Excerpt from The Tyrant's Daughter by J.C. Carleson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Emmy. So cheerfully American, so wholesome and naïve even in her near nakedness, forgives yet again. I will have to study her carefully. Surely this openness has limits.

OBSTACLES

I wait for Bastien at his bus stop after school, thinking that if his first day was anything like mine, he'll want me there. I'm grateful for the chance to just sit on a bench in silence for a few minutes, since my mind is numb from sensory overload. Hallways full of people wearing impossibly bright, bright colors have left my eyes feeling scorched. Today was a blurred parade of socks that matched shirts that matched sweaters— indulgent color coordination that you only see on pampered children in my country. Toothy white smiles punctuated the faces of the candy- colored strangers in the hallways, leaving me feeling like a small, dark storm cloud skittering grimly from corner to corner.

Bastien is somehow unaffected.

He leaps off the bus looking remarkably like all of the other six-year- olds who tumble out behind him. He's a king disguised as a commoner, right down to the grass stains on his knees and the cowlick in his hair. The only hint of his foreignness is the leather satchel he carries— the same one he carried on our rushed flight away from home.

He needs a backpack like the other kids, I see. Something made of cheap nylon, with a superhero emblazoned on it. And bright. It has to be a bright color. I make a mental note to help him buy one. There's no reason that any of this should be harder on him than it needs to be.

"Bastien!" I call out as the other kids push past us. He looks happy to see me. That he looks happy for any reason reassures me. "How was the bus?"

He looks up at me with wide eyes. "The driver stopped for a squirrel!" His voice is full of awe.

I cringe. I know exactly why this should matter to him— why he should find such a thing incredible."

Everything's different here." It's the only thing I can think to say as I put my arm around his shoulders and hustle him toward home. Luckily my response seems to satisfy him, and he doesn't mention it again. Instead, he chatters happily about recess and fire drills. The memory is roused in my mind, though, and it oozes uncomfortably in my thoughts like a lanced blister.

Bastien is thinking, I know, of a scorching hot day not long ago— another memory from our Before. Our driver was racing through the streets faster than usual. Going anywhere as a family required a cumbersome and cheerless parade of at least five cars. A security detail always rode in the first and the last cars— grim- faced men who carried guns and never spoke to me. The cars in the middle varied in their order. They were identical by design— armored cars shipped in from South Africa that reminded me of heavy, metal armadillos. On this day my parents rode in one car, Bastien and I in another, and the third car was a decoy driven by a nervous chauffeur who took no comfort in being the least valuable member of our bullet-proof procession. The position of Father's car changed every time so that no one ever knew which car to attack. We were shuffled around like a deck of cards— the moving target that was my parents' car sometimes ahead of us and sometimes be-hind. The elaborate vehicular waltz was just one more attempt to fool those who wished us harm.

Bastien and I were stuck riding in the car with the air-conditioning that barely worked. We were sweaty and cranky, and Bastien was whining about not being able to roll down the windows. "They don't open," I explained yet again. "Because of the bulletproofing. It's to keep us safe." I craved fresh air too, though, and I would have happily sacrificed a bit of personal safety for a gust of wind to cool the car's sweltering interior. I had just reached up to push a sweaty piece of hair out of my eyes when the car lurched violently and then sped up even more, tires squealing as the vehicle fishtailed and rocked.

Excerpted from The Tyrant's Daughter by J.C. Carleson. Copyright © 2014 by J.C. Carleson. Excerpted by permission of Knopf Children's Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.