一定会成功的。经过一整天的思考，乔纳思一遍又一遍地告诉自己，他们一定会成功的。
但是到了晚上，事情发生了变化，整个计划一所有他们精心设计、仔细推敲的细节一都前功尽弃。
那天晚上，乔纳思被迫开始逃亡。当黑幕笼罩大地，整个社区沉寂下来时，他就得赶紧离开住处。这样做相当危险，因为附近有工作人员在走动，他尽量藏身在阴影中，无声无息地移动，穿过漆黑的房子和空荡荡的中央广场，朝河流的方向前进。越过广场，他可以看见养老院和后面的安尼斯矗立在夜空下。但是他不能停下脚步，已经没有时间了，每一分钟都至关重要，只要多争取一分钟，他就能逃离社区越远一点。
他来到桥上，弓着身子，快速地蹬着自行车前进。他可以看见桥下幽暗、翻腾的河水。
将社区远远地拋在后面时，他一点也不害怕或后悔，这点连他自己都很诧异。但是就这样跟亲密的朋友分离，却让他感到无比的哀伤。他知道身处逃亡的险境中，必须保持安静。但是他希望，传授人‘超听觉’的能力，能够听见他发自内心深处的呐喊和道别。
一切的转变就发生在晚餐时刻。他们一家人一如往昔般共进晚餐，莉莉叽叽喳喳说个不停，爸爸、妈妈报告（和说谎，这点乔纳思很清楚）当天的所见所闻。加波很开心地在地板上玩耍，一边咿咿呀呀地儿语，并且不时开心地看看乔纳思。昨晚乔纳思没回来，现在看见乔纳思回来，他显得特别高兴。
爸爸低头望着这个小人儿：“好好玩，小家伙，”他说，“这是你最后一晚在我们家做客。”
“您是什么意思？”乔纳思问。
爸爸失望的叹了一口气：“你也知道，今天早上你回来的时候没有看见他，因为昨晚我们让他在养育中心过夜。我本来觉得这是一个好机会，可以趁你不在时，做个测试，因为他最近都睡得很熟。”
“测试结果不好吗？”妈妈同情地问。
爸爸苦笑了一下：“你说得太客气了，根本就是一场大灾难。他哭了一整夜，夜班工作人员束手无策。我去上班的时候，大家全累垮了。”
“加波，你这个调皮鬼。”莉莉指责地板上笑嘻嘻的小人儿。
“所以啦，”爸爸继续说，“我们必须赶紧做个决定。下午大家开了会，连我都赞成让加波解放。”
乔纳思放下叉子，盯着父亲：“解放？”
爸爸点点头：“我们已经尽力了，不是吗？”
“是啊，我们尽力了。”妈妈表示同意。
莉莉也点头赞成。
乔纳思勉强让自己的声音平静下来：“什么时候？他什么时候举行解放？”
“明天一早。要开始准备命名大典了，我们得尽快处理这件事。明天早上就要跟你说再见了，加波。”爸爸用他那甜美、歌唱式的声音说。
乔纳思抵达河的对岸，忍不住停下车子，回头张望。养育他十三年的社区，在远远的后头，沉浸在睡梦中。黎明后，他熟悉的那套规律的生活模式，依旧会持续下去，即使没有他，也照样运行不辍。在那里，生活中没有值得惊奇的事物，没有不方便或不寻常，也没有颜色、痛苦和过去。
他继续快速地蹬着自行车，沿着道路前进。已经不能回头了。他严重违反规定，如果被捉住，后果不堪设想。
第一点，他在晚上离开住处。
第二点，他偷拿社区的食物。这是重罪，就算他拿的是放在家门口的剩饭剩菜，也一样。
第三点，他偷了爸爸的自行车。黑暗中，他站在停车处迟疑了一下。本来并不想拿爸爸任何东西，因为他不确定自己会不会骑这辆较大的车子，他一向习惯自己的自行车。但是，没有这辆车不行，因为它的后座有儿童座椅，他把加波带了出来。
后座的小脑袋轻轻抵着他的背，随着车子的跳动，轻轻地起伏。加波被牢牢地绑在座位上，睡得正熟。离家前，他曾将手贴在加波的背上，将最能安抚人心的记忆传送给他：夜晚时分，棕榈树下缓缓摇晃的吊床；慵懒的潮水以催眠式的节奏，轻轻冲刷着附近的海岸……记忆一点一滴渗进小宝宝的心里，让他睡得既安稳又深沉。当乔纳思将他抱到座椅上时，他一点都没受到惊动。
乔纳思知道几个小时后他逃跑的消息就会爆发开来，所以他拼命地、坚决地骑行着，希望自己不会随着时间和里程的增加而感到疲惫。现在没有时间去等待传授人给他记忆，让他产生力量和勇气了。他只能凭借与生俱来的本能，一路支撑下去。
他绕着社区边缘前进，远处的屋舍一片漆黑。他和社区间的距离越拉越大，路面也越来越空荡，他的腿从酸痛到几乎全麻了。
黎明时刻，加波开始扭动。现在他们来到一个隔离的地段，路边树木林立。他经过一片车痕累累、路面颠簸的草地，骑近一条溪流。加波清醒了，随着自行车上下的震动，不断咯咯地笑着。
乔纳思给加波松了绑，把他从自行车上放到草地上，让他开心地在草叶嫩枝间探索，并小心地将自行车藏在隐密的草丛中。
“吃早餐了，加波。”他解开食物包装袋，把两个人喂饱，并用杯子装满溪水来喝，然后坐到溪流边看着小宝宝玩。
他筋疲力尽，知道自己必须睡一觉，让肌肉休息一下，才能在晚上继续骑车。白天赶路，很容易被发现。
他们很快就会出来找他的。
他发现树林深处有个藏身的地方，便带着小宝宝过去，把他抱在怀里，躺下来。加波开心地挣扎着，以为是在玩搏斗游戏，以前他们在家里常玩这种搔痒、嬉乐的游戏。
“对不起，加波，”乔纳思告诉他，“我知道现在是早上，我也知道你才刚醒过来。但是，我们现在得睡觉才行。”
他将小家伙的身体拉向自己，轻抚着他的背，并轻声细语地安抚着，然后再转移一段深沉、满足、耗尽精力的记忆。加波的头垂了下来，过了一会儿，便在乔纳思的胸膛上睡着了。
这两位逃亡者，就这样在睡眠中安度第一个充满危机的日子。
飞机是最叫人害怕的东西。过了好几天了——乔纳思不知道到底是几天——整个旅程开始有了规律的模式：白天躲藏在草丛或树林里，找水，小心分配剩余的食物，在野地上觅食，好补充食物。晚上骑车赶路。一骑好几里的路程，使得他腿部肌肉绷得很紧，一旦安顿好，想睡个觉，就浑身酸痛。不过，他的双腿也因而结实了不少，越来越不需要动不动就休息了。有时候他会把加波放下来，让他做做运动，两人一起沿着马路跑步，或一起在黑暗中穿越原野。每次他回到车边，将这个合作默契、十分顺从的小伙伴放回车上时，他的腿也得到了充分的休息，可以配合上路了。
因此，他靠着自己的体力就足以应付。逃亡前，原本传授人要传给他的那些能量，现在都不需要了。
但是当飞机接近时，他真希望自己接受了“勇气”的训练。
他知道那是飞机侦察队。机队低空飞翔，引擎声嘈杂无比，足以把他从梦中惊醒。有时他惊恐地从藏身处往外望，差一点儿就跟搜索队打上照面。
他知道他们看不见颜色，所以他们的肌肤和加波的淡金色鬈发，隐藏在无色的草丛中，就像个灰色的污点。他记得在科技课程中学过，搜索飞机是利用热感应搜寻器来探索人体温度，如果灌木丛中有两个人抱在一起，搜寻器的感应会更快速。
所以每次一听见侦察机的声音，他就伸手到加波身上，将下雪的记忆转移过去，他自己也保留一些。他们就这样一起让身体变冷。飞机一走，他们冷得发抖，只好紧紧地互相拥抱，直到再度睡着。
乔纳思在转移记忆时，察觉到他的记忆越来越淡，也越来越模糊了。这是他希望的，也是传授人的计划：他离社区越来越远，记忆就会日渐消退，慢慢地回到人们身上。但是，目前他还需要这些记忆，因为侦察机不断出现，他得紧抓着这些有关寒冷的记忆，才能存活下去。
侦察机是白天出动，不过，即使是晚上赶路时，他也依然会警觉地聆听是否有引擎声。有时候乔纳思还没注意到，加波就听见了，马上大叫：“飞机！飞机！”偶尔侦察机群会在晚上他们赶路的时候出现，乔纳思就会加快速度，冲进最近的大树下或草丛中，丢下自行车，让自己和加波降温。它们有时真的飞得好近啊。
他骑着自行车冲过黑暗，冲过隔离地带，将社区远远抛在身后，进入没有标志、无人居住的区域。他依然保持警戒，留意附近可以藏身的地点，以免引擎声一出现，就慌了手脚。
飞机出现的频率渐渐少了，偶尔出现，速度也没放慢，就好像搜索行动只是走走过场，并不抱希望。终于，一整天、一整夜，侦察机不再出现了。
Chapter 22
Now the landscape was changing. It was a subtle change, hard to identify at first. The road was narrower, and bumpy, apparently no longer tended by road crews. It was harder, suddenly, to balance on the bike, as the front wheel wobbled over stones and ruts.
One night Jonas fell, when the bike jolted to a sudden stop against a rock. He grabbed instinctively for Gabriel; and the new child strapped tightly in his seat, was uninjured, only frightened when the bike fell to its side. But Jonas's ankle was twisted, and his knees were scraped and raw, blood seeping through his torn trousers. Painfully he righted himself and the bike, and reassured Gabe.
Tentatively he began to ride in daylight. He had forgotten the fear of the searchers, who seemed to have diminished into the past. But now there were new fears; the unfamiliar landscape held hidden, unknown perils.
Trees became more numerous, and the forests beside the road were dark and thick with mystery. They saw streams more frequently now and stopped often to drink. Jonas carefully washed his injured knees, wincing as he rubbed at the raw flesh. The constant ache of his swollen ankle was eased when he soaked it occasionally in the cold water that rushed through roadside gullies.
He was newly aware that Gabriel's safety depended entirely upon his own continued strength.
They saw their first waterfall, and for the first time wildlife.
"Plane! Plane!" Gabriel called, and Jonas turned swiftly into the trees, though he had not seen planes in days, and he did not hear an aircraft engine now. When he stopped the bicycle in the shrubbery and turned to grab Gabe, he saw the small chubby arm pointing toward the sky.
Terrified, he looked up, but it was not a plane at all. Though he had never seen one before, he identified it from his fading memories, for The Giver had given them to him often. It was a bird.
Soon there were many birds along the way, soaring overhead, calling. They saw deer; and once, beside the road, looking at them curious and unafraid, a small reddish-brown creature with a thick tail, whose name Jonas did not know. He slowed the bike and they stared at one another until the creature turned away and disappeared into the woods.
All of it was new to him. After a life of Sameness and predictability, he was awed by the surprises that lay beyond each curve of the road. He slowed the bike again and again to look with wonder at wildflowers, to enjoy the throaty warble of a new bird nearby, or merely to watch the way wind shifted the leaves in the trees. During his twelve years in the community, he had never felt such simple moments of exquisite happiness.
But there were desperate fears building in him now as well. The most relentless of his new fears was that they would starve. Now that they had left the cultivated fields behind them, it was almost impossible to find food. They finished the meager store of potatoes and carrots they had saved from the last agricultural area, and now they were always hungry.
Jonas knelt by a stream and tried without success to catch a fish with his hands. Frustrated, he threw rocks into the water, knowing even as he did so that it was useless. Finally, in desperation, he fashioned a makeshift net, looping the strands of Gabriel's blanket around a curved stick.
After countless tries, the net yielded two flopping silvery fish. Methodically Jonas hacked them to pieces with a sharp rock and fed the raw shreds to himself and to Gabriel. They ate some berries, and tried without success to catch a bird.
At night, while Gabriel slept beside him, Jonas lay awake, tortured by hunger, and remembered his life in the community where meals were delivered to each dwelling every day.
He tried to use the flagging power of his memory to recreate meals, and managed brief, tantalizing fragments: banquets with huge roasted meats; birthday parties with thick-frosted cakes; and lush fruits picked and eaten, sun warmed and dripping, from trees.
But when the memory glimpses subsided, he was left with the gnawing, painful emptiness. Jonas remembered, suddenly and grimly, the time in his childhood when he had been chastised for misusing a word. The word had been "starving". You have never been starving, he had been told. You will never be starving.
Now he was. If he had stayed in the community, he would not be. It was as simple as that. Once he had yearned for choice. Then, when he had had a choice, he had made the wrong one: the choice to leave. And now he was starving.
But if he had stayed...His thoughts continued. If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hungry for feelings, for color, for love.
And Gabriel? For Gabriel there would have been no life at all. So there had not really been a choice.
It became a struggle to ride the bicycle as Jonas weakened from lack of food, and realized at the same time that he was encountering something he had for a long time yearned to see: hills. His sprained ankle throbbed as he forced the pedal downward in an effort that was almost beyond him.
And the weather was changing. It rained for two days. Jonas had never seen rain, though he had experienced it often in the memories. He had liked those rains, enjoyed the new feeling of it, but this was different. He and Gabriel became cold and wet, and it was hard to get dry, even when sunshine occasionally followed.
Gabriel had not cried during the long frightening journey. Now he did. He cried because he was hungry and cold and terribly weak. Jonas cried, too, for the same reasons, and another reason as well. He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself.
