The Park Service: Book One of The Park Service Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page B

hurrying back to my punishment, so I take my time walking through the dim Valley.
    In the breezeways between dark buildings, I catch glimpses of lit doorways, seeing something strange that I’ve only seen once before when I was young: neighbors visiting neighbors.
    I stop and lean against a building to watch. On every floor, people are coming from their housing units onto the walks and knocking on doors to either side, passing some news. The last time I saw this happen was when Joel Limpkin tested so poorly that he was sent down to Level 6, despite his parents’ protests.
    Suddenly, my father’s waiting punishment seems silly.
    What if it’s me this time? What if I flunked?
    The visiting slows, moving away like a wave, and by the time I reach our unit, only a few distant doors bang shut on the other side of the Valley.
    I breathe good energy in, breathe bad energy out, pull back my shoulders, and prepare for my father’s anger.
    When I open the door, my heart skips a beat—
    A dozen different voices scream: “Congratulations!”
    They’re all crowded into our small room—our neighbors and a few of my father’s coworkers and friends.
    My father steps to the front of the crowd, his posture tall and proud, and instead of sending me upstairs and grounding me, he wraps me in his arms and lifts me into the air.
    “You did it, son.”
    “What did I do?” I squeak, my feet dangling, my breath caught in my father’s embrace.
    “You’ve made us all proud.”
    “But what did I do?”
    “Perfect score, son—an absolutely perfect score,” he says, setting me down again and gripping my shoulders.
    I look up at him, confused. “You’re not mad?”
    “Mad? Why would I be mad?”
    “Because I missed curfew.”
    “Didn’t you just hear me, son?” He gives me a little shake. “You’re going up. Up! You’ve been selected as a fellow at the Foundation. Nobody’s gone up before. You’re the first, son. You’ll be making a real difference now. You’ll be helping the best and the brightest up there figure out a way to get us back above ground someday. Free men again. I knew it would be you. Maybe you’ll make a discovery to reverse the ice age, eh? Return our atmosphere? Maybe even terraform Mars?”
    Someone clears their throat. Everyone’s staring.
    Still gripping my shoulders, he stops and looks around the room, caught off guard and embarrassed by his outburst of enthusiasm. His posture wilts slightly. Releasing my shoulders, he brushes them off as if clearing away some invisible lint.
    “Sorry. I get a little excited sometimes,” he says, looking at me but talking to them. “Of course, we’ll all be retired by the time you get your fellowship anyway.”
    After several quiet, uncomfortable seconds, someone says:
    “Let’s have a toast. To Aubrey.”
    “Yes,” someone else says. “After all, he is a fifteen now.”
    Smiling with relief at the suggestion, he leaves me standing before the group to go retrieve his ration of algae ethanol. Now the visitors stare at me with a mix of pride and something else that might be envy, or even pity covered up.

CHAPTER 4
I Love You, Son
    The week passes fast.
    Before the test nobody wanted to talk to me. Now, I can’t leave the house without being stopped and congratulated. But as annoying as their new friendliness is, they’re the only thing saving me from Red.
    I see him lurking everywhere I go, his green face fading by the day but still shocking against his red hair. But every time he approaches me, he’s interrupted by some well-wishing Valley resident clasping my palm and smiling. And I’m glad because I don’t want to go up to the Foundation with a black eye.
    Without a lesson slate now to distract me, and with classes at the education annex over for fifteens, I spend most of the week hiding out in the theater, watching educationals.
    I’m nervous now about going. My father’s work has taken him up to the Transfer Station on Level 2, even once or twice