Among the Hidden

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Luke wasn’t sure if there was a hidden message in the words, or if Jen’s dad was just talking for the sake of the bug. He decided he couldn’t analyze it yet. He peered back at his frantically waving family until they were out of sight. Soon the car was passing the other side of the barn and the field beyond, views Luke had never seen, though he’d lived his entire life within a hundred yards of them. In spite of the fear gnawing in his stomach and the anguish of missing his family—already—he felt a thrill of excitement. There was so much to see. He’d have to tell Jen—

  Jen. The grief he’d been avoiding for days welled over him again. But, “I’m doing this for you, too, Jen,” he whispered, too softly for Jen’s dad or the bug to hear over the car’s hum. “Someday when we’re all free, all the third children, I’ll tell everyone about you. They’ll erect statues to you, and name holidays after you..…” It wasn’t much, but it made him feel better. A little.

  Luke stared back at his family’s farm as long as he could. He could see just the roof of Jen’s house beyond the sparse line of trees. And then, in no time at all, it seemed, everything familiar disappeared over the horizon.

  Lee Grant turned around to see what lay ahead.

  Also by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  The Shadow Children series

  Among the Impostors

  Among the Betrayed

  Among the Barons

  Among the Brave

  Among the Enemy

  Among the Free

  The Missing series

  Found

  Sent

  The Girl with 500 Middle Names

  Because of Anya

  Say What?

  Dexter the Tough

  Running Out of Time

  The House on the Gulf

  Double Identity

  Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey

  Leaving Fishers

  Just Ella

  Turnabout

  Takeoffs and Landings

  Escape From Memory

  Uprising

  Palace of Mirrors

  Claim to Fame

  SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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  Text copyright © 1998 by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Illustration copyright © 1998 by Cliff Nielsen

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster. Book design by Heather Wood. The text for this book is set in Elysium.

  Haddix, Margaret Peterson.

  Among the hidden / Margaret Peterson Haddix.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family’s farm, until another “third” convinces him that the government is wrong.

  ISBN 978-0-689-81700-7

  ISBN 978-0-6898-4807-0 (eBook)

  [1. Science Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.H1164Am 1998 [Fic]—dc21 97-33052