Among the Hidden Read online

  “Hmm,” the girl said. “Then I have to explain—a Jennifer’s supposed to be, like, really girly and prissy. So the joke’s on Mom. She wanted some frilly little girl she could put in lacy dresses and sit in the corner. Like a doll.” She paused. “Are Matthew and Mark your older brothers?”

  Luke nodded.

  “So you’ve never met anyone outside your immediate family?”

  Luke shook his head no. Jen looked so amazed, he felt he had to defend himself.

  “And you have?” he asked, with almost the same taunting voice he sometimes used with Mark.

  “Well, yeah,” she said.

  “But you’re a third child, too,” Luke protested. “A shadow child. Right?”

  He suddenly felt like it might be easy to cry, if he let himself. All his life, he’d been told he couldn’t do everything Matthew and Mark did because he was the third child. But if Jen could go about freely, it didn’t make sense. Had his parents lied?

  “Don’t you have to hide?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Jen said. “Mostly. But my parents are very good at bribery. And so am I.” She grinned wickedly. Then she squinted at Luke. “How did you know I was a third child? How did you know I was here?”

  Luke told her. Somehow it seemed important to start with the woods coming down, so it turned into a very long story. Jen interrupted frequently with questions and comments—“So you’ve never been away from your house except to go to your backyard or barn?”; “You’ve stayed inside for six months?”; and “Gosh, you must really hate these houses, huh?” And then, when he got to the part about seeing her face in the window, she bit her lip.

  “My dad would kill me if he knew I’d done that. But the mirrors were messed up, and Carlos bet me I didn’t even know what the weather was outside, and—”

  “Huh?” Luke said. “Mirrors? Carlos?”

  Jen waved away his questions.

  “Luke Garner,” she announced solemnly, “you have come to the right place. Forget that hiding-like-a-mole stuff. I’m your ticket out.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Want any more potatoes, Luke?” Mother offered that night at supper. “Luke?” Her voice got more insistent. “LUKE?”

  Luke jerked his attention back to his family. Mother was holding the bowl of mashed potatoes out to him.

  “Er—no,” Luke said. “No thanks. I’ve still got some.”

  “More for me!” Mark crowed.

  Luke tuned them out again. He’d barely eaten his first serving of potatoes, he’d been so busy thinking about his secret visit to the Sports Family house. He couldn’t believe he’d dared to go. Just the thought of his run through their yard made his heart beat fast, remembering fear and pride. He’d really done it.

  And then meeting Jen was—amazing. There was no other word for it. He was so overwhelmed with wonder at everything he’d seen at her house, everything she’d told him, that he started to say, “Did you know that Jen—”

  At the last minute, he clamped his teeth shut, holding the words in. He thought he’d burst. He could feel his face flush red with the effort of keeping still. He bent his head low over his plate so nobody would see. How could he ever manage to keep Jen secret? But he had to, because if he told, they’d forbid him to go back.

  And he had to go back.

  “We’ll set up a signal,” Jen had said. “Something I can see—”

  “But you don’t have vents to look out like I do,” Luke protested. “You can’t look out the windows.”

  “Oh, when the mirrors work, it’s not a problem. Look.” She took him over to a window near the sliding-glass door and showed him a mirror that reflected a wide view of the Talbots’ backyard and the landscape beyond. It showed just the corner of the Garners’ barn, but when Jen turned it a bit, the entire Garner house came into view. Luke wondered if his parents could set up the same kind of system. Then he looked at the mirror again and decided it might be expensive. And, anyway, how would he explain where he’d gotten the idea?

  “So, let’s see,” Jen said. “A signal. I’ve got it—how about if I look out every morning at nine, and if you can come over, you shine a flashlight at me. I’ll shine one back if everything’s safe.”

  “We don’t have any flashlights,” Luke said. “Not that work, I mean.”

  Jen frowned.

  “Why not?”

  “We haven’t had any batteries in, I don’t know, four or five years,” Luke explained. In fact, he felt proud even to remember what a flashlight was.

  “Okay, okay,” Jen said. “No flashlight, no computer—”

  “Oh, we have a computer,” Luke said. “My parents do. And I think it still works. But it’s in Dad’s office in the front of the house, and I’m not allowed in there. And, anyhow, I’d never be allowed to touch the computer.” He remembered once when he was very young, maybe three or four, and he’d followed Mother into Dad’s office while she was cleaning. The rows of letters on the computer keyboard had looked like a toy to him, and he’d reached one finger up and tapped the space bar, over and over again. Mother had turned around and freaked out.

  “They can find you now!” she’d screamed. “If they were watching—”

  And for weeks after that, she’d hidden him even more carefully than ever, locking him in his room when she had to go outside.

  Jen rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t tell me your family believes that Government propaganda stuff,” she said. “They’ve spent so much money trying to convince people they can monitor all the TVs and computers, you know they couldn’t have afforded to actually do it. I’ve been using our computer since I was three—and watching TV, too—and they’ve never caught me. How about a candle?”

  “What?” It took Luke a minute to realize she was talking about the signal again. “The candles—they’re all in the kitchen, and I’m not allowed—”

  Jen mimicked the words as he said them: “—to go in there.”

  “They’ve got you on an awfully short leash, don’t they?” she asked.

  “No. I mean, yes. But they’re just trying to protect me—”

  Jen shook her head. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one. Ever hear of disobeying?”

  “I—” Luke started defensively. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Jen laughed. “Got me. But, listen, if you can’t do candles or a flashlight, how about just turning on a light that I can see?”

  Luke was quicker this time figuring out that she was still talking about the signal.

  “The one by the back door,” Luke said. “You can’t miss it.”

  He wasn’t allowed to turn that on, either, but he didn’t dare say “not allowed” again.

  Now Luke toyed with his mashed potatoes. His entire conversation with Jen had been like that—she mocked, he defended, but she always got her way.

  Of course—he defended her to himself—she knew and had seen so much more than him. After he’d finished his story on the couch, she’d told him hers.

  “First,” she’d said defiantly, “my parents had me on purpose. Thirteen years ago. Mom already had Bull and Brawn from her first marriage—”

  “Your brothers?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah. Buellton and Brownley, really, but what kind of names are those for knuckleheads like them? Mom was going through some snobbish upper-class phase with husband number one.”

  “She’s had more than one husband?” Luke asked. He didn’t know that was possible.

  “Sure,” Jen said. “Dad—who’s really my stepdad—is number three.”

  Luke found that so confusing, he just kept his mouth shut.

  “Anyhow,” Jen said. “Mom was dying to have a little girl, so when she and husband number two got together, she went and paid some doctor lots of money so she could get pregnant.”

  “What if you’d been a boy?” Luke asked.

  “Oh, they got in on the beginning of the gender selection experiments.” Luke must have given Jen a particularly blank look, because she expl
ained it. “That means they made sure I was a girl. Doctors can do that, you know, but the Government outlawed the procedure because they were afraid it’d throw the population even more out of whack. I’m sure my parents paid a lot for it. Were your mom and dad trying for a girl?”

  Luke thought about it. He remembered Mother saying she’d wanted four boys, but would she have wanted a girl even more? Someone like Mother? He couldn’t really picture a girl in his house.

  “They weren’t trying for anything,” he said. “I was a surprise. Luck.”

  Jen nodded. “I didn’t think they paid for you,” she said. Then she put her hand over her mouth. “That sounded really terrible, didn’t it? I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just—you’re the first person I’ve met who wasn’t a Baron.”

  “How do you know I’m not?” Luke asked stiffly.

  “Well—” Jen waved her hand in a way that made Luke even more aware of the contrast between his ragged flannel shirt and patched jeans, and Jen’s perfect house. “Look, don’t be mad. It doesn’t matter. Or maybe it does, but I think it’s cool that you’re not a Baron. You can help me even more.”

  “Help?” Luke asked.

  “With the rally,” Jen said. She bit her lip. “Should I—there’s no way you could be an infiltrator, is there? Can I trust you?”

  “Of course you can,” Luke said. He felt insulted again.

  Jen leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling, as if an answer were written there. Then she looked back at Luke.

  “I’m sorry. I’m botching this. I’m not used to really talking, just on the Net. Look, I trust you, but I’m not the only one involved. So let’s wait, okay?”

  “Okay,” Luke said. But he couldn’t help sounding injured.

  Jen leaned over and gave his shoulders a quick shake.

  “Oh, don’t say it like that. Say, ‘Okay, Jen, I respect your judgment.’ Or, ‘Okay, Jen, whatever you think is best.’ ” She giggled. “That’s what Dad tells me I should say when I disagree with him. Can you believe it? Lawyers!”

  Luke was glad the subject had changed. “Your dad’s a lawyer?” he asked.

  Jen rolled her eyes. “Yeah, all Mom’s husbands have been. Strange taste, huh? Number one was an environmental lawyer, of all things; number two was corporate—that’s how they had enough money to get me. And number three, Dad, is with the Government. High up, I might add.”

  “But—if you’re an illegal—” Luke hadn’t thought he could get any more confused.

  Jen laughed.

  “Haven’t you learned? Government leaders are the worst ones for breaking laws. How do you think we got this house? How do you think I got Internet access? How do you think we live?”

  “I don’t know,” Luke said, fully honest. “I don’t think I know much of anything.”

  Jen patted his head, as if he were a little kid or a dog.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “You’ll learn.”

  It wasn’t long after that that Luke said he had to leave, because he was afraid Dad or Matthew or Mark might come in for lunch a little early. He dreaded the trip back. Jen walked him to the door, chattering the whole way.

  “I’ll fix the screen and deal with the security system, so no one will ever know you were here,” she said. “And—oh, no!”

  Luke followed her gaze. She was staring at three pinpoints of blood on the carpet.

  “I’m sorry,” Luke said. “That must be from when I scraped my hand. I’ll clean it up. There’s still time—”

  Secretly, he was glad of the delay.

  “No, no,” Jen said impatiently. “I don’t care about the carpet. It’s just that Mom and Dad will know, and when they see I don’t have any cuts—”

  And then, before Luke even knew what she was doing, she thrust her hand toward the torn part of the screen. The jagged edge didn’t cut immediately, so she held the screen with her right hand and raked it across her left. When Jen pulled her hand back, Luke saw a gash even deeper than his. Jen squeezed out a few drops of blood and let them fall to the carpet.

  “There,” she said.

  Stunned, Luke backed out the door.

  “Come back soon, farmer boy,” Jen said.

  Luke turned and ran, blindly, not even slowing down to creep alongside the barn. He went straight to the back door of his house, yanked it open, and let it bang shut behind him.

  Now, sitting at supper, he felt his heart pounding again as he thought of how dangerous that had been. Why hadn’t he looked first? Why hadn’t he crawled? He poked his fork into his potatoes, now gone cold and congealed. He watched Mother gathering up dirty dishes while Dad, Matthew, and Mark leaned back in their chairs, talking of grain yields. Jen had scared him—that was why. Seeing her cut her hand had terrified him. How could she do something like that for him, when they’d just met?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Luke spent practically every second of the next three days either reliving his secret visit to Jen or planning another one. The first day, a Government inspector came out to examine the Garners’ crop, so Luke stayed in his room the entire day. The second day it rained, and Dad spent the morning doing book work in the house. The third day, Dad was back in the fields, but when Luke crept over to the back door promptly at 9 A.M. and daringly flipped the light switch, he got no answering flash from Jen’s house. Maybe the clocks in her house were slow. He left the light on for fifteen whole minutes, terrified the whole time that someone besides Jen might see it. Finally, heartsick, he switched it off and climbed with shaky legs back to his room.

  What if something had happened to Jen? What if she were sick—dying, even—alone in her house? What if she’d been caught or turned in? Just from the little time Luke had spent with her, he could tell: She took a lot of risks.

  It never had occurred to him that knowing another person would give him someone else to worry about.

  He steadied himself by leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs and reminded himself of less frightening possibilities: Maybe one of her parents was just out running errands, not working, so they were going to be home soon. Maybe . . . he tried to think of another safe reason Jen hadn’t signaled for him to come. But he had so much trouble picturing her ordinary life that his imagination failed him.

  He found out the next day, when he risked a dash to Jen’s house as soon as Jen answered his signal.

  “Where were you?” he asked instantly.

  “When? Yesterday?” She yawned, sliding the door shut behind him. “Did you try to come over? I’m sorry. Mom had a free day and made me go shopping.”

  Luke gaped at her. “Shopping? You went out?”

  Jen nodded nonchalantly.

  “But I didn’t see you leave—” Luke protested.

  Jen looked at him as if she seriously wondered if he had a brain. “Of course not. I was hiding. The backseat of our car is hollowed out—Dad had it custom-built.”

  “You went out—” Luke repeated in awe.

  “Well, it’s not like I saw anything until we got to the mall. Two hours of riding in the dark is not my idea of fun. I hate it.”

  “But at the mall—you got out? You didn’t have to hide?”

  Jen laughed at his amazement.

  “Mom got me a forged shopping pass a long time ago. Supposedly, I’m her niece. It’s good enough to convince store clerks, but if the Population Police ever found me in a roadside stop, I’d be dead. There you have it, my mother’s priorities. Shopping is more important than my life.”

  Luke shook his head and sat down on the couch because his knees were feeling a little shaky.

  “I didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t know thirds could do that.”

  What if Mother and Dad got him a forged pass? For a minute he could almost picture it—they could hide him under burlap bags in the pickup truck bed until they got into town.

  Everybody in town knew Mother and Dad. Everybody knew Mother and Dad had only two sons. Matthew and Mark.

  “
You went to the city,” he said.

  “Well, yeah,” Jen said. “You don’t see any malls around here, do you?”

  “What was it like?” Luke almost whispered.

  “Boring,” Jen said. “Really, really boring. Mom wanted to buy me a dress—who knows why—so we went to one store after another, and I had to try on all these dresses that scratched and pricked and poked me. And then she made me get a bunch of bras—oh, sorry,” she said when Luke blushed a deep red. “I guess you don’t talk much about bras at your house.”

  “Matthew and Mark do, sometimes, when they’re being . . . dirty,” Luke said.

  “Well, bras aren’t dirty,” Jen said. “They’re just torture devices invented by men or mothers or something.”

  “Oh,” Luke said, looking down.

  “But, anyway,” Jen said, with a bounce that propelled her off the couch. “I checked you out on the computer and you’re all right, you don’t exist. Not officially, anyway. So you’re safe. And—”

  Hearing Jen say that so flippantly—you don’t exist—made Luke feel funny.

  “How do you know I’m safe?” he interrupted.

  “Fingerprints,” Jen said. When Luke gave her a blank look, she explained. “My brother Brawn went through this phase where he wanted to be a detective—not that he ever would have been smart enough for it—and I remembered he still has a fingerprinting kit. So I dusted for your fingerprints on things you touched, just like on TV. I got a really good print off the wall. Then I scanned that into the computer, linked into the national file of fingerprints and, voilà, I discovered your fingerprints don’t exist, so neither do you. Officially.”

  She made a mocking face for emphasis. Luke wanted to ask, The Population Police can’t find me because of what you did, can they? But he understood so little of what she’d explained that he didn’t think it would help to ask anything. And Jen was already onto the next thought.