Among the Barons

CHAPTER 17

Did you notice, Lee? It’s a new chauffeur,” Smits said after he pulled a panel of glass shut between the driver and the space where he, Oscar, and Luke reclined on luxurious leather seats. Luke thought Hendricks School was formal and fancy, but just the interior of this car made Hendricks look like a hovel. Luke had a feeling he’d better get over being awestruck right now — the Grants’ house was likely to be even more ostentatious.

He wasn’t sure how to deal with Smits, so he only shrugged and kept looking out the window. They had driven past Mr. Hendricks’s cottage already; they were turning out onto the main road.

“Our parents never keep servants for very long,” Smits continued.

Was Smits trying to tell Luke something? Like, maybe Luke would be safe at the Grants; since there would be no old servants to remember what the real Lee had looked like?

No, Smits was talking to Oscar now.

“Did you hear me?” he demanded. “I said our parents never keep servants around for very long. They must have fired the last chauffeur. And as soon as they hear what happened at Hendricks, they’ll fire you, too.”

“Smits, the last chauffeur was fired because of you,” Oscar said. “He was fired because you bribed him into tricking me.”

“So?” Smits taunted. ‘And you’ll be dismissed because of me, too. Because you didn’t protect me during the fire.”

“You set it yourselfl” Oscar roared.

Smits gave a so-what shrug. For once Luke could sympathize with Oscar’s rage. Whenever he closed his eyes, Luke could still see the fear in the faces of his friends— friends he hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye to.

“Smits, lots of other boys could have died because of you,” Luke said. “That fire could have burned down the whole school.”

“Aw, there were sprinklers in every room,” Smits said. “There wasn’t any danger.”

Was that true? Had Luke’s heroism been for little more than a fire drill? Strangely, he felt as though Smits had taken something away from him.

Luke turned his face back to the window, hoping Smits would get the message that he wasn’t in the mood to talk. The limousine was driving down a road Luke had never seen before — which wasn’t terribly surprising. Luke had been in a car only once before, when Mr. Talbot had driven him from his family’s farm to Hendricks School. Luke had felt so overwhelmed then, he’d barely been able to take in anything he saw. Now he forced himself to pay attention. What kind of people lived in those tiny houses by the road? Was anyone tending the derelict fields? It was nearly October now — why wasn’t the countryside full of farmers busy with harvest? Luke was sure that, back home, his father and brothers were working frantically. His mother had probably taken time off from the chicken factory to help out. Did they still miss Luke as much as he missed them?

Luke swallowed a lump in his throat and closed his eyes. Sometimes it was better not to pay attention. It would be better not to think about where he was going, either, or what he might face there….

The next thing Luke knew, the car had stopped and the chauffeur was peering in through the open door.

“Please, sirs,” he said timidly. “Please? You are home now, no? Your parents will be wanting me to help you out. Sirs?”

Groggily Luke forced himself to open his eyes. He had been so soundly asleep that for a long moment he had trouble remembering where he was. Why wasn’t he in his bed at Hendricks, staring up at the bottom of Trey’s bunk? Why was his face stuck to his pillow? Or no, it wasn’t his pillow. Why was he sleeping on a leather seat?

Outdoors, behind the chauffeur, Luke could see what looked like thousands of diamonds hanging from the sky.

Even when Luke peeled his face away from the seat and shook his head to clear his mind a little, the diamonds didn’t disappear. Except now he could tell that they were cascading from a roof covering the driveway.

The chauffeur saw where Luke was looking.

“You like your mother’s new chandelier, no?” he said. “That is new since you were home last, no?”

And Luke didn’t know how to answer. Already an innocent question had stumped him.

On the opposite seat Smits and Oscar were also waking and stretching. Smits scowled at the chauffeur.

“It’s ugly, you idiot,” Smits said. “That’s the ugliest chandelier we’ve ever had.”

Sure, Smits was rude. But at least he’d saved Luke from having to answer.

Dazed, Luke stepped out of the car onto a driveway that was paved with thousands of tiny tiles, all intricately connected. Above him the chandelier swayed in the breeze. Luke stared at it in disbelief A huge gold globe hung from the portico, with bars reaching out to a dozen smaller globes, all in a circle. The diamonds dangled in ropes from each of the smaller globes, twisting together and coming to a point in a huge crystal directly beneath the largest gold globe. Each of the diamonds threw out rainbows of light all over the portico. Really, Luke decided, the chandelier couldn’t be diamonds; there couldn’t be that many huge diamonds in the whole world. The chandelier was probably just glass, and Luke couldn’t tell the difference.

Either way, it was breathtaking, stunning beyond words.

Everything was. The walls of the Grant mansion rose before him like a sheer cliff, he really couldn’t tell where the mansion ended and the rest of the world began. Luke wouldn’t have been terribly surprised if the mansion didn’t end. Unlike Hendricks School, the Grant mansion had windows, dozens and dozens of them, all split into intricate panes of heavy leaded glass. Each pane of each window shone as though the glass was polished on an hourly basis. For all Luke knew, maybe it was.

On the other side of the limousine a velvet green yard stretched out to a row of perfectly trimmed trees. Luke could see no other houses in any direction. The Grants’ estate seemed every bit as secluded as Luke’s family’s farm had been.

“You missed your home?” the chauffeur said to Luke. “You are glad to be home now, no?”

Imitating Smits’s rudeness, Luke only shrugged this time.

“Oh, oh, allow me to announce you,” the chauffeur said.

He stepped up to the double front doors and threw them open.

“Your sons are home!” he said, his voice taking on a regal rumble.

Smits stepped over the threshold first, onto a gleaming white floor. Luke hesitantly followed him.

“They’re probably not even home,” Smits said bitterly. “Dad’s at work And Mom’s at a party, of course.”

But footsteps were coming down the long, curving hallway. Just from the way they sounded — authoritative, commanding — Luke could tell it wasn’t servants headed toward him. A man and a woman came into sight They were probably as old as or older than Luke’s parents, but their faces didn’t have lines and sags like Luke’s father’s, their eyes didn’t look frightened and defeated like Luke’s mother’s. The woman had blond hair, styled into a helmet of perfect curls. She wore a brilliant red sweater and dark pants. The man had dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark suit Luke didn’t need to see any price tags to know that everything they wore was very, very expensive. He decided the couple didn’t look the least bit like parents. Luke couldn’t imagine either one of them bandaging a scraped knee, burping a crying baby, kissing a child’s forehead. Of course, if Smits’s stories about all the servants were true, they probably never had.

“My boys!” the woman shrieked in a dignified kind of way. “We’ve been counting the minutes until you got home!”

Luke braced himself to be ignored. He’d have to act normal, somehow, for the sake of the servants — the chauffeur and what looked like three maids peeking in from a nearby room. Luke just wasn’t sure what passed for normal behavior in a house like this. He watched Smits for clues, but Smits had gone all stiff, waiting for his parents to finish rushing down the hall.

And then Mrs. Grant brushed right past Smits and grabbed up Luke in a dizzying embrace. Luke got a whiff of elegant perfume, and then she released him. She stood back, looking him up and down.

“Oh, Lee, you have grown so much while you were away,” she exclaimed. “Why, last fall you barely came up to my shoulder. And now. “ Now Luke could look her straight in the face, eyeball to eyeball, if only he had the nerve. “Oh, I’ve missed you! Why did you have to stay away for a whole year?”

She wrapped him in another hug. Over her shoulder Luke caught a glimpse of Smits’s face. His whole expression had crumpled in pain.

“Smits,” Mr. Grant said, quite formally, and offered his son a hand to shake.

Luke expected the two parents to trade off — with Mrs. Grant hugging Smits and Mr. Grant thrusting a stiff hand at Luke. But when Mrs. Grant released Luke a second time, the two grown-ups only stood there, staring awkwardly at the two boys. Smits made no move toward his mother, and he might as well have been invisible, for all the attention she paid him. At least Mr. Grant managed a curt nod toward Luke.

“Well, you’ll want to get settled in your rooms,” Mrs. Grant said at last. “You must be tired after your journey Oscar, could you…”

Mrs. Grant didn’t even have to finish her request Oscar stepped forward, practically standing on Smits’s heels.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Smits muttered.

Luke felt like saying, “Don’t you want to know what happened at school? Don’t you know that those two are dangerous together?” He was used to his own parents, who would have been curious. Who would have been concerned.

He watched Smits step past his mother. She barely flickered her eyes in his direction. Her lips flattened into a thin line of disapproval. From the side Luke could see the emotions playing over Smits’s face: first pain, then fury.

Smits had wanted his mother to hug him, too.

Luke didn’t understand what he’d witnessed, or why he’d been hugged in Smits’s stead. He still didn’t understand why the Grants wanted him there. But he could tell that he’d just been sent to his room.

And he didn’t have the slightest clue where it was.