you — with you I might have to use both fists.”
That was how Luke knew that Mark was happier than anyone to see him.
They all shook hands politely with Smits. Luke could tell they were shy around him.
“Have you had breakfast? We were just getting ready to sit down,” Mother said.
“I could eat,” Smits said in a small voice.
Matthew and Mark brought in extra chairs from the other rooms, and they all sat around the kitchen table. Such a change, Luke thought, from when he’d had to eat on the stairs while the rest of the family ate at the table. Breakfast was just oatmeal and cooked apples, but it tasted heavenly to Luke, better than the fanciest meal he’d had at the Grants~
He wondered what Smits thought.
After breakfast everyone sat around talking, until Mother had to scurry off to work, and Matthew and Mark had to rush off to school.
“Are we going to have to put up with you when we get home, too?” Mark asked, just as the school bus pulled up.
“Probably,” Luke said. “Today, at least.”
“Too bad,” Mark said, but Luke could tell he was secretly glad.
With the others out the door, Luke’s dad asked them, “Mind if I turn on the radio? I have to check the grain reporL”.
It was so odd that Dad would ask Luke permission for anything. Luke watched Dad twist the radio dial, and the familiar voice of the news announcer crackled out of the speaker.
“Government spokesmen report record harvests this year,” the announcer said.
Luke remembered the empty fields he’d seen going from school to the Grants’ house, from the Grants’ house to home. He remembered all the lies he’d witnessed since leaving home in the first place. Even if the news announcer’s voice was the same as ever, Luke couldn’t listen unquestioningly, the way he once had. He wondered suddenly if anything the Government told the people was true.
Beside him Smits sniffled.
“They aren’t. they aren’t saying anything about Mom and Dad,” he said.
“No,” Luke said gently “They wouldn’t.” He remembered how he’d longed to hear news on the radio about Jen, Mr. Talbot’s daughter, after her rally but before he knew what had really happened. “It’s better for you if they don’t announce it,” he told Smits.
“But I can talk about it, can’t I?” Smits asked.
“Yes,” Luke said. “Here you can say anything you want.”
Smits fell silent then. Luke understood. But Dad glanced from Smits to Luke, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“Is there something I ought to know?” Dad asked.
“Later,” Luke mouthed, cutting his eyes toward Smits in a quiet signal:
Luke half expected Dad to ask more, but he just nodded and turned back to the radio news.
“Come on,” Luke said to Smits. “I’ll show you around.”
They stepped out the kitchen door into the backyard. Luke froze, staring out at the barn and the trees and the garden, now dried up and dying. Once, this yard had practically been Luke’s whole world. Once, it had seemed huge and endless, especially when he’d been gathering the nerve to run across it to see Jen. But now — now it seemed tiny Luke felt like he could cross the distance to the Talbots’ backyard in a few quick strides.
Smits sat down on the back step.
“Your family loves you,” he said. “They missed you while you were away”
“Yes,” Luke said.
“I wish my parents had.,“ Smits started, but he choked on the rest of the words and stopped. Luke patted him on the back and sat down beside him.
“My parents will take care of you now,” Luke said. “Is that okay?”
After a few seconds Smits nodded. Luke slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the I.D. that claimed Smits was really Peter Goodard.
“Do you want this?” Luke asked. “I found it in your room at school, after the fire. I didn’t know what Oscar was going to do with it, but—”
“Oscar? He didn’t know anything about it,” Smits said.
“What?” Just when Luke thought he had everything figured out, another surprise cropped up.
“You found it in his mattress, right?” Smits said. “I hid it there because I thought that was the one place he wouldn’t look. Oscar — he searched everything I owned. Every day He had ways of finding out everything.”
He took the I.D. from Luke and clutched it in his hand.
“But that first day you came to Hendricks — you had tricked Oscar then,” Luke said. “You’d locked him in the closet.”
Smits flashed Luke a disgusted look. “Oscar planned all that. He set me up. He thought I’d get to Hendricks and make some big scene and betray you, and betray my — my parents…
“Why didn’t you?” Luke asked.
Smits stared at the ground. “When I met you and had to call you Lee, it was like, just saying his name — I thought, what if you could be Lee? I mean, I knew you weren’t really Lee, but… you kind of look like him. A little. And I thought maybe… You listened to me. Like Lee used to. But other times I would be so mad at you, and I was mean to you because…
“Because I wasn’t Lee,” Luke finished. “Not for real.”
Smits nodded.
And from that garbled explanation Luke somehow understood how it had been for Smits. He’d had no one he could trust. His brother was dead and Luke was using his name. So of course he was angry But he’d also let himself drop into fantasy “Can you be Lee?” Smits had asked Luke that on his very first day at Hendricks. And Luke had wondered what Smits really meant, what code Luke was supposed to understand. But Smits had meant exactly what he’d said. He’d wanted Luke to be Lee. Nothing more, nothing less.
Luke shook his head, trying to make sense of all this new information.
“But — the fire,” he said. “Why did you set the fire if— and why didn’t you take the I.D. when—”
“Oscar set the fire,” Smits said. “Or — it was his idea. Just from what I told you that night, he figured out that I was planning to run away”.
So Oscar had been listening the whole time, all those nights Smits had reminisced about Lee. And Smits might have escaped if he hadn’t told Luke, “None of this is because of you. It won’t be your fault I even… I even kind of like you.” Everything would have been different if Smits hadn’t cared about Luke.
But maybe — maybe everything would have been worse instead of better. Maybe Smits would be dead now, too.
“But why did you want to run away?” Luke asked. “Where were you going to go?”
“Where I could find out more about Lee,” Smits said. “I wanted to talk to people who’d seen him right before he died. Oscar said he’d help me if I could make it look like it wasn’t his fault for letting me go. Like he’d been too busy fighting the fire and saving my life to keep me from leaving. So I lit the matches, and he held his hands over the sprinklers as long as he could…. I thought Oscar would leave and I could grab the I.D. at the last minute. But the fire took off faster than I’d thought, and that teacher came in, Mr. Dirk I think Oscar just wanted Mr. Hendricks to send us home, where he could make more trouble. He — he got what he wanted.”
Luke was trying to sort everything out. “So you thought Oscar would help you? Why did you act like you didn’t trust him?”
Smits looked weary “Because I didn’t. There were so many lies. I didn’t know what to believe. Sometimes I believed him, sometimes I didn’t.”
Luke shivered, remembering his own confusion about Oscar. He could sympathize with Smits, trying to cope with Oscar’s lies and manipulations for so long.
“I think I understand everything now,” Luke said. “Except — where did you get the fake I.D. in the first place? And this other one — whose was it if it wasn’t Oscar’s?”
