Shadow Children: Among The Hidden Part 7

Luke was terrified Dad would ask where he'd heard of hydroponics. So he just said, "No problem."

Dad left muttering, "Growing food inside... hmmm..."

Luke wished he'd had the nerve to ask about the Population Law, or the famines, or even some family history.

Once he got past the dense language, the books Jen had loaned him were full of revelations. As best he could understand it, the world had simply gotten too full of people about twenty years earlier. Poor countries had it particularly bad, and people there often starved or were malnourished. But then something worse happened: Terrible droughts struck the parts of the world that always grew the most food. For three years, they grew almost nothing. People everywhere starved. In Luke's country, the Government began rationing food, only allowing people to have 1,500 calories a day. And, to make sure there was food, they seized control of all food production. They forced factories that had made junk food to crank out healthy food instead. They forced farmers to move to land that would be more likely to produce. (Is that why we don't live near our grandparents? Luke wanted to ask his parents.) But the Government didn't think that was enough. They wanted to make sure there would never again be more people than the farmers could feed. So they pa.s.sed the Population Law, too.

In the evenings, spooning in his stew or cutting up his meat, Luke felt pangs of guilt now. Perhaps someone was starving someplace because of him. But the food wasn't there"wherever the starving people were"it was here, on his plate. He ate it all.

"Luke, you're so quiet lately. Is everything all right?" Mother asked one night when he waved away second helpings of cabbage.

"I'm fine," he said, and went back to eating silently.

But he was worrying. Worrying that maybe the Government was right and that he shouldn't exist.

Only when he got to the two computer printouts did he begin to feel better. One of the articles began, "The Population Law is evil." The other said, "Hundreds of children are hidden, mistreated, starved, neglected, abused"even murdered"for no reason. Forcing children into the shadows can be counted as genocide."

"How can this be?" he asked Jen a week later when he finally got a chance to go back to her house. "How can the books and the articles be so different?"

She handed him a gla.s.s of soda.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Luke pointed to The Population Disaster. "This book says the human race would have gone extinct if we hadn't had the Population Law. And this""he held up and shook "The Problem of the Shadows" article""this says the Population Law was totally unnecessary and cruel. It says there was plenty of food, even during the famines, except that the Barons were h.o.a.rding it." Belatedly, he remembered that Jen was a Baron. "Sorry."

Jen shrugged, not the least bit offended.

"So what's the truth?" Luke asked.

Jen shook potato chips into a bowl.

"Well, think about it. The Government allowed those books to be published"they probably even paid for them. So of course they're going to say what the Government wants people to believe. They're just propaganda. Lies. But the articles, the authors of those probably put themselves at risk getting the information out. So they're right."

Luke pondered that "Then why'd you make me read the books?" he asked.

"So you'd understand how stupid the Government is," Jen said. "So you'd understand why we have to make them see the truth."

Luke looked at the stack of thick books on the Talbots' kitchen counter. They looked so official, so important" who was he to say they weren't true?

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Luke feared he'd have to wait months between visits to Jen once the snow started. But the weather proved kind that winter"most days were dry and clear. He didn't have leafy trees to hide behind, but he began to feel safe, anyway, crawling through his and Jen's backyards. By mid-January he could make the entire journey without his heart beating abnormally at all. The odds against someone watching from one of the other Baron houses seemed too astronomical to worry about. His only concern was Dad.

Dad usually hung around the house a lot during the winter. Without the hogs to tend to, he could easily have been there even more than usual, preventing Luke from ever sneaking out. But suddenly Dad had taken to heading to town many mornings, yelling up to Luke, "I'm going to the library. You've got something up there to eat for lunch, don't you?" or, "There's some plastic tubing over to Slyton I want to check out. Tell the boys when they get in from school, you hear?"

"It's that hydroponics notion," Luke bragged to Jen one day in late January while they were sitting at the computer together. "I got Dad all excited about it, and now he's too busy with that to notice what I do."

"What's hydroponics?" Jen asked.

"It was in one of your books"you know, growing plants indoors, without soil, just using water and special minerals."

"Oh," Jen said. "Does he think the Government would actually let him do that?"

"I guess so," Luke said. "Why wouldn't they?"

Jen shrugged. "Why does the Government do anything?"

Luke didn't have an answer to that. Jen turned back to the computer chat room, where everyone was debating fake I.D.'s.

Carlos: Mom says they won't buy me one until I'm 18, because she thinks the Gov. wouldn't challenge an adult's as much. And maybe they'll be cheaper then.

Pat: Maybe Sean and I will get ours by the time we're ninety. Dad and Mom have been saving for them as long as we can remember.

Yolanda: My dad sez he's waiting to find one that's foolproof. He sez there are too many bad ones out there.

Jen began typing furiously. "Who needs a fake I.D.? Carlos, they'd probably get one for you that says 'John Smith' and you'd have to spend the rest of your life trying to pa.s.s for an Anglo. My parents have been begging me to get a fake I.D. for years, but I won't until I can have one that says 'Jen Talbot' and is really mine.

"Have you all forgotten the rally? We're all gonna get real ID.'s that say who we really are!!!! WE AREN'T FAKES! WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO HIDE!"

She jabbed the Enter b.u.t.ton so hard, the computer shook.

"But, Jen," Luke said timidly, "I thought you used a fake I.D. to go shopping with your mom. It said you were her niece."

Jen turned her fierce gaze to Luke.

"No, that was just a shopping pa.s.s," she said. "I don't like using that, either, but I figured I can't fight my parents about everything. What they're talking about""she pointed at the computer screen""is taking on a fake ident.i.ty permanently. Most shadow kids do that eventually"they go live with another family and pretend to be someone they aren't for the rest of their lives."

"So you'd rather hide?" Luke asked. He thought about using a different name, living in a different family, being a different person. He couldn't imagine it.

"No, of course I wouldn't rather hide," Jen said irritably. "But getting one of those I.D.'s"that's just a different way of hiding. I want to be me and go about like anybody else. There's no compromise. Which is why I've got to convince these idiots that the rally's their only chance."

There was a shocked blankness on the computer screen after Jen's entry. Then Carlos ventured, "Um, Jen, got any of your parents' blood pressure medicine handy? Sounds like you need it."

Jen stabbed the power b.u.t.ton on the computer. The screen instantly went dark. She spun around in her chair and clenched her fists.

"Argh!" she screamed, with a grimace of frustration.

"Jen?" Luke asked. He leaned away from her in case she decided to use those clenched fists.

Jen turned to Luke in surprise, as though she'd forgotten he was there.

"Don't you ever feel like saying, 'I can't take this anymore'?" she asked. She leaped up and began pacing the floor. "Don't you ever want to just walk out into the suns.h.i.+ne and say, 'Forget hiding! I don't care!'? Am I the only one who feels this way?"

"No," Luke whispered.

She whirled around and pointed at the computer.

"Then what's wrong with them? Why don't they understand? Why aren't they taking this seriously?"

Luke bit his lip.

"I think," he said, "people just have different ways of expressing what they feel. Those kids make jokes and complain. You run around screaming your head off and tackling people."

He was proud of himself for figuring that out, considering he really only knew five people in the whole world. But for the first time, he wondered how the rest of his family would cope if any of them had to hide. Dad would get grumpy. Mother would try to make the best of it, but you'd be able to tell that she was really unhappy. Matthew would be quiet, but would look sad all the time, the way he looked every time anyone mentioned the pigs they couldn't keep anymore. Mark would gripe so much that he'd make everyone miserable. For the first time, Luke felt a glimmer of pride, that he dealt with hiding better than anyone else in his family would. He thought[missing].

Jen snorted at his explanation. "Whatever," she said. She slid back into her chair by the computer. "But the rally's in April. I've got three months to make sure everyone's ready."

She switched on the computer and began typing furiously again.

Luke slipped away a few hours later. He wasn't sure Jen noticed him leaving.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

In February, Dad got the letter from the Government forbidding him from trying to grow anything indoors.

"It has come to our attention that you have been purchasing excess amounts of plastic pipe, such as is used in the germination, cultivation, and development of vegetative matter in an interior structure," the letter began. "Due to the preponderance of such agricultural methods in the cultivation of illegal substances, we order you to cease and desist immediately...."

Luke read the letter at supper, after everyone else in the family had had a stab at trying to figure out what it meant Somehow, after reading all the big books that Jen had loaned him, he didn't find the fancy words so daunting.

"They want you to stop," Luke said. "They're scared you're going to grow something illegal. And this part"" he pointed at the letter, although everyone else was at the table, several feet away, and he was in his usual spot on the stairs""this part, where they say, 'render all such materials for our adjudication,' that means you have to turn over all the stuff you bought and they'll decide if they're going to fine you or not."

The rest of the family looked at Luke in amazement. Then Mark started giggling.

"Drugs," he said. "They think you're going to grow drugs."

Dad flashed him a look of pure disgust. "Think it's funny? We'll see what you think next year when your feet grow and we don't have money for new shoes."

Mark stopped laughing.

"We'll get by," Luke's mother said quietly. "We always have."

Dad shoved back from the table.

"Why didn't I get a permit?" he asked no one in particular. "Maybe if I just get a permit""

By then, Luke had read the rest of the letter. "They don't give out permits for hydroponics," he said. "This says it's always illegal."

This time he only got a glare from Dad. Luke felt his father's disappointment and seeing his parents so worried about money made a small voice whisper in the back of his head, Maybe if they didn't have you, they could afford everything they want. But he didn't eat that much, and all of his clothes were hand-me-downs from Matthew and Mark. And how much could it cost to heat his attic room? Sometimes he found ice crystals on the chair he sat in to watch the neighborhood. He tried to ignore the voice.

What bothered him more was that, without the hydroponics idea to keep him busy, Dad barely left the farm for the rest of the winter. Luke made it over to Jen's only once in all of February, and twice in March, when Dad began driving around looking for the best seed corn prices.

But each time, Jen greeted him with big hugs and acted genuinely thrilled to see him. Her tantrum in January seemed forgotten. One day, the two of them made a huge mess of the Talbots' kitchen baking cookies.

"Won't your parents mind?" Luke asked when Jen scolded him for attempting to clean the flour handprints off the cabinets and refrigerator and stove.

"Are you kidding? I want this preserved. They'll be thrilled to see any sign of domesticity on my part," Jen said.

Another time, they played board games all morning, sprawled out on the floor of the Talbots' family room.

The third day, they just spent the whole time talking. Jen kept Luke enthralled with stories of places she'd been, people she'd met, things she'd seen.

"When I was little, Mom used to take me to a play group that was all third children," Jen said. She giggled. "The thing was, it was all Government officials' kids. I think some of the parents didn't even like kids"they just thought it was a status symbol to break the Population Law and get away with it."

"What'd you do at the play group?" Luke asked.

"Played, of course. Everybody had a lot of toys. And one of the kids had a dog he brought with him sometimes, and we all took turns feeding it dog biscuits."

"These people had pets, too?" Luke asked incredulously.

"Well, you know, they were Barons," Jen said.

Luke frowned. He slid down in the soft couch, so different from anything in his own house.

"My dad says that when he was little, just about everyone he knew had pets. He had a dog named Bootsy and a cat named Stripe. He talks about them all the time. Why'd the Government make pets illegal?"

"Oh, you know, the food thing," Jen said. She took a chocolate chip cookie from a pack they were sharing and waved it for emphasis. "Without dogs and cats, there's more food for humans. My dad says if it weren't for the Barons breaking the law, lots of species would have gone extinct."

Luke looked at the cookie in his own hand. So now was he supposed to feel guilty about eating food that should have gone to animals, as well as to other people?

Jen saw his expression. "Hey, don't go dopey on me," she said. "It's all a scam, remember? There's more than enough food in the world, especially now that there aren't enough babies being born."

"What?" Luke asked.

"Well, besides pa.s.sing the Population Law, the Government went on this big campaign to make women think it was something evil to get pregnant and have kids. They put posters up in all the cities, with things like, 'Who's the worst criminal?' under a picture of a pregnant lady and, I don't know, some tough-looking crooks. And then if you read the whole sign it'd tell you the woman was the worst of all. Another one""Jen giggled""it had a picture of a huge pregnant belly, with the label, 'Ladies, do you want to look like this?' And women aren't allowed to go anywhere once they get pregnant. So now, my dad told me, there are so few babies being born that the population's going to be cut in half."

Luke shook his head, confused as usual. "So why doesn't the Government take down the signs and let people have as many babies as they want?"

Jen rolled her eyes. "Luke, you've got to quit thinking this makes any sense," Jen said. "It's the Government, remember? That's why we've got to have the rally""

Luke changed the subject as quickly as he could. "What do women do if they can't go anywhere the whole time they're pregnant? I don't know about humans, but pigs take almost four months to have a baby. Do the women stay home all that time?"

"Hiding like us, you mean?" Jen asked. But she took the distraction. "Lots of them pretend they're just getting fat. My mom said she went shopping the day before I was born, and n.o.body noticed. But that's my mom and shopping."

And then she was off on a tale about her mother taking Jen shopping in a city ten hours away, just because she'd heard a store sold good purses there.

"That' s probably the only reason my brothers don't turn me in," Jen said. "If she didn't have me, my mother would drag them around shopping. Can you see those two gorillas with shopping bags?"