When he caught up with Leah, Ethan fell into step beside her —but said nothing. Suddenly she turned to him with a big smile on her face, and he got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Anything that could make her smile like that was bound to be bad news for him.

“I almost forgot to tell you what Father said,” she announced. She said it so loudly and so excitedly that an old man who was nursing a lamb’s injured leg nearby looked up from his work.

“What?” Ethan asked, grabbing her arm to keep her moving.

“He said the Lord is going to give Moses a whole new set of rules for us to follow!” She grinned at him expectantly, as if she thought he might do a little celebration dance.

Ethan stopped dead in his tracks, startling an old woman who was boiling manna near the path. “More rules?” He spat out each word as though it were a bad taste in his mouth. “We don’t need more rules. We have too many rules now!”

“You won’t think that way after you learn to follow them,” Leah said, looking down her nose at him.

“Don’t you ever feel like you’re a slave to rules?” For a moment Ethan wasn’t sure whether he’d asked the question out loud or just thought it. Then he saw Leah’s eyebrows bunch together in confusion.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

Ethan’s grip tightened on the bundle of clothes in his hands. “Don’t you ever get tired of doing what you’re told?” he asked. “Don’t you ever feel like thinking for yourself?”

She frowned. “Are you saying you’re wiser than Moses? Wiser than God? That you can come up with better rules on your own?”

He stared at the mountain in the distance. “I could come up with fewer rules, that’s for sure.”

Leah folded her arms across her chest. “I suppose you liked it better in Egypt. Some people do, I hear. Maybe you liked the Egyptians’ rules better, and their false gods.”

You just don’t get it, do you? he thought. Ethan waved his arm around at the rows and rows of tents. “Don’t you ever wish you were back there? I mean, look! This is the desert! We live in tents! Don’t you remember what it was like in Egypt? We had actual furniture! Real food, not just manna that we have to scrape off the ground every day! Sure, it tastes kind of like honey, but anybody would get sick of honey after a while . . .”

“Don’t you remember what it was like in Egypt?” she shot back. “We were slaves there!”

“And we’re still slaves,” Ethan said. “Slaves to rules. And where have the rules gotten us? To the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do but . . . sweat and argue.”

“Well, you should know,” Leah said, making a face. “Those are the two things you do best.” She turned and headed down the path toward the stream.

Shaking his head, Ethan followed. “Just forget it,” he mumbled, disgusted. “You wouldn’t understand anyway.”

The stream was barely a trickle, at least compared with what Ethan remembered of the Nile River in Egypt. This water was no more than eight feet wide at any point and barely rose above the ankles of the people who stood in it, washing their clothes.

Ethan saw his mother standing in the middle of the stream, smiling and waving her arms over her head to get his attention. He took off his sandals and left them on the bank. He could hear Leah splashing along behind him as he made his way into the rippling, sun-warmed water.

His bare feet sank in the wet sand as he passed at least a half-dozen families who were washing their clothes together. It seemed strange to see men, women, and children washing side by side. Usually only the women cleaned clothes.

Ethan’s mother cupped a handful of water and gave him a playful splash when he got close. Behind her, his father grunted and strained as he rubbed his grayish cloak on a rock in the stream. Sweat poured from his dark hair down the side of his long, thin face. He seemed to be concentrating hard and didn’t look up.

It’s a good thing he doesn’t wash clothes very often, Ethan thought. He’d rub holes in everything.

Ethan walked over and knelt in the water next to his father. After scrubbing his robe against the rock for a few seconds, Ethan broke the silence. “Uh . . . there sure is a lot of lightning on the mountain today,” he said.

His father kept rubbing his own cloak against the rock, seeming not to hear.

Ethan tried again. “Father, how dangerous is the mountain?”

Finally his father looked up and seemed to notice Ethan for the first time. “Hmm? The mountain?” He turned toward Mount Sinai. “It’s only dangerous to those who don’t follow the Lord’s commands.”

It was the kind of thing Ethan had heard him say many times. Ethan wasn’t surprised when Leah came splashing over to listen, either.

“Think of it as a scorpion,” his father continued. “If you treat it with respect and keep your distance, it isn’t dangerous.”

Ethan nodded and slapped his robe against the rock. The coarse material felt even rougher when it was wet, and the folded edges scratched his hands and forearms.

His father watched for a few moments and then spoke. “Ethan, you need to put more effort into your work. Your clothes should be cleaner than they were the day you first wore them.”

“Tell him why, Father,” Leah urged. For a moment Ethan wanted to slap her against the rock.

“The Lord Himself has come to meet with Moses,” his father explained. “He wants us to be ready for Him. The way we make ourselves look on the outside will show how much we care on the inside.”

Ethan stopped washing and stood up straight. “Melki’s father said his family didn’t have to wash their clothes again, since they washed them last week.”

His father drew himself up too —in a way that always made him look about a foot taller than he actually was. He began stroking his beard. Ethan thought of Melki’s impression and tried not to smile.

“Did Melki’s father change Pharaoh’s heart and convince him to let our people leave Egypt?” Father asked.

“No,” Ethan answered.

“Did Melki’s father lead us in battle against the Amalekites?”

“No.”

“Did Melki’s father hold back the waters of the Red Sea so that we could cross over on dry ground?”

“No.”

His father took a step toward Ethan and leaned in close —so close that their noses were almost touching. “That’s why my family is going to listen to the Lord, and not to Melki’s father,” he said.

His voice was so intense, it seemed to bore a hole between Ethan’s eyes. Without another word, his father went back to his cloak washing.

In the distance, thunder rumbled from the top of Mount Sinai. Ethan turned toward the cloud-covered peak and stared. The longer he looked at the mountain, the more he wanted to be there.

He replayed Melki’s words in his head: Do something you want to do.

“Do you want to be a slave your entire life?” his best friend had asked.

No, Ethan told himself. One way or another, I’m going to be free.