My heart leaps. Maybe Dewey and the Stewards are wrong and we are the ones who need to see things differently. Maybe the battle has to be fought another way.

We know the truth. We can’t help but look at the world and not see what we know. But what if we tried to see it like everyone else?

Thunder rumbles, and I think back to that night on Navy Pier. Not of the hope and excitement I felt, but of how people reacted when I handed them the books and the papers. I picture their faces and hands and hear their voices in my head. Surprised. Reluctant. Uncomfortable. At times they were angry because they saw paper the way the government told them it was supposed to be seen, not the way we see it. They saw it as selfish or indulgent or anti-country. So is it any surprise that when they looked at the words on the page or the ideas inside the covers, they saw those the same way?

Most couldn’t see the truth through the lens colored by lies. So they recycled the paper as they were told to do. That means we have to present it to them in a way they don’t question. That somehow feels familiar.

I sit in the gathering room alone, watching the screen, searching for a way to make that happen. Uninspired, I start to turn away but stop as an advertisement for makeup comes on. The model is stunning. Confident. Happy. Just like everyone watching wants to be as she applies the sharp red color to her lips, winks, and then goes to join a handsome man. It’s the type of product advertisement I’ve always ignored but Rose and all the other girls in school love. The kind that Rose’s mother has in her magazine. The type that makes people study the page to see how they can be that beautiful and happy, too.

And suddenly, I have an idea.

I work on a station tablet throughout the subsequent hours as everyone else makes preparations to leave the next day. Index comes in and tells me the plan for me and Dad to be smuggled out of the city is ready. Dewey is watching my father until it is time for us to leave. A few of the remaining Stewards stop by to wish me a safe ride and to tell me they will try again when the time is right.

I nod and keep drawing.

Sharp lines. Strong colors. No longer am I trying to re-create something my mother would have drawn or something that my teacher would approve of in class. This is my vision. My passion captured with each stroke. I started this fight to finish my mother’s work. But while this started with my mother, it is about so much more now. It’s about me. And it’s time to make the choice to do it my way.

Since I can’t use my old information, I create a new email account, then send my work to Rose, hoping my friend will read a message sent from an unfamiliar address. I’m careful not to say anything the government could question, and gnaw on my cheek as I wait anxiously for a reply. Almost immediately, she responds that she knows a great place to get free makeovers and warns that I should immediately take advantage of the offer or I might miss out.