Among the Barons Read Online Free PDF

looked at Luke in bewilderment, as if he’d never seen him before.
    “Are you really homesick?” Luke asked. “Or did you just have a bad dream?”
    Behind them Oscar turned on the overhead light. The harsh glare hurt Luke’s eyes. Smits blinked rapidly
    “I guess I just had a bad dream,” he said. “I—I dreamed you died.”
    “Well, I should hope you were crying, then,” Luke said, trying to make his words sound like a joke between brothers, not a warning between strangers. “Go back to acting,” Luke wanted to tell Smits. “Don’t let Oscar know the truth. Don’t you know what’s at risk here?” But he wasn’t sure that Smits did know. He wasn’t sure that Smits cared.
    Smits sniffed.
    “Can I tell you the dream?” he asked.
    Luke stole another quick glance at Oscar, who was now practically reclining in his chair, his eyes half closed. His very posture seemed to say, “Hey, I’m just supposed to guard the kid’s body. Bad dreams aren’t my problem.”
    “Sure,” Luke said. “Tell me your dream.”
    “Y-you were skiing,” Smits said. He stopped and gulped. He wouldn’t look at Luke. He kept his head down, his eyes trained on his blanket. “You were skiing and you were in danger. You knew you were in danger—”
    “What, were you skiing behind me?” Luke asked. ‘Was I scared you’d fall on me?” He was determined to keep this light, to keep Smits from descending back into that mad grief.
    Smits flashed Luke a look of sheer fury And Luke understood. Smits wasn’t describing a dream. He was describing what had really happened to Lee. He thought Luke needed to know, and this was the only way Smits could tell him.
    “I wasn’t there,” Smits said quietly. Luke wanted to protest, to say Smits was giving away too much now. But dreams sometimes had that kind of logic, that the dreamer could know things that happened far away.
    “Did L—I mean, did I know what the danger was?” Luke asked.
    Smits tilted his head thoughtfully.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably. You were carrying something. You weren’t just skiing for fun. You were trying
     
    to get somewhere, to deliver something. And then a soldier shot you.”
     
    “A soldier?” Luke asked. He was used to fearing the Population Police. He’d never thought about soldiers hurting ordinary people.
    Of course, the real Lee Grant had never been an ordinary person. He’d been the son of one of the richest men in the country.
    “Why would a soldier want to shoot me?” Luke asked.
    “I don’t know,” Smits said. He was crying again, but quietly. “He wanted to stop you from going wherever you were going. From delivering whatever you were delivering.”
    “And you don’t know what that was? Or where I was going?”
    Silently Smits shook his head.
    Behind them Oscar suddenly released a giant snore. Luke jumped. Oscar’s snores subsided into gentler rumblings. Smits giggled.
    “Guess we don’t have to worry about—,” Luke started to say.
    But Smits stopped giggling and clapped his hand over Luke’s mouth. Then he leaned over and whispered in Luke’s ear, “He might be faking. He’s not as stupid as you’d think. He’s always watching....”
    Smits backed away from Luke. The two boys stared at each other, trying to fit back into the roles they’d been playing.
     
    “So that’s all there was to your dream?” Luke said.
    Smits nodded.
    “So, see, it was just a nightmare. It wasn’t real. I’m right here. Nothing happened to me. No soldier shot me. I wouldn’t be skiing anyhow, this time of year.”
    With every word Luke spoke, he could see more tears welling up in Smits’s eyes. Because, Luke knew, it was no comfort to Smits to have Luke there. It wasn’t reassuring to know that Luke was alive. The real Lee was still dead.
    “Here,” Luke said roughly, patting Smits’s pillow. “Just go back to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
    Smits obediently slid down lower in the bed. But he