“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
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 ofcrazy 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.
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?
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
— o… 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:
