Margaret Haddix: Among the Hidden

"Who cares?" Luke muttered.

There was a harsh knock on his door.

"Population Police! Open up!"

Luke didn't move.

"That's not funny, Mark!" he shouted.

Mark opened the door and bounded up the stairs that led to Luke's room proper. Luke's room was also the attic, a fact he had never minded. Mother long ago had shoved all the trunks and boxes as far as they could go under the eaves, leaving prime space for Luke's brass bed and circular rag rug and books and toys. Luke had even heard Matthew and Mark grumble about Luke having the biggest room. But they had windows.

"Scared you this time, didn't I?" Mark asked.

"No," Luke said. Nothing would force him to admit that his heart had jumped. Mark had been playing the "Population Police" joke for years, always out of their parents' earshot. Usually Luke just ignored Mark, but now, with Dad acting so skittish… What would Luke have done if it really had been the Population Police? What would they do to him?

"Matt and me, we've never told anyone about you," Mark said, suddenly serious, which was strange for him. "And you know Mother and Dad don't say anything. You're good at hiding. So you're safe, you know?"

"I know," Luke muttered.

Mark kicked the toy train Luke had crashed. "Still playing with baby toys?" he asked, as if to make up for slipping and being nice.

Luke shrugged. Normally, he wouldn't have wanted Mark to know he played with the train anymore. But today everything else was so bad that that didn't matter.

"Did you come up here just to bug me?" Luke asked.

Mark put on an offended look. "Thought you might want to play checkers," he said.

Luke squinted.

"Mother told you to, right?" he asked.

"No."

"You're lying," Luke said, not caring how nasty he sounded.

"Well, if you're going to be that way-"

"Just leave me alone, okay?"

"Okay, okay." Mark backed down the stairs. "Jeez!"

Alone again, Luke felt a little sorry he'd been so mean. Maybe Mark had told the truth. Luke should apologize. But he didn't really feel like it.

Luke got up and started pacing his room. The squeak of the third board in from the stairs annoyed him. He hated having to duck under the rafters on the far side of his bed. Even his favorite model cars, lined up on the shelves in the corner, bothered him today. Why should he have model cars? He'd never even sat in a real one. He never would. He'd never get to do anything or go anywhere. He might as well just rot up here in the attic. He'd thought about that before, on the rare occasions when Mother, Dad, Matthew, and Mark all went somewhere and left him behind-what if something happened to them and they never came back? Would someone find him years from now, abandoned and dead? He'd read a story in one of the old books in the attic about a bunch of kids finding a deserted pirate ship, and then a skeleton in one of the rooms. He'd be like that skeleton. And now that he wasn't allowed in rooms with uncovered windows, he'd be a skeleton in the dark.

Luke looked up automatically, as if to remind himself that nothing lit the rafters but the single bulb over his head. Except-there was light at either end of the ceiling, leaking in under the peak of the roof.

Luke stood up and went to investigate. Of course. He should have remembered. There were vents at each end of the roof. Dad grumbled occasionally about heating the attic for Luke-"It's just like throwing money out those vents"-but Mother always fixed him with one of her stares, and nothing changed.

Now Luke climbed on top of one of the largest trunks and looked down through the vent. He could see out! He could see a strip of the road and the cornfield beyond, its leaves waving in the breeze. The vent slanted down and limited his view, but at least he was sure nobody would ever be able to see him.

For a moment, Luke was excited, but that quickly faded. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life watching the corn grow. Without much hope, he stepped down from the trunk and went to the other end of the attic, the portion that faced the backyard. He had to slide boxes around and drag an old step stool from the opposite end of the attic, but finally his eyes were level with the back vent.

The view was not of the backyard-it was too close- but of the former woods. He'd never realized it before, but the land there sloped away from his family's house, so he had a clear view of acres and acres that once had been covered with trees. The land was abuzz with activity now. Huge yellow bulldozers shoved brush back from a rough road that had been traced out with gravel. Other vehicles Luke couldn't identify were digging holes for huge concrete pipes. Luke watched in fascination. He knew tractors and combines, of course, and had seen his dad's bush hog and manure spreader and gravity wagons up close, in the barn. But these machines were different, designed for different jobs. And they were all operated by different people.

Once, when Luke was younger, a tramp had walked up to the house and Luke had only had time to hide under the sink in the mudroom before the man was in the house, begging for food. The door of the cabinet was cracked, so Luke had been able to peek out and see the man's patched trousers and holey shoes. He'd heard his whiny voice: "I ain't got no job, and I ain't et in three days… No, no, I can't do no farmwork for my food. What do you think I am? I'm sick. I'm starving…"

Other than that tramp and pictures in books, Luke had never seen another human being besides his parents and Matthew and Mark. He'd never dreamed there was such variety.

Many of the people running the bulldozers and shovel contraptions were stripped of their shirts, while others standing nearby even wore ties and coats. Some were fat and some were thin; some were browned by the sun and some were paler than Luke himself, who would never be tan again. They were all moving-shifting gears and lowering pipe, waving others into position or, at the very least, talking at full speed. All that activity made Luke dizzy. The pictures in books always showed people still.

Overwhelmed, Luke closed his eyes, then opened them again for fear of missing something.

"Luke?"

Reluctantly, Luke slid down from his step stool perch and scrambled over to recline innocently on his bed.

"Come in," he called to his mother.

She climbed the stairs heavily.

"You okay?"

Luke dangled his feet over the side of the bed.

"Sure. I'm fine."

Mother sat on the bed beside him and patted his leg.

"It's-" she swallowed hard. "It's not easy, the life you've got to live. I know you'd like to look outside. You'd like to go outside-"

"That's okay, Mother," Luke said. He could have told her then about the vents-he didn't see how anyone could object to him looking out there-but something stopped him. What if they took that away from him, too? What if Mother told Dad, and Dad said, "No, no, that's too much of a risk. I forbid it"? Luke wouldn't be able to stand it. He kept silent.

Mother ruffled his hair.

"You're a trooper," she said. "I knew you'd hold up all right."

Luke leaned against his mother's arm, and she moved her arm around his shoulders and hugged him tight to her side. He felt a little guilty for keeping a secret, but mostly reassured-loved and reassured.

Then, more to herself than to him, Mother added, "And things could be worse."

Somehow, that wasn't comforting. Luke didn't know why, but he had a feeling what she really meant was that things were going to get worse. He snuggled tighter against Mother, hoping he was wrong.

Luke found out what Mother meant a few days later when he came down for breakfast. As usual, he opened the door from the back stairs to the kitchen only a crack. He could remember barely a handful of times in his entire life when someone had dropped by before breakfast, and each time Mother had managed to send Matthew or Mark up to warn Luke to stay out of sight. But he always checked. Today he could see Dad and Matthew and Mark at the table, and knew from the sound of frying bacon that Mother must be at the stove.