Among the Impostors

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  And of course they had one. They had everything.

  Luke rushed out from his hiding place and took the last flight of stairs in two leaps. He had to get the phone away from Jason before he accidentally betrayed another boy’s identity. Jason still had his back to Luke. He was saying indignantly into the phone: “Of course I’ll get the others to tell me their real names. They’re just cagey. They do trust me. They don’t have any idea I work for the Population Police.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Luke had his hand inches from the phone when Jason’s words registered: “ . . . I work for the Population Police.” Luke’s hand and arm kept going, even though his mind was suddenly frozen. He watched his hand as if it belonged to someone else. His fingers grasped the phone, jerked it out of Jason’s grip, and threw it to the ground. Then someone’s foot—no, Luke’s foot, acting as independently as his hand—stomped on it.

  Jason whirled around.

  “You!” he spat.

  Luke’s frozen mind was struggling to thaw. Strange facts were emerging from the ice. Jason worked for the Population Police. That’s why he hadn’t cared about using a portable phone. He wasn’t organizing subversive activity against the Government. He was turning in the exnays.

  “You’re an informer,” Luke whispered.

  Jason’s eyes narrowed, calculatingly. Luke instantly saw his mistake. Why hadn’t he played dumb? He could have pretended he hadn’t heard Jason’s last sentence. He could have acted hurt that Jason was leaving him out. He could have begged for a dangerous assignment.

  It wouldn’t have been too hard to act dumb. Until two seconds ago, he had been.

  “Now, Lee,” Jason said cautiously. He seemed to be trying to decide how to play things. Was Luke going to get, “Oh, don’t be silly. What would make you think that? Why would I turn anybody in when I’m an exnay, too?” Or, “So you know the truth. That’s it. You’re dead”?

  Jason took a step toward Luke. Luke clutched his history textbook like a shield. Jason came even closer.

  And then, without thinking, Luke whipped the book out and swung it at Jason’s head with all his might.

  Jason crumpled. Knocked sideways, he tried desperately to regain his balance. Luke swung again.

  This time, Jason fell backwards. His head hit the stairs with a loud thunk. His body rolled down to the landing.

  He didn’t move.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Luke hardly dared to breathe. He held his book high over his head.

  Jason still didn’t move.

  What if Luke had killed him?

  Luke knelt down and put his hand in front of Jason’s nose. Very, very faintly, he felt bursts of air every few seconds. Jason wasn’t dead, only knocked unconscious.

  For how long?

  Luke wasted time staring at Jason’s motionless body. Luke wouldn’t have wanted to be a murderer, but everything would be easier if Jason were dead.

  Luke could kill him now.

  Everything in Luke recoiled against that notion. Jason was the worst kind of fake—an informer, a traitor, someone who pretends to be a friend and then betrays. He probably had as good as killed four boys whose only crime was existing. Jason deserved to die.

  But Luke couldn’t kill him.

  Luke was desperately trying to get his paralyzed brain to come up with another option, when the portable phone rang. The noise echoed in the stairwell as shrilly as a hundred roosters, all crowing at once. It sounded loud enough to wake the dead, not to mention the merely unconscious. Luke grabbed the phone, just to shut it up. It kept ringing. Luke stared at it stupidly. He’d never actually touched a phone before tonight. Didn’t they stop ringing when you picked them up? He punched buttons on the phone at random. Finally, miraculously, the noise stopped.

  Luke let out a sigh of relief. Why had the phone rung in the first place? Jason had been using it. Then when Luke pulled it away and stomped on it, that must have worked like hanging it up. But for it to start ringing again—

  Someone was calling Jason.

  Fearfully, Luke put the phone to his ear.

  “Hello?” he whispered.

  He had a sudden moment of hope. Maybe he’d misunderstood. Maybe Jason hadn’t said that he worked for the Population Police, but that the exnays didn’t trust him because they thought he might work for the Population Police. Or that the exnays didn’t trust anyone, because of the Population Police. Maybe the person on the other end of the line was a good guy, working for the cause, worried that something had happened to poor, noble, misunderstood Jason.

  “Hello?” Luke whispered again.

  “Don’t you ever pull that kind of a stunt on me again!” The angry voice on the other end came through the phone as forcefully as a tornado. “You hang up on the Population Police, you’re a dead man. We’ll kill you even before we kill those four exnays you just turned in.”

  Luke’s hope dissolved. He struggled to keep his mind from dissolving, too. Think, think . . . He’d heard Jen’s dad fool the Population Police once. Mr. Talbot had lied so smoothly that even Luke, who knew the truth, was practically convinced.

  Luke put his hand over his mouth. He had to make the man on the other end of the line think he was Jason.

  “I’m sorry,” Luke muttered. “It was a mistake. I accidentally dropped the phone and it shut off by itself.” With a little help from Luke’s foot.

  “What? I can’t hear you!” the man yelled.

  “It’s a bad connection,” Luke said, speaking louder. He’d heard Mother and Dad say that all the time. He hoped portable phones could have bad connections, too. “I said I was sorry. I dropped the phone by mistake. I didn’t hang up on you. Why would I hang up on you when I’m trying to convince you to give me more time?”

  “Whatever,” the man growled. Luke could tell: The man didn’t care what had happened. He just wanted Jason to grovel. And Luke had done it for him. Luke was good at groveling.

  “Here’s how it is,” the man continued. “We’ll give you another day. Then that’s it. And, Jason? You get those other boys or else. We’ve got a quota to fill, you know.”

  The phone clicked. Luke realized the man on the other end had hung up.

  Luke had fooled him. And he’d bought some time. He had another day.

  Or until Jason woke up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Luke slid his hands under Jason’s armpits and began dragging him down the stairs. Down was easier than up. And if Jason woke up and started screaming, he’d be less likely to wake somebody if he and Luke were on the first floor.

  Of course, if Jason woke up and attacked Luke, there was also less chance Luke could get help on the first floor.

  Luke made himself concentrate on pulling the bigger boy. Jason’s feet slipped down the first step and hit hard. Jason moaned but didn’t open his eyes.

  Maybe he’s just faking, Luke thought. Maybe he’s wide awake and he’s just waiting for the right moment to attack

  That thought made Luke sweat. But he pulled harder, and got Jason all the way to the bottom of the steps without waking him up.

  Next, Luke dragged Jason down the hall. A right turn, a left turn, a right turn. Jason was heavy, and Luke’s arms ached. His head ached, too, from trying to plan. He found the door he’d been looking for and forced himself to knock.

  “Yes?” a sleepy voice responded.

  Luke grimaced. He’d been half-hoping this idea would fail. Be brave, he told himself.

  “Nurse!” he called out. “It’s my—my friend. He’s sick.”

  How could he have called Jason a friend?

  Oh, well. He had a lot more lies ahead of him.

  The door eased open. The nurse stood there in a ruffled dressing gown.

  “Oh, my,” she said dimly when she’d taken in the sight of Jason slumped on the floor. Luke tried to hold him up the way a concerned friend would, but it was hard. Luke would have enjoyed dropping him.

  “He passed out,” Luke sa
id needlessly. “He was having a—a seizure, ranting and raving. He was . . . telling lies. Making up stories.” That should help if Jason came to. “I think it’s called delirium, what he had. I think staying unconscious is the best thing for him. Can you give him something that will keep him asleep?”

  “Oh, my,” the nurse repeated, frowning. “Usually, in these circumstances, we want to revive the patient.”

  It wasn’t fair. Now the nurse seemed to know what she was talking about.

  “Help me get him inside,” she ordered Luke.

  The nurse took Jason’s legs, and Luke lifted. The strain on his muscles was terrible. Luke was panting by the time they got Jason to a bed in the nurse’s office. She immediately began looking him over.

  “Did he hit his head?” she asked Luke as she felt Jason’s scalp.

  Panic bubbled up in Luke’s stomach.

  “May-Maybe,” he said. “He was, um, thrashing around a lot. In his sleep.”

  “I thought he was ranting and raving,” the nurse said, fixing Luke with an unexpectedly sharp stare. “Was he doing that in his sleep, too?”

  Luke gulped.

  “No. He was thrashing about, and then he woke up, and acted delirious. And then he had a seizure and went unconscious. I think. It happened really fast. It was really scary.”

  Luke got another idea.

  “You know, you should really strap him down in bed, so if he wakes up and starts acting weird again, he won’t hurt himself.”

  “Thanks for the medical advice,” the nurse said. She lifted one of Jason’s eyelids and shone a flashlight into his eye. Luke held his breath. If Jason woke up now, he could tell the nurse anything he wanted, and she’d believe him. Jason was a much better liar than Luke. Jason’s lips moved. Had he mumbled something that the nurse could hear but Luke couldn’t? Luke tried to quell his panic. He watched with relief as Jason’s eye rolled blindly back in his head. The nurse gently placed the eyelid back against the eye. Jason didn’t move.

  The nurse sat down at a desk and took up a pen.

  “Now. What’s your friend’s name?” she asked.

  “Ja—I mean, Scott Renault,” Luke said.

  The nurse peered at him doubtfully.

  “And your name is—”

  “Lee Grant,” Luke mumbled.

  The nurse was watching him carefully. Too carefully.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let me type your account of your friend’s injury into the computer.” She disappeared around a corner. Luke could hear the nurse muttering to herself. Then there was the clickety-clack of a keyboard. The sound made him miss Jen. He remembered Jason acting so excited when Luke had mentioned her name. But that had just been an act—an act contrived to get Luke to trust him, to reveal his real name, so Jason could betray him.

  Luke’s head spun. It was too hard to recast his memories with Jason as a traitor.

  The nurse came back.

  “Sign this,” she said.

  Disheartened, Luke signed without reading.

  “Now. Why don’t you go on back to bed?” the nurse said to Luke. “I’ll take good care of your friend. I promise.”

  That’s what Luke was afraid of.

  But there was nothing else for him to do but back out of the door.

  “Let me know how he is,” Luke begged as he left. “And if he says anything crazy—”

  “Don’t worry,” the nurse said. “I’ve heard plenty of crazy talk around here.”

  Out in the hallway, Luke wished he’d thought of another plan. Ropes! He could have tied Jason up, and gagged him, and . . . and put him where, exactly? Even the boys who stared at the ground all day would notice a bound and gagged boy lying around. And where was Luke supposed to get ropes and a gag? No, Luke had had to take his chances with the nurse. He just had to hurry even faster now. Who could tell what lies Jason might tell the nurse when he awoke? All Luke knew was, Jason wouldn’t cast Luke as the heroic friend who’d carried Jason to help.

  Actually, Jason wouldn’t even have to lie. All he had to say was that Luke had hit him with a book and knocked him down. That was true, though not the whole truth. And if anyone wanted to investigate, they could examine Luke’s book, and—

  Luke’s book. Stunned by his own stupidity, Luke realized: He’d left his book and Jason’s portable phone back on the stairs.

  Forgetting to go quietly, Luke raced down the hall, around corners, and back up the stairs. He saw the history textbook cast off in the corner of the landing, where he’d dropped it. He snatched it up and hugged it to his chest like a long-lost friend. Now, to find the phone—

  The phone was nowhere in sight.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The landing was barely a four-by-four square, flat and empty. But Luke walked around it again and again, as if he’d just missed noticing the phone and it was right there, in plain sight.

  It wasn’t.

  Luke looked on each stair below, and even the stairs above the landing—as if the phone could fly. It took forever for his stubborn brain to accept that the phone was missing. Then he sank down on one of the stair steps, puzzling out who might have taken it.

  Did Jason have an accomplice?

  Luke thought about all the hall monitors, all the boys who’d met in the woods. Now that Jason’s true nature had been revealed, Luke couldn’t be sure of anyone. Maybe they all worked for the Population Police.

  Except for the four boys Jason had betrayed.

  Luke was desperately confused, but he could figure out one thing: The missing phone meant those four were in more immediate danger.

  And so was Luke.

  Luke’s first instinct was to hide, to get the other four to hide with him. The woods wouldn’t be safe because Jason would lead the Population Police straight there. Was there a safe place in the kitchen? Somewhere in an unused classroom? Some dormitory room off by itself, and unlikely to be searched?

  Hiding was no good. In the end, they’d only be found.

  Luke had to do something to prevent the Population Police from ever searching. But he didn’t even understand what was going on. He had to find someone who knew more than Luke, who could lie better than Luke, who knew how to handle the Population Police.

  Jen’s dad.

  But how was Luke supposed to reach him?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Luke crept back down to the first floor with only the vaguest plan in mind. He needed Mr. Talbot’s phone number. He needed a phone. The school office should have both.

  The school office was locked.

  Luke stood before the ornate door for what felt like hours. The door had a glass panel at the top, so he could see in easily. He could make out the shape of a phone on Ms. Hawkins’s desk. He could see old-fashioned file cabinets behind it. Surely there was a file in there with Luke’s name on it—his fake name, anyway. Would Mr. Talbot’s phone number be listed in there, because he was the one who’d brought Luke to the school? Luke thought so. But it did no good unless Luke could get into the files. And no matter how much he jiggled the knob of the office door, the door held firm.

  Desperately, Luke kicked it. But the door was thick, solid maple wood. Nothing flimsy at Hendricks. Even the glass was probably—

  Glass. Luke couldn’t believe how stupid he was being. He slammed the glass panel with his textbook, and a satisfying spiderweb of cracks crept across it. He hit it again, a little lower, smashing that portion of the panel.

  ’And Jason thinks books are useless,” Luke muttered to himself. “Take that!”

  Luke covered his hand with part of his pajama sleeve and pushed through the bottom of the glass. Only a few shards fell to the ground. The rest of the panel stayed in place. It was high-quality glass. Anything cheap would have shattered completely, and fallen to the ground with an enormous clatter.

  Luke reached on through, until he could touch the knob from inside. He turned it—slowly, slowly—until he heard the click he’d been waiting for. He eased the door open and raced to
the filing cabinet.

  With only the dim light from the hall, Luke couldn’t read any of the labels on any of the files. He had to carry them out to the door to see whose they were.

  The first batch he pulled had Jeremy Andrews through Luther Benton. He replaced them and moved further back in the file. Tanner Fitzgerald through—yes, there it was. Lee Grant.

  Luke was surprised by the thickness of his file, considering how short a time he’d been at Hendricks. The first set of papers were school transcripts from other schools—evidently the ones the real Lee Grant had attended, before he died and left his identity to Luke. There were pictures, too, seven of them, labeled, KINDERGARTEN, GRADE ONE, GRADE TWO . . . all the way up to grade six. Strangely, the photos really did look like Luke. Same sandy hair, pale eyes, worried look. Luke blinked, thinking he’d been fooled. But when he opened his eyes, the resemblance was still there. Had the real Lee Grant looked that much like Luke?

  Then Luke remembered something Jen had told him once, about changing photos on the computer.

  “You can make people look older, younger, prettier, uglier—whatever you want. If I wanted to make my own fake I.D., I probably could,” she’d bragged.

  But Jen had wanted to come out of hiding with her identity intact. She hated the thought of fake I.D.’s.

  Staring at the faked pictures, Luke could understand. It was all too strange. He knew he should be reassured by how thoroughly his records had been doctored. But it frightened him instead. There was no sign of the real Luke Garner. Probably even his family would forget him eventually.

  Luke didn’t have time for self-pity. He turned the page, hoping his admission papers would be next.

  They weren’t. Instead, there was some sort of a daily log. Luke read in horrified fascination: