The Unwanteds Read online

  Mr. Appleblossom sighed again, but this time it was a more relaxed sort of sigh, or maybe just a simple letting out of breath that had been held. “Great thanks and more, my friend; I’ll keep them here. Perhaps you’ll join me later for a—”

  “Cup of tea?” interrupted Mr. Today. “Of course. Just let them go when the spell wears off. Incidentally, what strength spell did you use? A temporary one, I’m assuming.”

  “Well … ’twas quite a row, you’ll understand it. An hour, less or more, will sure disband it.”

  “Fine and good. If you need me again, please do summon.” And with that, along with a hasty shaking of Mr. Apple blossom’s hand, Mr. Today disappeared inside the tube before the instructor could fire off another rhyming couplet.

  When the spell wore off, each child regained his full presence at his own pace, the bigger students before the smaller ones. Samheed was first, being quite solid and muscular already for his age. He stood and looked at the scene, at Alex’s face now puffing up red and purple, and he hung his head slightly, feeling a bit ashamed. “May I go?” he asked Mr. Appleblossom in a resigned voice.

  The instructor didn’t pause as he scratched notes in his paperwork. He merely nodded stiffly, like one of the mansion statues. But as Samheed neared the tube, Mr. Appleblossom turned and spoke a warning to the boy.

  You know, Samheed, no rival can compare

  his acting gifts to yours, but I declare:

  If you don’t shake that attitude, and soon,

  I’ll drop you from my program. You’ll be goon.

  Samheed’s face burned at the reproach from his own private instructor. Yet he couldn’t resist giving the little man a puzzled look. “Goon?”

  Mr. Appleblossom sighed impatiently. “‘Gone,’ then. Oh, my stars, I hate imperfects.”

  Samheed dropped his gaze, entered the tube, and completed the couplet for his teacher. “I’m sorry, sir. I meant no disrespects.”

  When Samheed was gone, Mr. Appleblossom tapped his forefinger against his lips and, after a thoughtful moment, smiled grimly to himself.

  Samheed’s First Secret

  The next evening, after everyone had ignored him completely due to his nasty behavior, Samheed sought and found Alex in the lounge. He slipped uneasily into the curved booth seat around the table from him, scouring Alex’s face, and frowned. “All right, Stowe. I’m sorry about the black eye,” he said, a bit begrudgingly.

  Alex shrugged and fixed his eyes on the tube, waiting for Meghan.

  Samheed rolled his eyes, as if it pained him to say it. “I mean it. I just … when I get mad, I just sort of go … a little crazy.”

  Alex looked down at the floor. “All right,” he said, his voice cool. “It’s not like I care, anyhow. And I know you’re only apologizing so Mr. Appleblossom will keep you in the program. I heard what he said. You’re a real jerk sometimes. And I’m not afraid to punch you back, you know.”

  Samheed, who stood several inches taller and weighed several pounds more than Alex, tried not to scoff. “Oh, I know,” he said as seriously as he could. “You can punch me now if you want.”

  Alex glanced up at Samheed, a suspicious look on his face. “What’s the fun in that?”

  “None for me, that’s for sure.”

  “I’d rather pound you when you’re not expecting it.”

  “Well,” Samheed said, “I can’t be sure how I’d respond to a sneak attack. I might punch you again, and then we’d be right back in this stupid mess.”

  “That would be awkward,” Alex said. He relaxed his shoulders a bit.

  Samheed nodded. He looked over to the bar, squinted, and impatiently waved off his friend Will Blair. Will glowered back, his eyes like slits.

  “What’s with that guy, anyway?” Alex asked. “He’s so … snarly.”

  “He’s not so bad when you get to know him,” Samheed said, sounding a little bit defensive.

  “Oh, yeah?” Alex didn’t believe it.

  “He’s just, I don’t know. He’s acting. I guess.”

  “Right.”

  “Seriously. That’s what he said when I asked him. And he’s really good. He’s got some amazing spells.”

  “Well, why would he want to hang around with a new kid like you? Did you know him in Quill or something?”

  “Yeah, I did. He lived in my column, two houses back. His father is the Quillitary general.”

  Alex looked shocked. “You lived in the Quillitary Sector? Your parents are Wanteds? You always walked beyond that sector from school.”

  Samheed’s eyes flared. “I went to the Quillitary to do work with my father every day after school, to train and prepare myself for … Anyway. So what if my parents were Wanteds? Will’s parents were Wanteds. Heck, Lani’s parents were Wanteds, and her father is the senior governor! But look where that got her. And look at you—you’re Unwanted, your parents are Necessaries, and your evil twin turned out to be Wanted. There’s no pattern, Stowe.” Samheed nearly spit venom with the last words.

  “My brother is not evil!” Alex said, a little louder than he had planned. He hastily settled back in the seat and took a deep breath.

  “Right. Sure, he’s not.”

  “What do you know, anyway? You’re just as Unwanted as I am.”

  “I know plenty,” Samheed sniffed. “And no, I’m not as Unwanted as you or anybody else,” he continued hotly. “I was supposed to join the Quillitary. I was supposed to be a Wanted—Will Blair’s father told me so himself! I only had one minor offense, and they were going to let it pass. But at the last minute somebody snitched on me for something else I said. Reported me to the governors a week before the Purge.”

  “You’re lying,” Alex said, horrified. “What was the offense?”

  Samheed pressed his lips together. His face was red with anger. But his answer came out quiet, even. “Dramatic Boasting.”

  Alex sat, stunned. “You mean … on the last day of school? When you and Aaron and I were walking home?”

  Samheed nodded.

  “But there weren’t any adults around!”

  Samheed just stared at Alex.

  “So who …?” Alex began, then turned pale. “No …,” he whispered. “I don’t believe it.”

  Samheed sat excruciatingly still, his gaze never wavering.

  Alex slumped back in his seat, trying to comprehend. Trying to remember if anyone else had been nearby as they left the school grounds that day. “How do you know?”

  “Who else could it have been, Alex? You?” Samheed snorted.

  Could it be true? Alex dropped his gaze to the table and shook his head slowly. Finally he looked up and saw that Samheed’s stare had softened slightly. “If it’s true, Samheed,” Alex said softly, almost helplessly, “I’m … I’m sorry.”

  Samheed hastily looked away and bit his lip. His eyes glistened but remained hard. “S’all right, Stowe,” he said finally. “At least we’re not dead. But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever forget what your lousy brother did to me.”

  The two boys sat, saying nothing, until Meghan and Lani arrived and slipped in the booth on Alex’s side, eyeing Samheed suspiciously.

  Samheed looked up. “Hey. Look, I’m sorry for the fight I caused in Actors’ Studio. Forgive me?”

  Alex looked away as both girls sat, slack-jawed, until Meghan murmured, “Of course, Samheed,” and Lani echoed, “Of course.” Hastily they all began babbling about their school-work in an attempt to change the uncomfortable subject. And then the next uncomfortable subject came up.

  “Well, guys, I have news. I’m beginning Magical Warrior Training,” Meghan said, eyes bright.

  Lani shrieked and hugged Meghan. Samheed’s lips parted in surprise; then he didn’t even try to hide his scowl. And Alex grinned, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach for the sake of his best friend.

  One by One, the Warriors

  After the initial shock Alex was truly glad for Meghan, thinking surely he’d not be far behind. After
all, he was excelling in painting and drawing and had advanced to charcoals and sculpting, for which he had a special knack. The normally stern Ms. Octavia gave him the highest marks on everything and praised him until he grew red in the face. With only two hands (compared to her eight) he exceeded every assignment and finished with speed and grace. His attention to detail was well beyond his years.

  “Marvelous and perfectly accurate,” Ms. Octavia had said of Alex’s charcoal sketch of the sea speckled with islands in the distance.

  “Simply primitive!” she’d praised when Alex showed her his stark sculpture replica of the High Priest Justine’s palace.

  And with all this praise, every day Alex waited anxiously for his private lesson, hoping to hear the same news that Meghan had received already: that Ms. Octavia would be talking to Mr. Today about advancing him to Magical Warrior Training. But every day, in the awkward silence at the end of each session, she merely praised him for his stunning work and sent him on without another word.

  Soon Lani—and a month later Samheed—joined the ranks of student warriors, leaving Alex as the only one in his group of friends not to have earned a coveted component vest, which the others wore proudly to class. Conversations grew awkward. Alex took to brooding alone rather than share the pain of what he perceived as his failures.

  Meghan was especially thoughtful about not discussing warrior classes too much in front of Alex, but there were times when even she couldn’t help but show off a spell. Meghan could now lull a person or creature into a trance with her singing, and her high-pitched piccolo could cause someone to turn tail and run away screaming. When she danced the fire step, whomever she aimed her focus toward would suddenly feel his feet grow warm, then hot, then near blistering.

  Samheed was a quick study in the soliloquy, and he had mastered several styles by now that all had different effects on people. His dagger spell was most impressive, for those he used it on would see and feel a magical dagger plunging into their chests, and they’d fall to the ground, stunned, though the spell did no actual damage to them. He could also “call horse,” and an invisible steed would come to him and take him wherever he wanted to go. He practiced this one often on the lawn outside (although once he tried it in his room, which made a terrible mess), and he even ventured into the forest with the steed on a few occasions. But each time he quickly returned to the lawn, having gotten the wits scared out of him first by a large gray wolf, and then by Simber, the prowling winged-cheetah statue, who apparently had left his post by the mansion door and was out on a hunt for food that evening.

  But Meghan and even Samheed were careful not to perform any magic on Alex, since he couldn’t fight back.

  Lani, on the other hand, was quickly becoming a big pain in Alex’s side. She wouldn’t leave him alone, and she didn’t seem to understand how gut-wrenchingly awful Alex was feeling about having been passed by a twelve-year-old. And how embarrassed he’d been when she magically changed his lines in Actors’ Studio as a joke, and when she made him fall asleep at dinner by using a secret phrase. One day at lunch Lani put Alex to sleep and he fell face-first into his soup.

  He awoke immediately with a sputter. “What—what is your problem?” he shouted when he had his wits about him again. He grabbed his napkin and began to wipe his face, but there were noodles in his hair, and a small slice of carrot stuck to his cheek.

  Lani giggled. Even Meghan had to hide a smile, and Sam-heed just smirked.

  Alex looked down at his soiled shirt, and then he set his napkin on the table. He stood, pushed his chair in, and left without a word, without looking back.

  Meghan’s eyes widened, and she almost stood to go after him, but Lani waved him off. “He’s just a sorehead,” she said.

  “You should tell him you’re sorry,” Meghan said.

  “It was just a joke. He’ll get over it.”

  Lani didn’t apologize to Alex, and he’d had all he could stand. From that point on, Alex withdrew from the others and took his meals in his room. And since they used the blackboards to call on him, he shut them out by putting Clive, his blackboard, on permanent “shush.”

  He spent his free time in his room, drawing and painting like mad, desperate to improve enough to make it to the warrior level of instruction. Late in the evenings, when his arms ached and loneliness clawed at his insides, he lay on his bed and thought about home, and about Aaron, and about what Samheed had said. Alex still had a hard time believing that his brother, Aaron, would have reported a fellow classmate. Why would Aaron do something like that? Many nights Alex chose to stand by his brother in favor of Samheed. After all, Alex knew his brother best of anyone, didn’t he? And he knew from experience that Aaron was creative too—he’d just never been caught. If only Alex had known before the Purge what being Unwanted really meant, he would have reported his brother in an instant so they could be together.

  “Oh, Aaron,” he’d groan, feeling helpless to save him. Alex began to miss Aaron terribly now that he felt so distanced from his friends.

  And even though there was nothing that could bring Alex back together with his twin, he sometimes got a feeling, or a notion, almost like he could sense Aaron’s presence and understand his thoughts. This made Alex feel even more alone. He wondered what Aaron was doing, how his studies at Wanted University were going, and what he was especially good at. And he wondered if Aaron was sad, as sad as Alex was sometimes.

  “No, probably not,” Alex said. He grew so lonely that recently he had begun chatting aloud, even arguing with himself. “It’s impossible for Quillens to feel anywhere near as sad as we can feel here in Artimé.

  “But he believes that I’m dead. That’s got to make him sad,” Alex argued.

  “Don’t forget where you came from, Alex. He’s forgotten you, like he was taught to do.”

  And yet Alex couldn’t help feeling like Aaron was somehow different because of their birth link. That maybe, just maybe, Aaron was mourning for him. Over time Alex grew convinced that Aaron belonged here in Artimé too.

  Parallel Lessons

  Aaron Stowe sat rigidly in the hot classroom at Wanted University as he had done every day for more months than he could recall, willing the sweat not to drip and sting his eyes. But it was no use. Droplets landed on the ancient pages of the musty-smelling book on his desk. But Aaron studied it despite that, for he knew he must let nothing distract him from the most important class in the university: Governmental History of Quill, taught by the governors themselves.

  “Quill is the land of the strong,” Governor Strang droned. “The strongest society that exists. We are feared, yet we are always on the ready for attack from those who want what we have.”

  The class of more than twenty nodded sharply, as their instructor required of them during lectures.

  The governor continued. “As your parents and instructors taught you, the land of Quill is nearly surrounded by enemies, except for the Great Lake of Boiling Oil, which lies beyond the south wall.” Half the class shuddered at the mention of the deathly place, but the students kept their eyes on the books in front of them, as they had been taught to do.

  Aaron scanned the worn page before him, wanting to know more about the enemies, but there was no description. He wondered how the governors knew that other lands wanted to attack, since there had been no communication outside the walls of Quill in fifty years. But he knew better than to ask. To question a governor would not only risk his quest to someday actually become a governor himself, but could risk his life as well.

  “Yet Quill continues to grow as a powerful force, with the most modern fleet of tanks and all-terrain vehicles and the grandest, most intelligent military of any kingdom in all the world!” Governor Strang took a breath and wiped his brow with his handkerchief.

  “Quill prevails when the strong survive!” shouted the class in unison, Aaron among the loudest, even though he wondered how they could fight so well when the Quillitary vehicles kept breaking down and falling into rusty, sm
oke-belching disrepair along the road that encircled Quill. Thank the high priest that no one else can exceed the level of our poor fleet, Aaron thought.

  “And our great and fearless ruler, the High Priest Justine, has improved the people of Quill a thousand percent by eliminating the incapable among us!”

  The classroom erupted again, as if on cue. “Highest honor to the High Priest Justine! Long may she rule the land of the Wanteds! May all our enemies die a thousand deaths!”

  Aaron snuffed out the twinge in his belly by switching his thoughts to his daily mantra. I am strong! May Quill prevail with all I have in me!

  On Sunday afternoons Mr. Today swept through the grounds of Artimé, his long gown flowing over the sweet-smelling grass and often dipping into the gentle waves of the sea when he walked along the narrow strand of beach. Behind him, like ducklings, trailed the most recent group of Unwanteds, eager to learn from the old man who would answer any question the young teens could think of, even the ones that seemed obvious.

  “Tell us more about Quill,” someone invariably asked, for that was the hottest topic. As each child spent another month in Artimé, the questions grew about Quill and how awful it was.

  “What, again?” Mr. Today teased. “Perhaps you all need something that will help you remember from week to week.”

  For Alex this was the only time each week where he felt on the same level as the others, and he didn’t have to fear Lani’s magical pranks when in the presence of Mr. Today. All the Unwanteds, of all levels of training, were equally astounded by the odd and sinister practices of the land they’d never thought to question before.

  Meghan spoke up. “Mr. Today, if Quill is so powerful, then why is everything so rusted and broken down?”