Sky Jumpers Series, Book 1 by Peggy Eddleman Read Free Book Online Page B

enough to build them along this side, but it was completely closed off now. I was sure we were the only ones to walk down it during all that time, since the footprints in the dust were the ones we’d left during the months we’d known about it.
    Aaren must have had a match in his pocket, because I heard a scrape against the cement floor, then the space filled with a dim, wavering yellow glow. At that moment, I was actually glad we didn’t have lights in the ceiling like they did before the bombs, because I didn’t want Aaren and Brenna to see my face any better than the match showed them.
    “You okay?” Aaren whispered.
    Brenna grabbed my hand with both of hers.
    I nodded yes. Then no. Then yes again. “I …”
    Aaren glanced back toward the closed paneling. “Is it your dad? Because you have to tell him about inventions class?”
    I knew I couldn’t talk without my voice coming out squeaky, so I nodded.
    The steam whistle blew barely loud enough for us to hear through the walls, and Aaren turned his head towardthe sound. “We can take the four o’clock train; then we’ll have an hour before our parents expect us. Where do you want to go? We could sky jump.”
    I shook my head no. “I just want to go home.”
    My schoolbag sat in a heap at my feet. I pulled the strap over my head as I walked toward the end of the hallway, where a grate in the ceiling marked our way out. Aaren linked his hands together and I stepped on them as he boosted me to the opening. After I climbed up, I let down our rope. Aaren helped Brenna before he scaled the rope himself.
    The grate led us to a three-foot-high crawl space, between the ceiling of the hall behind the gym and the roof of the building. It was small and dark, but big enough for us to crawl through. We crept along until we reached the roof’s access hatch.
    The roof above the classrooms and hallways was flat, but the peaked part that covered the gym hid us from the view of almost anyone who might be outside. We snuck to the corner classroom—Fours & Fives—where the clay-brick walls made it easiest to climb down. I went first; then Aaren lowered Brenna to my waiting arms. After Aaren climbed down, we had to run to make the train before the double whistle blew.
    The train wasn’t like trains before the bombs. The green bombs had changed the properties of steel, so nowit was weak. We could make different types of metals, of course, but getting enough—even for our small steam engines that were barely big enough to hold the person manning them—was almost impossible. Besides, we didn’t need big trains, just ones big enough to pull two wooden cars. Some days the cargo cars were emptied, ready to haul something to or from the upper rings, but usually benches were placed along the outsides of the flat-bottomed cars, with the two-foot-high sides holding them in place for passengers to sit.
    Since the meeting was still in session, there were only four other people on the train, and two were Aaren’s siblings. Aaren led us to where his older brother Travin was wrestling his three-year-old brother, Nick, onto a bench. We climbed into the same car and sat on the bench backward, our feet dangling off the sides.
    “Couldn’t get Nick to stay still during the meeting?” Aaren asked as the double whistle sounded.
    Travin slumped his shoulders. “No. And it was a great meeting, too.” He looked at Brenna, who was sitting like an angel between Aaren and me. “Why did
you
leave?”
    Aaren glanced at me and shrugged. “We just didn’t feel like staying.”
    The train jerked forward as it started to climbed up the hill. Aaren and Travin talked about Mr. Hudson’s idea and the crowd’s reactions. It was obvious that Travin wasas afraid of the Bomb’s Breath as everyone else, but he still enjoyed Mr. Hudson suggesting something that fired up the crowd so much. I ignored their chatter and stared at the passing farms, but the truth was, I could barely stay in my seat.
    When the