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“It’s okay, Hope. I’m sure you’re not the only one bad at inventing.”
    Maybe I wasn’t. But it definitely felt like I was the worst. Like everyone else was at least good enough.
    For the rest of the day, even when I pretended the crushing weight wasn’t there, it was. Dragging me down. Keeping me from eating lunch and from seeing the other half of the class’s inventions after lunch. For probably the first time ever, I wished my last class—math and English—wouldn’t end. I wished Mrs. Vanlue would talk for hours.
    Because then I wouldn’t have to go to the council meeting and see my dad, and tell him that I failed.
    Again.

The crowds of people at the council meeting distracted me from my gigantic case of
poor me
. Council meetings started as soon as school let out, and tons of people came—usually several hundred packed themselves into the school’s gym. But today even more people than usual were in attendance. Mr. Hudson planned to present an invention idea to the council, and he only did that when an invention was life-changing. Rumors had spread all week about what it might be.
    Aaren and I didn’t sit with most of the kids on the floor at the front—we stood halfway back and leaned against the wall on the right side of the gym, with Brenna on Aaren’s shoulders. It was easier to watch everyone’s reactions and still see my dad, who was sitting on the raised platform.
    Mr. Hudson stood up to address the council, opened his black case on the council table, and took out a pointer. I wasn’t the only one who looked up to him. In a city like ours, Mr. Hudson was royalty. Because of him, we had a steam plow, ammonia refrigeration systems at the livestock farms, a telegraph system powered by electrolyte batteries, and a lot of things people used every day.
    He’d been only twelve years old when the bombs hit. Even at that age—
my
age—he loved science. Before the bombs, his parents built a bunker that happened to be deep enough and far enough from a bomb to protect them, and he’d filled it with every science and math book he could get his hands on. A lot of the books in the town library and all the ones our inventions teachers used came from Mr. Hudson’s stash.
    Through the crowd I saw my mom sitting next to Aaren’s mom on the front row of benches. A couple dozen aunts, uncles, and cousins sat scattered throughout the hundreds of people who filled the gym. And one dog. Sandy sat next to Mr. Williams on a bench, like she was a person.
    I scanned the crowd, watching body language and facial expressions. Sometimes when the council talked about a change, everyone reacted the same. Other times it was half and half. Today was a great day to watch—crowd reactions were exactly in unison. Mr. Hudson announcedhe had found a way for every home to have refrigeration. Since refrigerators were pretty much at the top of everyone’s wish list, his announcement caused a wave of excited whispers through the crowd.
    He pointed at a complicated drawing on an easel, cleared his throat, then said, “The air in the Bomb’s Breath is a resource, and it can be tapped for our advantage. The cross-linking of its molecules creates pressure. When we bring air down from the Bomb’s Breath through pipes, the pressure of it going through a small orifice and then expanding again will power the refrigeration. Pipes at the other end of the unit right here will then vent the air back into the Bomb’s Breath.”
    The second he mentioned the Bomb’s Breath, the crowd fell silent. A moment later, they started whispering again. The volume in the room grew louder and louder as Mr. Hudson spoke. Council member Mr. Newberry’s face actually got redder than his hair, and he squeezed his pencil like he was trying to choke it. To his credit, he did wait until Mr. Hudson finished before he exploded.
    “I
cannot
believe you are proposing we bring air from the Bomb’s Breath down here,” Mr. Newberry yelled. “And into our