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crosses to his closet and steps in for a few seconds. He slips back out with what appears to be a blue photo album. Such items still exist, but most citizens store their photos on their wristbands to be viewed digitally.
    He sits on the bed and pats the spot beside him, signaling me to sit. I mosey over, glancing into the hallway. His parents aren’t in sight, so I drop down beside him, taking care to leave a full foot of bedspread between us.
    Inside the album, I view photos of a family of four: two daughters, a mother, and a father. They smile in every photograph. Some pictures are of one of them or two together at a playground, in a house, blowing out candles on a birthday cake. They look happy.
    “Who are they?” I ask.
    “My ancestors.”
    “Today we will be discussing the Code,” my citizenship teacher lectured once, “which our ancestors prepared for us in order to …”
    I never embraced the idea of these ancestors being typical humans with smiles and hugs, laughing in photos with closed eyes.
    “They made the Code?” I ask.
    “Hardly,” he says. “They’ve never even heard of the Code.”
    “Did they live in another land?”
    He closes the album. “Kind of. They lived over one hundred years ago. I promise someday I’ll explain it, but not here. I promise.”
    And somehow I know he doesn’t break his promises.

 
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
    “ H is parents are nice,” I tell Mom, “and they want me to bring you over for dinner sometime.”
    “A friend your age? This is good news.” It’s after eleven o’clock, and Mom just dragged her weary body into the apartment. Wired from dinner with the Pettigrews, I can’t sleep, so I’m talking her head off, something I haven’t done since before Petra went to college.
    “He showed me pictures of his ancestors from one hundred years ago,” I say, following her into her bedroom.
    She drops on to the bed and pulls her hair out of its ponytail. It’s dark like mine but finer and silkier, something to be envied. Her brow wrinkles at me. “One hundred years ago? He must’ve been exaggerating.”
    “Why?”
    Mom shakes her head. “No one has photographs that old.”
    I tell Mom good night and head to bed. I toss from side to side, still hyped from my dinner with Arkin. Was he exaggerating about the age of the photos? Exaggeration doesn’t match his mysterious edge. His promise rings in my mind. I want to know everything he knows. He guards a piece of knowledge that holds the key to his peaceful demeanor. He doesn’t appear so weighed down with questions like I am.
    My mind floats and floats, the string of thoughts coming undone bead by bead. Before I know it, I’m flying like a bird, light as a cloud and drifting through the city on a cool morning. I coast past buildings and over cobblestone streets. Then I reach greater heights as I leave the city and enter the wooded outskirts. I brush the pine treetops with my fingertips. A gentle voice calls out to me. Arkin waves from the top of an oak. Then his beckoning morphs into a heavy knock.
I sit up in the darkness of my bedroom, the image of Arkin clinging to an oak branch burns into my conscience. He fades away when the second knock comes. I pounce to my feet.
    My wristband reads 2:13. The quiet of night spins out of the apartment. Loud voices and footsteps burst through the living room. I bolt into the hall. Three CE officers in their distinctive black coveralls charge toward me. One pushes me aside, forcing me against the cold wall.
    “Stop this! She’s not here!” Mom shouts from the living room.
    I press my back against the wall as the officers split up to enter each door along the hallway. Lights flip on all around. An officer digs through my closet, tossing my old art easel to the floor, along with boxes of Petra’s forgotten belongings.
    “Mom! What are they doing?” I call out to her, but my voice is low and raspy from sleep.
    “Petra is not here!” Mom yells.
    I rush to the living room