Margaret Haddix: Among the Imposters

The landing was barely a four-by-four square, flat and empty. But Luke walked around it again and again, as if he’d just missed noticing the phone and it was right there, in plain sight.

It wasn’t.

Luke looked on each stair below, and even the stairs above the landing — as if the phone could fly. It took forever for his stubborn brain to accept that the phone was missing. Then he sank down on one of the stair steps, puzzling out who might have taken it.

Did Jason have an accomplice?

Luke thought about all the hall monitors, all the boys who’d met in the woods. Now that Jason’s true nature had been revealed, Luke couldn’t be sure of anyone. Maybe they all worked for the Population Police.

Except for the four boys Jason had betrayed.

Luke was desperately confused, but he could figure out one thing: The missing phone meant those four were in more immediate danger.

And so was Luke.

Luke’s first instinct was to hide, to get the other four to hide with him. The woods wouldn’t be safe because Jason would lead the Population Police straight there. Was there a safe place in the kitchen? Somewhere in an unused classroom? Some dormitory room off by itself, and unlikely to be searched?

Hiding was no good. In the end, they’d only be found.

Luke had to do something to prevent the Population Police from ever searching. But he didn’t even understand what was going on. He had to find someone who knew more than Luke, who could lie better than Luke, who knew how to handle the Population Police.

Jen’s dad.

But how was Luke supposed to reach him?

Luke crept back down to the first floor with only the vaguest plan in mind. He needed Mr. Talbot’s phone number. He needed a phone. The school office should have both.

The school office was locked.

Luke stood before the ornate door for what felt like hours. The door had a glass panel at the top, so he could see in easily. He could make out the shape of a phone on Ms. Hawkins’s desk. He could see old-fashioned file cabinets behind it. Surely there was a file in there with Luke’s name on it — his fake name, anyway. Would Mr. Talbot’s phone number be listed in there, because he was the one who’d brought Luke to the school? Luke thought so. But it did no good unless Luke could get into the files. And no matter how much he jiggled the knob of the office door, the door held firm.

Desperately, Luke kicked it. But the door was thick, solid maple wood. Nothing flimsy at Hendricks. Even the glass was probably— Glass. Luke couldn’t believe how stupid he was being.

He slammed the glass panel with his textbook, and a satisfying spiderweb of cracks crept across it. He hit it again, a little lower, smashing that portion of the panel.

‘And Jason thinks books are useless,” Luke muttered to himself. “Take that!”

Luke covered his hand with part of his pajama sleeve and pushed through the bottom of the glass. Only a few shards fell to the ground. The rest of the panel stayed in place. It was high-quality glass. Anything cheap would have shattered completely, and fallen to the ground with an enormous clatter.

Luke reached on through, until he could touch the knob from inside. He turned it — slowly, slowly — until he heard the click he’d been waiting for. He eased the door open and raced to the filing cabinet.

With only the dim light from the hall, Luke couldn’t read any of the labels on any of the files. He had to carry them out to the door to see whose they were.

The first batch he pulled had Jeremy Andrews through Luther Benton. He replaced them and moved further back in the file. Tanner Fitzgerald through — yes, there it was. Lee Grant.

Luke was surprised by the thickness of his file, considering how short a time he’d been at Hendricks. The first set of papers were school transcripts from other schools— evidently the ones the real Lee Grant had attended, before he died and left his identity to Luke. There were pictures, too, seven of them, labeled, KINDERGARTEN, GRADE ONE, GRADE

— o… all the way up to grade six. Strangely, the photos really did look like Luke. Same sandy hair, pale eyes, worried look. Luke blinked, thinking he’d been fooled. But when he opened his eyes, the resemblance was still there. Had the real Lee Grant looked that much like Luke?

Then Luke remembered something Jen had told him once, about changing photos on the computer.

“You can make people look older, younger, prettier, uglier — whatever you want. If I wanted to make my own fake I.D., I probably could,” she’d bragged.

But Jen had wanted to come out of hiding with her identity intact. She hated the thought of fake I.D.’s.

Staring at the faked pictures, Luke could understand. It was all too strange. He knew he should be reassured by how thoroughly his records had been doctored. But it frightened him instead. There was no sign of the real Luke Garner. Probably even his family would forget him eventually.

Luke didn’t have time for self-pity. He turned the page, hoping his admission papers would be next.

They weren’t. Instead, there was some sort of a daily log. Luke read in horrified fascination:

April 28—Student withdrawn, surly during entrance interview. Refuses to look interviewer directly in eye. Refuses to answer questions. Sullen behavior. Hostility believed connected to dissociation with parents. Can assume high risk of repeated attempts at running away. Treatment to commence immediately.

April 2.9—Sullenness continues. Attempts at interaction rebuffed. Teachers report disinterest, hostility.

The log continued in that vein, with an entry for every day Luke had been at Hendricks. There was repeated mention of therapy and treatment, and its success or failure. But Luke had had no entrance interview. He’d had no therapy, no treatment, no attention from the school officials at all. Obviously, this was another faked record.

But who had faked it? And why?

Thoroughly baffled, Luke turned the page. And there was the thick sheaf of his entrance papers.

Mr. Talbot was listed in the second column of the sixteenth page, as an emergency contact.

Luke grabbed the phone and started dialing.

A woman’s sleepy voice answered.

“Is Mr. Talbot there?” Luke asked. “I need Mr. Talbot.”

“It’s three in the morning!” the woman hissed.

“Please,” Luke begged. “It’s an emergency. I’m a friend of—” He barely managed to stop himself from saying, “Jen’s.” Mr. Talbot’s phone was probably bugged by the Population Police. Maybe the school’s phone was now, too. Luke didn’t know But he tried again. “Mr. Talbot is a friend of my parents’s”.

There was only dead air in response. Then a man’s voice, just as sleepy as the woman’s.

“Hello?”

It was Mr. Talbot.

Luke wanted to spill out everything, from his first confusing day at Hendricks, to Jason’s treachery, to the oddness of the file Luke still held on his lap. If only he could explain all his problems, surely Mr. Talbot could solve them all. But Luke had to choose his words carefully.

“You told me to blend in,” he accused, hoping Mr. Talbot would remember. “I can’t. You have to come get me.” And four other boys, he added silently, as if Mr. Talbot were actually capable of telepathy. If only Luke could just say, flat out, “You need to get four more fake I.D.’s for these friends of mine. And you’ll need to protect their families, too.” But Luke couldn’t think of any code that would clue in Mr. Talbot, without clueing in the Population Police as well.

“Now, now,” Mr. Talbot said calmly, sounding like an elderly uncle dispensing wisdom. “Surely school isn’t that bad. You need to give it more of a chance. Is this finals week or something?”