Beautiful Blue World Read Free

cancel school.”
    “Mother and Father seemed to think we were still having it.”
    “I hope we are. I hope the school wasn’t hit.”
    We continued up the street in silence for a few more minutes, past a closed bakery and one that was still open, though the window was half empty; past a cobbler who had doubled the size of the sign that said REPAIRS ; past a butcher: MEAT TODAY—WHILE IT LASTS !; past the bookshop that hadn’t been repainted in years, the books themselves crumbling and yellow.
    A lot of people were out, but they didn’t look like they were on their way to work. Some wore blankets around their shoulders instead of coats. They leaned against houses or on steps, holding steaming tin mugs. They all looked lost. Was it—was that man’s hair singed off?
    There were children, too. Why didn’t I recognize them? They were from my neighborhood. But their eyes were big and scared, their faces smudged with gray dirt.
    Kammi, several yards ahead, skipped along, not noticing these things.
    We passed a poster: TAKE THE ADOLESCENT ARMY APTITUDE TEST !
    “Megs?”
    “Mm?”
    “What do you think they’ll have the children do?”
    “They’ll probably find them places to stay.”
    “No, not these children. The ones who take the test.”
    “Oh. On the test? Or…after?”
    “After.”
    “I don’t know.”
    Aerials buzzed low overhead. We looked up to see our own blue-green crest markings on them.
    A whole fleet of aerials, heading east.
    To our borders.
    Or perhaps beyond them. Into the expanding lands of Tyssia. We had been at war for a year already, though our borders had held. But with Tyssia joined with Erobern, we had to defend thousands more miles. Soon the only safe place in Sofarende would be up north, along the Cairdul Sea. Tyssia and Erobern didn’t have access to the sea.
    We walked in silence for a few more minutes, and then she said, “They wouldn’t send children to the front lines. They wouldn’t.”
    Nobody would bomb children in their beds, either.
    At least, I used to think nobody would.
    Megs kept her eyes straight ahead, her mouth set tight.
    An
I love you
for her caught in my throat. To say sorry. That I hadn’t meant anything.
    That I just didn’t want anything to happen to her.
    She turned and squeezed my hand, looking much more like her normal self.
    “Don’t,” she said before I could speak. “I already know.”

MY CLASSMATE KARL had gotten out of his house before it was bombed to bits.
    But his uncle hadn’t.
    Now Karl didn’t have a house.
    Or an uncle.
    Miss Tameron couldn’t even tell us that he had stayed home, as he had no home to stay in. She just said, “Karl will not be in attendance today. It’s my hope that he will be with us tomorrow. I’m relieved that all of you are here. I’m glad to see each of you.”
    An emotional statement. People were either not sharing such thoughts or spreading rumors. Our teacher had entertained the idea that some of us might not make it through the night. A frightening thing for any adult to suggest.
    But Miss Tameron smiled, and her gladness filled me, too. Saying she’d been afraid for us also meant she cared what became of us. That we each still mattered, separately. Not just our country. Us.
    We settled in to comparing ancient poems from Eilean and Nor’land, our neighbors to the north, across the sea. As always, Megs answered all of Miss Tameron’s questions.
    I didn’t answer any.
    My eyes kept fixing on Karl’s empty chair.
    —
    At the end of the school day, Miss Tameron handed everyone a form.
    “Many of you have had your twelfth birthdays, so I’m obligated to give you these. Take them home and discuss this opportunity with your parents.”
    Across the top of the paper was the same call to service as on the posters, with the date the test would take place at our school, three weeks from now.
    But the form made promises that the poster had not: that your family would receive four hundred orins—the highest unit