The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow Page B

“Still. It is his to do.”
    And it was.
    He was going to die. He deserved a chance to do it on his terms. No matter what it cost us.

9
HANNAH’S SHOES
    W e came to the day on which the trommellers were due to leave.
    Elián was there at breakfast. He was looking at his food as if it were an algebra test—equal parts concentration and desperation. He had his head tipped down and his eyebrows knotted up and his free hand in a fist on his knee. It was not the world’s most inviting posture. We were all afraid to touch him, lest he snap at us, or shatter.
    When the bell rang to send us out into the gardens, he got up with a huge scrape of bench on floor. I saw him take three apples from the bowl by the door.
    He strode out in front of everyone.
    I took Xie’s hand and we followed him. Her fingers were tight. We were both afraid.
    But by the time we reached the gardens, Elián was nowhere in sight.
    The trommellers were taking down their tents, packing up their bags. There were not so many of them, and yet there seemed in those moments to be a thousand. And my fellow hostages, too, seemed multiplied. There were children helping our visitors, children tending to the trommellers’ goats, children just stealing a moment to sit in the shade as the day began to open and blaze.
    Where on most days I could have seen at one glance that there were seven of us, and we were all where we should be, on this particular day it was hopeless.
    It was Elián’s perfect chance, and I knew he’d take it.
    Still, I looked at each face and hoped I would find him. Hoped at the same time that I would not find him. Hoped that he had taken something better than three apples.
    The trommellers were wrapping their heads, pulling on their smoked goggles, shrugging on their coats and packs. I looked at them one after another, but I did not find Elián. Slowly things were settling, the trommellers gathering together, and the Children of Peace finding their groups. Slowly it was becoming clear: Elián was gone.

    â€œWhere is he?” hissed Thandi.
    We were gathering baskets from the toolshed, going out to pick apples. The six of us. It was now spotlight-obvious that we were only six. Thandi had squeezed out the question while in the shelter of the lintel, but it still made all of us sneak looks at the Panopticon, checking the sight lines.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter if they see me ask,” said Thandi. “Do you really think they haven’t noticed he’s gone?”
    â€œBut where is he?” said Han.
    â€œNone of us know,” I answered. For surely if Elián had not (quite) told me, he would not have told anyone.
    Han looked puzzled, Grego frightened, Thandi furious—another of our prefabricated moments. We were pressed together, tightly knotted in the doorway, as if that would protect us. We knew it wouldn’t, but it was hard not to hope.
    â€œWe should get the Abbot,” said Han, even as Thandi said: “We should turn him in.”
    â€œThat would not spare us,” said Grego.
    And Da-Xia turned her face to the open air and said, “Let him have whatever time he has.”
    As she said it, bells started to ring overhead, tolling like disaster, like fire, like a call to arms.
    â€œYeah, time’s up,” said Thandi.
    â€œIndeed,” said the Abbot, coming around the corner. “If you would all come with me.” He made his mouth curl up a little, a cool parody of a smile. “We have a guest.”
    The Abbot had us sit on the lawn. The trommellers were nowhere in sight, but they had to be around—the Royal Visitor was eating our watermelons. Proctors were herding the rest of the Children of Peace inside. It was high morning. The sun beat down. The bells stopped, and still we sat there, motionless. My stomach felt tight and sick. The Abbot stood in front of us with his hands folded. No one said anything.
    Then, suddenly, movement. One of the