“That’s the headmaster’s house over there,” he said, pointing. He was just talking to break the silence. “It’s where Mr. Hendricks lives. You won’t see him around the school much. He kind of lets it run on its own.”

“I’ve already talked to him four times today” Smits said. “Oh,” Luke said. A few months ago he wouldn’t have had the nerve to say anything else. But now he ventured, “What about?”

“Important matters,” Smits said. They walked on. Luke could tell Smits wasn’t really paying attention to anything around them. Not the weeping willows draping gently toward the driveway not the sound of the brook gurgling just beyond the school grounds.

“I already saw all this, driving in,” Smits said impatiently “Isn’t there anything else?”

‘There’s the back of the school,” Luke said. “That’s where we have our garden. And the woods—”

“Show me,” Smits said.

They turned around. Luke struggled to hide his reluctance. If he was proud of the school’s nightly games, he was even prouder of the school garden. Under his direction the Hendricks students had planted it, weeded it, and coaxed it into its full glory all summer long. Luke could just imagine Smits barely glancing at it, then sniffing disdainfully “So?” And the woods — the woods were a special place, too.

Back in the spring, when Luke had first arrived at Hendricks, he’d found refuge in the woods. He’d made his first attempt at a garden in a clearing there. He’d dared to stand up to the impostor Jason there. He’d met girls from the neighboring Harlow School for Girls there — including his friend Nina, who, he was sure, would also someday help in ending the Population Law.