The boy didn’t hear him. Luke thought about asking again, louder, but the boy seemed to be some sort of guard, someone in charge, like a policeman.

Like the Population Police.

Luke put his hand over his mouth and veered away down another hall. Another bell rang and boys started running, desperate to get into their classrooms. Hopelessly, Luke followed a group of three or four through a doorway into another classroom. At least, he thought it was another classroom. For all he knew, he might have circled around and gone into the same one all over again. Maybe that was good. Maybe after class this time, he could make it up to talk to the teacher— It was a short, fat man who stood up to talk this time.

As confused and panicky as Luke felt, even he could tell it wasn’t the same teacher.

Luke hastily sat down, terrified of drawing attention to himself again. He resolved to listen carefully this time, to pay attention and learn. He owed it to everyone — to Mother and Dad, to Jen’s father, even to Jen herself.

It was ten minutes before he realized that the man at the front was speaking some other language, one Luke had never heard before and didn’t have a prayer of understanding.

Four

When the bell rang after this class, Luke didn’t even try to go against the crowd. This time the flow of traffic carried him to a huge room with tables instead of desks, and bookshelves instead of portraits on the wall. All the other boys sat down and pulled out books and paper and pens or pencils.

Homework. They were doing homework.

Luke felt brilliant for figuring that out. How many times had he watched his older brothers groan over math problems, stumble over reading assignments, scratch out answers in history workbooks? Matthew and Mark did not like school. Once, years ago, Luke had been peering over Mark’s shoulder at his homework, and noticed an easy mistake.