The Young and the Brave

This piece is about what Poppy from the novel, The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, is thinking about during chapter 17: Away and chapter 18: Where the River Goes.

There’s this big crowd, and everything has gone dark. I don’t know where I am. But I do know that Mrs. Murdo is carrying me, trying to get me out of the gigantic amount of hustling and bustling Ember citizens. Then roughly ten minutes into this terrible moment, the floodlights flickered on and everyone including myself was relieved. Mrs. Murdo then began to hurry home with me in her grasp because she didn’t want to be on the streets, if this ancient street goes black again.
About half way to my home, Lina suddenly appeared and began to talk to Mrs. Murdo rapidly. Then Lina quickly grabbed me out of the clutches of our former neighbor, and we ran off into the dark alleys of this dying city.

As we finally stopped running, Doon approached us in a relieved fashion. Then with this light source that I have never seen before, we ventured into a building, down a long, wet staircase, and down a wet ladder. Then Lina set me down and told me to stay there or else. After that my sister and her friend started to take this big wooden contraption out of a cave and they placed it into the rambunctious river. When Lina finally took hold of me, she gave me to Doon, and stepped into the mysteriously floating thing. Doon handed me to her and then he stepped in as well. A couple of seconds later, we were off at break-neck speed down the river.

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We sped down the twisting and turning river with many bumps and walls that terrified me because I thought that I was going to fly out into the frigid water. But Lina and Doon made sure that that didn’t happen. They covered me up with their bodies and made sure I was safe. Minutes, maybe hours later, we slammed to a halt on a rock face with a tunnel above it and Lina and Doon seemed to be studying it. They talked a bit and then Lina went into that cave and disappeared into the eerie darkness of the inside.

I heard her yell something; it was probably to Doon; and then she came out with a joyful look on her face. They then climbed out of the floating device, with me in hand, and into the cave where they set me down at the mouth. Both of them finally went to the place where I couldn’t see Lina before, to see what was in there. As they were, I was curiously looking around and spotted a book lying there on the dark hard rock. I picked it up and was about to tear it up, like I usually do, when Lina came out and spotted me. She screamed at me telling me something that sounded like “Put that down”. It startled me so much, that I dropped the book and started crying.

After I had calmed down, Doon went to the water one last time to pick up some items from the boat. As he was doing that, Lina tied a piece of rope around herself at the waist and then around my waist as well. As if it was to prevent me from going too far ahead so I couldn’t get lost. After that, though we were off into the darkness of a tunnel where our only light source was the ‘candle’ in Doon’s hands.

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