The City of Ember
Authors: Jeanne DuPrau
THE CITY
OF
EMBER
Jeanne DuPrau
RANDOM HOUSE NEW YORK
The Instructions
When the city of Ember was just built and not yet inhabited, the chief builder and the assistant builder, both of them weary, sat down to speak of the future.
“They must not leave the city for at least two hundred years,” said the chief builder. “Or perhaps two hundred and twenty.”
“Is that long enough?” asked his assistant.
“It should be. We can’t know for sure.”
“And when the time comes,” said the assistant, “how will they know what to do?”
“We’ll provide them with instructions, of course,” the chief builder replied.
“But who will keep the instructions? Who can we trust to keep them safe and secret all that time?”
“The mayor of the city will keep the instructions,” said the chief builder. “We’ll put them in a box with a timed lock, set to open on the proper date.”
“And will we tell the mayor what’s in the box?” the assistant asked.
“No, just that it’s information they won’t need and must not see until the box opens of its own accord.”
“So the first mayor will pass the box to the next mayor, and that one to the next, and so on down through the years, all of them keeping it secret, all that time?”
“What else can we do?” asked the chief builder. “Nothing about this endeavor is certain. There may be no one left in the city by then or no safe place for them to come back to.”
So the first mayor of Ember was given the box, told to guard it carefully, and solemnly sworn to secrecy. When she grew old, and her time as mayor was up, she explained about the box to her successor, who also kept the secret carefully, as did the next mayor. Things went as planned for many years. But the seventh mayor of Ember was less honorable than the ones who’d come before him, and more desperate. He was ill—he had the coughing sickness that was common in the city then—and he thought the box might hold a secret that would save his life. He took it from its hiding place in the basement of the Gathering Hall and brought it home with him, where he attacked it with a hammer.
But his strength was failing by then. All he managed to do was dent the lid a little. And before he could return the box to its official hiding place or tell his successor about it, he died. The box ended up at the back of a closet, shoved behind some old bags and bundles. There it sat, unnoticed, year after year, until its time arrived, and the lock quietly clicked open.
CHAPTER 1
Assignment Day
In the city of Ember, the sky was always dark. The only light came from great flood lamps mounted on the buildings and at the tops of poles in the middle of the larger squares. When the lights were on, they cast a yellowish glow over the streets; people walking by threw long shadows that shortened and then stretched out again. When the lights were off, as they were between nine at night and six in the morning, the city was so dark that people might as well have been wearing blindfolds.
Sometimes darkness fell in the middle of the day. The city of Ember was old, and everything in it, including the power lines, was in need of repair. So now and then the lights would flicker and go out. These were terrible moments for the people of Ember. As they came to a halt in the middle of the street or stood stock-still in their houses, afraid to move in the utter blackness, they were reminded of something they preferred not to think about: that someday the lights of the city might go out and never come back on.
But most of the time life proceeded as it always had. Grown people did their work, and younger people, until they reached the age of twelve, went to school. On the last day of their final year, which was called Assignment Day, they were given jobs to do.
The graduating students occupied Room 8 of the Ember School. On Assignment Day of the year 241, this classroom, usually noisy first thing in the morning, was completely silent. All twenty-four students sat upright and still at the desks they had grown too big for. They were waiting.
The desks were arranged in four rows of six, one behind the other. In the last row sat a slender girl named Lina Mayfleet. She was winding a strand of her long, dark hair around her finger, winding and unwinding it again and again. Sometimes she plucked at a thread on her ragged cape or bent over to pull on her socks, which were loose and tended to slide down around her ankles. One of her feet tapped the floor softly.
In the second row was a boy named Doon Harrow. He sat with his shoulders hunched, his eyes squeezed shut in concentration, and his hands clasped tightly together. His hair looked rumpled, as if he hadn’t combed it for a while. He had dark, thick eyebrows, which made him look serious at the best of times and, when he was anxious or angry, came together to form a straight line across his forehead. His brown corduroy jacket was so old that its ridges had flattened out.
Both the girl and the boy were making urgent wishes. Doon’s wish was very specific. He repeated it over and over again, his lips moving slightly, as if he could make it come true by saying it a thousand times. Lina was making her wish in pictures rather than in words. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself running through the streets of the city in a red jacket. She made this picture as bright and real as she could.
Lina looked up and gazed around the schoolroom. She said a silent goodbye to everything that had been familiar for so long. Goodbye to the map of the city of Ember in its scarred wooden frame and the cabinet whose shelves held
The Book of Numbers, The Book of Letters,
and
The Book of the City of Ember.
Goodbye to the cabinet drawers labeled “New Paper” and “Old Paper.” Goodbye to the three electric lights in the ceiling that seemed always, no matter where you sat, to cast the shadow of your head over the page you were writing on. And goodbye to their teacher, Miss Thorn, who had finished her Last Day of School speech, wishing them luck in the lives they were about to begin. Now, having run out of things to say, she was standing at her desk with her frayed shawl clasped around her shoulders. And still the mayor, the guest of honor, had not arrived.
Someone’s foot scraped back and forth on the floor. Miss Thorn sighed. Then the door rattled open, and the mayor walked in. He looked annoyed, as though
they
were the ones who were late.
“Welcome, Mayor Cole,” said Miss Thorn. She held out her hand to him.
The mayor made his mouth into a smile. “Miss Thorn,” he said, enfolding her hand. “Greetings. Another year.” The mayor was a vast, heavy man, so big in the middle that his arms looked small and dangling. In one hand he held a little cloth bag.
He lumbered to the front of the room and faced the students. His gray, drooping face appeared to be made of something stiffer than ordinary skin; it rarely moved except for making the smile that was on it now.
“Young people of the Highest Class,” the mayor began. He stopped and scanned the room for several moments; his eyes seemed to look out from far back inside his head. He nodded slowly. “Assignment Day now, isn’t it? Yes. First we get our education. Then we serve our city.” Again his eyes moved back and forth along the rows of students, and again he nodded, as if someone had confirmed what he’d said. He put the little bag on Miss Thorn’s desk and rested his hand on it. “What will that service be, eh? Perhaps you’re wondering.” He did his smile again, and his heavy cheeks folded like drapes.
Lina’s hands were cold. She wrapped her cape around her and pressed her hands between her knees. Please hurry, Mr. Mayor, she said silently. Please just let us choose and get it over with. Doon, in his mind, was saying the same thing, only he didn’t say please.
“Something to remember,” the mayor said, holding up one finger. “Job you draw today is for three years. Then, Evaluation. Are you good at your job? Fine. You may keep it. Are you unsatisfactory? Is there a greater need elsewhere? You will be re-assigned. It is
extremely important,
” he said, jabbing his finger at the class, “for all . . . work . . . of Ember . . . to be done. To be
properly
done.”
He picked up the bag and pulled open the drawstring. “So. Let us begin. Simple procedure. Come up one at a time. Reach into this bag. Take one slip of paper. Read it out loud.” He smiled and nodded. The flesh under his chin bulged in and out. “Who cares to be first?”
No one moved. Lina stared down at the top of her desk. There was a long silence. Then Lizzie Bisco, one of Lina’s best friends, sprang to her feet. “I would like to be first,” she said in her breathless high voice.
“Good. Walk forward.”
Lizzie went to stand before the mayor. Because of her orange hair, she looked like a bright spark next to him.
“Now choose.” The mayor held out the bag with one hand and put the other behind his back, as if to show he would not interfere.
Lizzie reached into the bag and withdrew a tightly folded square of paper. She unfolded it carefully. Lina couldn’t see the look on Lizzie’s face, but she could hear the disappointment in her voice as she read out loud: “Supply Depot clerk.”
“Very good,” said the mayor. “A vital job.”
Lizzie trudged back to her desk. Lina smiled at her, but Lizzie made a sour face. Supply Depot clerk wasn’t a bad job, but it was a dull one. The Supply Depot clerks sat behind a long counter, took orders from the storekeepers of Ember, and sent the carriers down to bring up what was wanted from the vast network of storerooms beneath Ember’s streets. The storerooms held supplies of every kind—canned food, clothes, furniture, blankets, light bulbs, medicine, pots and pans, reams of paper, soap, more light bulbs—everything the people of Ember could possibly need. The clerks sat at their ledger books all day, recording the orders that came in and the goods that went out. Lizzie didn’t like to sit still; she would have been better suited to something else, Lina thought—messenger, maybe, the job Lina wanted for herself. Messengers ran through the city all day, going everywhere, seeing everything.
“Next,” said the mayor.
This time two people stood up at once, Orly Gordon and Chet Noam. Orly quickly sat down again, and Chet approached the mayor.
“Choose, young man,” the mayor said.
Chet chose. He unfolded his scrap of paper. “Electrician’s helper,” he read, and his wide face broke into a smile. Lina heard someone take a quick breath. She looked over to see Doon pressing a hand against his mouth.
You never knew, each year, exactly which jobs would be offered. Some years there were several good jobs, like greenhouse helper, timekeeper’s assistant, or messenger, and no bad jobs at all. Other years, jobs like Pipeworks laborer, trash sifter, and mold scraper were mixed in. But there would always be at least one or two jobs for electrician’s helper. Fixing the electricity was the most important job in Ember, and more people worked at it than at anything else.
Orly Gordon was next. She got the job of building repair assistant, which was a good job for Orly. She was a strong girl and liked hard work. Vindie Chance was made a greenhouse helper. She gave Lina a big grin as she went back to her seat. She’ll get to work with Clary, Lina thought. Lucky. So far no one had picked a really bad job. Perhaps this time there would be no bad jobs at all.
The idea gave her courage. Besides, she had reached the point where the suspense was giving her a stomach ache. So as Vindie sat down—even before the mayor could say “Next”—she stood up and stepped forward.
The little bag was made of faded green material, gathered at the top with a black string. Lina hesitated a moment, then put her hand inside and fingered the bits of paper. Feeling as if she were stepping off a high building, she picked one.
She unfolded it. The words were written in black ink, in small careful printing.
PIPEWORKS LABORER
, they said. She stared at them.
“Out loud, please,” the mayor said.
“Pipeworks laborer,” Lina said in a choked whisper.
“Louder,” said the mayor.
“Pipeworks laborer,” Lina said again, her voice loud and cracked. There was a sigh of sympathy from the class. Keeping her eyes on the floor, Lina went back to her desk and sat down.
Pipeworks laborers worked below the storerooms in the deep labyrinth of tunnels that contained Ember’s water and sewer pipes. They spent their days stopping up leaks and replacing pipe joints. It was wet, cold work; it could even be dangerous. A swift underground river ran through the Pipeworks, and every now and then someone fell into it and was lost. People were lost occasionally in the tunnels, too, if they strayed too far.
Lina stared miserably down at a letter B someone had scratched into her desktop long ago. Almost anything would have been better than Pipeworks laborer. Greenhouse helper had been her second choice. She imagined with longing the warm air and earthy smell of the greenhouse, where she could have worked with Clary, the greenhouse manager, someone she’d known all her life. She would have been content as a doctor’s assistant, too, binding up cuts and bones. Even street-sweeper or cart-puller would have been better. At least then she could have stayed above ground, with space and people around her. She thought going down into the Pipeworks must be like being buried alive.
One by one, the other students chose their jobs. None of them got such a wretched job as hers. Finally the last person rose from his chair and walked forward.
It was Doon. His dark eyebrows were drawn together in a frown of concentration. His hands, Lina saw, were clenched into fists at his sides.
Doon reached into the bag and took out the last scrap of paper. He paused a minute, pressing it tightly in his hand.
“Go on,” said the mayor. “Read.”
Unfolding the paper, Doon read: “Messenger.” He scowled, crumpled the paper, and dashed it to the floor.
Lina gasped; the whole class rustled in surprise. Why would anyone be angry to get the job of messenger?
“Bad behavior!” cried the mayor. His eyes bulged and his face darkened. “Go to your seat immediately.”
Doon kicked the crumpled paper into a corner. Then he stalked back to his desk and flung himself down.
The mayor took a short breath and blinked furiously. “Disgraceful,” he said, glaring at Doon. “A childish display of temper! Students should be
glad
to work for their city. Ember will prosper if all . . . citizens . . . do . . . their . . . best.” He held up a stern finger as he said this and moved his eyes slowly from one face to the next.
Suddenly Doon spoke up. “But Ember is
not
prospering!” he cried. “Everything is getting worse and worse!”
“Silence!” cried the mayor.
“The blackouts!” cried Doon. He jumped from his seat. “The lights go out all the time now! And the shortages, there’s shortages of everything! If no one does anything about it, something terrible is going to happen!”
Lina listened with a pounding heart. What was wrong with Doon? Why was he so upset? He was taking things too seriously, as he always did.
Miss Thorn strode to Doon and put a hand on his shoulder. “Sit down now,” she said quietly. But Doon remained standing.
The mayor glared. For a few moments he said nothing. Then he smiled, showing a neat row of gray teeth. “Miss Thorn,” he said. “Who might this young man be?”
“I am Doon Harrow,” said Doon.
“I will remember you,” said the mayor. He gave Doon a long look, then turned to the class and smiled his smile again.
“Congratulations to all,” he said. “Welcome to Ember’s work force. Miss Thorn. Class. Thank you.”
The mayor shook hands with Miss Thorn and departed. The students gathered their coats and caps and filed out of the classroom. Lina walked down the Wide Hallway with Lizzie, who said, “Poor you! I thought
I
picked a bad one, but you got the worst. I feel lucky compared to you.” Once they were out the door, Lizzie said goodbye and scurried away, as if Lina’s bad luck were a disease she might catch.
Lina stood on the steps for a moment and gazed across Harken Square, where people walked briskly, bundled up cozily in their coats and scarves, or talked to one another in the pools of light beneath the great streetlamps. A boy in a red messenger’s jacket ran toward the Gathering Hall. On Otterwill Street, a man pulled a cart filled with sacks of potatoes. And in the buildings all around the square, rows of lighted windows shone bright yellow and deep gold.
Lina sighed.
This
was where she wanted to be, up here where everything happened, not down underground.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Startled, she turned and saw Doon behind her. His thin face looked pale. “Will you trade with me?” he asked.