Margaret Haddix - Among the Barons

Smits didn’t answer, just ducked under a low branch. He reached out and touched a tree trunk hesitantly as if he were afraid it would bite.

“Do you come here a lot?” Smits asked.

“I used to,” Luke said brusquely

“I don’t know anything about nature,” Smits admitted. “Sometimes I wonder…”

“What?” Luke asked.

Smits shook his head, as if unwilling or unable to say more. His fingers traced a pattern on the bark. He looked back toward Luke. In the twilight his face seemed paler than ever.

“Can you help me?” he whispered. “Can you be Lee?”

Luke stared at the younger boy.

“I–I don’t know,” he admitted. It was probably the first honest thing he’d said to Smits. “I can try.”

Smits dropped his gaze.

“There’s something wrong with the way he died,” he whispered. Luke had to lean in close to hear.

“He was skiing, wasn’t he?” Luke asked. Luke had only the faintest idea of what skiing was. “Did he run into a tree or something?”

Smits shook his head impatiently.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “He—” Smits broke off, his gaze suddenly riveted on something far beyond Luke. Then he snapped his attention down to the ground and raised his voice. “Ugh! Why did you bring me here! Now my shoes are all muddy!”

Baffled, Luke glanced over his shoulder. A burly man Luke had never seen before was running down the hill toward them.

“I see you, Smithfield,” the man yelled. “Your game is up.”

The man came closer. It was like seeing a tree run, or a mountain — the man was that imposing. Luke could only watch in awe. The man had muscles bulging from his arms and legs. His neck looked thicker than Luke’s midsection. He had his fists clenched, as if he was ready to fight. Luke felt instant pity for any opponent this man might face.

“Hello, Oscar,” Smits said, his voice as casual as it had been back in the dining room, greeting all of Luke’s friends. He suddenly seemed like the little robot again.

“It is not funny, what you did,” the man — Oscar— raged. “I have fully informed your parents. They are not amused, either.”

Smits shrugged.

“Having a bodyguard is very tiresome, you know,” Smits said.

For a minute Luke was afraid that Oscar was going to slug Smits. The huge man stepped closer, but he did nothing more threatening than narrowing his eyes.

“It is necessary,” Oscar huffed. “It is not safe for you to go anywhere without protection. Especially”—he gazed distastefully around him, taking in the scrubby trees, the tall, untrimmed grass at the edge of the woods—”especially someplace unsecured like this.”

“Well,” Smits said. “Here’s Lee. Why aren’t you protecting Lee, too?”

Oscar’s gaze flickered toward Luke, then back to Smits. His glare intensified.

“Your parents hired me solely to protect you,” Oscar said. “I do my job with honor and dignity and pride.” He spoke so pompously, Luke almost expected Oscar to snap into a military salute.

Smits was rolling his eyes.

“So you say. ‘Honor and dignity and pride,’” he repeated, making a total mockery of the words. “You must have had a hard time explaining why you woke up hours late this morning, locked in your closet, when I had already left.”

“I blame you!” Oscar exploded. “Your parents blame you! I told them the whole story. You drugged me and dragged me into that closet.”

Luke decided he’d totally underestimated Smits if Smits had managed to drag Oscar so much as an inch. Smits would not be the last kid picked for a baseball team. He’d be the kid who could trample every other player, even without teammates.

“Me?” Smits said innocently. “I’m just a little kid. Where would I get anything to drug you with? How could I drag you anywhere?”

“You had help,” Oscar growled. “The chauffeur—”

“Hey”—Smits shrugged again—”it’s your word against his. And mine.”

“But your parents believe me,” Oscar retorted. He grabbed Smits’s arm and jerked him practically off his feet

“Come along. Let’s get you somewhere safe.”

“Fine,” Smits said. “You can wipe the mud off my shoes when we get back to my room.”

Oscar grunted.

Luke followed the other two up the hill. He kept a few paces behind. Smits seemed to have forgotten about him; Oscar had barely noticed him in the first place. Smits was now keeping up a running banter, making fun of Oscar for being muscle-bound and stupid and easily tricked.

What kind of a game was Smits playing? And — was it really a game?

Luke remembered the urgency in the other boy’s voice. “Can you help me? Can you be Lee?” And, ‘There’s something wrong with the way he died.” What had Smits meant?

Luke thought he’d been escaping danger when he took Lee Grant’s identity. Why did he suddenly feel like he’d only traded one peril for another?

It turned out that Smits did have classes with Luke— every single one of them.

“See, this is what happens when the big brother goofs off, runs away from school, and gets left behind a grade,” Smits said, slipping into a desk beside Luke the next morning. “He gets stuck with his younger brother every minute of the day.”

Luke could feel all his friends watching them. Smits beamed happily back at everyone.

“I’m the smart one in the family, in case you couldn’t tell,” Smits said.

Luke glowered. “Knock it off,” he muttered under his breath.

“Someone’s listening,~ Smits hissed back.

Luke half turned. At the back of the classsroom, barely two feet away, a hulking presence towered over all the boys still scurrying into the room.

Oscar.

Luke wasn’t the only one staring. The huge man was enough of a sight to attract attention just by himself. But he stood out even more today because of what he held in his massive fists: a sledgehammer.

“Hey, everyone. Meet my bodyguard,” Smits said.

“Is he always, um”—They gulped—”armed like that?”

“You mean the hammer?” Smits asked. He made a mocking face. “That’s my parents’ idea of a compromise. He’ll be carrying that around until Mr. Hendricks installs a few windows.” Smits looked around at blank expressions. “Didn’t any of you ever think about what would happen if there was a fire here? How trapped you’d all be? You won’t have to worry now. Hey, your parents should be chipping in on Oscar’s wages, too. He’d be saving you guys, too, knocking down walls.”

Smits pretended to swing an imaginary hammer himself.

From the front of the room Mr. Dirk, the teacher, said mildly, “Boys, we’ve always had plans in place for emergency evacuation procedures.”

Everyone turned to stare in amazement at Mr. Dirk. Luke wondered if any of his friends had ever thought to worry about a fire before. The danger outside the walls of Hendricks School had always seemed so great, he was sure no one had ever feared being trapped inside. He felt like standing up and asking everyone, “Does it make you feel any better to have more to be scared of?”

Instead, he slid lower in his seat and kept quiet as Mr.

Dirk started lecturing about ancient history.

The rest of the day went about the same way Smits made a spectacle of himself, Luke’s classmates gaped at Oscar, and Luke could only slump lower and lower in his chair in each successive class. Meals should have been a relief, because Smits didn’t show up for them. At least, not physically. But everyone in the dining hall seemed to be talking about him.

“What do you suppose he’s eating right now?” Joel asked at dinner as thin gruel dribbled from his spoon.