Read Taken for Free Online Page B

shouted, “Oh, gross!” and pretended to gag.
    Maureen made a horrible face, too, as Sierra and Whitney leaned in to see.
    Patience yelled over to me, “Come on!” and we ran through the debris to help him.
    I must admit I was shocked myself by the sight of Hopewell’s ear. I had never seen it before. I had never even thought about asking to see it. As far as I was concerned, it was a secret that should stay a secret.
    But there it was.
    It looked like a rotten apple, or a shriveled rose. It was bright red, like a wound, and it curled up at the edges like its skin was dying. It was like no ear I had ever seen before. (Patience told me that when Hopewell was returned by the kidnappers, he had nothing more than an open sore on the side of his head. Her parents were desperate for something, anything, to replace what had been there. Mr. Patterson found a donor to provide an ear right away, no questions asked, for a lot of currency.)
    Patience stood over both Dugans and screamed at the top of her lungs, “Get off of him!”
    I echoed her. “Yeah! Get off! Let him go!”
    Maureen Dugan didn’t even look up. “Get lost, hors.”
    Patience, without hesitation, threw herself on top of Pauline, so I did the same to Maureen. Neither of us could fight very well, but our momentum was strong enough to knock the Dugans back.
    Hopewell rolled over and crawled away on his elbows.
    Maureen Dugan grabbed my hair and snapped my head back so that I couldn’t move. I could see that Pauline Dugan had Patience in a headlock, too. Then Mrs. Veck ran up, shouting, “Girls! Girls! Things are bad enough without this horseplay going on. You stop right now!” After a few seconds the Dugans, each with a final twist, let our heads go, and peace was restored.
    The guard patrol arrived just then in a machine-gun-mounted van. Two men in black uniforms jumped out and surveyed the situation. One pointed to some downed electrical wires. The other one shouted, “Everybody out of the Square! Right now!”
    Mrs. Veck led us on a quick march back into our classroom, where we all sat in stony silence. Patience and I stared defiantly at the Dugans; Sierra and Whitney sneered; Hopewell hung his head miserably; and Sterling Johnston seemed lost in thought.
    Mrs. Veck turned on the vidscreen. She managed a tight smile. “Well, that was interesting. Now it’s time for us all to join the Amsterdam Academy for the holiday celebration up in New York.”
    The screen showed eight scenes of kids sitting at eight mahogany tables, scattered all over the U.S., staring at vidscreens of their own.
    They all looked miserable.

    The dark boy was back. I heard him muttering into his two-way. I could pick up very few distinct words; the rest was an audio blur. I believed he was speaking Haitian Creole. That would have made sense. He had the derma and the physical features common to Haitians. I listened hard, trying to sense his mood, trying to pick a time to engage him in conversation.
    Finally, he picked the time himself. He folded up the two-way, turned, and looked right at me. We held this stare for perhaps ten seconds. I expected him to speak at any moment, but he did not.
    I finally took it on myself to start. I asked, “Do you speak English, too?”
    His lip curled into a sneer. Was he angry? Was he going to hurt me? He wouldn’t answer at first, but I steadfastly maintained eye contact, so he finally gave in. He replied, in clear, unaccented English, “Of course I do. What kind of question is that?”
    “Well, I only heard you speaking, you know, Creole.”
    “I see. So you figured I just fell off the banana boat.”
    “No.”
    “You figured I just floated here on a piece of wood, with my nineteen brothers and sisters, my
frès
and
sès—
”
    “No. Not at—”
    “To find a better life in America, cleaning your toilet bowl after you just used it.” His tone of voice was calm, but his words were angry, and they frightened me. I had definitely offended him.