---

"In 1997, the number of racial riots in the United States had reached an all-time high. William Neder established a colony in what was then the Northwestern U.S. to get away from the violence. Within the next two years, the violence got so bad that more and more people came to the Neder colony, which formed the Northwest Confederacy, N.W.C. for short. In 1999, the N.W.C. declared its independence from the United States and became a separate nation. The N.W.C. now occupies over 260,000 square miles and has 28.3 million people."

Colin Cooper gave his big dumb smile and sat back down at his desk in the front row of the class. He's a fat little kid with greasy brown hair and red cheeks. His face is so red that he looks like he's going to explode most of the time. His dumb report sounded like he went home and asked his parents how the NWC started and wrote down everything they said. That stuff at the end about how big it was and how many people were in it was right from page 3 of our history books!

We were supposed to do reports about what we thought was the biggest event of the past 50 years and most of the kids picked the forming of the NWC because it was the easiest. Colin must've known I was still looking at him because he turned around and made a face at me and pulled his shirt out where his chest was. He was always picking on me because I had a bigger chest than the other girls in class. The boys called me "Boom Boom" Hannah because they said that was the noise I made when I ran around. Mommy said I was just "developing" before the other girls and Daddy said that five years from now the boys wouldn't think that was funny.

"Excellent job, Colin. I'm glad to see you're reading your assignments." Mrs. Allen was sitting at her big desk at the back of the class while we did our reports. Excellent? My report was twice as long. It was about the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. I spent two nights looking up stuff in the encyclopedia and all Mrs. Allen said when I finished mine was "OK, thank you, Miss Decker, who's next?" Colin looked back at her with his big dumb smile and then looked at me. I stuck my tongue out at him.

I looked over to Tyler. His messy blonde hair looked like it was on fire because he sat right in front of the window. When the sun was beaming in I used to think I could see right through his head. He was laughing and he had a look on his face like he was about to do something stupid. He brought both of his hands up to his mouth and made a huge fart sound. All of the kids laughed.

"Tyler! There's no need for that in this class! If you don't settle down you'll be in here for recess tomorrow!" Tyler rolled his eyes and slammed his forehead down on his desk with a big thud. The kids laughed again. Tyler didn't care about not going to recess because he was smaller than the other boys and couldn't play sports as good. He told me he goofed around because he thought if he could make everyone laugh they'd like him more. I told him he was just doing what they wanted him to. I could tell him stuff like that because we're best friends. He moved right next to me when we came to the N.W.C. when we were four.

That night for dinner we had frozen lasagna. It was really crappy tasting and it was even worse than the frozen chicken we had the night before. Mommy was coming home late all the time and Daddy didn't have time to cook, at least that's what he said. She works at the military base a couple miles from our house. She's a secretary for one of the Generals. Daddy wasn't working that much but he spent a lot of time at his friend Charlie's house. Charlie didn't work either. Mommy said they sat around the house and screwed around all day. Daddy said that Charlie was helping him write a book. He used to be a writer for a magazine in the United States. Mommy said he was one of the best, but that he got lazy when we moved to the NWC. Daddy said that there weren't any good places to write in this country.

We moved here from Fresno when I was four in 1998. There were a lot of riots in the big cities. My grandma, Mommy's mom, died in a fire in Los Angeles during the biggest riot. After that, Mommy said, she knew that different people shouldn't live in the same place, so we moved up here. I don't remember that much since I was so little when we moved. I remember that right after my grandma died was when Mommy and Daddy started fighting a lot. They always fought after I went to bed at night.

Daddy and I were watching TV after dinner and there were some pictures of more shootings at the border. There had been more and more shootings at the border in the last few months. The news guy said that people were trying to get into the country from the United States and that we had to shoot them. Daddy made a snorting noise when the guy said that and got up to go to the kitchen. Mommy told me that you can't let anyone in the country because you don't know if they're going to bring diseases or something with them.

"Do you think those people didn't have diseases, Daddy?"

He came back from the kitchen and sat next to me. He turned the TV off. "Listen, honey, you shouldn't think things like that. You see...well, I just want to be sure that you stay away from the border, OK?"

"Yup, I know, you told me a hundred times." We lived in Buchannan, which was right on the border of the United States. If you went down our road for a couple miles, the border was on your left over the hills and trees. You couldn't really see it. It looked the same as any other place, but that's where everyone said it was.

"I don't even want you to play over there. I know you and Tyler like to go in the woods, but I don't want you around there any more."

"But Daddy, we never go to the border! We don't go that far!"

"Hannah, honey, I told you not to go there anymore. Come on now, it's time for bed."

By the time I got in my bed Mommy wasn't home yet. Daddy came in to tuck me in. I wanted to talk more about the border, but he said it was a "closed issue", which meant I wasn't going to get to say anything about it. I asked him to sing me a song before he left, I loved when he would sing. He would lay next to me in the bed and hold me really tight so that his beard tickled my forehead. When he sang I put my ear up against his chest so I could feel his voice against the side of my face. He always sang the same song, it was by some guy named Marvin:

"Love can conquer hate every time
Give out some love and you'll find peace sublime
And my darling, one more thing
If you let me, I will take you
To live where love is King"

I woke up late that night. I knew Mommy had come home because I could hear them fighting. This time they were yelling louder than they did most of the time. They always fought about stuff in the news, like politics and that kind of stuff. This time they were fighting about the border.

"Christ, Jan! Hannah thinks those corpses are a bunch of diseased outsiders trying to get into the NWC! What have you been telling her?"

"And what makes you thing they're anything else, Todd?" Mom was the one who started to yell really loud.

"Well answer me this," Dad wasn't yelling loud, which meant he was really mad, "and you can also pose this one to General Hitler there in the office tomorrow. Why the hell in all the bodies I've seen pictures of is there only white skin? Why have all the bodies been facing towards the US and not the other way around?"

"Oh, good God, where are you getting this? Charlie? I can tell you right now that if it's him then you can..."

Daddy was talking so quietly now that I had to press my ear against the door of my bedroom just to hear. "And I can tell YOU right now that the next time you stay in work all night you might come home to find an empty house!"

I couldn't really hear much after that. There was a lot of moving around and whispering. I could hear the door opening and Mommy asked Daddy where the hell he was going. "SACRAMENTO!", he said, louder than anything he said all night, and then slammed the door.

I got up the next morning and Mommy was in the kitchen making breakfast. I asked her why she wasn't at work and she told me that she wasn't going to go to work for a while. She said that Daddy wasn't going to be around and that she was going to stay home to be with me. I started to cry.

"You're getting divorced! Just like Kim Finch's parents! You're getting divorced and I'm not going to get to see Daddy at all!"

"Listen, baby, Daddy and I aren't getting divorced. He's going to be away for a little while that's all. Now you and I can spend some time together." She came over to me and was stroking my hair but I could tell she was crying too.

"Did Daddy go to Sacramento? Did he go with Charlie to Sacramento?"

"No," She knelt down and put her hands around my arms really tight and looked at me straight in the eye. "Listen, Hannah. Daddy went away for a job, OK? He was joking last night when he said that. Daddy and I just need to be apart for a little while and then everything's gonna be fine. When he gets back we can go to the beach for the weekend." Mommy was smiling at me but I knew she didn't feel happy. I also knew she was lying.

That night Mommy invited Tyler over for dinner. We had raviolis which is my favorite food. I didn't want to eat it. I felt sick. After dinner a guy dressed in a military uniform came over. His name was Ben and he shook our hands like we were grown up. Tyler saluted him but he didn't salute back. Mommy told us to go play in my room. Tyler asked me why I felt sick and why I didn't want to play any board games. We would usually play board games until we had to go to bed. I told him that my Dad ran away and I had to find him. I told him I was leaving tomorrow.

"Tomorrow? Where are you gonna go?"

"Sacramento. That's where he is."

"Sacramento is in the United States, Hannah. Duh! You can't just go into the United States. You're only eleven!" Tyler was making this face like I was the dumbest person in the world.

"I'm gonna sneak in across the border. You know, where we go up in the woods. I'll just wait till dark tomorrow and run over. I looked on the map. Sacramento is only fifty miles away."

"Why is your Dad in Sacramento? Why did he go to the U.S.?"

"I don't know. But he's not gonna come back unless I get him. And it's just gonna be me going, OK? And you can't tell my mom, you promise?"

"Sure, I guess." Tyler looked at me really weird. I could tell I freaked him out. He said he had to get home. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, before you go." He left my room and said good-bye to my mother and saluted to the military guy again, who didn't salute back to him again, and went out the door. That night before I fell asleep my Mommy came in to tuck me in. I asked her to sing to me, but she said she only knew the words to Christmas songs. It was August.

---

One of the helicopters lands and a bunch of guys in blue uniforms run out. They aree carrying a stretcher. They run into the middle of the group of border guards. The other helicopter flies over where I am and it has a big spotlight coming out of the bottom shining into the woods. It is getting harder to see what's going on down in the field because the sun is almost gone. My hands and my shoulders are shivering but I don't feel cold. I look up and the helicopter is nowhere around. I guess they were looking for me.

---

The next day was Saturday. I told Mommy that I was going to spend the night over Tyler's. She said that was a good idea because she was going to go into the office to get some things she forgot to take home. She left around two o'clock. I called Tyler and told him that I said I was going to be at his house. I told him if my Mom called to say that he didn't know where I was so that he wouldn't get in trouble. I packed a couple sandwiches, my favorite sweatshirt, a map of California, and about 26 dollars I had saved up. I put it all in my orange backpack and left at 3:30. I wanted to get up to around the border early so I could wait for it to get dark.

I walked up a hill just past where there was a break in the woods. It was 4:16. When I got to the top of the hill, I could see for a couple miles. There was a big clearing that went down the hill and more woods on the other side that went up a smaller hill. I could see a couple towers that were about half a mile to the right. I must have been close to the border because why else would they have towers in the middle of the woods? They were pretty neat looking towers. They were made mostly of metal and were very thin at the bottom with a big platform with a little railing around it at the top. I couldn't tell if there was anybody in the towers, but there wasn't anything moving in them. I guess that's where they shot the people from, I thought. What was daddy talking about the people facing the U.S. when they found the bodies? I sat up against a tree and watched the tower for a little while. Would they shoot me? I didn't have any diseases. Why would they care if I wanted to leave? It's not like I wasn't coming back!

I started to think about my Mommy. She was going to be mad, and then she was going to cry. I hated to see her cry. What else am I gonna do? I knew if I went home then that I would never try to find Daddy, and I'd never see him again. Then I heard Tyler's voice calling my name. I stood up and saw him running around waving something around in his hand. He was just running around in the woods that went up the hill I was on. What an idiot! What the hell was he doing here? I threw a rock at him and got his attention. He saw me and ran up the hill.

"Tyler, you retard! What are you doing? You're going to get us caught! I told you I was going alone! You didn't tell my Mom did you?" I was trying not to yell.

He was out of breath. I could see now that he had a pair of socks in his right hand. "I...uh...I thought you might need socks."

I couldn't help it but I started laughing. Not the way the other kids laughed at Tyler in school, I laughed because I liked him when he did dumb things. "What are you talking about? I have socks on. Tyler, why did you come here?"

He was laying on his back trying to catch his breath. "Well, you know, I was thinking. Maybe I should go with you. I know you said not to, but, I just thought I should go because I want to get these baseball cards they have in the United States. You know, they have more players there because they have black players and the Spanish players. They're a lot more valuable."

"You want to come to get baseball cards? No way. You're not going. You'd get in so much trouble! I'm going to find my father. That's all."

I told him he could stay for a little while but he had to go before dark. I knew he just came because he was worried about me. I made him promise he would leave and he said he would. He always did what I said. I told Daddy once that I was going to marry Tyler when I got older because he always listened to what I told him to do and he never gave me trouble about it. Daddy said that was a marriage that would probably last forever.

It was about 6:30 and Tyler was running around. He said he was tired of waiting. I looked back over the hill and I thought I saw something shiny in one of the towers. It was like when you shine your watch off the light from the window into someone's eye. The sun was getting pretty low and it was starting to make a pretty orange-red color at the bottom of the sky over the hills and trees. I was about to tell Tyler to go home when I heard a loud crack from over in the direction of the towers. I jumped and I think I peed my pants a little. Where was Tyler? Did they shoot? Maybe they thought we were from outside! I jumped up and looked around. Tyler was standing at the tree over to the right with a stick in his hand and the same look he had on his face before he got into trouble in Mrs. Allen's class.

"Isn't this a cool stick?" He pulled the stick back and slammed it against the tree. CRACK! My body jumped even though I knew it was coming.

"Listen Tyler! You've got to go! It's gonna be dark soon and I'm gonna get going to Sacramento. You promised you'd leave before I went, so you should go now."

"You're not really gonna go to Sacramento. Let's just go home." He was swinging the stick around and starting to get that look on his face again.

"Go home! I'm leaving now to go find my Dad! Stop making noise or we're gonna get caught!"

The dumb look was back again even worse than it was before. He looked down the hill towards the woods across the field and back up at me. "They can't catch me! I'm faster than anybody in the world!"

He turned and ran straight down the hill towards the border. I didn't know what to do. It was still light out. He was right in the middle of the field and if I ran out there they could see me really easy. I thought if I just stayed here he would stop and come back, but he wasn't stopping. He was running as fast as he could across the clearing! I looked back up at the tower and I saw the light again. I grabbed my backpack and ran after Tyler.

I was taller than Tyler was so my legs were longer. I could run a lot faster than him and I was catching up to him pretty easy. I was screaming at him the whole time.

"Tyler! Get back here you retard! You can't go! Stop running!"

I don't think he could hear me. He was hooting like an owl as he waved the stick to the side and kept running straight across the field, straight to the... I looked at how far we came and I saw we were almost to the other side. We made it! It wasn't even that dark out and we made it to the border! I was so close to Tyler now I had to slow down so I wouldn't bump into him. I could've caught him but I let him go. We were so close to the woods on the other side - and I heard the CRACK again. But Tyler didn't have the stick anymore. And I heard two more cracks and I tripped over Tyler after he fell to the ground.

I looked over at him and his striped shirt was red and wet. He wasn't moving at all. I couldn't cry. I couldn't do anything. I sat there for about a minute but it felt like an hour. I was so scared. I got up and ran to the woods. It was only a few feet from where I was but it felt like a mile. I kept running up the hill until I almost got to the top and I climbed up into a tree.

---

It's almost dark now. This is when I should've started crossing the field. I look back down to where the guards were and most of them are starting to walk back to where they came from. The men in the blue uniforms carry the stretcher back to where the helicopter is waiting. When they get in the light from the helicopter, I saw that they put Tyler's body in a big plastic bag. They must usually just use them for adults because it is way too big for his little body. I still can't cry. I feel like I just spent ten minutes spinning around inside a top. My head is dizzy and I feel like I'm gonna going to fall out of the tree. I climb down and stand at the bottom and I start to cry. I never wanted my Daddy as bad as I do now. I want him to sing to me in my bed at home.

The helicopter gets louder and it goes up from the ground and flies back in the direction we were running from. I get my map out of my backpack and put my sweatshirt on. I walk up the rest of the hill and then right down the other side...where Sacramento is waiting for me.