Free Among the Brave by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page A

been some sort of nuclear contamination here?” Trey asked.
    “Huh?” Mark said.
    “The leaves,” Trey said. “They’re—not green. Is there radiation? Is it safe?”
    Mark’s jaw dropped, ever so slightly.
    “It’s October,” he said. “Fall. Didn’t nobody never tell you that leaves change colors in the fall? Didn’t you ever notice?”
    “Oh,” Trey said. He remembered now. He’d seen pictures in books, of course, but the autumn leaves had never looked so bright and gaudy in pictures. “I was never outside until last December," he said defensively. Mark was staring at him.
     
    “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You never once stepped foot outdoors until last year?”
    “No,” Trey said.
    “Didn’t you ever even peek out a window?”
    “No. It was too dangerous.”
    Mark’s jaw was practically dragging the floor of the truck now, he looked so stunned.
    “I think. . . ,"he started. “I think if I’d never seen the outdoors, I’d keep my eyes open once I was in it.”
    “I do!” Trey said.
    “No you don’t. You had your eyes closed practically the whole way here.”
    “No I didn’t!”
    “Yes you did! I bet we passed dozens of trees with turned leaves. Why didn’t you ask if any of them was contaminated?”
    Now that Trey thought about it, he remembered a few swirls of colors along the way. But he wasn’t going to admit to Mark that his way of looking out windows was mostly by way of quick, fearful glances. He had kept his eyes open, but he’d mainly been looking at the dashboard.
    “Never mind,” Mark said suddenly, in a rough voice. “It don’t matter.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I was thinking, we’re almost there. If we hide the truck here and go the rest of the way on foot, we won’t stick out so much.”
     
    ‘We don’t want to be conspicuous,” Trey agreed. So he didn’t know anything about trees and leaves—so what. At least he could supply Mark with a better word than “stick out so much.”
    “Uh, yeah,” Mark said. “I have maps for getting over close to the city, and Peter—Smits ... whatever you want to call him—he told me where his house was. So I know where to go. But, um...”
    Trey waited, but Mark didn’t seem inclined to keep talking. He just sat there, staring out the windshield at the branches and brilliant leaves.
    “What?” Trey prompted.
    “We was on back roads up till now,” Mark said. “I avoided every single bit of civilization I could. But now... I ain’t never been in a city Is there anything I should know? So I don’t make any mistakes, I mean?”
    Trey looked at Mark, in his flannel shirt, faded jeans, and heavy work boots. Under his dusty cap, Mark’s face held a mix of fear and hope. He looked like he really thought Trey could give him good advice.
    “I don’t know,” Trey said. He’d grown up in a city, of course, but what had he ever seen of it? “Just don’t say ‘ain’t’ anymore, okay?”
    “Uh, okay,” Mark said, but he looked like Trey had slapped him. Trey wanted to take his words back Trey were two ignoramuses going into danger Trey couldn’t even imagine. What did a little strangled grammar matter?
    Mark shoved his door open, banging it on a tree branch.
     
    “Help me cover the rest of the truck so nobody sees it from the road,” he said gruffly.
    Following Mark’s instructions, Trey broke off branches to drape over the back of the pickup, where it stuck out the most. Even Trey could hear the edge in Mark’s voice as he patiently told him that everything Trey tried to do was wrong.
    “No, Trey, you can’t break off a ten-inch-thick branch with your bare hands—you’d need a saw for that....”
    “No, Trey, if we just pull off a leaf or two at a time, this is going to take hours....
    When Mark was finally satisfied that the truck was hidden well enough—even creeping back up to the road to see for himself—he and Trey got out some of the food Trey’d taken from