Among the Hidden
By: Margaret Peterson HADDIX
Chapter 1
Luke is a boy who lived in the woods with
his mother, father, and two brothers. His
brothers’, Matthew and Mark were both
older than he was. One day as Luke was
outside playing, he watched a tree fall. His
mom yelled, “Come in the house now”!
When he got inside he thought to himself, “I
might not ever get to go outside again in my
life”. Luke wanted to know why his parents
was selling the woods. The woods was the
one place he was allowed to go and play on
most days. When Matthew and Mark would
go to school, Luke’s mom would let him go
outside and play in the woods as long as no
one was around. See, Luke had to live an
invisible life. The only people that knew
about him, was his mom, dad, and two
brothers. No one was allowed to talk about
Luke
him, or even mention his name when they
went outside. He was never to be seen by
other people. When people would come to
their house, Luke had to run fast upstairs
and hide, and his mom would rush to put
away everything that belong to Luke. No
one was never to know that he lived there.
Luke always knew he was different, but he
did not know why. Luke loved the woods
and was happy when he was able to go
outside. and play. For this reason, he had to
know why. One day, the family was sitting
at the kitchen table, Luke asked his question.
“Why are you selling the woods”? His dad
tried to explain to him, that the government,
those people that control the city, made them
do it. Luke didn’t like the government
because he felt like all the government did,
was yell at people and tell them what they
can and cannot do. Luke got up from his
chair, and went to the window to look
outside. He tried to imagine rows of houses
where the trees use to be. This made Luke
ask another question? “So when people start
to move in, will I have to stop looking out of
the window”? Luke’s dad, hit his hand on
the table very hard. This question made him
angry and sad all at the same time. He yelled
at Luke and said “You are not to be looking
out the window starting right now”! Luke
always wondered what would happen to him if someone ever saw him.
Chapter 2
The laws, rules made by the government,
was the reason why Luke had to be in
hiding. There was a law that said “families
can only have two children”. It was called
the population law. The population law meant that you can only have a certain
amount of people in a certain area. They
even had the Population police to enforce
the law. For example, if the police found out
that a family was getting ready to have a
3rd
third child, the family was told they could
not have the baby. So when Luke’s mom
found out she was pregnant with him she
kept it a secret. This made things very
different for the family. His brothers
couldn’t have friends over to play. They
couldn’t have a birthday party with their
friends either, because the parents’ feared
other people would find out about Luke and
tell the population police. This sometimes
made his brothers angry with him. Because
new people were going to be moving in,
Luke was not going to be able to help
with the outside chores. His brothers would make smart remarks to him about not
helping with the chores. Their mom would
tell the boys Stop being mean to Luke,
because it was not his fault that he wasn’t
allowed to help do some of the chores. Luke
didn’t really understand the law and thought
things would change when he got older.
He wanted to be to go to school, have
friends, and play outside just like his other
6th
two brothers did. On Luke’s sixth birthday
his mom made him a cake. As he was
staring at his cake, he had begun to think
6th
about Mark’s sixth birthday. Mark
6th
complained a lot on his sixth birthday,
because he wanted to have friends over and
was told no. This just made Luke want to
ask his mom why. He wanted to know why
he was so different from his brothers and
why he had to hide when people would
come over to their house.
Several days after his birthday Luke decided
to ask his mother the one question that had
been bothering him. Mom, he says, “When
will people be able to see me”? His mother
was standing at the sink washing dishes. She
dried her hands and said “can’t you just
accept the fact that you are different?” This
just made Luke ask, but “Why am I different
from my brothers?” his mom began to
explain to him, that when she was pregnant,
she was very happy. She also wanted to
show him off to everyone because she felt
that he was a miracle to their family. Luke,
began to feel confused and sad because, all
he could remember was that his mom would
hid him when people would come around.
His mother continued to explain to him, how
him being hidden was not as bad as he
thought. He was always able to be outside
playing in the woods, climbing the trees
when no one was around. He was allowed to
go into the farm and play with the baby
pigs while his brothers were at school. He
even got special hugs, and reading time with
his mother when the brothers were not
around.
Luke was starting to feel like being invisible
wasn’t so bad after all. That is until they
took the woods away from them.