The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau Read Free Book Online

sleeping on the floor.”
    “Sleeping on the floor!” The voice came from somewhere behind Doon. Its tone was somewhere between outrage and amused disbelief. Doon turned around to see whose it was. In the middle of the crowd he spotted a tall boy, a young man really, who seemed to be standing up on something—maybe a rock or tree stump—so he could look out over people’s heads. He was handsome in a sharp-edged way. His jaw was square-cornered. His shoulders were straight as a board. His dark hair was combed back from his face and slicked down, so his head looked neat and round and hard, and his eyes were as pale as bits of sky.
    Doon recognized this boy, though he didn’t know him—his name was Mick, or Trick, or Mack, or something like that.
    “On the floor, yes,” said Ben. “But we’ll give you as many blankets as we can.”
    The boy’s sharp voice came again, rising above the others. “One more question, sir: What about food?”
    The question rippled through the crowd: Yes, food. What will we eat?
    Ben raised his voice. “Please listen!” he shouted. “Listen!” All faces turned toward him again. Doon could see that Ben’s eyes were fixed on the boy with the sharp voice. Ben had the look of a teacher speaking to a slightly unruly class. “Eating will work this way,” he said. “You will be assigned to households in the village—four or five people to each house. At noontime, you’ll go there for your main meal.” He paused and frowned. “As for breakfast and dinner—your lunchtime family will give you food to take away with you, some to eat in the evening, and some to save for the next morning. They will be as generous as they can. But remember—we do not have an
abundance
of extra food. Your arrival means less for everyone.” He gazed at the crowd for a moment and took a breath. “Is that clear?” he said. “Any questions?”
    No one spoke for a moment, and then the tall boy said, “No, sir. Lead on.”
    So Ben led the way into the lobby of the ancient Pioneer Hotel. Doon and his father stayed close together, stepping carefully. It was hard to see. The only light came from the doorway behind them and from a hole in a great dirt-encrusted glass dome three stories above their heads. The floor was littered with chunks of fallen plaster and gritty with dirt that had blown in over the years.
    “This place needs work,” Doon whispered to his father.
    His father brushed a spiderweb away from his face. “Yes,” he said. “But we’re lucky to be here. We could be sleeping on the ground.”
    Ben led them down a hall to the left, to a vast room with high windows, where dusty sunshine slanted across the broken tiles of the floor. “This was the dining room,” Ben called out. Doon saw only a few chairs, lying on their sides, most of them with a leg broken or missing.
    Beyond the dining room was a room even more immense, with a raised platform at one end, a high ceiling, and a wooden floor. “The ballroom,” Ben said. “In earlier years, before the Disaster, musicians sat up there on the stage. People danced out here.” At the great high windows hung tatters of faded rose-colored cloth that had been curtains years ago.
    “Smells moldy in here.” It was that boy again. His clear, sharp voice carried over other voices even though it wasn’t much louder. “Reminds me of home.”
    People laughed. It was true—the smell of mold was common in the underground city of Ember. There was a bit of comfort in it.
    Doon suddenly remembered the name of this tall boy who kept speaking out. It was Tick—Tick Hassler. In Ember, Doon recalled, Tick had been a hauler. He had pulled carts full of produce from the greenhouses to the stores, and garbage from the stores out to the trash heaps. Doon hadn’t known him then, but he remembered seeing him, pulling his loaded cart with his whole long body slanted forward and a fierce grin of effort on his face. He’d pulled his carts faster than anyone else.
    Ben