It was Susan's first day as a messenger. She got up and reported to Captain Fleery who was the Messenger's boss. All of the other messengers grabbed their red jackets and set out to their stations. Lina and Susan stayed behind and waited to be assigned to a station. They were each given their own red jacket and told the rules, which were,

1) Always go as fast as you can.

2) Never take off your red jacket before the end of a work day.

3) Give the message only to the person it's meant for and no one else.

4) Always repeat the message back so you know you've gotten it right.

"Failure to comply with result in immediate re-assignment in addition to other possible punishments." Captain Fleery warned them.

Susan and Lina both had their stations in Garn Square. They stood side by side wait for someone to give them a message. After only twenty minutes, a slim old woman called Lina over with a slightly angry shout of, "Hey, Messenger! Come here!"

She walked over to her. "Yes, ma'am?"

"I have a message for my husband." The woman told her in a sour tone.

"Yes, of course." Lina nodded, more than willing to do her job. "But-" She pointed across the street were a half-bald elderly man was sitting on the curb playing checkers against himself. "Isn't that him right over there?"

The old woman wrinkled up her nose. "Yes, but I'm not talking to him at the moment."

"Oh." Lina leaned closer so the woman could whisper whatever the message was in her ear as was customary.

"Tell him, no beans for dinner tonight."

"No beans for dinner tonight." Lina repeated.

"Very good." The woman nodded in approval. "Go."

Lina dashed across the street and delivered the message to the woman's husband.

"Eh, what's that?" The man said quite loudly; he was sort of deaf.

"No beans for dinner tonight." Lina said, louder this time.

"What?"

"No beans for dinner tonight!" Lina had to shout, hoping he could hear her.

"No need to shout, young lady." He wagged his finger at her disapprovingly. "A good messenger never shouted in my days."

"Sorry, sir." Lina said, turning to go back to her station.

"No, wait!" The man called after her. "I want to send a message back."

"Sir, she's right over there!" Lina protested feeling that this was a bit of a misuse of her services.

"But she's not talking to me right now." The man said, widening his eyes so innocently that Lina gave in and asked him what the message was.

The man smiled. "That's more like a good messenger. Now, tell her I don't get that much gas from beans and she aint got no right to tell a man he can't have beans for his supper."

Lina repeated the message three times before the man realized she'd gotten it right each time and he hadn't heard her correctly. Then she dashed across the street to the man's wife.

"Crazy old coot!" The woman shook her head as if slight amused. "It's not because of your gas!" She shouted across the street, forgetting about using the messenger for now. "It's because I couldn't find any at the market today. All sold out."

Susan who was still standing at her post waiting for a message, heard this and let out a slight gasp. No beans? Sure they had run out of a lot of things before. But those were mostly treats. Canned puddings and creams and such. Certain kinds of fruits. But never out of staples like beans. She'd always been told the store room had enough beans to last for, at the very least, another twenty years. What would happen if they ran out of other foods too?

She was mostly worried about the kids like Edmund, Lucy, and Poppy. What if the started getting a shortage on canned milk? The growing children needed milk. She thought of their breakfast that morning. Olives and canned turnips. She remembered Lucy asking for seconds only for Polly to say with in a fake-cheerful tone, "Can't you wait for lunch, sweetie?" Of course, Peter had slid more than half of his own breakfast onto Lucy's plate when Polly's back was turned.

At first Susan had wondered why Polly wouldn't give Lucy anymore so that Peter didn't have to go half-hungry. Now she realized it must be because the store rooms were getting even lower.

She was snapped out of her thoughts when she saw Looper coming towards her. "Messenger!" He called.

"Yes, what may I help you with?" Susan struggled not to speak through her teeth but failed. She was mad at him for hitting her stepbrother yesterday.

"I have a message for the mayor." Looper told her in a low voice. He smacked his lips on the word, 'Mayor' and held his head up proudly as if having something to say to Mayor Cole made him better than everyone else.

"Message?" Susan asked.

"Delivery at eight, from Looper." He whispered. "No reply needed."

"Delivery at eight, from Looper." Susan repeated.

Looper didn't correct her so she assumed she'd gotten it right and took off for the building where the mayor's office was located.

In the mayor's office, Peter was busy filing a new stack of paper work. He found it rather odd that Mayor Cole had clean white sheets of paper when there was a shortage of new paper going around and many people were stuck using the back of can labels. Lucy had come home crying on more than one occasion because her teacher yelled at her for wasting paper.

"I didn't mean to." She would sob, too worked up to realize that she didn't need to defend herself in front of Peter. "I didn't mean to poke my pencil clean through it, I was just trying to hard to make little letters and I pushed too hard..."

All this trouble for his poor little stepsister and yet the mayor had hundreds of clean white sheets? That didn't seem right. What troubled Peter more than that was the mystery of just where the Mayor got all of his things from. It wasn't only paper either. He had a lot of things that others thought were long gone.

Once Peter had been on his hands and knees in the office looking for something and had seen the mayor-who thought himself quite alone in the room-pull out a can of pickles. Just a day before that, Edmund had come home from the market without the pickles Polly had put on the list of things for him to buy. When she asked him why, he said that the supply clerk told him they didn't have any.

The more Peter watched the mayor, the more his suspicions grew. He even had a sort of idea about what was happening. It wasn't a nice thing at all. He thought the Mayor was stealing from the store houses and that someone was helping him do it. He also had an idea of just who it was although he couldn't prove it. With out proof, he couldn't tell anyone. They'd accuse him of being a liar and spreading nasty rumors to put the people in panic as a prank of some sort.

With a heavy sigh, he reached for the stapler and grabbed the ends of the papers he had just organized. At that moment Susan walked in dressed in her messenger jacket. He hadn't been expecting to see her at work because he never had before. The strange thing about it was he felt a surge of happiness when he recognized her. As corny as it sounds, he could have sworn that his heart actually skipped a beat. She looked nice, he decided. Unfortunately for him he was so busy looking at Susan, that he didn't realize his thumb was under the stapler.

"Hi, Peter." Susan waved to him.

"Hey, Su." He pushed down on the stapler, stapled his thumb and let out a yelp. "Ow! Hang it all!"

"Here." Susan walked over to where he was and tried to get the stable out of his hand. "I'm going to squeeze the ends out." Susan told him.

"But it hurts." Peter whined like a five year old.

"Honestly, Peter!" Susan laughed, shaking her head at him. "This coming from the man who used to come into the castle with battle wounds, limping, blood streaming from his side, trying to convince me he wasn't dying."

"I've gotten soft." Peter muttered to himself.

"No you haven't." Susan smiled at him. "I was just teasing you."

"That really does hurt." Peter cringed as Susan still struggled to get the staple out.

"What's that over there?" Susan pointed behind him.

"What's what?" Peter turned his head around.

While he was distracted, Susan yanked the staple out.

"Ow!" He protested.

"Well it's out now." Susan pointed out.

"Thanks." Peter gave her a hug.

Susan hugged him back for a moment until she realized he wasn't letting go. "Um, Peter?"

"Hmm?" He muttered absent-mindedly.

"You aren't planning to stay like this all day, are you?" Susan felt her cheeks flush a little although she wasn't sure why.

Peter realized what he was doing and quickly unwrapped his arms from around her. "Sorry."

"Don't be." Susan blurted out.

Before it could get anymore awkward, the office door opened again and the mayor walked in.

"What's the messenger doing here?" The mayor wanted to know.

"I have a message for you, sir." Susan told him. "From Looper."

Peter's eyes widened and he looked as if he was holding back a gasp. Susan wondered what he was thinking about.

"Private message." The Mayor told Peter shortly, "Please leave the room."

Peter left the room but Susan had the feeling he was listening at the door because it was open to just the slightest crack. She wondered what he was trying to do. He could lose his job listening to the Mayor's messages! Had he completely lost it?

Mayor Cole didn't notice. "Message please?"

"Delivery at eight." Susan told him.

The corners of the mayor's mouth turned upwards into a half-smile. "Thank you, that will be all."

That evening at supper, Peter seemed agitated. He didn't eat his meal, he randomly stabbed it with his fork and moved it around his plate.

"Peter, what's wrong?" Lucy asked, reaching across the table for his hand.

"Nothing. No, you know what? It is something!" Peter rarely lost his cool, now he looked like he preparing for a blow up. He pounded his fist on the table, shook his head, pushed back his chair and stormed out of the room.

Lucy and Edmund looked at each other silently asking the other, "I can't guess what's wrong with him, can you?" They both shrugged. Neither had the answers.

"I'll be right back." Susan excused herself from the table and looked for Peter. He was sitting in the bedroom he and Edmund shared with his face in his hands. She bent down next to him. "Peter, what's wrong?"

"Susan, Mayor Cole is stealing food and other supplies from the people of Ember." Peter told her gravely. "I've thought something was going on for a while. I've been..." He paused looking a little guilty. "...Spying on him. I haven't figured out all the details but what your message today from Looper...I think, Looper's helping him."

"You don't think..." Susan remembered how Looper always had things in his store that everyone else seemed to be out of.

"...That the mayor bribes him by letting him keep some of it to sell?" Peter raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh yes, that's what I think."

"Why don't you tell someone?" Susan asked him.

"Like who?" Peter huffed.

"The guards." Susan suggested. "So they can take the mayor out of office and get a new one."

"First off, they wouldn't believe me." Peter reminded her. "Second, even if they did, who would want to be the mayor of Ember now? With everything falling to bits? Our lives are at stake, Su. And it really makes me angry that there's nothing I can do to stop it."

"It's not your fault." Susan rested her head on his shoulder.

"Then why do I feel so bad?" Peter whispered, his voice choked up like he was trying not to cry,

"Because you're so used to protecting us that you can't accept it when it's impossible."

"I don't want anything to happen to you or Edmund or Lucy." Peter gave in and started crying now. "And what about everyone else too? What about our friends here? What about the Professor and Polly?"

"It will be alright." Susan tried to reassure him, holding one of his hands and squeezing it gently.

He squeezed back. "How can you be sure?"

"I'm not." Susan admitted. "But deep down, you always are."

AN: Please review!