Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix

at the cameras, she figured it out: They only looked at the fence. Each one must have a small section of fence to spy on, and they turned back and forth all day, just gazing at that one length of fence.
    Jessie was thinking of the cameras as being alive, like animals smart enough to be tattletales and dumb enough to spend their entire lives in one tree. Probably that wasn’t theright way to think about it, but she wasn’t sure she could understand anything else. How could anything see if it wasn’t alive?
    That’s enough, Jessie told herself. She was getting scared thinking of half-alive things. That wasn’t the most important question, anyhow. She needed to think about how to get past the fence and the cameras without being seen.
    Frustrated, Jessie picked at a dead piece of bark. She could walk along the fence, to see if it went all the way around Clifton. Even if it did, there might be an area the cameras didn’t look at. If the cameras missed the King of the Mountain rock in Clifton, maybe outside …
    Jessie’s hopes rose for a moment, then she realized how stupid her plan was. It could take days to walk the perimeter of the fence. During that time, Katie and the others might—Jessie tried not to think the frightening word. It came anyway. Die.
    Jessie threw the dead bark into the underbrush, as if that could take away the thought. Her heart started beating faster again.
    I can’t get over that fence without being seen, she thought. There’s no way. I can’t help Katie and the others. Ma was wrong to think I could. Oh, please, God, what am I supposed to do?
    Jessie didn’t realize she was praying—Reverend Holloway certainly never would have approved of her plea. It lacked even a single “thee” or “thou.” She wondered, strangely, if God had any connection with the world outside Clifton.
    But something calmed her. She suddenly had the feeling there was a way out, if only she could think of it.
    Think about it as a problem in school, she told herself. Or no—a riddle. Nathan and Bartholomew had gone through a phase where one of them had a new riddle every day. Jessie had no idea where they heard them. The riddles always sounded ridiculous, nonsensical, as though they could have no right answer. Then you heard the answer and thought, Oh. That makes sense. It’s stupid but it makes sense. Jessie remembered hearing Pa play along with one of the riddles not long ago.
    â€œWhat eats as long as it lives, but dies as soon as it drinks?” Nathan had asked, carrying wood into the smithy.
    Pa paused while his iron heated in the fire.
    â€œLet me get this straight. Any drink kills it? Even water?”
    Nathan giggled. “Oh yes. Water most of all!”
    Pa shook his head. “Can’t be such a thing. Anything alive needs water as much as it needs food. More, even.”
    â€œNot fire! It’s fire!” Nathan’s shrill voice exploded with laughter, though Pa was at least the tenth person he’d told the riddle to.
    Pa pretended to study the flames in front of him.
    â€œWell, I reckon you tricked me on that one. I’m not sure it’s fair calling fire alive, but you’re right, this fire will eat anything. And as soon as I pour water on it, it’s out. I must be pretty dumb, not knowing that with the answer right in front of me.”
    Pa hung his head in mock shame. Then the iron reached the right shade of red orange and he pulled it out and began pounding. He moved skillfully, keeping the rhythm even as he grinned at Nathan.
    Now Jessie bit her lip, wishing she hadn’t conjured upsuch a memory. She didn’t have time to miss Pa and Nathan and the rest of her family. She had to get past the fence.
    Distantly, she heard the drone of another car moving along the road from Clifton. Something clicked. As far as she knew, the fence had only one break, by the guardhouse. There was a human guard there, not a