Free Children of the Underground by Trevor Shane Page A

me.” Then he did it. Michael reached out and put his hand on top of mine, but he didn’t tell me that everything was going to be okay. He didn’t say a word.

Nine
    I studied the postcards, trying to figure out what they might mean, as Michael drove. I read the one with the picture of the White House on it:
    Michael, don’t be afraid. We can protect you.
    Don’t doubt the rust,
    Don’t doubt the fall,
    Don’t doubt the clock
    That is ticking on the wall.
    On the fifth day, freedom can be found in Malcolm’s park.
    None of the postcards are signed. Each one seems more cryptic than the next. I flipped over the one with the picture of the Lincoln Memorial:
    Michael, you don’t have to be alone.
    Five is a lot,
    Three is not many,
    One is too little,
    Four is just plenty.
    On the third day, freedom can be found on Einstein’s lap.
    We rented a car when we landed in Miami. All of the postcards are from Washington, D.C., so that’s where we’re headed. We plan on stopping for the night in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to give us more time to try to decipher the postcards’ riddles and to get some rest.
    I asked Michael what he thought the postcards meant. He said that he had no idea. I asked him how he knew it wasn’t a trap. “I don’t,” he answered. “You can never
know
that it’s not a trap. Sometimes you roll the dice and you take your chances.” He kept his eyes on the road in front of him.
    Then I asked him what he knew about the Underground.
    â€œ
Know
is a tricky word. I’ve heard rumors. I don’t know what’s true. Like I said, until I started getting these postcards, I thought it was a myth. What I’ve heard is that they’re just the disaffected, the nonbelievers. Since they don’t believe, they try to help other people who don’t believe either.”
    â€œDon’t believe in the War, you mean?”
    â€œYeah.” Michael nodded. “Well, they believe it exists.” Michael smiled. “They just don’t believe it’s worth fighting.”
    â€œHave you ever heard of them reaching out to someone before?”
    â€œNo,” Michael said. “But I know a lot of people who died in the War and I’ve seen only so many bodies, if you know what I mean.”
    â€œSo you think that some of the people you were told were killed might have run to the Underground?” Is that what he had hoped had happened to your father? Had I killed his hope by telling him what actually happened?
    â€œNo,” Michael answered. “All I’m saying is that if I don’t see a body, I suppose anything is possible.”
    The drive from Miami to Fayetteville is supposed to take us about twelve hours. Hopefully by then, I’ll have figured out what some of the writing on these postcards means.

Ten
    Addy took out her phone again. Evan was lying in the sand next to her, sound asleep. She looked down at his face and at the stubble on his chin. She liked how the stubble looked, even with the eighteen-year-old’s empty patches along his jawline. In front of her, the sunlight glistened over the calm, seemingly endless ocean. Addy could hardly believe how serene the ocean looked. After everything that happened over the past two days, she half expected the sea to be boiling over. Addy and Evan had made it all the way up to Santa Barbara. They snuck out of their hiding place before dawn and hitched a ride up Route 1 out of Los Angeles. Addy made Evan hide in the shadows along the side of the highway while she flagged down a ride. He jumped out only after a car had pulled over. Their plan—Addy’s plan—was to take the ride as far as the driver would let them go. That got them as far north as Santa Barbara. It was far enough for now. For the moment, Addy felt safe from the fire and the smoke and the men with guns.
    Addy had known enough to keep her phone, her money, and her