Free The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

turned left a little and took another step forward. Then suddenly her hand touched empty air. This would be Dedlock Street. Or had she passed Dedlock Street already? She couldn’t keep the picture of the streets clear in her mind. The darkness seemed to fill not just the city around her but the inside of her head as well.
    Heart pounding, she waited. Come back, lights, she pleaded. Please come back. She wanted to call out to Poppy, to tell her to stand still, not to be afraid, she would come for her soon. But the darkness pressed against her and she couldn’t summon her voice. She could hardly breathe. She wanted to claw the darkness away from her eyes, as if it were someone’s hands.
    Small sounds came from here and there around her—a whimpering, a shuffling. In the distance someone called out incoherently. How many minutes had gone by? The longest blackout ever had been three minutes and fourteen seconds. Surely this was longer.
    She could have endured it if she’d been on her own. It was the thought of Poppy, lost, that she couldn’t stand—and lost because she had been paying more attention to a box of pencils. Oh, she’d been selfish and greedy, and now she was so, so sorry! She made herself take another step forward. But then she thought, What if I’m going
away
from Poppy? She began to tremble, and she felt the sinking and dissolving inside her that meant she was going to cry. Her legs gave way like wet paper and she slid down until she was sitting on the street, with her head on her knees. Trembling, her mind a wordless whirl of dread, she waited.
    An endless time went by. A moan came from somewhere to the left. A door slammed closed. Footsteps started, then stopped. Into Lina’s mind floated the beginning of the worst question: What if the lights never . . . ? She squeezed her arms around her knees and made the question stop. Lights come back, she said to herself, Lights come back, come back.
    And suddenly they did.
    Lina sprang up. There was the street again, and people looking upward with their mouths hanging open. All around, people started crying or wailing or grinning in relief. Then all at once everyone started to hurry, moving fast toward the safety of home in case it should happen again.
    Lina ran toward Greengate Square, stopping everyone she passed. “Did you see a little girl walking by herself just before the lights went out?” she asked. “Green jacket with a hood?” But no one wanted to listen to her.
    On the Bee Street side of the square stood a few people all talking at once and waving their arms. Lina ran up to them and asked her question.
    They stopped talking and stared at her. “How could we have seen anyone? The lights were out,” said Nammy Proggs, a tiny old woman whose back was so bent that she had to twist her head sideways to look up.
    Lina said, “No, she wandered away
before
the lights went out. She got away from me. She may have come this direction.”
    “You have to keep your eye on a baby,” Nammy Proggs scolded.
    “Babies need watching,” said one of the women who’d been singing with the Believers.
    But someone else said, “Oh, a toddler? Green jacket?” and he walked over to an open shop door and called, “You have that baby in there?” and through the door came someone leading Poppy by the hand.
    Lina dashed to her and lifted her up. Poppy broke into loud wails. “You’re all right now,” said Lina, holding her tightly. “Don’t worry, sweetie. You were just lost a moment, now you’re all right. I’ve got you, don’t worry.” When she looked up to thank the person who’d found her, she saw a face she recognized. It was Doon. He looked the same as when she’d last seen him, except that his hair was shaggier. He had on the same baggy brown jacket he always wore.
    “She was marching up the street by herself,” he said. “No one knew who she belonged to, so I took her into my father’s shop.”
    “She belongs to me,” Lina said. “She’s my