Beautiful Blue World Read Free Page B

voice jolted my eyes open.
    “Big!”
    I jumped to my feet and flew downstairs—Father was home from the post office.
    He hadn’t even taken off his own hat yet, but he was holding one of my shoes.
    “How did your shoes end up looking like this?”
    My shoes were caked with white and gray powder, like Father’s had been this morning. My coat and scarf were lightly dusted, too. I reached up and smoothed my hair; when I took my hand away, it was covered with the same grime.
    “They must have—”
    But my shoes wouldn’t have gone anywhere on their own.
    “I mean, I—”
    “You disobeyed me.”
    “No! I—” I stepped off the bottom stair, getting closer to him. “You said not to take Kammi, and I didn’t; you can ask her, she came right home.”
    “And you think I meant it was okay for you to go if you got rid of Kammi?”
    I lowered my eyes and mumbled, “I wasn’t getting around what you said. I really thought you weren’t worried about me the way you were about Kammi.”
    “Not about what you’d see. Just physical danger. Walls can fall down hours later, or keep burning, or—”
    “I know. I…I
saw.
”
    He nodded and handed me my shoe.
    “Get the brush and clean these outside. Before your mother sees.”
    I picked up the brush and my other shoe. I stepped outside without my coat and started knocking the powder off my shoes. My breath, too, rose white in the frigid night air.
    I tensed, waiting for the sirens.

“NEEEEEOW PUD-D-D-D-D-D-D!”
    One of the younger boys ran circles in the schoolyard, his arms out straight like an aerial’s.
    “Watch it, baby!” Kaleb, an older boy, yelled at him.
    “You watch it!” the smaller boy yelled back. “You watch it because I’m going to sign up for that test as soon as they let me, and then I’ll fly over your house and kill you!”
    Kaleb cuffed him on the head, but not too hard. “Get out of here,” he said gently. The boy ran off to terrorize some girls his age, including Kammi. I hoped he wouldn’t upset her. After three more nights of bombing this week, we were all tired.
    “I’m going to do it for the money,” one boy said. “Take the test, I mean.”
    “Me too,” a few other boys said.
    Four hundred orins…a family could eat on that for a year.
    If there was any food to buy.
    Since Tyssia and Erobern had cut our train lines to most of the southern nations, there had been hardly any fruit. Pigs were thin because people had been eating the acorns we used to feed them. There wasn’t much fat to cook in.
    “My mother says signing your child up is like selling them for a currency that’s going to be useless anyway when Sofarende falls,” Peggi said.
    A shocked silence followed her words.
    Saying that out loud was treason.
    I squirmed my toes inside my shoes. You could be imprisoned for treason, or even put to death. Why would Peggi’s mother say such a thing in front of her? Why would Peggi repeat it?
    One of the boys said, “What do you care, anyway? The test’s not for girls.”
    “Says who? The sign says for
children
ages twelve to fourteen,” Megs said. “That means boys
and
girls.”
    “What would they want girls for? What use are girls?”
    Megs slammed her hands into his chest and knocked him over.
    The other kids let up a cheer and formed a circle around them. Except for Kaleb. He leaned in and took Megs by the arm.
    I stood in the middle of the circle, my heart thudding too fast.
    Kaleb led Megs away by the elbow. I moved to catch up, but she turned and caught my eye. My feet stopped.
    Megs looked mad.
    Like she didn’t want me to follow.
    —
    I took Kammi home, checked in with Mother, and walked over to Megs’s house.
    Something buzzed in my brain and fluttered around my heart, something that I couldn’t quiet when I thought about trying to talk to her.
    One of her little sisters answered the door.
    “Come in, Mathilde!”
    “Actually…” I held up my basket and looked into the house, catching Megs’s