Free Among the Free by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page B

trunks that weren’t really there; he banged his head on too-real branches he thought were phantoms. When he tripped on a root and sprawled on the ground, he found he no longer had the will to spring back up immediately. He lay huddled under the quilt, listening.
    â€œLu-uke! Lu-uke!” someone called in the distance.
    Was it only his imagination? Only the wind? Or was someone from the village trying to find him?
    They probably want to turn me in, he thought bitterly. They’ve changed their minds.
    He pulled the quilt tighter around himself, sealing off his entire body from the howling wind. He dozed fitfully, jolting awake every time he heard a noise. Then he’d lieawake in the darkness, his heart pounding, his ears straining to make sense of silence.
    Someone’s creeping up on me. . . . They’re about to pounce. . . . He’d wait, but nothing would happen. Nobody’s there, he’d try to assure himself. Nobody’s there at all.
    Finally he woke up to light. Even through the thick quilt, he could tell that the sun was high overhead now. The quilt was made of scraps of different colored material, and the effect was like stained glass, the cloth tinting the sunlight red and blue, yellow and green, orange and purple. For a while Luke lay still, marveling at the colors. Somehow he didn’t care about being caught; he didn’t worry about where he was going or where he had been. He didn’t think.
    Then the sun went behind a cloud, and the spell was broken. Luke lifted one corner of the quilt and peeked out.
    Trees. Leaves. Sky.
    He shoved his head out farther so he could survey his surroundings a little better. Then he burst out laughing.
    This is perfect! It almost looks like I planned it!
    He was at the bottom of a gentle hill. One whole side of his quilt—the side closest to the hill—was covered with leaves, blown there by the howling wind the night before. Anyone walking by would have thought he and his quilt were just a small hillock, a natural part of the woods.
    I’ll have to remember this trick, he thought, and that seemed incentive enough to go on, to have another chance to use such clever camouflage.
    He stood up and shook out the quilt. He nibbled on a little of the bread Eli had given him the night before, then wrapped the food sack around his waist and the quilt around his shoulders. The sun came out from behind the cloud again, and Luke took that as a blessing of sorts.
    I’m fine, Luke told himself as he took off walking toward the east again. It’s warmer today; I have food in my stomach. I’m safe. But it’d be nice to have someone to talk to, you know?
    He thought about how he’d felt standing with Eli and Adriana and the rest of the villagers. With their arms linked and their shoulders touching, they’d seemed so united. They’d had a common purpose. Luke had been much less terrified than he would have expected, because he’d had all the other people on his side.
    Now Luke was alone again. And Eli and the others were—
    Luke decided to think about something else.
    Wonder who’s taking care of my horses back at Population Police headquarters. Whoever it is had better be brushing Jenny down really well. It better not be some slacker who doesn’t know anything about animals, like . . .
    The image that came into his mind was the face of the boy who’d gone to Chiutza with him, who’d stolen Luke’s cornbread and refused to share “his” territory with Luke. The boy Luke had last seen in the middle of a circle of threatening men. Luke couldn’t see that boy caring much about horses, but Luke didn’t want to think about him either.
    What’s there left to think about? Is there any part of my mind that isn’t booby-trapped, laid with secret passageways back to thoughts I don’t want to think?
    Luke could imagine the kind of answer Jen would have given