Among the Brave

“Hey Peter,” a deeper voice said from above them. “This punk bothering you?”

Trey looked up at the dark figure looming over him. Somehow, not being able to see the boy’s — the man’s? — face made him even scarier.

“Anybody messes with Peter, you’ve got to answer to me,” the voice continued.

Trey huddled in terror on the ground.

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Trey pleaded. “I know Smits. Or Peter — whatever he’s calling himself now. I just want him to tell me where one of my friends is. Smits, come on, you’ve got to remember me….”

Trey could see that the person standing over him was rearing his fist back, ready to punch Trey again. Trey flinched, waiting for the inevitable pain, and Smits tried to squirm away Trey managed to keep his hand over Smits’s mouth until the last minute when he let go just so he could protect his own face with both hands.

Then Smits called out, “Wait, Mark! Don’t hit him! This really is a friend of Lee’s. And a friend of mine.”

Trey dared to peek out between his fingers. The hulking figure above him — Mark? — had relaxed his fists.

“A friend? Why didn’t you say so sooner?” Mark growled.

“Trey had his hand over my mouth and I couldn’t talk,” Smits said matter-of-factly.

Great, Trey thought I almost caused my own death by muzzling Smits. He felt totally drained suddenly Aftereffects of an adrenaline surge, he told himself.

“Look,” he mustered the energy to say, “Lee can straighten all this out. Just get Lee to come out here and explain.”

Smits sat up. It seemed like the moon had risen just in the past few minutes, and now its beams fell directly on Smits’s face. Even in such dim light, Trey could tell that Smits looked baffled.

“But, Trey” Smits said, “I thought Lee was with you. The chauffeur came and got him that very first day.”

Chapter Nine

Trey felt like Mark really had punched him again. He reeled back against the hard ground, then began to moan.

“Nooooo…

“What’s wrong with him?” Mark asked.

“I don’t know,” Smits said. “Trey, stop it! You’re scaring me.’

Trey didn’t care. Why shouldn’t everyone be as frightened as he was?

Mark slapped him, and Trey was stunned into silence.

“Hey!” Mark said. “That really does work on hysterical people. Always wanted to try that.”

He sounded so cheerful, Trey wanted to hit him back. “Everything all right out there?” a man called from the little house.

“Sure, Dad,” Mark hollered back. “We’re just fooling around. We’ll go into the barn now so we won’t bother you.”

He hustled Smits and Trey toward a door. Trey wondered if he should object — was this Mark guy dangerous? — but he didn’t have the will for resistance.

“Mother and Dad are so freaked out right now, ‘cause of the news,” Mark was saying. “And Trey don’t like strangers nohow. So — why tell them you’re here?”

Trey kept silent as they stepped into the barn and Mark shut the door behind them. It was so dark Trey could have walked into a wall with no warning whatsoever. He stayed as close to the door as possible.

“I know Dad’s got an old lantern around here somewhere,” Mark was muttering. “Oh, here it is.”

He struck a match and a light flared, then settled into a dim glow. Now Trey could see pitchforks and hoes leaning against the wall. The lantern cast eerie shadows, making the pitchforks seem giant-size and terrifying. Trey had never been in a barn before, but this one seemed straight out of his worst nightmares.

“Okay,” Mark said, as comfortably as if they were sitting down for tea in a cozy parlor. “Why’d you get so upset about L — uh, Lee, going off with that guy in the big fancy car?”

Now that they were indoors — even in a terrifying indoors — Trey realized that Mark was barely taller than Trey, and probably not much older. He wasn’t some hulking muscle man, some horrifying monster — he was just another kid. He even had a little twang in his voice that reminded Trey of Lee.

Was Mark Lee’s real brother?

“You can call him Luke around Trey,” Smits said. “Trey knows that Luke was just pretending to be Lee. You’re a third kid too, aren’t you, Trey?”

Trey stiffened. How could Smits act so casual about everything? Lee was Trey’s best friend, and even to him Trey had never actually come out and said, “I’m an illegal third child with a fake I.D. You are too, aren’t you, Lee? I’ll tell you my real name if you tell me yours.” Trey hadn’t known that Lee’s real name was Luke. He and Lee just understood each other. They both understood that if you slipped and revealed a crumb of information about your real life — your real family, your real past, your real name — a true friend would just nod and go on.

“Whose question you gonna answer?” Mark asked. “Mine or the kid’s?”

Trey looked from Mark to Smits and said, “I think Lee is in danger.”

Smits screwed up his face like he was going to cry. Mark just leaned back against the wall, his posture clearly indicating, “Nothing you say’s going to bother me.”

“Why?” Mark challenged.

Quickly Trey explained what had happened when he’d arrived at the Talbots how the chauffeur had abandoned him and kidnapped the other kids.

“He must have swung by here and picked up Lee right after that,” Trey finished. “Why didn’t anyone stop him?”

Even Mark looked worried now. He didn’t answer.

“The chauffeur didn’t kidnap Lee,” Smits said in a small voice. “Lee wanted to go. The chauffeur drove by, and stopped and talked to Lee, and then Lee came inside and said he had to leave right away.”

From Smits’s forlorn expression, Trey guessed that for him, at least, Lee’s leaving had been a little more complicated than that Regardless of what LD. card he might carry now, Smits was a real Grant, raised in unbelievable luxury But Smits had been devastated by the deaths of first his brother, then his parents. Smits had clung to Lee as his substitute brother. Smits had probably cried when Lee left.

“It happened while I was at school,” Mark said. “Luke said he’d still be here when I got home. So why’d he go off again so quick?”

There was pain in Mark’s voice. He turned his face toward the shadows like he didn’t want Trey or Smits to see the pain in his expression.

Maybe even this tough-guy Mark cried when Lee left, Trey thought. Nobody ever cried over me.

“Reckon that driver guy tricked Luke?” Mark said fiercely, like he was determined to turn all his pain into anger. “Thicked him into thinking he had to go, no matter what?”

“Yes,” Trey whispered.

His whisper seemed to echo in the silent barn. The lantern flickered, making the shadows dance even more eerily along the walls.

“Luke went back to the Grants’ house,” Mark said, his voice as hard as rock, and about as likely to betray any emotion.

“He did?” Smits said. “I didn’t know that.”

Trey saw a full play of sorrow and fear in the younger boy’s face.

“I heard Mother and Dad talking,” Mark admitted. “They didn’t know I was listening. Why…” He paused,