Margaret Haddix - Among the Barons

“Ah,” Mr. Talbot said. ‘And should I glare at them, just so, when I tell them that? I think the glare is an important part of the message, don’t you?”

Smits glowered down at his plate and didn’t reply

“They’re your parents,” Mr. Hendricks said gently “They care about you.”

“They don’t,” Smits muttered.

“You know, I was once a boy like you,” Mr. Hendricks said. “Selfish, only concerned with my own desires—”

“Selfish?” Smits exploded. “Selfish? Is it selfish to want to—” He broke off suddenly, looking from Oscar to Luke. Then he shoved his chair back from the table and turned and ran out of the room. Oscar was after him in a flash. Seconds later Luke glimpsed both of them outdoors. Oscar was chasing Smits, and Smits had enough of a head start that it might take Oscar a while to catch him.

“What was that all about?” Luke asked.

Mr. Talbot went over to the window, keeping a close eye on the huge man chasing the boy

“Your brother,” he said grimly, “is in danger of being confined to a mental institution.”

“A mental institution?” Luke repeated. “Like where they put crazy people? But he’s not crazy A little strange, a little rude — but not crazy.”

“He’s told people that his older brother, Lee, is dead,” Mr. Talbot said, still watching out the window. “Back at his old school he told classmates that his brother was killed by the Government”.

Luke gasped. “But—”

Mr. Talbot turned around. “They didn’t believe him,” he said. “Fortunately Smits had established quite a reputation as a liar before that But he is dangerous. In this country a twelve-year-old boy armed with the truth can be very dangerous indeed.”

Luke shook his head, trying to make sense of what he’d heard.

“Would the Grants really do that?” Luke asked. “Put Smits in some insane asylum because he can’t keep his mouth shut? They’d send their real son away to — to protect me?”

“The Grants don’t care about you,” Mr. Talbot said harshly “They’re trying to protect themselves.”

Luke shook his head again, but by now he’d given up on anything making sense. If Smits was a liar, how much had he lied to Luke?

“Was Lee Grant really killed by the Government?” Luke asked.

Mr. Talbot looked straight at Luke. He had his eyebrows lowered, his eyes narrowed, his lips pursed. He seemed to be judging what he could and could not safely tell Luke. Finally he said, “Probably”.

Oscar and Smits burst back into Mr. Hendricks’s house. Oscar had one huge fist gripped around Smits’s right arm; Smits was breathing hard but kept glaring resentfully at the man towering over him. When they came to stand at the threshold of the dining room, Luke saw Smits jerk back his leg and give Oscar a sharp kick on the shin. Oscar didn’t even flinch.

“I will take Smithfield to his room,” Oscar said. “If he cannot show his manners, he does not deserve to eat with civilized people. Lee, you will bring him his homework for the rest of the day”.

It was the first time Oscar had ever addressed Luke by name. Was it possible that Oscar still believed the lie?

“Um, sure,” Luke said.

And Oscar carried Smits out the door, Smits squirming the whole way.

When they were gone, Luke realized that he finally had what he’d longed for before: Mr. Talbot and Mr. Hendricks to himself. But he was almost too stunned to come up with any more questions. And Mr. Talbot and Mr. Hendricks looked too worried to give him the patient explanations he wanted.

“What do you think will happen to Smits now? And— and to me?” he finally managed to say.

And Mr. Talbot, who always had all the answers, said, “I don’t know.”

What happened next was — nothing.

Mr. Talbot left and Luke went back to class. He took notes on plant life and musical compositions. Right before dinner he went up to Smits’s room to deliver Smits’s homework assignments, but Oscar just took them at the door. Luke didn’t even catch a glimpse of Smits.

The next day Smits was back in class, as arrogant as ever, with Oscar as menacing as ever standing behind him with his sledgehammer. Just having the two of them there killed all conversation and forced everyone to cast fearful glances over his shoulder, all the time. Luke even caught some of the boys sending resentful stares his way, as if it was his fault that Smits and Oscar were there.

And in some strange way he knew it was. Though he now realized that even Mr. Talbot wasn’t sure why the Grants had sent Smits to Hendricks.

A week passed, two weeks, three. Luke kept expecting some dramatic event — maybe another explosion from Smits. But all he had was math, science, literature. History, music, games. And, every now and then, a summons from Smits after everyone else was asleep.

Smits didn’t talk anymore about Lee’s death, either as it had really happened or as he pretended it’d happened in a dream. Instead, he’d talk about his memories of Lee, late into the night while Oscar slept — or pretended to sleep.

“Remember that time we played the trick on the butler?” Smits would say. ‘When he put on his shoes and those firecrackers went off — remember how high he jumped?”

Or, “Remember that nanny who smelled like bananas? And we couldn’t figure out why, because she was certainly never allowed to eat any. And then the housekeeper caught her washing her hair with banana paste because she’d heard somewhere that that would make it thicker, and she was in love with the chauffeur we had then, and you and I walked in on them once, kissing in the garage….

Or, “Remember how we kept stealing the maids’ feather dusters? You told me they were real birds, and I was scared they’d come to life and fly around the house in the middle of the night….”

Smits’s memories didn’t always make sense because he’d jump from story to story. And Luke could never tell how old he and Smits were supposed to have been during any of the tales. Had Smits and the real Lee flushed entire rolls of toilet paper down the toilet when they were two and three or when they were eleven and twelve? Luke could hardly ask questions. After all, the stories Smits told were supposed to be Luke’s memories, too. He shouldn’t need Smits to tell him, for example, how many cooks had gotten seared eyelashes when the flaming dessert exploded at that fancy dinner party their parents had had.

Smits didn’t seem to care if Luke understood his ramblings or not. But strangely, after just a few nights, Luke found he could join in the reminiscing, as Smits began to repeat stories Luke had already heard.

“Oh, yeah, the feather dusters!” Luke exclaimed. “I’d almost forgotten about that. Now, why in the world were you so scared of them? You didn’t really think they could come back to life, did you?”

Smits fixed Luke with a curious look.

“Yes,” he said. “I did. I didn’t know what death was.” And he launched into another tale.

At first Luke only acted — pretending to listen, pretending to care. But slowly he was drawn into Smits’s hypnotic unreeling of the lives that he and Lee had once lived. It was all a foreign world to Luke. Luke had grown up on hard work and fear; life for his family had been a constant struggle. Smits and Lee had each had a miniature car they drove around the paths of their estate. Smits had once had a birthday party where an actual circus had come and performed for his thirty-five guests.

But Luke had had a mother who tucked him into bed every night, and a father who would play checkers with him on those dreary winter days when there was no farmwork to be done. Smits and Lee seemed to have had only servants.