Page 68 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

His laugh dies as I put the cross around my neck, never once breaking eye contact with him. “This ship is named Godspeed,” I say, adjusting the cross to lie at the center of my chest.

“Godspeed just means luck. ”

I turn from Elder, stare out at the frozen morgue doors. “It means more than that. ”

I swallow and put the pictures back into the trunk. Except for the one of my family and me at the Grand Canyon.

The cross swings forward as I reach for Daddy’s trunk. It’s filled with mostly books. Some I recognize: the complete works of Shakespeare, Pilgrim’s Progress, the Bible, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Ten or twelve books on military tactics, survival, and science. Three books filled with blank paper and a pack of unopened mechanical pencils. I set one notebook and three pencils aside.

I hesitate, then reach back in the trunk for Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. I’ve never read the book, but I’m judging by the title that it’ll give me some pointers on what to do with whoever’s unplugging people. I tuck it away under the notebook, hoping Elder didn’t notice the title. Somehow, some way, I’m sure his mentor Eldest is at the bottom of all this, and I’m afraid that if it comes down to it, I might have to wage a war against him all by myself.

And then I see it.

My teddy bear.

I lift her up. The big green bow at her neck is lopsided and the felt is worn off her nose. The fur on her right paw is almost gone, because when I was a baby, I used to suck on it instead of my thumb.

I hug Amber to my chest, longing for something I know felt and stuffing can’t give.

“Last trunk,” Elder says, pushing it toward me as I close Daddy’s trunk.

I take a deep breath. I squeeze Amber.

But that trunk is empty.

“Where’s your stuff?” Harley asks, leaning over my shoulder.

Tears prick my eyes.

“Daddy didn’t think I was going to go,” I said. “He didn’t pack anything for me, because he didn’t think I was really going with them. ”

38

ELDER

“BUT IT’S OKAY,” I SAY. “WE’VE GOT EVERYTHING YOU NEED here on the ship. You won’t have to worry about clothes or anything. ”

Harley punches me in the arm.

“What?”

Amy hugs her stuffed animal and picks up the notebook, pencils, book, and photograph she’s selected from her parents’ boxes. “I

’m done here,” she says in a hollow voice.

Harley helps me load the trunks back into the locker. He keeps shooting me these looks and waggling his eyebrows at Amy, but I have no idea what he means by it.

Click. Whoosh. Thud.

Amy drops the stuffed animal and books, the pencils clatter on the floor, and the photograph drifts down. “I know that sound,” she breathes, and she’s off, running down the aisle toward the rows of frozen bodies.

“Amy, wait!” Harley calls, but I just chase after her. She skids around the corner in the row of sixties.

“Hurry up!” she screams.

I round the corner. Fog is rising from a glass box resting in the center of the aisle.

“Did you do this?” I ask, even though I know the answer.