Among the Barons

Among The Barons

A Shadow Children Book 04

Margaret Peterson Haddix

CHAPTER 1

Hey, L! Mr. Hendricks wants to see you!” Such a summons would have terrified Luke Garner only a few months earlier. When he’d first come to Hendricks School for Boys, the thought of having to talk to any grown-up, let alone the headmaster, would have turned him into a stammering, quaking fool desperately longing for a place to hide.

But that was back in April, and this was August. A lot had happened between April and August.

Now Luke just waved off the rising tide of “ooh’s” from his friends in math class.

“What’d you do, L? Have you been sneaking out to the woods again?” his friend John taunted him.

“Settle down, class,” the teacher, Mr. Rees, said mildly. “You may be excused, Mr., uh, Mr....”

Luke didn’t wait for Mr. Rees to try to remember his name. Names were slippery things at Hendricks School anyway. Luke, like all his friends, was registered under a different name from what he had grown up with. So it was always hard to know what to call people.

Luke edged his way past his classmates’ desks and slipped out the door. His friend They, who had delivered the message from Mr. Hendricks, was waiting for him.

“What’s this about?” Luke asked as the two fell into step together, walking down the hall.

“I don’t know. I just do what he tells me,” They said with a dispirited shrug.

Sometimes Luke wanted to take They by the shoulders, shake him, and yell, “Think for yourself! Open your eyes! Live a little!” Twelve years of hiding in a tiny room had turned They into a human turtle, always ready to pull back into his shell at the slightest hint of danger.

But Mr. Hendricks had taken a liking to They and was working with him privately. That was why They was running errands for him today.

They looked furtively over at Luke. His dark hair hung down into his eyes. “Do you suppose it’s—you know—time?”

Luke didn’t have to ask what They meant. Sometimes it seemed like everyone at Hendricks School was just holding his breath, waiting. Waiting for a day when none of the boys would be illegal anymore, when they could all reclaim their rightful names, when they could go back to their rightful families without fear that the Population Police would catch them. But both Luke and They knew that that day wouldn’t come easily And Luke, at least, had promised to do everything he could to bring it about.

His stomach churned. The fear he thought he’d outgrown reached him at last.

“Did he say.
. .
did Mr. Hendricks say...
,“
he stammered. What if Mr. Hendricks had a plan for Luke to help with? What if that plan required more courage than Luke had?

They went back to looking down at the polished tile floor.

“Mr. Hendricks didn’t say anything except, ‘Go get your buddy L out of math class and tell him to come see me,’~~ They said.

“Oh,” Luke said.

They reached the end of the hall, and Luke pushed open the heavy wood door to the outside. Trey winced, as he always did anytime he was exposed to sunshine, fresh air, or anything else outdoors. But Luke breathed in gratefully. Luke had spent his first twelve years on his family’s farm; some of his fondest memories involved the feeling of warm dirt on his bare feet, sunshine on the back of his neck, a hoe in his hand—and his parents and brothers around him.

But it didn’t do to think much about his parents and brothers anymore. When he’d accepted his fake identity, he’d had to leave them and the farm behind. And even when he’d been with them, he’d had to live like a shadow or a ghost, something no one else outside the family knew about.

Once when his middle brother, Mark, was in first grade, he’d accidentally slipped and mentioned Luke’s name at school.

“I had to tell the teacher that Mark just had an imaginary friend named Luke,” Luke’s mother had told him. “But I worried about that for months afterward. I was so scared the teacher would report you, and the Population Police would come and take you away. I’m just glad that a lot of little kids do have imaginary friends.”

She’d bitten her lip telling Luke that story. Luke could still see the strained expression on her face. She hadn’t even told him about that episode until the day before he left the farm and his family for good. By then she’d meant the story as assurance, he knew—assurance that he was doing the right thing by leaving.

At the time, Luke hadn’t known what to make of that story It just added to the jumble of confused thoughts and fears in his head. But now—now that story made him angry. It wasn’t fair that he’d had to be invisible. It wasn’t fair that his brother couldn’t talk about him. It wasn’t fair that the Government had made him illegal simply because he was a third child and the Government thought families should have no more than two.

Luke stepped out into the sunshine feeling strangely happy to be so angry. It felt good to be so sure about what he thought, so totally convinced that he was right and the Government was wrong. And if Mr. Hendricks really did have a plan for Luke, it’d be good to hang on to this righteous anger.

The two boys climbed down an imposing number of marble steps. Luke noticed that They glanced back longingly at the school more than once. Not Luke. Hendricks had no windows—to accommodate the fears of kids like They—and Luke always felt slightly caged anytime he was inside.

They walked on down the lane to a house half hidden in bushes. Mr. Hendricks was waiting for them at the door.

“Come on in,” he said heartily to Luke. “They, you can go on back to school and see about learning something for once.” That was a joke—They had done nothing but read while he’d been in hiding, so he knew as much about some subjects as the teachers did.

Luke opened the door, and Mr. Hendricks rolled back in his wheelchair to give Luke room to pass. When he’d first met Mr. Hendricks, Luke had been awkward around him, particularly because of the wheelchair. But now Luke practically forgot that Mr. Hendricks’s lower legs were missing. Going into the living room, Luke automatically stepped out of the way of Mr. Hendricks’s wheels.

“The other boys will find this out soon enough,” Mr. Hendricks said. “But I wanted to tell you first, to give you time to adjust.”

“Adjust to what?” Luke asked, sitting down on a couch.

“Having your brother here at school with you.”

“My brother?” Luke repeated. “You mean Matthew or Mark
. . .“
He tried to picture either of his rough, wild older brothers in their faded jeans and flannel shirts walking up the marble stairs at Hendricks. If he felt caged at the windowless school, his brothers would feel handcuffed, pinned down, thoroughly imprisoned. And how could Mother and Dad possibly afford to send them here? Why would they want to?

“No,
Lee,”
Mr. Hendricks said, stressing the fake name that Luke had adopted when he’d come out of hiding. Luke knew that he should be grateful that the parents of a boy named Lee Grant had donated his name and identity after the real Lee died in a skiing accident. The Grants were Barons—really rich people—so Luke’s new identity was an impressive one indeed. But Luke didn’t like to be called Lee, didn’t like even to be reminded that he was supposed to be somebody else.

Mr. Hendricks was peering straight at Luke, waiting for Luke to catch on.

“I said your brother,” Mr. Hendricks repeated. “Smithfield William Grant.
You
call him Smits. And he’s coming here tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 2

Mr. Hendricks handed Luke a picture, but Luke was too shocked to look at it yet.

“Lee’s brother,” he finally said quietly. “Lee’s brother is coming to school here. Tomorrow.”

“Yes, your brother,” Mr. Hendricks repeated.
“You
are Lee.”

“Aw, Mr. Hendricks,” Luke protested. “It’s just you and me. We don’t have to pretend, do we? And the other kids—they
know
I’m not really Lee Grant This Smits kid is going to know I’m not his brother. So we don’t have to act like it, do we?”

Mr. Hendricks just looked at Luke. Luke couldn’t stop the flow of questions. “Why’s he coming here, anyway?”

“He misses his older brother,” Mr. Hendricks said. “He misses you.”

The “older” was a surprise. Luke felt even stranger now.

“Mr. Hendricks, I never even knew Lee had a brother. This kid couldn’t miss me. He’s never met me. What’s really going on here?”

Mr. Hendricks seemed to sag a bit against the back of his chair.

“I’m only repeating what his parents told me over the phone this morning,” he said.

“Well, of course,” Luke said. “They know it’s not safe to say anything real over the phone. They know the Population Police tap phone lines all the time. This is all some... some mix-up or something.”

“Luke—Lee, I mean—I don’t really know what’s going on here. But I think it’s best to proceed with caution. You do need to begin acting like Lee. You do need to pretend that you know Smits well, as a brother. For the sake of everyone involved.”

Usually Luke had a lot of respect for Mr. Hendricks, but now he couldn’t resist making a face.

“That’s crazy,” Luke said. “Why pretend when nobody’s going to be fooled?”

“Nobody?” Mr. Hendricks countered. “Nobody? Don’t be so sure. Actors can’t always know who’s in the audience.”

Luke shook his head disdainfully.

“This is Hendricks School,” he said. “This isn’t Population Police headquarters. This isn’t some Government convention. We’re safe here. Everyone knows we’re almost all third children with fake I.D.’s. Nobody’s going to report us.”

“Really,” Mr. Hendricks said. “Is your memory that short? What about Jason?”

Jason had been a Population Police spy who’d infiltrated

the school. Just hearing his name could still send a shiver of fear through Luke’s body, but he held it back, tried not to let Mr. Hendricks see.

“Jason’s gone now,” Luke said. He was proud of the way he kept his voice level and calm. “And you said yourself, you’re screening new applicants better, you’re not going to let that happen again. And we’re all so... comfortable here now. We’re talking to one another about being illegal, about having fake I.D.’s. We’re all friends.”

Mr. Hendricks rolled over to the window and stared out at a cascade of forsythia that hid his house from the lane.

“I worry that you’ve all become too comfortable. That we’re not preparing you for...” He let his voice trail off. Then he looked back at Luke. “For reality. What if this Smits is another Jason?”

The question hung in the air. To escape Mr. Hendricks’s gaze, Luke glanced down at the photo of Smits. He saw cold gray eyes, a patrician nose, light hair, a sneer. Smits Grant was probably only eleven or twelve years old, but he might as well have been a miniature adult The look he had given the camera—and now seemed to be giving Luke— made Luke feel like a poor, dumb country kid again. Never mind that Luke himself was wearing leather shoes, tailored pants, and a fancy shirt and tie. He felt barefoot, snotty-nosed, and ignorant beyond words, compared with the photo of Smits.

“Can’t you tell him not to come?” Luke asked Mr.Hendricks. “Say he’s not allowed at your school? If you’re worried, I mean.”

“He’s Smithfield
Grant,”
Mr. Hendricks said. “His father—your father—is one of the most powerful men in the country. I’d have a better chance of stopping the wind than stopping a Grant from doing what he wants.”

“I’m a Grant, too,” Luke said. He wasn’t sure whether he was trying to make a joke or trying out the words, trying to make them sound true. His voice came out limp and uncertain, failing on all accounts.

But Mr. Hendricks nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Remember that.”

CHAPTER 3

Luke sat at the top of the steps that led to Hendricks School. Smits Grant was due to arrive any minute, and Luke had already begun his charade.

My brother’s on his way,
Luke told himself
I’m so excited, I couldn’t wait inside. I couldn’t stand it
~f
I weren’t the first one to see him.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Mr. Hendricks had all but threatened Luke with a firing squad just to get him outside. As far as Luke was concerned, he’d be happy if he
never
saw Smits.

Could that happen? What if Luke turned around now, hid inside, and somehow managed to stay out of Smits’s way forever? They ought to have different classes. Luke could find out the other boy’s schedule and make sure their paths never crossed. Luke had plenty of experience hiding.

Of course, to avoid Smits he’d also have to go without eating. All the boys always ate together, in the dining hall.