They hadn’t helped then and I didn’t think they would help now. But this was Becca. With my stomach already in a knot, I went up the white marble steps.
Inside the Provost’s office was a waiting room full of uncomfortable wooden chairs. Five or six people were sitting patiently. I didn’t have time to wait, and instead went up to the counter where the Provost Secretary sat. Behind her was a screen scrolling messages: LIFE IS HAPPINESS UNITED! OUR PEOPLE ARE HEALTHIER UNITED! CRIME IS AT AN ALL-TIME LOW! WE HAVE CONQUERED DISEASE! It was the same stuff we were taught in school. It played on screens everywhere—in the few restaurants, the drugstore, the grocery stores, the hardware and feed store.
The secretary looked at me over the top of her glasses. “Missing? Our citizens don’t go missing,” she said.
“My ma’s never come back,” I pointed out. “And Becca’s not the only kid who’s disappeared.”
The secretary’s chilly gooseberry-colored eyes narrowed. “Your ma went away for a mood-adjust,” she told me, like I didn’t know that. “She didn’t disappear. And neither did your sister. Or the other teenagers.”
“How did you know they were teenagers?” I said, gripping the edge of the counter.
Two pink spots of anger colored her face, and she sharply rapped a pile of papers against the counter. Picking up a cube of Post-it notes, she wrote “Rebecca Greenfield—missing?” on it, and stuck it on the sheaf of papers. “There. I’ll give this to the Provost. Even though you’re wasting his time on this.” Then she banged a little bell and shouted, “Next!”
Feeling helpless, I leaned over the counter. “My sister is missing,” I said, my voice shaking. “And we need to find her. Having kids disappear is not good for the cell.”
The secretary looked at me coldly and banged her bell again. “Next!”
Near tears, I left the office. What had I expected? When I, a terrified fourteen-year-old, had reported that my ma wasn’t at home, wasn’t at church, wasn’t anywhere, that same secretary had flipped through her files, glaring at me. Finally she’d told me that my ma had been chosen for a mood-adjust. And would be back soon.
She’d been lying then, and she was lying now.
But I wasn’t fourteen anymore, and now my whole family was gone. I wasn’t going to go away and shut up. Not this time.
12
“I GOTTA GO HOME,” STEPH said, apologetically. “It’s dinnertime.”
“It’s Becca,” I pleaded. “My sister. The only one I have.” My voice broke. It had been a long, hard, stupid day. Sarah and Ted had gotten more and more uncomfortable as we searched, and had finally bailed before lunch. Now it was getting dark, and even my best friend couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m sure she’ll turn up,” Steph said, but her eyes were worried.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, letting her off the hook. Inside, I felt like a tornado: shrieking, whirling, unsure of what else I could do but desperately needing to do something. I would do anything to get my sister back—even talk to Mr. Harrison, our history teacher. Try not to throw up when you see that jerk.
Steph dropped me at home. The house was dark, silent. Not even bothering to check inside, I just grabbed the moped and took off again. We’d searched everyplace I could think of… except one.
Our cell, B-97-4275, is the best cell I know. Actually, it’s the only cell I know. When you have a cell as great as ours, you really don’t need anything else. All the same, there are still some people who don’t follow the rules. Like Ridiculous Rebecca. And her loser friends.
A half mile away from the town square was a sector that I’d never been to. Most people lived on farms with at least a couple of acres—our cell had over eight thousand acres, so there was plenty of room. But people in this sector worked in offices as lawyers or doctors, or at one of the mills for grain or wool, or at the Co-op, which gathered all our crops and distributed them to our United All-Ways grocery store and even other cells. These people had no land. They lived practically on top of each other. I would hate living here, I thought as I cruised up and down the crowded, narrow streets. You could hear everything your neighbors were saying, hear music playing or someone hammering. You could smell the food your neighbor was cooking.
I parked the moped by a lamppost and looped its chain around it to show that it hadn’t been abandoned. Then I started going door-to-door, my tension building with every dead end. Finally the only places left were houses with few lights on, peeling paint, some windows that had been boarded up.
This is for Becca, I thought as I looked at the first forbidding house. Maybe she was sick inside. Maybe she’d been kidnapped, nonexistent crime or not. It took everything I had to go through the rusty gate, up a weed-choked sidewalk, and across a porch that was not an example of a good citizen porch. (Not swept, not painted, no flowers.) I knocked on the door. No one answered. I knocked again.
Finally a woman opened the door a bit and peered out at me. Cigarette smoke swirled around her lank hair.
“I’m looking for Becca Greenfield,” I said. “Have you seen her?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed meanly. “I ain’t seen nobody but me and my husband. Get lost!” And she slammed the door on me.
My knees were rubbery when I went to the next house. There was no answer at all, though I knocked three times.
The next house was under a broken streetlight. The Provost’s office was usually really strict about keeping the cell tidy and in good repair. With my heart in my throat, I crossed the porch and knocked on the door. A tall guy opened it and looked out with one eye.
“I’m looking for Becca Greenfield,” I said again, no doubt pointlessly. “Do you know where she is?”
The tall guy stroked his scraggly goatee. “Becca isn’t here anymore,” he said. “She’s gone.”
13
I GAPED AT HIM. “BUT you’ve seen her? When? Where is she now?”
It seemed to take the guy several moments to process my words. Then he leaned back and bellowed into the house, “Hey! Where’d Becca go?”
A girl came and opened the door wider, then gave the guy a scathing look. “You idiot. This is Becca. Hey, Beck.”
The guy squinted at me. “No, it isn’t.”
“I’m not Becca,” I said. “I’m her sister. I’m looking for her. I have to find her! Please, can you help me?”
The girl blinked and stepped closer, looking me up and down. “Huh,” she said.
“Where’s Becca?” I almost shrieked.
“If you ain’t her, then she ain’t here,” the girl said flatly.
“When was the last time you saw her?” My fingers were twitching by my sides. Finally I had a clue, but these two morons were in the way!
“Yesterday?” the guy suggested.
The girl shook her head. “Nah. She came here… not last night but the night before. Around midnight.”
I almost choked. Becca had been driving around in the middle of curfew. And I hadn’t known about it. “Then what?”