Summary
Chapter 26
A week and a half after the rally, Luke makes the dangerous decision to go over to Jen’s house. He breaks one of the windows in order to get in, and he manages to turn off the alarm the way that Jen showed him.
He wanders through the house looking for Jen, but he can find no sign of her. He logs on to the chat room and asks where she is, but there’s no reply.
Suddenly, a voice behind him informs Luke that he has a gun, and asks who he is.
Chapter 27
Guns have been outlawed by the Government, so it’s surprising that the man has one. Luke turns around and realizes that this is Jen’s father.
Luke explains that he’s a friend of Jen and that he’s a third child too. He explains how he noticed signs around the house that suggested the presence of another third child and made contact with her. Luke explains that he was too afraid to go to the rally, but couldn’t stop Jen. The man explains that Jen is dead.
Luke is horrified and grieving. Jen’s father explains that he was allowed to view her body, but he had to pretend he didn’t know her. Jen’s father explains that the police gunned down all forty children who attended the rally. Luke protests that Jen said there would be so many Shadow Children that the police would be overwhelmed, and Jen’s father replies that she had too much faith in the courage of her fellow hidden children. Jen’s father starts to cry, and Luke remembers how Jen visited the night before she left. She probably knew that the rally was hopeless, but she was still determined to try.
Jen’s father calms down and tells Luke that when he logged into the chat room, a notification was sent to the Population Police. They’ll start searching every house nearby. Jen’s father says he can get Luke a fake ID that will allow him to live a normal life; he can do this because he works for the Population Police.
Chapter 28
Panicked by the mention of the Population Police, Luke charges at Jen’s father and tries to wrestle his gun away. Luke ends up grabbing the gun, and he points it at Jen’s father. Jen’s father puts up his hands and tells Luke that he’s on his side. Luke calms down, and Jen’s father explains that he uses his job to try to sabotage the Population Police.
Jen’s father asks Luke what he knows, and Luke tells him about the reading materials that Jen gave him - both the official government sources and the documents from the rebels. Jen’s father dismisses both of these types of literature as propaganda.
Jen’s father explains that the truth is complicated. The famines really did happen, and people were willing to accept anything in order to get food. When Luke points out that the Barons got more, Jen’s father admits that this is correct, and it was a conscious choice on the part of the Government.
Jen’s father tells Luke that the Government wants people to live on the edge of survival. Nobody loses their farms, but nobody is able to live comfortably either.
Jen’s father also says that it probably isn’t necessary to enforce the Population Law anymore, but it’s become a point of pride for the Government, and particularly for a man called General Sherwood, who is one of the highest-ranked members of the government.
Chapter 29
Suddenly, there is a pounding at the door, and Jen’s father shoves Luke into a closet. Strange men break down the door of the house, and Jen’s father confronts them. Luke is amazed that Jen’s father can confront them so boldly when he had been harboring a third child.
The men say they were alerted when someone posted in Jen’s secret chatroom, and Jen’s father says that he was the one to post that message, as part of a sting operation. Jen’s father says that he was posing as Jen all along and that he was given a medal for his service in disposing of forty Shadow Children. Luke’s head swims, and he wonders if Jen’s father double-crossed her.
The men insist on seeing the computer, and Jen’s father continues to berate them, even threatening to sue. Suddenly, the men throw open the closet in which Luke his hiding, and he covers himself with a blanket. A few hangers scrape. Luke is sure they’re going to kill him, and he wishes he could say goodbye to his family one more time.
Suddenly, the men are gone, and Jen’s father reopens the closet, but holds a piece of paper in front of Luke that says “don’t talk.” Jen’s father also writes that the house is bugged with listening devices. Jen’s father also explains that he bribed the men by giving them the fur coats that he was hiding in the closet. However, it is probably only a matter of time before they find out that Jen’s father was lying.
Luke is unsure of whether he can trust Jen’s father, but then Jen’s father offers to get him a fake ID, which would allow him to live a normal life. Luke is unsure what to do, but Jen’s father stresses that he needs to decide now, since Jen’s father could be taken from power or even killed.
Luke doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life hiding, but he realizes that if he takes the fake ID, he could do something to help third children like himself. Maybe he could figure out how to grow more food, or find a way to help humans live on other planets. Like Jen, he could try to change things, but he could do it in a more subtle way.
Luke tells Jen’s father that he will take the fake ID.
Chapter 30
Lee Grant settles into a car, looking back on the rundown farmhouse he ended up at when he ran away. Lee Grant is revealed to be Luke, who has taken on the identity of a Baron boy who died in a skiing accident the night before, and he’ll live at a boarding school. Luke is relieved that he won’t have to pretend to love his new Baron parents.
Luke looks back at his true family, who watch him go sadly. Luke’s parents were shocked when he told them the full story of his contact with Jen, but they accepted the importance of Luke’s new identity. Luke’s mother was particularly heartbroken, but Luke explained that he couldn’t spend the rest of his life hiding in an attic. Luke’s father is also sad, but he says that this is Luke’s best chance at a normal life.
Luke spent two days with his true family, and his mother had told him about all the memories she had of him, from his babyhood onwards. The next day, Jen’s father pulls up and thanks Luke’s parents for sheltering the runaway Lee Grant. This ruse is necessary because Jen’s father is still bugged. Playing along, Luke takes his new papers and hugs his parents goodbye forever.
Luke rides in the car and sees more of the world than he has ever seen before. He thinks of Jen and becomes even more determined to help the other Shadow Children in her memory. Then he looks into his new life as the Baron child Lee Grant.
Analysis:
In an example of parallelism, Jen sneaks into Luke's house to say goodbye to him. Luke sneaking into Jens house is the beginning of a new stage of life for him after he meets his first friend, so Jen sneaking into Luke’s house also marks a new stage of life for him as he copes with the fallout of the rally.
Luke learns that Jen and the small group of Shadow Children that she was able to gather were killed immediately. They did not create the huge social change that they wished for. At the end of the book, Luke becomes committed to changing society and creating a future in which people can acknowledge Jen for her incredible personality and dreams.
In this section, Luke meets Jen's father, who is working to reform the system from the inside. Jen's father works for the Population Police, but he uses his position to help Shadow Children and to provide them with fake IDs.
Jen's father points out a number of important things to Luke. He says that no one goes hungry anymore but no one is able to live comfortably, and he argues that this is a deliberate move on the part of the Government, which wants to encourage people to work as hard as they can. Jen's father presents a middle ground between Luke's parents' view of an omnipotent and all-powerful government, and Jen's perspective that the Government is foolish and inept. Jen's father believes that the Government is calculating but also indifferent to most aspects of its citizen's lives.
Jen's father mourns his daughter's death, even though he cannot acknowledge his connection in public. He cares for her so much that he gives Luke a fake ID. Even though his friend Jen insisted that taking fake IDs was just another way of hiding, Luke accepts this because it has become his life's mission to help other Shadow Children.
