The August 5 Read Online Free Page B

could turn the girl over to the soldiers, but then she’d get in trouble even if she hadn’t been involved in anything illegal. Gain a hundred honor points for reporting a possible rebel?
    A cold rain began to fall. The girl was hurt and Aeren storms could be unexpectedly vicious. Father would punish Tommy severely if he were caught helping a cottager, especially if the rebellion he’d always warned about was finally at hand. But Mrs. Trueblood would say that all life was precious, no matter if you were born in a molehill or a mansion. As the sound of the rover engine grew louder, Tommy crossed the grove to the girl. He could take the girl to one of the nearby cottages and his father would never have to know.
    Tommy lifted the girl in his arms. He wasn’t much taller than she was, but she weighed less than he expected her to. She didn’t wake up, not even when he jostled her as he tried to navigate through the trees and around the blackberry thickets. Through a gap in the canopy of leaves, he could see wisps of chimney smoke rising into the air. Finally, he reached a white-stone cottage nestled in a glen of oak trees. His arms were aching, but he stayed in the shadows and watched the cottage. Someone was definitely inside because he could see the flicker of firelight dancing through the shutters. In the distance, he heard the rover engine roar to life again, rumbling down the road. With a sudden burst of speed, Tommy crossed the open ground in front of the cottage and laid the girl on the wooden bench under the porch roof where she would be dry. He knocked loudly on the door and ran toward Miller’s Road. Terrified of being caught, he never looked back.

3
    TO AVOID SUSPICION, Tommy made himself stop running when he reached Miller’s Road. He reminded himself that he had every right to be here if he wanted to—it was his father’s land. He rehearsed what he would say if the soldiers stopped him. I’m going for a hike. I was heading up to Giant’s Ridge, but the storm set in. He wondered where Bern was, and if he’d already made it home. Tommy walked quickly, splashing through the puddles that formed in the deep ruts made by wagon wheels. As he approached the bend near Harrow Trailhead, Tommy raised his arm to wipe his eyes and was horrified to see blood on his sleeve. He realized his clothes were covered with the cottager girl’s blood. He imagined what the soldiers would say: Going for a hike, huh ? Then who bled all over you?
    His gray sweater was completely ruined, but the stain wasn’t too noticeable on his dark jacket. With numb fingers, he was trying to close the brass buttons when he heard the engine of a fast-moving rover approaching from behind. Tommy dove into the undergrowth just as the vehicle came into view. It was a newer model with the clay vats holding the volt-cells mounted in a padded box at the rear. The driver’s platform was on the same level as the spoke-wheels, but unlike the standard model, there was a boxy passenger compartment fastened in the middle of the extended chassis. It looked exactly like the rover that Colston had had shipped to Aeren at the beginning of the summer holiday.
    The rover stopped a few feet away from where Tommy was hiding in the bushes. The engine sputtered off, which was a surprise. Rovers were notoriously hard to start, and it was often a two-person job to crank the wheel and flip the appropriate levers. Usually, the driver would keep the machine running unless he was certain that it was done being driven for the day. When the door to the passenger compartment opened, Tommy could see the golden Shore crest that his father had affixed to all his machines. It was his father’s rover. But why was it up here, in the middle of nowhere? The rover had been driving up and down this stretch of Miller’s Road as if the occupants were searching for something, but what? Rebels? Him and Bern? The girl? What if they’d