Among the Barons

CHAPTER 10

What happened next was — nothing.

Mr. Talbot left and Luke went back to class. He took notes on plant life and musical compositions. Right before dinner he went up to Smits’s room to deliver Smits’s homework assignments, but Oscar just took them at the door. Luke didn’t even catch a glimpse of Smits.

The next day Smits was back in class, as arrogant as ever, with Oscar as menacing as ever standing behind him with his sledgehammer. Just having the two of them there killed all conversation and forced everyone to cast fearful glances over his shoulder, all the time. Luke even caught some of the boys sending resentful stares his way, as if it was his fault that Smits and Oscar were there.

And in some strange way he knew it was. Though he now realized that even Mr. Talbot wasn’t sure why the Grants had sent Smits to Hendricks.

A week passed, two weeks, three. Luke kept expecting some dramatic event — maybe another explosion from Smits. But all he had was math, science, literature. History, music, games. And, every now and then, a summons from Smits after everyone else was asleep.

Smits didn’t talk anymore about Lee’s death, either as it had really happened or as he pretended it’d happened in a dream. Instead, he’d talk about his memories of Lee, late into the night while Oscar slept — or pretended to sleep.

“Remember that time we played the trick on the butler?” Smits would say. ‘When he put on his shoes and those firecrackers went off — remember how high he jumped?”

Or, “Remember that nanny who smelled like bananas? And we couldn’t figure out why, because she was certainly never allowed to eat any. And then the housekeeper caught her washing her hair with banana paste because she’d heard somewhere that that would make it thicker, and she was in love with the chauffeur we had then, and you and I walked in on them once, kissing in the garage….

Or, “Remember how we kept stealing the maids’ feather dusters? You told me they were real birds, and I was scared they’d come to life and fly around the house in the middle of the night….”

Smits’s memories didn’t always make sense because he’d jump from story to story. And Luke could never tell how old he and Smits were supposed to have been during any of the tales. Had Smits and the real Lee flushed entire rolls of toilet paper down the toilet when they were two and three or when they were eleven and twelve? Luke could hardly ask questions. After all, the stories Smits told were supposed to be Luke’s memories, too. He shouldn’t need Smits to tell him, for example, how many cooks had gotten seared eyelashes when the flaming dessert exploded at that fancy dinner party their parents had had.

Smits didn’t seem to care if Luke understood his ramblings or not. But strangely, after just a few nights, Luke found he could join in the reminiscing, as Smits began to repeat stories Luke had already heard.

“Oh, yeah, the feather dusters!” Luke exclaimed. “I’d almost forgotten about that. Now, why in the world were you so scared of them? You didn’t really think they could come back to life, did you?”

Smits fixed Luke with a curious look.

“Yes,” he said. “I did. I didn’t know what death was.” And he launched into another tale.

At first Luke only acted — pretending to listen, pretending to care. But slowly he was drawn into Smits’s hypnotic unreeling of the lives that he and Lee had once lived. It was all a foreign world to Luke. Luke had grown up on hard work and fear; life for his family had been a constant struggle. Smits and Lee had each had a miniature car they drove around the paths of their estate. Smits had once had a birthday party where an actual circus had come and performed for his thirty-five guests.

But Luke had had a mother who tucked him into bed every night, and a father who would play checkers with him on those dreary winter days when there was no farmwork to be done. Smits and Lee seemed to have had only servants.

One night, at the beginning of Smits’s fourth week of storytelling, Luke ventured to ask in the middle of a long, involved tale about a missing teddy bear, “I forget Where was Mom then?”

Smits stopped and squinted in confusion at Luke.

“I forget, too,” he said. “Probably at a party Entertaining. Like always.”

And he went on, telling in outraged terms about the nanny who’d refused to step out onto the roof to retrieve the teddy bear from the rain gutter, where Smits had thrown it.

It wasn’t long after that night that Smits said at the very end of a long session of reminiscing, “I’m sorry I know you’ve been trying to help. At least you’ve stayed awake.” He rolled his eyes toward the huge, snoring form of Oscar. Luke stifled a yawn of his own and almost missed seeing the stern set of Smits’s jaw. Smits looked like a miniature grown-up once again.

“Whatever happens,” Smits said, “you can tell people I told you: None of this is because of you. It won’t be your fault. I even… I even kind of like you.”

He sounded surprised.