Margaret Haddix: Among the Hidden

Jen's dad turned around and pointed, and Luke saw a small disc sticking to the back of his collar.

Luke frowned and wrote on the paper, Why not take off?

Jen's dad shook his head. Safer this way. Long as they think they hear everything, they won't come back.

Jen's dad pointed to the hairy lumps on the hangers behind him.

Bribed them with fur coats. Very rare, very valuable.

Luke looked at the coats. There did seem to be a lot fewer of them now. Were they animal skins? Why would anyone want such a thing? He couldn't ask, though, because Jen's dad was already scribbling more.

Just bought time. My goose probably cooked now - I didn't file that memo. They'll find out.

Luke reached for the pen. What will they do to you?

Jen's dad shook his head. Don't know, he wrote. I've survived this kind of thing before. But everything's chancy now. The fact they got here so fast-they have it in for me.

Weakly, Luke leaned his head back against the closet wall. That reminded him of his frantic search along its surface. He reached for the paper and wrote, Where's the door?

Jen's dad pulled out a new sheet of paper. Shaking his head, he wrote, Isn't one. Just wanted to get you to back of closet.

Luke buried his face in his hands. Jen's dad was a good liar, there was no doubt about that. How could Luke trust him? Luke raised his head and watched as Jen's dad scribbled something else on the paper. His expression was full of concern, and Luke knew, somehow, that he was trustworthy. He easily could have turned Luke in, and gotten praise and another commendation ceremony. But how confusing, to never know when someone was lying.

Jen's dad turned the paper to face Luke. It said, So. Want fake I.D. or not?

Luke gulped. After a minute, he wrote back, Am I safe if I don't?

Jen's dad seemed to be weighing the question. He narrowed his eyes and wrote, Probably. They're after me now, not you. If they really thought there was an illegal here, they wouldn't take bribe. Or would take it and you, too. But I'd advise - get I.D.

Luke wrote back, Can't I wait? Think about it for a while?

That was what Luke wanted. Or not even to think, but to hide from thinking for a while. He wanted to remember Jen, and grieve for her by himself. He didn't want to have to think about what parts of the Population Law were good, and what parts were bad, or why his family didn't have more money. He didn't want to have to figure out Jen's dad, and other people like him, who could pretend to be so many different things. He didn't want to have to decide something now that could change the rest of his life.

But Jen's dad had written back, Don't know. May be case of 'now or never.'

Luke scrawled, Why?

Jen's dad wrote for a long time. Then he turned the paper to Luke. It said: I have power now. Tomorrow, probably. Next week????? Next year????? Can't tell with our Gov't. Favored lackey one day, persona non grata the next. Never know. No guarantees.

Luke stared at the paper until the words blurred together. He had to decide. Now.

He thought about reading and daydreaming in the attic the rest of his life. His parents were kind to him, even if they weren't around much. And as much as Matthew and Mark had always teased him, he was pretty sure they would take care of him if his parents couldn't someday. His life was very limited-he understood that now more than ever. But he was used to it It was safe. He could make himself be happy.

Except…

Luke remembered how bored he'd felt before meeting Jen, how desperate he'd been to do something-anything!-besides read and daydream. He'd been so desperate that he'd risked his life for the chance of meeting another third child. Did he want to spend the rest of his life feeling that desperate? Did he want to just… waste it?

But even if he got a fake I.D., what would he do?

The answer was there instantly, as if he'd known it all along and his brain was just waiting for him to come looking.

He could do something to help other third children come out of hiding. Not with another big dramatic rally, like Jen had tried, or by finding fake I.D.'s the way Jen's dad did. Maybe there was something smaller and slower he could do. Studying ways to grow more food, so no one would go hungry, no matter how many kids people had. Or changing the Government so that farmers were allowed to raise pigs or use hydroponics, and ordinary people, not just Barons, could have better lives. Or figuring out ways for people to live in outer space, so they wouldn't be too crowded on Earth and chop down beautiful woods just for houses. He didn't know exactly how he could do those things, or even what the right thing to do was. But he wanted to do something.

He remembered what he'd told Jen, the last time he'd seen her: It's people like you who change history. People like me - we just let things happen to us. And he'd believed it. That was how his family had always lived. But maybe that was wrong. Maybe he could succeed where Jen had failed precisely because he wasn't a Baron-because he didn't have her sense that the world owed him everything. He could be more patient, more cautious, more practical.

But he'd never be able to do anything staying in hiding.

He bit his lip. His hand shook as he wrote his answer.

I want a fake I.D. Please.

Lee Grant settled into the car that would take him away from the farm where he'd found refuge, after running away from home. He'd gotten lost-he'd certainly never intended to end up here. He surveyed the dusty barnyard in front of him, the ugly ruts of dried mud where tractors and trucks had left their tracks. He stared at the ramshackle barn and the peeling paint on the weathered house, sights that should have been entirely foreign to him, but weren't. He-

Luke gulped, unable to keep thinking in his new identity quite yet. It was too soon, too hard, when his shoulders still felt the warmth of Mother's last hug. He looked down at his hands, clenched together in his lap, and they already seemed like someone else's against the background of his crisp new trousers. No more ragged blue jeans and hand-me-down flannel shirts for him-he had a whole suitcase in the trunk full of the same kind of fancy Baron clothes he'd laughed at all those months ago. He didn't care about the clothes, but he wished they'd let him keep his name, at least. Yet Jen's father had been proud that he'd gotten to keep the same initials.

"A rush job like this, it's a wonder you're not stuck with Alphonse Xerxes," he'd bragged in the letter he'd dropped off the night before, pretending he was just coming to ask Luke's parents to cut back the willow tree that draped over onto the Talbots' land.

The real Lee Grant was a Baron. He had died in a skiing accident just the night before. His parents wanted nothing to do with Luke-"too painful," Jen's father had explained- but they had agreed to donate their son's name and identity card the way people had once donated hearts and kidneys. Some secret group that helped third children had arranged it. The group also had agreed to pay for Luke to go to a private school as a boarder, year-round. Supposedly he was transferring in during the middle of a term as punishment for running away. He'd read about such places in the old books in the attic. It seemed a strange way to live, without family, but he was just as glad not to have to pretend to love another set of parents.

Now Luke looked back at his family's porch, where Mother and Dad and Matthew and Mark were standing and already waving. Dad and Matthew looked gruff, and Mark merely looked serious-strange enough for him- but tears were streaming down Mother's face.