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thought, No. I have to do this. Mrs. Talbot had warned that someone from the new Government might be taking over the Talbots’ house. What if Trey dallied and waited for Lee, and then the Government captured both boys—because of Trey?
    I can do this, Trey told himself. He’d never actually used a telephone, but he understood the process. He could call information, ask for Hendricks School. ... The only hard part was getting the courage to leave his cupboard.
     
    Maybe there’s a phone in the kitchen, Trey told himself. Maybe I won’t have to go very far at all.
     
    That thought got him out of the cupboard. He picked his way past the pots and pans yet again and crawled along the floor. His cupboard—he was thinking longingly of it as “his” now—was under a counter smack in the middle of the kitchen. He circled this island, staring up at every counter and wall. Sometimes phones hung on walls, didn’t Trey?
    It was hard to tell, because the counters were covered with a blizzard of papers, hiding the walls from view. A closet hung open, with an avalanche of boxed food thrown out on the floor. Trey resisted the urge to stop and scoop some spilled cereal into his mouth.
     
    See, Dad? he thought. I’m not an animal.
     
    He worked up the courage to step into the TV room, where the lights were still on.
     
    The curtains are drawn, he reminded himself. You’re still safe. No one can see you.
     
    He circled the room, stepping over broken glass, ripped-up pillows.
    He found the phone on the floor, under a couch. He pulled it out easily—the hard plastic receiver, the curly cord, the—
     
    Nothing else came out from under the couch. The curly cord had been cut.
    Against all logic, Trey held the receiver up to his ear anyway He listened to the sound of dead air, of no connection whatsoever to the outside world.
    Desperation made Trey brave. He searched the entire house. He found four more phones and a computer modem.
    All with severed cords.
    Holding the last phone in an upstairs bedroom, Trey began whimpering, exactly like a wounded animal.
     
    Lee, it’s all up to you now, he thought. Come quickly. Oh, please, come soon.
     

     
    Chapter Seven
    Lee didn’t show up. Days passed, and Trey waited patiently, but he heard no doorbell, no knock at the door, no cheerful voice calling out, “Heyl Where is everyone?”
     
    Dimly, Trey knew he should be grateful that nobody else showed up either—no more men in uniform, no family newly authorized to steal the Talbots’ house. But it was so hard to wait, always wondering what had happened to his friends, to Mr. and Mrs. Talbot, to the entire country
     
    The head of the Population Police is in charge of the Government now, he reminded himself. What do you think’s happening? Peace and joy and happiness?
     
    Most of the time, Trey felt the same near-panic he’d experienced barely a year earlier, waiting for his mother to return from his father’s funeral. He’d been too griefstricken and bewildered then even to read, and he kept trying to imagine his life without Dad.
     
    Will Mom take over teaching me Latin and French and Greek? he’d wondered. Will she talk to me in the evenings instead of glaring resentfully while I study? In between his bouts of anguish, Trey had felt almost hopeful, imagining Mom finally taking care of him—loving him—like mothers did in books.
     
    It’d been beyond his imagination to think that she would get rid of him.
    Now, wandering aimlessly through the Talbots’ huge house, Trey kept wondering about Lee.
     
    Has he forgotten his friends? Has he forgotten how badly he wants to make third children free? Or is he too scared of the new Government to show his face in public again?
     
    It was this last question that worried Trey the most If even Lee was scared, then Trey should be terrified, petrified, frightened out of his wits.
    Sometimes he was.
    On the third day, the electricity in the Talbots’ house went off. It happened at