Thirty-Seven

Finn

Finn unfroze first.

“Hi, everybody!” he said, waving as he stepped forward. Because if you were going to end up on live TV in front of thousands—or millions?—of people, it seemed rude not to say hello.

Behind him, the other kids were arguing in stressed whispers: “It could just be another security camera. . . .” “No, no—that ‘ON AIR’ means we’re on air now! And look, there’s the control room over there, and you can see the image on all the screens. . . . It’s all Finn!” “The leaders must have had it set up this way for themselves. . . .” “But what if this is a trick?” “What should we do?”

Finn smiled wider at the camera.

“Okay, so you’re probably wondering why some little kid is on your screen right now, when you’ve been watching nothing but awful, horrible ‘The world is a really bad place’ scenes for, I don’t know, hours,” he began. “I can’t really explain all that. I don’t know everything that’s going on in your world, and even if I did, I’m not sure I could understand it. I’m only eight!”

He couldn’t help giggling a little at that. How many eight-year-olds ever got to go on live TV?

And then he almost giggled again because he thought of what his best friend back home, Tyrell, would tell him to say on live TV: “Fart jokes! You could make the whole world laugh!”

But he could look back at the big kids and see how worried and scared they were—so worried and scared that none of them stepped forward to tell him what to say or do. Finn had a lot of experience himself now with being worried and scared. He was worried about Mom and Natalie and everyone else they’d left behind in the other world; he was scared that Mayor Mayhew and the other leaders of this awful world would win once and for all.

A fart joke would make Finn feel better.

But he didn’t want to talk only to other second-graders. Right now he needed to say something that would help everyone in both worlds.

“So, anyhow, I don’t know everything, but I do know that your leaders have been lying to you. A lot. And the TV you’ve been watching for however many hours today has been lying to you, too. That’s how your leaders have been lying to you. So go look out a window. All that war and bad stuff isn’t really going on. Your leaders just want you to be scared and sad so you’ll do what they want. They want you to stay inside and keep watching. And I think they want you to hate the other world, so you’ll think it’s good your leaders are trying to take it over!”

Behind him, Lana muttered, “But there’s been bad stuff going on in our world for years. They’re going to think you’re lying, too, if you say everything’s good!”

Finn paused to press one of the coins taped to his forehead tighter against his skin.

“Okay, yeah,” he said. “I’m not saying there’s no bad stuff anywhere, but it’s not all bad. There’s good stuff around you, too.”

He remembered how much fun he’d always had with Mom and Chess and Emma, before he’d known about the dangerous world they’d come from. Even after he found out, he’d had some of the happiest moments in his life: Rescuing the Gustano kids. Rescuing Mom and Joe and Ms. Morales. Just being hugged by Mom . . .

He was going to make himself cry, and that wouldn’t help.

All of those things were personal just to Finn, and he needed something that could be personal for a whole country. Maybe even a whole planet.

What could make everyone feel like they’d been hugged by their own mom or dad?

Maybe Emma was right, and Finn really was a genius. Because suddenly he knew what to say.

“You know what you should do?” he asked, as if a whole planet worth of people watching him on TV could answer him right there. “You should turn off your TV set and go outside. Go outside and look up at the sky. It’s really blue today, and there are lots of puffy clouds. Or if it’s night where you are, you’ll see stars. And that’s where you’ll see that your world’s not all just about people fighting with each other, and lying, and forcing everyone to make bad decisions. You do that, and then, you know what, I bet you’re going to want to get different leaders and make your own decisions and make this world a better place. Okay? Go outside now! You’re free! You can be good now, and do good things and, and have fun! You can decide for yourself whether you want tacos or spaghetti or hamburgers or anything! Even if you want split-pea soup, that’s your decision! Maybe even have succotash! I don’t care!”

This last part about succotash was an inside joke with Emma and Chess, because that had been their code word when all of this started, when Mom first went away and got trapped in this world. Finn knew the worlds were totally separated right now, but he still felt a sliver of hope. Maybe Mom had found a way into this world despite what Lana had said about the pathways between the worlds being closed. Maybe Mom was watching him right now, and succotash could make her giggle, too.

Kona stepped up behind Finn and announced, “Okay, we’re shutting off your TV now, so you have to go outside.”

She found some switch on the back of the camera. The lit-up words, ON AIR and RECORDING LIVE, blinked out.

Emma and Chess threw their arms around Finn.

“That was perfect!” Emma announced. “You said what really mattered—well, except for the tacos and spaghetti and hamburgers part. That was kind of extra. But everything else was what people needed to hear. Now we can just wait to see if people do what you told them, before we turn the camera back on and tell them anything else.”

“Good job,” Chess added.

“N-Nobody’s come to arrest us yet,” Lana stammered. “But maybe we should get out of here before that happens.”

“Let’s go check out that security monitor first,” Emma suggested, gesturing toward the control room off to the side.

Finn raced toward the monitors, which showed all the same security camera scenes they’d watched before.

“The people in the cafeteria! They’re getting up! They’re heading for the doors!” Rocky announced excitedly. He high-fived Finn. “They’re obeying you, little dude!”

“If they look up when they go outside—that will be proof,” Kona said.

On the security monitors, the first surge of people reached the front door and began spilling out into the sunlight. And—yes!—they all tilted their heads back at the same time, almost as though they were all hearing the same music and all doing the same dance.

“Go, Finny. Go, Finny,” Emma chanted, dancing around. “You made that happen. You!”

But then something strange occurred. The whole crowd began streaming back into the building. For the first time, Finn noticed that one of the monitors in the bank of TV screens before them showed a scene from near the Public Hall, where his mother’s trial had been held downtown. And on that screen, people were also stepping outside, looking up, then darting back into the building.

“What’s going on?” Lana asked.

“Everyone’s not returning for the split-pea soup or succotash, are they?” Kona said.

Finn no longer felt like laughing at the funny word.

On the security monitors, Finn could see the progress of the clump of people: back through the doors, past the receptionist desk, down the hall—and then back into the cafeteria.

It looked like all forty or fifty of the people who’d originally been in the cafeteria were moving in unison and sliding back into the same seats they’d sat in before. They turned back toward the TV screen at the front of the cafeteria and went back to watching in silence, even though the screen was completely blank now.

“Our plan didn’t work at all!” Finn wailed. “Me talking on TV—it was totally useless!”

“That’s it,” Lana moaned. “Let’s get out of here before someone catches us. Come on!”

She started tugging on Finn’s arm. Finn reached for Emma and Chess, because there was no way he’d leave them behind.

But Emma pulled away. She put her lever bag down and leaned toward the monitor.

“No, wait,” she murmured. “Is there any way to play back that security footage? I think I saw . . . I think I saw . . .”

“What?” Kona asked, even as she fiddled with the controls. “How far back do you want to go?”

“There!” Rocky cried. “I see it, too!”

Kona had zipped back to the moment when everyone from the cafeteria was out in the parking lot, their heads tilted back to look up at the sky.

“What?” Finn asked, squinting at the entire crowd frozen on the screen.

“That man!” Emma said, pointing to a fuzzy shape off to the side. “Doesn’t it look like he’s dropping coins onto the ground? I bet he’s on our side! We’ve found someone else to help us!”