Free The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau Page B

glinted off his bald head. “Our city has experienced some slight diffcushlaylie. Times like this require gresh peshn frush all.”
    “What did he say?” people whispered urgently. “What did he say? I couldn’t hear him.”
    “Slight difficulties,” someone said. “Requires great patience from us all.”
    “But I stand here today,” the mayor went on, “to reassure you. Difficult times will pass. We are mayg effn effuff.”
    “What?” came the sharp whisper. “What did he say?”
    Those near the front passed word back. “Making every effort,” they said. “Every effort.”
    “Louder!” someone shouted.
    The mayor’s voice blared through the megaphone louder but even less clear. “Wursh poshuling!” he said. “Pank. Mushen pank. No rrrshen pank.”
    “We can’t hear you!” someone else yelled. Lina felt a stirring around her, a muttering. Someone pushed against her back, forcing her forward.
    “He said we mustn’t panic,” someone said. “He said panic is the worst possible thing. No reason to panic, he said.”
    On the steps of the Gathering Hall, the two guards moved a little closer to the mayor. He raised the megaphone and spoke again.
    “Slooshns!”
he bellowed.
“Arbingfoun!”
    “Solutions,” the people in front called to the people in back. “Solutions are being found, he said.”
    “
What
solutions?” called a woman standing near Lina. People elsewhere in the crowd echoed what the woman had said. “What solutions? What solutions?” Their cry became a chorus, louder and louder.
    Again Lina felt the pressure from behind as people moved forward toward the Gathering Hall. Jostling arms poked her, bulky bodies bumped her and crushed her. Her heart began to pound. I have to get out of here! she thought.
    She started ducking beneath arms and darting into whatever space she could find, making her way toward the rear of the crowd. Noise was rising everywhere. The mayor’s voice kept coming in blasts of incomprehensible sound, and the people in the crowd were either shouting angrily or yelping in fear of being squashed. Someone stepped on Lina’s foot, and her scarf was half yanked off. For a few seconds she was afraid she was going to be trampled. But at last she struggled free and ran up onto the steps of the school. From there she saw that the two guards were hustling the mayor back through the door of the Gathering Hall. The crowd roared, and a few people started hurling whatever they could find—pebbles, garbage, crumpled paper, even their own hats.
    At the other side of the square, Doon and his father battled their way down Gilly Street. “Move fast,” his father said. “We don’t want to be caught up in this crowd.” They crossed Broad Street and took the long way home, through the narrow lanes behind the school.
    “Father,” said Doon as they hurried along, “the mayor is a fool, don’t you think?”
    For a moment his father didn’t answer. Then he said, “He’s in a tough spot, son. What would you have him do?”
    “Not lie, at least,” Doon said. “If he really has a solution, he should have told us. He shouldn’t pretend he has solutions when he doesn’t.”
    Doon’s father smiled. “That would be a good start,” he agreed.
    “It makes me so angry, the way he talks to us,” said Doon.
    Doon’s father put a hand on Doon’s back and steered him toward the corner. “A great many things make you angry lately,” he said.
    “For good reason,” said Doon.
    “Maybe. The trouble with anger is, it gets hold of you. And then you aren’t the master of yourself any-more. Anger is.”
    Doon walked on silently. Inwardly, he groaned. He knew what his father was going to say, and he didn’t feel like hearing it.
    “And when anger is the boss, you get—”
    “I know,” said Doon. “Unintended consequences.”
    “That’s right. Like hitting your father in the ear with a shoe heel.”
    “I didn’t mean to.”
    “That’s exactly my point.”
    They walked