Among the Barons by Margaret Peterson Haddix

wasn’t the proper, rule-obsessed servant anymore. Even his voice sounded rougher.
    “When something’s unfair,” Oscar said, “anyone with any gumption is going to fight it. Right?”
    Luke nodded. He wanted to say, “Look, I struck a blow against the Government myself. I turned in an informer for the Population Police.” He wanted to impress this new Oscar, suddenly.
    But he wasn’t sure Oscar would be impressed by anything Luke had done.
    “I was eight when I put my first pipe bomb in a Baron’s mailbox,” Oscar said. “By the time I was twelve, I was stealing Barons’ cars. Not for my own benefit—no way! My buddies and me, we’d push those cars into the river. Can you imagine the kind of splash a limo makes? And how the police flock to the shore? We were risking our lives for the cause.”
    Luke swallowed hard.
    “So then Barons moved farther and farther out from the big cities,” Oscar said. “They all got security fences, security guards. They went crying to the Government, ‘Boo-hoo-hoo. Those vandals are out of control.’ And the Government listened to them. They passed new laws—did you know that it’s a bigger crime to destroy a Baron’s property than to kill an ordinary person? It’s true.” Oscar lowered his voice, as if confiding a great secret in Luke. “And meanwhile, ordinary people are starving in the streets....”
    “That’s not fair,” Luke said in a small voice.
    Oscar stood up and started to pace. “That’s right, it’s
     
    not fair. That’s why we’re doing something about it.”
     
    “We are?” Luke asked. He wondered if Oscar was going to say anything about the unfair Population Law, which forced third children into hiding. That was something else the Government had done wrong. Did Oscar know about those kids, who had even more reason than Oscar to hate the Government? Did Oscar care?
    Oscar paused in his pacing and gave Luke a glance that made Luke feel about as big as an insect And as easily squashed.
    “I’ve been working for the underground resistance for years,” Oscar said. “Our sole goal is to overthrow the Government and the Barons, and to reestablish justice. Equity for all, that’s our motto.” Oscar rested his hands on the back of the chair he’d been sitting in. Luke could tell that Oscar only needed to flex a muscle or two and he could have torn the chair to shreds. But Oscar wasn’t moving. He was watching Luke.
    “You and I both know,” Oscar said, “it’s treason even to say that I oppose the Government. If you reported me, I’d deny everything. And there’d be no evidence to link me to any plots.”
    Luke could tell Oscar was waiting for Luke now, waiting for some sort of cue to go on.
     
    “I won’t report you,” Luke said. “Why would I do that?” “Good,” Oscar said. “We understand each other.”
    He sat down again and seemed to relax back into his story. “I’ll admit,” he said. “I was nothing but a two-bit punk
     
    in the beginning. I was poor, uneducated—how could I be anything else? But then my friends and me, we got hooked up with some other rebels. Eggheads, we called them. They thought about stuff like political philosophy. Who needs it? But they had the money to do real damage. They taught us about having more of an impact than blowing up a few mailboxes, ruining a few cars, when the Barons could always buy new. They taught us about being subtle. They even trained some of us as accountants, computer experts, electricians, all the trades. So we could create even more problems for the Government and the Barons.”
     
    “Oh,” Luke said.
    “You know those electrical outages they kept having on the coast? We did that,” Oscar said. “Entire cities, blacked out. Because of us.”
    Luke had never heard of the electrical outages, but he tried to look impressed.
    Oscar sprawled in his chair, as if he was totally comfortable with telling Luke this part of his story
    “Nobody was supposed to know about