By MARGARET BEAMES, Illustrator SAM WHEELER
I knew it was stupid, but my chest tightened at the very idea and I had to force myself to draw in deep, slow breaths until I was breathing easily again. The space around me was blue and airy below the canopy but it still
seemed to be pressing down on me. I wanted to push the walls aside and see what lay beyond them.
I'd felt like this before. Shay called it 'wall fever'.
"So what's that? Have you had it?"
"No, but I expect I will. Everyone gets it some time. Come on, I know what to do."
She'd dragged me to the Hub. Dome, as you know, is made up of several levels ringed with wide, curving roads, cut through by straight streets running like the spokes of a wheel from the centre to the perimeter. The centre is the Hub. It's hollow, and if you've got the nerve you can jump off the top and fall all the way to the bottom. Freaky!
Publisher: Scholastic, $13.95
Age group: 11 + years
