The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau Page B

anyway?”
    So that evening Captain Fleery came home with Lina and peered at the bits of paper. She bent down and inspected the writing. “Foll?” she said. “Acks? Rem? Ont? What kind of words are those?”
    “I don’t know,” said Lina. “The words are all broken up because Poppy chewed on them.”
    “I see,” said Captain Fleery. She poked at the paper. “This looks like instructions for something,” she said. “A recipe, I suppose. ‘Small steel pan’—that would be what you use to cook it with.”
    “But who would have such small, perfect writing?”
    “That’s the way they wrote in the old days,” said Captain Fleery. “It could be a very
old
recipe.”
    “But then why would it have been kept in this beautiful box?” She showed the box to Captain Fleery. “I think it was locked up in here for some reason, and you wouldn’t lock up something unless it was important. . . .”
    But Captain Fleery didn’t seem to have heard her. “Or,” she said, “it could be a school exercise. Someone’s homework that never got turned in.”
    “But have you ever seen paper like this? Doesn’t it look as if it came from someplace else—not here?”
    Captain Fleery straightened up. A look of puzzlement came over her face. “There
is
nowhere but here,” she said. She put both her hands on Lina’s shoulders. “You, my dear, are letting your imagination run away with you. Are you overtired, Lina? Are you anxious? I could put you on short days for a while.”
    “No,” said Lina, “I’m fine. I am. But I don’t know what to do about . . .” She gestured toward the paper.
    “Never mind,” said Captain Fleery. “Don’t think about it. Throw it away. You’re worrying too much—I know, I know, we all are, there’s so much to worry about, but we mustn’t let it unsettle us.” She gave Lina a long look. Her eyes were the color of dishwater. “Help is coming,” she said.
    “Help?”
    “Yes. Coming to save us.”
    “Who is?”
    Captain Fleery bent down and lowered her voice, as if telling a secret. “Who built our city, dear?”
    “The Builders,” said Lina.
    “That’s right. And the Builders will come again and show us the way.”
    “They will?”
    “Very soon,” said Captain Fleery.
    “How do you know?”
    Captain Fleery straightened up again and clapped a hand over her heart. “I know it here,” she said. “And I have seen it in a dream. So have all of us, all the Believers.”
    So that’s what they believe, Lina thought—and Captain Fleery is one of them. She wondered how the captain could feel so sure about it, just because she’d seen it in a dream. Maybe it was the same for her as the sparkling city was for Lina—she
wanted
it to be true.
    The captain’s face lit up. “I know what you must do, dear—come to one of our meetings. It would lift your heart. We sing.”
    “Oh,” said Lina, “thank you, but I’m not sure I . . . maybe sometime . . .” She tried to be polite, but she knew she wouldn’t go. She didn’t want to stand around waiting for the Builders. She had other things to do.
    Captain Fleery patted her arm. “No pressure, dear,” she said. “If you change your mind, let me know. But take my advice: forget about your little puzzle project. Lie down and take a nap. Clears the mind.” Her narrow face beamed kindness down at Lina. “You take tomorrow off,” she said. She raised a hand goodbye and went down the stairs.
    Lina took advantage of her day off to go to the Supply Depot to see Lizzie Bisco. Lizzie was quick and smart. She might have some good ideas.
    At the Supply Depot, crowds of shopkeepers stood in long disorderly lines that stretched out the door. They pushed and jostled and snapped impatiently at each other. Lina joined them, but they seemed so frantic that they frightened her a little. They must be very sure now that the supplies are running out, she thought, and they’re determined to get what they can before it’s too late.
    When she got