AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There’s no such thing as the only way. You’re not advocating for reform. You’re promoting nihilism. There are children out there!” Mabel pleaded.
“They kill children all the time. How many children did they kill in the tents? How many do they let die in poverty every day? Whose children matter?” Aron said.
“Listen to yourselves!” Mabel shouted. “Do you want to be known as murderers?”
“Quiet!” Gloria said. “When Marlowe takes the stage, the bomb will go off. Keep talking and we’ll shoot you here and now.”
Mabel had watched her mother give speeches and wished that she could be like her—beautiful and charismatic, a force of nature. But she wasn’t her mother. She was only herself. Her one weapon was her fierce belief that ordinary people could come together and make a better world. “Please,” she said, choking on the word through tears. “I’m only asking you to listen to me for one minute. If you do this, you’re saying that we don’t believe in our own people! That we have no faith they’ll do what’s right.”
“Maybe the people are terrible,” Gloria said.
“Not all of them. Not even most of them. I won’t believe that. I won’t.” Mabel took a shuddering breath and pressed a steadying hand to her stomach. “What you’re doing isn’t change. Not the kind that matters. It’s anarchy. It’s terror. I don’t know everything, but I know that this—bombs and guns and threats—won’t make for a better world. Just a more frightened and angry one.”
Mabel looked at all of their faces. They were her friends. They might shoot her for an idea.
“Arthur’s under the stage,” Luis said.
Aron grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”
Luis shook off Aron’s hand and opened the door. “Go now. While you still can.”
“Now, wait just a minute!” Gloria gripped Mabel’s sleeve.
In a flash, Mabel slipped free, leaving Gloria holding her empty coat.
Mabel ran quickly through the fairgrounds, weaving her way through the crowds eating popcorn and hot dogs, past the people who’d stopped to admire the architectural splendor of a fountain spraying into the clean, crisp air. They had no idea of the danger they were in. It was up to Mabel to save them.
It was up to her.
The weight of the realization paralyzed Mabel for a moment. She leaned against the side of a booth housing a prototype of a giant robot that thrilled its human audience by assembling a radio piece by piece. “That’s right, folks—the future will be fully automated! Robots doing human work!” the inventor crowed.
The robot answered in its mechanical voice, “I have seen the future.”
What should she do? Should she go to the police? Would they even believe her? The city had a lot invested in the exhibition going well. No one would want to cause a panic over the wild accusations of some girl, a socialist, no less. They’d think she was only trying to cause trouble, to gain attention.
Still. She had to try. Mabel stood in the middle of the footpath, ignoring the grumbling from the irritated people navigating around her as she whirled around, eyes searching for a blue uniform. She spotted two cops by the Wonders of Electricity pavilion and set off at a clip, then slowed. What if the police did believe her? Then she’d be turning in her friends. And Arthur. She’d betray Arthur. Every member of the Secret Six would go to prison, Mabel included. She imagined her parents’ bereaved faces. How horrified and hurt they’d be. Aron and Luis could be deported. And Arthur could be sentenced to death. A vision of Arthur being strapped into the electric chair brought Mabel to a stop just a few feet shy of the two police officers.
One of them gave her a funny look. “You all right, Miss?”
“Yes,” Mabel said, breathing heavily. “I… I just got turned around is all.”
“Easy to do. It’s a big place! What are you looking for?”
“The Grand Pavilion.” Her voice was so small.
The officer pointed behind her. “Boy, you did get turned around. It’s that way, Miss. But you’d better hurry. I hear Miss Snow is about to start.”
Mabel nodded her thanks and turned away.
Her father had always said that persuasion trumped force. Give people the benefit of the doubt, shayna. Appeal to the good inside them. Show them you will work with them. Offer hope in place of hate. Hope and reason gave people a chance to think for themselves, to be a part of the solution. Yes. Hope. She’d go to Arthur and reason with him. She’d get him to see that they were all poised on the razor’s edge of becoming everything they’d been fighting against. There was another, better way. There always was. Yes. Hope. Yes.
Mabel slipped into the Grand Pavilion. On the broad wooden stage, the Christian Crusaders played a noisy march. The bang of the drum, sharp as a gun, startled Mabel and she jumped. Everywhere she looked there were children. Whole families waving small flags on sticks. A mother bent to wipe the mouth of her little boy. Oh, god. Faster, Mabel! She pushed her way to the back and the door that led down to the housings. A policeman stopped her. “You can’t go that way, Miss. It’s not open to the public.”
“Oh,” Mabel said, trying not to cry. “I’ve lost my brother. I have to find him. He… he went this way.”
And then Mabel did cry. The overwhelming fear. The betrayal. There was no stopping her tears.
The policeman softened. “Aww, now, Miss. Go on, then. But don’t tell anybody I let you back there.”
