Free Among the Imposters by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page A

out in a squeak “See these broken-off raspberry plants? See the squashed beans? But why do I have to show you? You know what you did.”
    No guilt showed on their faces. They still looked puzzled.
    “He is crazy,” jackal boy hissed.
    “Wait a minute,” Nina said. “Did you guys walk back to school this way last night?”
    Trey shrugged.
    “We might have,” he said.
    One of the other guys spoke up.
    “It’s not like we can tell any of the trees apart.”
    “So maybe you stepped on his garden by mistake,” Nina said. ‘And didn’t even know it.”
    “I certainly wouldn’t know what a garden looks like,” one of the other girls said. “Like this? What were you growing?”
    “Nothing,” Luke muttered. He was suddenly overcome with shame. He’d felt so brave stepping out from behind
     
    that tree. Just to make a fool of himself. Looking around, he could see how the other boys could have missed noticing his efforts, and trampled his garden by mistake. This had been a pathetic excuse for a garden. He’d been pathetic for ever thinking it was anything, let alone anything worth taking a risk for. He wished he could go back and hide behind a tree forever.
     
    Jackal boy started laughing first
    “You thought this was a garden? You were sneaking out here to make a garden?” he asked.
    The others began to snicker, too. Luke’s shame turned into anger.
    “So?” he asked, defiant again.
    “So you are a lecker,” jackal boy said. He was laughing so hard, he doubled over in mirth. “A real lecker.”
    “You always say that,” Luke grumbled. “I don’t even know what a lecker is.”
    “Someone from the country” Trey explained helpfully. ‘Like a bumpkin. That’s what it really means. But now the word’s just kind of a general insult, like calling someone a moron or stupid.”
    Luke thought Trey almost sounded apologetic, but that only made things worse.
    “What’s wrong with being from the country?” Luke asked.
    “If you have to ask.. . ,“ jackal boy said, laughing again. He had to sit down on the rotting stump to catch his breath. Luke hoped he got mold smears on his pants.
     
    “Want to know something even funnier?” jackal boy continued. “I’m betting you’re really an exnay, too. So all those insults—lecker, exnay, fonrol—they’re all true. I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone who’s all three before. We’ll have to come up with a new word, just for you. What’ll it be?”
     
    Luke stared at jackal boy and the others laughing behind him. His faced burned. How could he have thought, even for an instant, that these might be kids he could trust? That he might belong with them?
    “Leave me alone!” he shouted, and turned and ran.
     
    Twenty One
     
    Luke could hear someone crashing through the woods behind him, but he didn’t look back. He’d run into the darkest part of the woods, and it took all his concen— tration to dodge the tree limbs that seemed to reach down out of nowhere. In fact, if Luke really wanted to terrify himself, he could think of those tree limbs as witches’ arms, ghouls’ fingers. He wasn’t used to running through woods at night. Back home, when he’d gone outside after dark, it had mostly been for catching lightning bugs in the backyard, playing moonlight kick ball with his brothers— innocent fun.
    He’d been so young, back then, back home.
    He forced himself to run faster, but whoever was behind him seemed to be catching up. Luke zigzagged, because he’d read once that that was how rabbits escaped their predators. Then he slammed into a tree. He screamed in pain, and reeled backwards.
    A dark shape pounced. Before he knew it, Luke was pinned to the ground.
    Luke remembered another time he’d been tackled: the
    first time he’d crept into Jen’s house. He made a noise, and the next thing he knew, she had him facedown in the carpet. And they’d become friends.
    This wasn’t Jen.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” a voice