Skylark Read Free Page A

and bleeding.
    I scrubbed away the mud and dirty water, my scraped arms stinging. I rinsed my hair as best as I could, in too much of a rush to coax any lather out of the cheap ration soap. After I’d finished, I stood dripping by the window. The sun disc was just clearing the buildings.
    I closed my eyes, letting the light wash my face through the dingy window of my parents’ apartment. If only I’d stayed stuck in that pipe, I never would’ve smashed that pixie. In the pipe, I had thought it better to be caught than to rot. Now, having used the Resource, being caught would mean Adjustment.
    I was supposed to be in school by now, listening to the names called for the harvest. Suffering through the same drawn-out ceremony. The fat, sugar-sweet Harvest Administrator would be there by now in her red coat, delivering her speech to the kids about sacrifice and efficiency, and the journey into adulthood. She had always terrified me, despite her pleasant demeanor. I wasn’t used to seeing large people, and she got a little wider each year. In the past, fear of the Administrator was always enough to make sure I attended every Harvest Day.
    But I knew I wasn’t on the list, and no one would notice I was gone. All attention would be on the kids whose names were called. I was still buzzing from what I’d done, little jolts of the Resource escaping from my fingertips and my wet hair when I moved. I couldn’t report to class like this. What if they could somehow sense it when I entered? What if it clung to me, like the faint stench of the tunnels still inhabiting my hair?
    I drew in a shaky breath and turned away from the window. I got dressed slowly and then went into the living room. Rummaging in the box of my belongings by my sofa bed, I pulled out the paper bird Basil had made for me before he disappeared.
    “Don’t go,” I’d begged him.
    “You weren’t made to live in a cage, little bird.” He kept his voice low, calm. Soothing. But there was a tension behind his gaze that had frightened me. “Someone has to take the first steps beyond it.”
    “But who will protect me from Caesar?” Caesar, my older brother by five years, and two years older than Basil. He was almost a stranger to me and terrifying in his gruffness.
    Basil crouched down to eye level with me. Even then I was short and scrawny. “What if I made you a friend to keep you company?” he asked.
    It had been years since he’d last made me one of his paper animals. He’d taught himself how in school, stealing scraps of recycled paper and folding until they resembled creatures out of the history books. Elephants, tigers, dogs, squirrels, once even an eagle.
    “I’m not a little kid anymore,” I protested.
    “I know,” Basil said. “This would be a special one, different from the others. I’ve had this paper—” and he pulled a small, yellow-gray sheet of paper from his satchel, “—waiting for a few weeks now. The animal’s already inside, waiting to be set free. You just have to see it.” He looked back up at me, serious and earnest. “But she’ll need someone to take care of her. Will you do that until I get back?”
    I knew what he was doing, saw through his efforts to distract me, but I nodded anyway. It had been so long since I’d watched him fold. He winked at me and turned his attention to the paper. His fingers flew, forming angles by folding and folding back again, creases leaping up along edges and bisecting the center. “Slower!” I begged him, longing to see and learn the trick of it, but he just laughed and kept folding.
    I couldn’t see what it was until he was nearly done, at which point my breath caught in my throat.
    “A lark,” he said, bending the wings back up into place and then resting the paper bird on the palm of his hand. “Like you, Lark.” He grinned again, and leaned toward me so he could jostle my shoulder with his.
    Just before I could reach out to take the paper bird, he pulled his hand back and bent