The Owl Keeper by Christine Brodien-Jones

where I am!" Rose shot back. "Anyway, what about you, mister goody-goody? You stole your mother's
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    smart card right out of her handbag!" She jammed the map into her pocket. "Quite a feat, owl boy." Her tone was cruel and mocking. "You could end up in Children's Prison, you know."
    Max's mouth fell open. The prospect of jail had never crossed his mind.
    They marched along in silence, following the road out of town. Max remembered stopping by a farm here with his mother years ago to buy eggs and pepper plants and a loaf of spelt bread. Then the memory melted away.
    Rye Corner was a muddy crossroads marked by a wooden sign leaning to one side. As they turned onto Gravesend Road, Max gazed at the empty paint-peeling farmhouses spaced far apart, the derelict barn painted with a cough-drop advertisement, its words too faded to read. Warning signs were posted on barbed wire fences around the abandoned farms: keep out! they read. trespassers will be shot.
    Waves of despair rolled over him. He hadn't expected any of this: not the caved-in barns or crumbling fences, not the rotting wheat in the unplowed fields. It was as if the life had been punched right out of this place.
    "I guess the tremors hit the farms really hard," said Rose. "Looks like everybody gave up and left."
    Max felt a lump at the back of his throat. He'd known food was manufactured down south at the landholders' factories, but no one had told him that they no longer farmed here. Why hadn't he known that everything had fallen apart, that all the farmers had given up and moved away?
    "Look," said Rose, pointing to a billboard the size of a barn.
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    coming soon: your very own solar-powered domed city, read the sign. bid farewell to rain and snow, say so long to nighttime jitters! artificial light twenty-four hours a day. perfect weather for a perfect world. citizens' dome construction scheme (cdcs). planning the future with your needs in mind.
    She turned to Max. "Once that ugly plastic bubble goes up, this place will be a ghost town."
    "Take a look around," he said grimly. "It already is."
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    CHAPTER TEN
    [Image: Rose.]
    Max stepped up to the wrought iron gate with cavernstone hall spelled out in iron script across the top. The gate was attached to a high brick wall that enclosed the entire property. Gripping the metal bars, he peered through. His first impression was a disappointing one. The building was nowhere near as grand as the framed watercolor sketch that hung in the dining room at home.
    Cavernstone Hall crouched on a low moraine, a gloomy hulk of a house with pointed roofs, arched windows and leaning chimneys, constructed of somber gray stone. Around it bleak trees twisted in the wind, scattering leaves across the steep lawns.
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    Max was aware of its history. Once the family estate of Ezekiel H. Cavernstone, founder of Cavernstone Grey, the building had fallen into disrepair. It was auctioned off and purchased by monks, who turned it into an orphanage. According to Gran, when the High Echelon took it over, officials imprisoned the monks and put the orphans to work, turning the mansion into a government-run factory.
    "Where are the Dark Brigadiers?" he asked. "It looks awfully quiet."
    "Not to worry. My dad says the guards change over every hour." Rose held up a luminous watch with suns and moons and extra dials. "Ten minutes to go."
    "I like your watch. Is that your dad's too?"
    "He won't miss it," she called back as she plunged into the sea of ferns and cattails growing along the wall.
    Max floundered after her, thorns scratching his face and wrists, branches clawing at his sleeves.
    "Slow down!" he yelled. Mrs. Crumlin would blow a gasket if he tore his jacket.
    "Quiet!" ordered Rose. "The wolves might hear."
    "Wolves?" croaked Max, as a branch whipped across his face. He pushed it aside, his cheek smarting. "That's a joke, right?"
    Rose gave him a drop-dead look. "Plague wolves guard all the government's properties. I can't believe you didn't know