe this was even the very same man who'd complained,
Have you seen how those kids look at you?
Or the one who said,
They've got no respect.

But I didn't understand what I'd done wrong. Was it standing on the table? Was it speaking Edwy's name aloud? Was it being a child, but already too old and too tall? Was it having green eyes? Something had unleashed a fury in all the grown-ups around me. Something had turned them into monsters who glared angrily at me.

“I'm just trying to help!” I protested, trying to rise up from the dirt while shielding Bobo. “Edwy needs—”

A shove knocked me down again. It was followed by somebody kicking me. And then I couldn't separate out who was hitting me. Fists pounded against my body.

“Stop!” I screamed again. “For Bobo's sake—”

Someone yanked Bobo away from me. One second he still had his hands clenched around my neck, his fingers
intertwined as he held on for dear life. The next second he was gone, and I couldn't see who had him. I could only catch glimpses of the hands hitting me and the faces leering at me.

“Don't take Bobo!” I screamed. “Give him back!”

I didn't think. I couldn't. I waved my arms—shoving hands off me, struggling against the crowd. I'd balled up my hands into fists, and they connected with a jaw here, a gut there.

I was fighting back.

Turn the other cheek!
screamed in my brain.
A gentle answer turneth away wrath! Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind!

And yet my fists pounded against the bodies around me just as hard as fists pounded against mine.

“I want my brother back!” I screamed.

Nobody listened. A fist landed in my face, and it was such a big fist that I felt the pain all the way from my lower lip to the top of my nose. I felt something wet gushing down my cheek.

Blood.

They could kill me,
I thought, stunned.

That couldn't happen, because I needed to be there for Bobo, needed to find Edwy. . . .

I swung my fists harder and faster. I struggled against the fists pounding me and managed to half sit up.

“Help!” I screamed. “Help! Somebody! Please . . .”

Why weren't the mother and the father coming to rescue me? Why hadn't the Freds known this might happen? How could they have sent me to a place like this?

I jerked my head back and forth, frantically looking for Bobo. He was nowhere in sight. All I could see were fists and hands and leering faces. There were so many of them. Had the fighting somehow extended to the entire marketplace? Were lots of people being beaten, not just me?