Among the Impostors

In Chapter 1, Luke begins life at Hendricks School for Boys in the middle of the school year under his new identity as Lee Grant. On his first day, he is overwhelmed by unfamiliar surroundings, the large size of the school building, and the enormous number of students. He goes with George Talbot to the front office to have his forged medical and academic papers signed. Luke is overcome with homesickness as he thinks about how his own father would peruse the records much more carefully than Mr. Talbot before signing. When the school receptionist calls for fellow student Rolly Sturgeon to come to the office to help Luke, he becomes weak with fear as he hears the classroom roar in the call’s background. Mr. Talbot secretly slips Luke a note as they awkwardly shake hands to say goodbye.

Rolly enters the room, scaring Luke in the process. Luke almost tells Rolly that he’s “jumpy like a cat” (7), but stops himself since cats are illegal for their potential to take food that belongs to humans. His family saw and benefited from cats when he was at home in the country, but Luke remembers that his new identity as a wealthy boy from the city would make him ignorant of their existence. Luke is immediately bullied by Rolly, who scares him, tries to push him down stairs, and steals his bag. Luke tackles Rolly in the school’s hallway and an intimidating man gives them four demerits for their behavior. Luke worries about the meaning of a demerit, because he doesn’t know what they are. When Rolly shows him to his new bedroom, it contains eight beds, and no safety for reading Mr. Talbot’s secret note.

Rolly fast walks past classrooms as Luke tries to keep up with him, but their speed is still enough for a teacher to give Luke two more demerits. Before Luke can ask Rolly a question, he slips into a classroom and closes the door on Luke. Following Rolly’s path, Luke opens the same door, but compares the door’s knob to the ones he grew up with and once again becomes homesick. Inside the classroom, is overwhelmed by the number of students and can’t find Rolly in his panic. The teacher tells him to sit down, and the class stares at Luke. He becomes frozen in place as his body responds to so many eyes on him after a life of trying to stay unseen. He knows he has a false identity but cannot stop his automatic response to such exposure. A classmate kicks Luke, and he feels rough hands jerk him back into a chair. In his relief, Luke tunes out the class. Once the bell rings, he becomes lost in the whirlwind of students changing classes and finds himself in another classroom with a different teacher who is speaking a foreign language.

Luke moves with the crowd into a large room with tables and bookshelves. Terrified of standing out, Luke wonders why no one can tell that he’s an impostor and forces himself to sit still for two hours. One the way to the school’s dining hall, Luke remembers the breakfast his mother fed him of biscuits and two eggs she earned for 40 hours of unpaid overtime before he left for the school. Luke feels “a lump in his throat as big as an egg” (21) as he continues to feel homesick and confused by the school cliques and unidentifiable food. He remembers potato chips his deceased friend Jen Talbot—daughter of Mr. Talbot and a fellow third child—once snuck to him and thinks to himself that she would have never put up with the school’s conditions.

The students go to a large room where a man talks about the government’s great job of preventing starvation after the dining hall. Luke thinks to himself that the man speaks lies and startles himself with the thought. The students head off to bed, and Luke tries to find his room. Luke is bullied by a roommate and forced to call himself a servant, an “exnay,” “fonrol,” and “lecker” (25). Luke understands the terms to be insults, but doesn’t understand their meaning. Luke is ordered to sleep by the boy, who Luke thinks looks like a jackal, and he lies awake unable to sleep. Luke hopes that he can read Mr. Talbot’s note the next day. He assumes it has the answers to his questions and will help him on the path to making a difference for others. Luke whispers his real name in the dark and feels a brief surge of empowerment.

Luke continues to try to read the note from Mr. Talbot, but he never has any privacy. He realizes there are monitors in the halls and the bathrooms—which are open and communal. During his second week at school, he is finally able to get to his room quickly before bedtime. It has been difficult for him to find and he’s hoping he’ll be the first one there and can read the note. The bully, who Luke now calls “jackal boy” (31) in his mind, is already there and torments Luke more than usual. He forces Luke to do push-ups and push a marble with his nose. Luke goes to bed sore and exasperated.

Luke survives at school by following the rules, doing as he’s told, and enduring jackal boy’s bullying once a day—which he finds he can handle. He longs for his family, his real identity, and Jen, but he knows he must accept his new reality. He also misses the taste of delicious food and remembers one of his last visits with Jen when they made cookies together. He knows, however, that even the cookies and his mother’s fresh biscuits would taste bad in his lonely state. He wants friends as well but finds he can’t tell the boys at school apart from one another. They all blur together for Luke, as do the hallways and classrooms at Hendricks. At night, he mentally apologizes to his family, Jen, and Mr. Talbot. He feels he should not have left home and that the efforts to give him a new identity have been pointless.