They all hoorayed the three cheers, cans high in the air.

Easley waved to them all. "Gotta go. Have fun." He went out the door as they cheered after him.

"Better and better!" Cher, formerly Marcy, cheered, holding her pop can high.

Elisha, sitting on the bench next to Cher, looked glumly at her can of pop and just shook her head.

"Now what's the matter?" Cher asked.

"Better and better. I get so sick of hearing that."

"What's the matter with better and better?"

"You're not thinking, Marcy-I mean, Cher. If there's no truth, then how can we know we're getting better? Better than what? How can we know the difference?"

"It feels better."

'Just like 'Cher' feels better than 'Marcy.' But can't you see? Both those names are a fantasy. This whole place, this whole thing is just one big lie."

Cher thought about that only a moment, then asked, "So who are you really?"

"Sally!" Alex called from his perch on the picnic table. "Hey, Sally! "

Elisha didn't realize he was calling her.

"Hey," said Britney, "the king's calling you."

Elisha remembered her a.s.sumed name. "Oh. What?"

Alex came striding over, pop can in hand, makeshift tiecrown around his head. "What'd I tell you? I said we were going to even things up. Well, it's starting to look that way"

She looked up at him, unable to find anything about him that she liked. "Congratulations."

"Wanna go for a walk?"

"No, thank you."

Britney was shocked. "Sally, I don't believe you!"

Madonna threw in her two bits. "If he was asking me ... whoa!"

"Better listen to 'em," said Alex, reaching out his hand. "Things are changing and I'm worth knowing." He took her by her wrist and tugged her to her feet.

"No, please."

He responded, only half jokingly, "Hey, you don't say no to the king."

With a quick and simple defensive move, Elisha broke his grip on her wrist.

There was a hush. The party stopped. No one moved.

"Whoooa... ," came a murmur in the crowd.

Elisha stood her ground, looking Alex in the eye, hoping she had made herself clear.

He leaned forward, raised a hand, about to say something- "Alex." It was Warren, stepping forward. "Come on. She's Jerry's girl-"

Alex planted one huge hand in Warren's chest and shoved him violently into the guys behind him. "That's your opinion. But if you think we have two different viewpoints, then maybe you and me better get together and see if we can come up with a new one."

"Cool," said Ramon.

But Warren was looking past Alex. Everybody was. Alex looked over his shoulder.

It was Elijah, just inside the door. There was no question he'd heard what Alex said. Now everyone was staring at him, and Alex and everyone's eyes said "Trouble."

Alex was in a spot. Everyone was watching him, and he had a throne to defend. He turned to face Elijah directly. "You heard what I said. How about it?"

Elijah looked to his sister for any cues. She was visibly upset and shook her head faintly to warn him.

Elijah stood there a moment, looking at the crowd and then at Alex, and then he couldn't help snickering. "So this is how it works now, huh? You win a fight and suddenly you're dictating opinions and looking for more fights so you can dictate more opinions." He said to the crowd, "You see what's happened here? You throw truth out the window and the next thing you know, guys like him start pushing their way in. And if he's the king, what does that make the rest of you?"

Alex started toward him. "I'm gonna shut that mouth of yours."

"Alex!" It was Warren.

Alex looked back. In that window of time, Warren went quickly to Elijah's side.

"I owe you one," he told Elijah.

The sight of them side by side said everything.

Alex had to think about this one.

"Hey, guys, come on," said Madonna, "we're supposed to be having a party"

"What's wrong with a rumble?" said Ramon.

"Alex, you're the king," said Britney. "Don't spoil it. Let's just have fun."

The murmur rippling through the crowd was beginning to lean heavily toward peace and partying.

Brett, his face still puffy, came alongside Alex. "Save it. You're the king. Enjoy it."

Alex listened, his eyes never leaving Elijah and Warren. Finally, relaxing just a little, he said, "Okay" The whole crowd began breathing again. "We've got a party going on here." He shifted his weight forward and pointed in their faces. "But your time's coming, so you be ready"

Elijah persuaded Warren, "You've got a nice face. I've got a nice face. Let's just, you know, leave 'em that way. Come on."

They left.

Alex got back his old smirk and turned to collect the spoils of war.

Elisha was gone. Cher, Britney, and Madonna just shrugged, knowing nothing.

In his room, safe and with his face still nice, Elijah did some figuring, scratching figures on a sheet of paper. "Okay, base of right triangle ... tangent of the angle ..." Scratch, scratch, figure, figure. "Archtangent ... hoo boy ... no, try it again ... okay, 47.17. Cool." Then he consulted his time records taken during the day. "Okay, it was high noon here exactly 7.72 hours after it was high noon in Greenwich, England, which means the earth rotated for 7.72 hours. At 15 degrees per hour, that means the earth rotated 115.80 degrees. Greenwich, England, is at 0 degrees longitude, so that puts us at ... 115 degrees, 50 minutes west of Greenwich. Fabulosity!"

He'd borrowed a road atlas from the library. He flipped it open, hurriedly paged through it, and found the map he was looking for. One quick horizontal measurement, one quick vertical measurement, and he had his answer.

The party was still in full swing in the Rec Center. Hopefully, Elisha would be alone in her room. He turned off the lights, grabbed his flashlight, and went to the window. A few lights were still on in dorm C, but Elisha's window was dark, meaning she was waiting for him to signal.

He blinked out the hailing code: "E E S."

She was watching. She replied, "GLAD YOUR FACE IS STILL NICE."

"RT (Roger That). HAVE LOCATION. PLEASE COPY."

"READY.".

"4 7 1 0, 1 1 5 5 0. NORTH CENTRAL IDAHO. ROAD TO WEST. TOWN TEN MILES MAYBE. WORTH A TRY.".

"RT. WE MUST GET OUT OF HERE. SUGGEST TOMORROW NIGHT.".

"RT.".

111-Y. 11.

111-Y. 11.

Elijah clicked off his flashlight and relaxed on the floor below the window, his back against the wall. "Thank you, Lord."

After all this madness, with so many things denied and unknown, the universe G.o.d made was still there, still precise and predictable. Because it was, he knew he and his sister were still on planet Earth, in a real place he could see on a map. Working from that, he also had a pretty good idea of how to get somewhere else, and boy, was that comforting.

Elisha threw back the covers and hopped into bed, glad and relieved, the numbers Elijah sent her discretely scribbled on her forearm where she couldn't lose them. Before she dozed off, she began formulating ways she could pack and carry food and water. It wasn't unusual for kids to carry extra food out of the cafeteria for late-night snacks, so she and her brother could stock up on provisions during lunch and dinner. Now, if the bears could just be elsewhere....

It would be a long time before she or her brother would sense such peace again, before they would ever rest easy again, or see their rooms, or lie alone in the quiet, in the dark.

The next morning, Nate and Sarah stood in the middle of a plowed field at the end of a dirt road in central Illinois. A farmer on his tractor spotted them, which wasn't hard to do-they were the only standing feature in several acres. He steered toward them, they walked, and eventually they met in the wide, open, dusty middle.

"Can I help you folks?" he asked, shutting down the tractor engine.

Nate was carrying some information and a map in his hand. "We understand there used to be an academy around here. The Knight-Moore Academy?"

The farmer started chuckling. "Yeah, there surely was."

"Could you tell us where it is?"

He pointed straight down. "You're standing on it."

That was not good news.

Sarah had to verify, "You mean, right here?"

"The government tore it down two years ago and sold me the land cheap. I'm letting it lie fallow for now. Can't plant it'til I get all the junk out of it. You shoulda seen the mess they left here. I keep plowing up bricks and concrete and pipes in the ground. Found some wires yesterday. 'Sgood thing I didn't get electrocuted."

Nate dug lightly with his finger and unearthed a piece of charred wood. "Looks like they did some burning."

"They burned the whole thing. Burned it all down, then bulldozed the foundations, and left a big mess for me to clean up. But like I say, I got it cheap, and it's good ground once you work it."

Sarah looked at Nate. "They burned it."

"Had some complaints about the smoke," said the farmer, "but that's the government. Long as they're the ones doing the polluting, what do they care?"

Nate found a chunk of concrete.

"Yeah," said the farmer. "You find that stuff all over the place." He looked all around as if trying to imagine it. "Hard to believe what used to be here. Buildings, sidewalks, everything. Can I get you folks some coffee or something?"

Nate didn't have to ask Sarah. He could see it in her face. "Thanks. We have to be going. We're, uh, we're in a pretty big hurry"

Chapter 10: First Strike.

lisha slept in late. Breakfast was not vital today; sleep was. Her first cla.s.s, art appreciation, taught by a male-hating, clipped-haired teacher named Ms. Fitzhugh, didn't start until ten. Elisha felt no need to hurry out of bed. The voices of excited girls in the hall and outside the window kept creeping into her consciousness, but she tried to pretend they were only a faraway part of her dream.

Then Cher shook her awake. "Sally! Sally! Wake up! It's all coming down!"

Elisha opened her eyes, irritated. Cher was p.r.o.ne to overstating things. "What's coming down?"

"Mr. Easley got fired, and we're all going on strike!"

That had to be an overstatement. "What are you talking about?"

"Mr. Easley got fired!"

"Who says?"

"Mrs. Meeks! She told us this morning. She said there wasn't going to be any discussion group or volleyball because Mr. Easley got fired, and you know why?"

"No, Cher," Elisha said dully. "I don't."

"Because he stole pop out of the pop machine last night! Can you believe that?"

Elisha sat up, brushing her hair aside, trying to make sense of this-as if anything ever made sense in this place. "I thought n.o.body owned anything so you couldn't steal anything."

"Well, somebody narc'd on him, and he got in trouble, and now he's fired, and Alex has called a strike!"