Among the Impostors Read online

  Luke was mad about a garden.

  Thinking that way, Luke felt foolish. He wondered if he should turn around. But just because Jen’s cause had been enormous, that didn’t mean Luke’s was unimportant. Like Jen, Luke wanted to right a wrong.

  Just then he heard the sounds he’d been waiting for: someone whispering, a muffled laugh, the click of the door latching. Luke waited a full five minutes—it was too dark to see his watch, so he counted off the tics. Then he tiptoed out of the shadows and followed the others out the door.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The moon was out.

  It had been so long since Luke had seen the night sky that he’d forgotten how mystical it could look. The moon was full tonight, a beautiful orb hovering low over the woods. Luke also recognized the same pinpricks of starlight he’d been used to seeing back home. But the stars seemed dimmer here, overshadowed by a glow on the horizon beyond the woods. Luke puzzled over that glow—it was in the wrong part of the sky to be the sunset. What else was that bright?

  Luke remembered that Jen’s dad had said the school was near a city. Could a city have lights that bright, that shone this far?

  “I don’t know anything,” Luke whispered to himself. He’d thought that coming out of hiding would expose him to the world, teach him everything. But being at Hendricks seemed like just another way to hide.

  A light flashed in the woods just then, and Luke realized he didn’t have time to hesitate. He’d planned to creep across the lawn, but the moonlight was so bright, he worried about being seen. He decided to take his chances with running.

  Nobody yelled. Nobody hissed, “Get away from here!”

  Luke reached the edge of the woods and hid behind a tree. Then he cautiously moved up to the next tree. And the next one. The light swung erratically, just ahead.

  Luke wished he’d taken the time to explore the woods, to get his bearings. He was terrified of walking straight into a tree, stepping in some big hole or tripping over a stump. He banged his shin and had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. He stepped in something squishy and almost fell. He wondered if he was traveling in circles.

  Then he heard voices.

  “—hate nature—”

  “Yeah, well, you find a better place to meet—”

  Luke crept closer. And closer. A strangely familiar voice was giving a long explanation: “—it’s just your fear of the outdoors cropping up again. You’ve got to overcome it, you know?”

  “Easy for you to say,” someone else grumbled.

  Luke was close enough now to see the backs of several heads. He dared to edge up to the next tree and peek out. Eight boys were sitting in a semicircle around a small, dim, portable lantern. Suddenly another light flashed on the other side of the group of boys. A twig cracked. Luke ducked back behind the tree.

  “So what’s with the emergency meeting?”

  It was a girl’s voice.

  Luke inhaled sharply.

  Jen . . .

  It wasn’t Jen, of course. When Luke dared to look out again, he saw a tall, scrawny girl with two pale, thin braids hanging on either side of her face. Jen had been shorter, more muscular, her brown hair cut short as a boy’s. But just to hear a girl’s voice again made Luke feel strange. It kept him from doing any of the crazy things he’d half-planned: leaping from behind the tree and screaming accusations, pretending to be a ghost haunting the woods, finding some way to exact revenge.

  All he could do now was listen.

  “Sorry to disturb the princesses of Harlow,” a male voice was answering mockingly.

  Luke knew he knew that voice. He peered out. Yes. Of course.

  Jackal boy.

  “It’s the new kid,” jackal boy was saying. “He’s acting weird.”

  I should have known jackal boy was involved, Luke thought. He probably planned the whole thing, led the charge on my garden. . . . He glowered. Then he realized what jackal boy had said. “The new kid”? As far as Luke knew, there was only one new kid at Hendricks: himself. They were talking about him.

  “Weird?” the girl’s voice replied. “He’s a boy, right? Isn’t weirdness just kind of required?”

  There were giggles. Luke squinted into the darkness. He thought there were three or four other girls beside the girl with braids.

  “Quit being such an exnay,” jackal boy said.

  “Exnay and proud of it,” the girl retorted.

  Luke listened harder, as though that would help him make sense of their words. Who would be proud of being an “exnay”? If he’d learned anything at Hendricks, it was that “exnay” was one of the worst insults you could hurl at anybody.

  “Yeah, yeah. I don’t see you announcing it anywhere but in the dark, in the woods, when nobody’s around,” jackal boy taunted.

  “So you’re admitting you’re nobody?” the girl said.

  One of the boys beside jackal boy made a frustrated grunt. “Why do we bother talking to them?” he asked.

  Luke saw jackal boy dig his elbow into the other boy’s ribs.

  “I’ll be noble and ignore that,” jackal boy said loftily to the girl. “Naturally, we don’t expect you to offer us any assistance in this matter. But we thought it was in everybody’s best interest to keep you informed.”

  The girl sat down, and the other girls followed her lead.

  “So inform us.”

  “The new boy—” jackal boy started.

  “Has he got a name?” the girl interrupted.

  “He’s registered as Lee Grant,” jackal boy said.

  Luke noticed how he said that. “Registered as . . .” Not, “His name is . . .” Did jackal boy suspect?

  “I looked him up,” jackal boy continued. “His dad’s in charge of National Gas and Electric. Filthy rich. And he’s switched schools a lot.”

  “That could fit,” the girl said.

  “But he doesn’t seem like he has autism or any of the other disorders. I don’t think he’s even agoraphobic.”

  Luke didn’t even try to puzzle out the unfamiliar words. Jackal boy was still talking.

  “Trey over there saw him coming in from outside this afternoon.”

  “He was outside?” the girl asked. She sounded amazed, maybe even impressed. “Out here? In the woods? During the day?”

  “Don’t know,” jackal boy said. Luke felt almost triumphant at the note of misery in the boy’s voice. But Luke was confused. Had jackal boy and his friends destroyed the garden without even knowing it belonged to Luke? Or was jackal boy lying?

  “Trey didn’t see him until he was back inside,” jackal boy continued. “He—you know—he doesn’t like looking right at the door.”

  “Great guard system you got going there,” the girl said.

  “Shut up, Nina!” one of the boys yelled. Luke guessed it was Trey.

  “Don’t call me that!” the girl—Nina?—yelled back. Why would she have a name she didn’t want to be called?

  And then Luke understood. He, too, had a name he hated. He hated it because it was fake. And so was hers.

  “Nina” was another former shadow child. She had to be.

  Luke looked with new eyes at the group sitting in front of him in the dark woods. They must all be illegal third children using false identities. Luke’s heart gave a jump. At last, he’d found others like him. He’d found a place to belong.

  Luke started to move out from behind the tree, to reveal himself. Finally he’d found other kids to talk to about how hard it was pretending to be someone else. Finally he’d found other kids who would know how tough it was to come out of hiding. Finally he’d found other kids he could trust, as he’d trusted Jen. They could grieve for Jen with him.

  Then he remembered: He was almost certain these were the ones who’d destroyed his garden.

  Luke stayed put.

  “All right, all right,” jackal boy was saying. “Calm down. The point is, this kid, this ‘Lee,’ doesn’t fit any of the profiles.”

  “Did you g
ive him the test?” Nina asked.

  “Um, well, there was a little problem—” jackal boy said hesitantly.

  “Go ahead and say it!” Trey burst out furiously. “I flubbed the whole thing! I don’t know why you make me guard that spot!”

  “Because you’re the bravest one,” jackal boy said. Luke recognized that tone: It was the same sort of wheedling voice that Luke’s brothers had used on him when they wanted him to do something unpleasant, like clean out the hog pen or spread manure on the garden.

  Trey turned and faced Nina directly. “I left the door open, but I couldn’t stand to be that close to it. I walked down the hall. Just for a minute! When I got back, this Lee kid was nowhere in sight.”

  Left the door open . . . Suddenly Luke understood. That first time he’d noticed the door, when it was ajar, it had been a test set up by jackal boy’s gang.

  But what were they testing him for?

  “Maybe he went outside then, too,” Nina said.

  All the boys seemed to be shaking their heads in disbelief.

  “I waited for three hours,” Trey said. “I stared at that door the whole time, honest. Nobody’d stay out that long.”

  Why not? Luke wondered.

  “So is he one of us or not?” Nina asked.

  The question seemed to hang in the dark woods. Luke wanted to know the answer, too.

  “Who knows?” jackal boy said. “The problem is, he’s getting bold. Weird, like I said. We’re scared he’s going to get the rest of us in trouble. Blow our cover. This afternoon, he just stared back at Trey like he didn’t care what Trey saw, or what Trey did. He was—”

  “Defiant,” Trey said.

  Even Luke could see the baffled look jackal boy gave Trey.

  “Sorry!” Trey said. “All I had to do when I was hiding was read, remember? I didn’t have a TV like the rest of you. I learned too many big words. ‘Defiant’ means, um—he was defying me, he was—”

  “Offering a challenge,” Luke said aloud.

  And then he stepped out from behind the tree.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Luke felt twelve pairs of eyes on him. Nina’s mouth was frozen in a little “o” of surprise. Jackal boy’s jaw dropped in astonishment.

  But nobody was more astonished than Luke. Why did I do that? he wondered. He remembered thinking that most of the boys at Hendricks acted like pawns. I’m a pawn, too, remember? Just plain old Luke Garner, who doesn’t know anything about anything, who cowers in the attic while his best friend dies for the cause. Stepping out from behind that tree was something Jen would have done. Not me.

  But he had done it. Now what?

  Luke longed to slide back behind the tree again or, given that it wouldn’t be much of a hiding place now, to turn tail and run. But his legs were trembling so much that just standing still took all his strength.

  Everyone was so quiet that Luke could hear his watch ticking again.

  All right. He’d gotten himself into this mess by acting like Jen. What would she do next?

  Talk. Jen could always talk.

  “You destroyed my garden,” Luke accused. “You’ll have to make restitution.”

  Luke could use big words, too. He thought he saw a glimmer of appreciation in Trey’s eyes. Everyone else stared blankly.

  Would Jen bother explaining, or would she prefer letting them feel dumb?

  “Garden?” jackal boy asked. “What garden?”

  That wasn’t what Luke had expected.

  “What garden?” he repeated. “My garden. Over there.” He pointed into the dark. “Last night, somebody trampled the whole thing, kicked over my beans, broke off my raspberry plants. You’re the only ones I see out in the woods.” Luke tried to let his anger carry him through. But all the faces in front of him looked vacant. Had he made a big mistake? Could they possibly be innocent? He finished weakly, “So you owe me.”

  Jackal boy shook his head.

  “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He didn’t seem to be lying. But how good was Luke at judging liars?

  “I’ll show you,” Luke said impatiently. He suddenly had the notion that if he saw them looking at the destruction, he’d be able to tell by their expressions whether or not they were guilty. He turned hastily and started walking. He was surprised when he heard footsteps behind him. They’d actually listened to him? Obeyed him?

  They made a strange procession through the woods, Luke leading the way, the other boys following with their lantern, then the girls with a dim flashlight. Luke made a few missteps, and even had to backtrack once, but he circled around, hoping none of the others would notice. Finally they reached Luke’s clearing. In the moonlight it looked desolate, just a stump and scraggly plants. It didn’t look like it had ever contained a garden.

  “There!” Luke said, trying to sound wronged and indignant. His voice came out in a squeak. “See these broken-off raspberry plants? See the squashed beans? But why do I have to show you? You know what you did.”

  No guilt showed on their faces. They still looked puzzled.

  “He is crazy,” jackal boy hissed.

  “Wait a minute,” Nina said. “Did you guys walk back to school this way last night?”

  Trey shrugged.

  “We might have,” he said.

  One of the other guys spoke up.

  “It’s not like we can tell any of the trees apart.”

  “So maybe you stepped on his garden by mistake,” Nina said. “And didn’t even know it.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t know what a garden looks like,” one of the other girls said. “Like this? What were you growing?”

  “Nothing,” Luke muttered. He was suddenly overcome with shame. He’d felt so brave stepping out from behind that tree. Just to make a fool of himself. Looking around, he could see how the other boys could have missed noticing his efforts, and trampled his garden by mistake. This had been a pathetic excuse for a garden. He’d been pathetic for ever thinking it was anything, let alone anything worth taking a risk for. He wished he could go back and hide behind a tree forever.

  Jackal boy started laughing first.

  “You thought this was a garden? You were sneaking out here to make a garden?” he asked.

  The others began to snicker, too. Luke’s shame turned into anger.

  “So?” he asked, defiant again.

  “So you are a lecker,” jackal boy said. He was laughing so hard, he doubled over in mirth. “A real lecker.”

  “You always say that,” Luke grumbled. “I don’t even know what a lecker is.”

  “Someone from the country,” Trey explained helpfully. “Like a bumpkin. That’s what it really means. But now the word’s just kind of a general insult, like calling someone a moron or stupid.”

  Luke thought Trey almost sounded apologetic, but that only made things worse.

  “What’s wrong with being from the country?” Luke asked.

  “If you have to ask . . . ,” jackal boy said, laughing again. He had to sit down on the rotting stump to catch his breath. Luke hoped he got mold smears on his pants. “Want to know something even funnier?” jackal boy continued. “I’m betting you’re really an exnay, too. So all those insults—lecker, exnay, fonrol—they’re all true. I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone who’s all three before. We’ll have to come up with a new word, just for you. What’ll it be?”

  Luke stared at jackal boy and the others laughing behind him. His faced burned. How could he have thought, even for an instant, that these might be kids he could trust? That he might belong with them?

  “Leave me alone!” he shouted, and turned and ran.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Luke could hear someone crashing through the woods behind him, but he didn’t look back. He’d run into the darkest part of the woods, and it took all his concentration to dodge the tree limbs that seemed to reach down out of nowhere. In fact, if Luke really wanted to terrify himself, he could think of those tree limbs as wit
ches’ arms, ghouls’ fingers. He wasn’t used to running through woods at night. Back home, when he’d gone outside after dark, it had mostly been for catching lightning bugs in the backyard, playing moonlight kick ball with his brothers—innocent fun.

  He’d been so young, back then, back home.

  He forced himself to run faster, but whoever was behind him seemed to be catching up. Luke zigzagged, because he’d read once that that was how rabbits escaped their predators. Then he slammed into a tree. He screamed in pain, and reeled backwards.

  A dark shape pounced. Before he knew it, Luke was pinned to the ground.

  Luke remembered another time he’d been tackled: the first time he’d crept into Jen’s house. He made a noise, and the next thing he knew, she had him facedown in the carpet. And they’d become friends.

  This wasn’t Jen.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a voice hissed in his ear. Jackal boy’s. “You go back now, during Indoctrination, and they’ll catch you. They’ll know. And then they’ll come looking for the rest of us.”

  Indoctrination? Luke guessed that jackal boy meant the evening lecture. The name made sense—the lecture was always about how wonderful the Government was. But Luke hadn’t even thought about what he was running toward. He was just running away.

  “Who will catch me?” he asked. “The only ones who watch are the hall monitors. And they all report to you, right?”

  “You got it,” jackal boy said. He sounded pleased. “I worked hard setting up that system. The teachers didn’t like hall duty, anyway. And now—”

  “You can get away with anything, can’t you?” Luke asked. “Unless I tell.”

  He didn’t know what possessed him to make that threat. Maybe it was just habit—after twelve years of being the youngest brother, he knew the power of tattling.

  And he knew how easily it could backfire.

  “Make you a deal,” Luke said quickly. “Let me up, and I won’t go back now. Answer some questions for me, and I won’t tell. I’ll keep your secrets.”