Among the Barons

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Luke hoped that Smits heard the pride in Mr. Hendricks’s voice, that Smits knew what Lee had accomplished. But Smits seemed to be off in his own little sullen world.

  With Oscar standing guard behind them, they sat down at the dining-room table. At first there was a flurry of passing plates and dishing out servings. Then an uncomfortable silence fell over the table. Everybody seemed to be waiting for somebody else to speak. Finally Smits put down his fork.

  “If you’re here as my parents’ messenger,” Smits said, staring right at Mr. Talbot, “you can tell them they can’t make me do anything.”

  “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.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  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.

  One night, at the beginning of Smits’s fourth week of storytelling, Luke ventured to ask in the middle of a long, involved tale about a missing teddy bear, “I forget. Where was Mom then?”

  Smits stopped and squinted in confusion at Luke.

  “I forget, too,” he said. “Probably at a party. Entertaining. Like always.”

  And he went on, telling in outraged terms about the nanny who’d refused to step out onto the roof to retrieve the teddy bear from the rain gutter, where Smits had thrown it.

  It wasn’t long after that night that Smits said at the very end of a long session of reminiscing, “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been trying to help. At least you’ve stayed awake.” He rolled his eyes toward the huge, snoring form of Oscar. Luke stifled a yawn of his own and almost missed seeing the stern set of Smits’s jaw. Smits looked like a miniature grown-up once again.

  “Whatever happens,” Smits said, “you can tell people I told you: None of this is because of you. It won’t be your fault. I even . . . I even kind of like you.”

  He sounded surprised.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Luke stumbled back down to his own room, so drowsy that he almost considered just lying down on the stairs and going to sleep there. In the back of his mind he suspected that he needed to figure out exactly what Smits had meant. “Whatever happens . . . it won’t be your fault. . . .” But Luke had missed so much sleep staying up with Smits. He felt like his brain was functioning amazingly well just to be able to command his feet: down the stairs, left, right, down, and down again. He knew he wouldn’t be capable of thinking about anything important until morning.

  And Smits himself was probably already asleep. Whatever Smits thought was going to happen surely wouldn’t occur until morning.

  Luke reached his room, fell into his bed, and was asleep almost instantly.

  Loud, clanging alarms woke him only minutes later, it seemed. He opened his eyes to flashing lights and a voice booming throughout the room: “Evacuate immediately! Evacuate immediately!”

  Around him his roommates were sitting up dazedly in their beds, holding their hands over their ears. The voice on the loudspeaker was so intense, Luke could barely think. He saw Trey slip down from the bunk above. Trey’s lips were moving, and Luke could tell he was asking Luke a question, but Luke had no hope of hearing Trey over the blaring alarm. Luke gave Trey a confused look and held up his hands helplessly.

  Trey leaned in close and screamed directly into Luke’s ear: “What if it’s a trick? I think we should hide.”

  Luke shook his head. For the first time something else registered with his brain. He cupped his hand over Trey’s ear and yelled as loudly as he could: “No! I smell smoke!”

  The loudspeaker voice announced, “You are in danger! The school is on fire! Evacuate immediately! Go through the secret door in your room!”

  Secret door? Luke had no idea what that meant. Then suddenly a crack appeared in a blank portion of a wall Luke had never paid much attention to before. Seconds later a door sprang open in the wall, revealing a corridor with dim lights.

  Luke looked suspiciously at the door. Trey was worried about tricks—what if the voice was directing them into danger, not away from it? Cautiously Luke stuck his head through the mysterious door. At the end of a dimly lit corridor he could see stairs leading down. Could this be the best way out? He went back to the regular door of his room and jerked on the handle: The door didn’t budge. It was locked or stuck. Either way he couldn’t open that door. If he and his friends didn’t go through the secret door, they’d be trapped.

  Luke inhaled sharply. He was sure now. He did smell smoke. The scent was stronger than ever.

  “Come on!” Luke yelled, though no one could hear him. He began shoving boys toward the secret door. No one wanted to go. They seemed to prefer to cower in their beds. Luke had to drag Robert across the room, and even then Robert just huddled at the entrance to the secret corridor. Would Luke have to carry him down all those stairs?

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, Mr. Dirk, their history teacher, appeared in the doorway to the secret corridor. He grabbed Robert by the arms and pulled him to his feet. Together, Luke and Mr. Dirk shepherded the boys down the steps.

  At the bottom Mr. Dirk pressed on a door and it opened, revealing a clear view of the night sky. They were outdoors.

  Gratefully Luke gulped in fresh air and rushed out. But around him the other boys balked.

  “No!” Luke yelled. “Out!”

  Joel and John and Trey slipped fearfully out the door, but Luke had to peel Robert’s fingers off the railing of the stairs, had to propel him inch by inch toward the outdoors.

  Luke was just ready to step outside himself when Mr. Dirk said into his ear, “Now help me get the rest.”

  The rest?

  In a daze, Luke followed Mr. Dirk back up the stairs. From the secret corridor they entered room after room, pulling boys out of beds and from closets where they were crouched and trembling. Luke lost track of time. He lost track of how many kids he prodded and pulled. Some he even carried. After about the second room he didn’t look at faces anymore. He just knew he had to get everyone out.

  Finally, finally, Luke and Mr. Dirk reached the bottom of the stairs and Mr. Dirk didn’t immediately head back up again. Luke started to—his legs seemed to move on their own.

  “No, no,” Mr. Dirk said. “Everyone’s safe now. We’ve evacuated everyone on the second and third floors.”

  He gently pulled Luke back from the stairs. Gratefully Luke finally stepped outside. The cool night air rushed at him. He hadn’t realized how sweaty he’d gotten; his pajamas were drenched. His muscles ached. Behind him the alarms didn’t seem so blaring, the loudspeaker voice didn’t sound so urgent. Everyone was safe now. Everyone from the second and third floor. And nobody would have been on the first floor, because nobody would have been in the classrooms in the middle of the night. As for the fourth floor . . .

  Luke whirled around.

  “Smits!” he yelled desperately.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Luke was ready to race back up the stairs, but Mr. Dirk grabbed his arm.

  “The evacuation corridor network doesn’t go up to the fourth floor,” he said. “I’m sure Smits got out by other means. He doesn’t have the same, uh, fears as the rest of you boys.”

  Frantically Luke looked up, toward the top of the school. He wanted so badly to see a gaping hole made by Oscar’s precious sledgehammer. Instead, he saw only smooth brick, all the way to the roof, seemingly unmarred by either fire or escape. A few last tendrils of smoke rose toward the moon.

  “Looks like the fire’s out,” Mr. Dirk said cheerfully. “I’m not sure how serious it was to begin with, but it’s good we had such a successful test of our evacuation procedure. It was my idea, you know. We figured you boys would naturally be inclined to want to hide in an emergency, so we thought we’d have to work around that tendency. Don’t you think the secret doors and corridors and stairs worked great?”

  Luke had never heard Mr. Dirk talk so much about any event that hadn’t happened centuries ago.

  “You were a wonderful help, I must say,” Mr. Dirk rambled on.

  “I have to find Smits,” Luke said rudely, and walked away.

  All the other boys were standing or sitting numbly in clusters around the yard. Luke went from group to group, asking again and again, “Have you seen Smits? Have you seen Smits?”

  Nobody had.

  Even in his desperate search for Smits, Luke couldn’t help but notice how stricken all his friends and classmates were. Luke wasn’t sure if they were traumatized by being pulled from their beds in the middle of the night because of a fire—or if they were simply terrified of being outdoors. But several of th
e boys were shaking uncontrollably. Some were even crying.

  “There, there, everything’s okay,” someone said soothingly.

  Luke turned around. It was Mr. Hendricks. He had rolled his wheelchair across the rough lawn and was patting one of the younger boys on the back. Luke rushed to his side.

  “Is everyone safe?” Luke demanded. “Is Smits?”

  Mr. Hendricks gave Luke a measuring look.

  “Yes, everyone’s safe,” he said. “Smits and Oscar are at my house right now, locked in separate rooms.”

  “Why?” Luke asked, bewildered.

  “Smits is accusing Oscar of setting the fire, of trying to kill him,” Mr. Hendricks said. “And Oscar is accusing Smits.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Luke wanted to ask questions; he wanted Mr. Hendricks to solve every mystery right then and there. But Mr. Hendricks was already turning to other boys, repeating again and again, “It’s all right. You’re safe.”

  “They need to be indoors,” Luke muttered. He looked around at the forlorn clusters of boys scattered across the shadowy lawn. “Is there room for everyone in your house, Mr. Hendricks?”

  “An excellent idea,” Mr. Hendricks said. He raised his voice. “Hot apple cider and biscuits will be served at the headmaster’s house in five minutes.”

  Fearfully the boys began moving through the darkness. Once again Luke got stuck herding the others.

  “It’s safe on the path, really,” he had to assure one boy after another. “You’re not going anywhere dangerous.”

  He had thought his classmates had made so much progress, had become so much braver. All that seemed to have been erased tonight.

  Once everyone got to Mr. Hendricks’s house, they all crowded in eagerly. Nobody wanted to be left out on the porch, even if it meant standing shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow. Someone started a brigade of biscuits and cups of cider. The cider sloshed on the floor and crumbs dropped everywhere, but no one seemed to care. They were all coming back to life.