On the day that his dad sells his woods, 12-year-old Luke’s life changes. Luke is the third child in his family, and per the Population Law, his existence is illegal—families can only have two children. Though Luke has never gone to school or met people aside from Mother, Dad, and his brothers Matthew and Mark, he’s been able to play and work outside on Dad’s farm a little bit, sheltered from sight by the woods. But with the woods coming down so the Government can build houses, Luke can’t go outside anymore. Instead, he’s confined to his windowless attic bedroom to play with toys that suddenly seem juvenile and read the same books over and over again.
Over the next few weeks, Luke discovers that he can see out the roof vents at either end of the attic. From one he can watch Government workers tear down the woods. Watching out the vents becomes the best part of Luke’s day, especially since Dad decides that it’s too dangerous to allow Luke to eat meals at the table with the rest of the family (someone might see his shadow through the window shade and get suspicious). Over the next few weeks, things get progressively worse for Luke’s family: the Government forces Dad to sell all his pigs, the tax bill that’s three times the usual amount arrives, and Mother gets a job at a chicken factory. With Mother working outside the house, Luke is home alone all day. He watches the construction on the houses and watches wealthy Baron families move in.
One day, when Mother and Dad forget to raise the shades in the kitchen, Luke decides to bake and do some housekeeping as a nice surprise for Mother. Dad, though, discovers Luke midday and insists it’s too dangerous for Luke to leave his attic room. When Luke looks out the vents that afternoon, he’s shocked: he sees a child’s face in a window of the nearest house. The family must have a third child.
Soon after, Luke decides to sneak over to the neighbor’s house and meet the other third child. He has to break the neighbor’s screen door, but he enters into a lavish home and finds a girl typing on a computer. She tackles him, but she’s thrilled to realize Luke is a “shadow child,” like her. She introduces herself as Jen.
Before talking too much to Luke, Jen calls Jen’s dad and tells him to disable the alarm system. Luke is terrified the Population Police will get him, but to his surprise, Jen says he’s safe. The Government is inept, and all of what Mother and Dad believe about the Government being able to watch and identify shadow children through televisions, computers, and phones is just propaganda. She explains that as a Baron, she has to hide like Luke, but her parents can bribe people to keep her safer. Luke has never been more ashamed of his family’s poverty, but he still wants to see Jen again. They come up with a signal so Luke can know it’s safe to visit, and Jen makes it look like she broke the screen door so they can keep their secret.
When Luke visits a few days later, Jen introduces him to junk food like potato chips and soda, which is technically illegal. Then, she tells him junk food is only illegal because a few decades ago, the government ran out of food. That’s why the Population Law exists: the Government believes if families only have two kids, there will always be enough food. But Jen says this is nonsense, and she’s planning a rally for shadow kids outside the president’s house. Jen goes on to show him the chat room she created for shadow kids. There are about 800 that log onto the password-protected site every day, and they all deserve to be free. Luke is anxious, afraid, and guilty that he even exists.
Jen sends Luke home with two massive books and several printed articles. From the books, Luke learns about the famine and the drought that killed people and decimated crops. The Government passed the Population Law in response, in addition to moving farmers to more fertile areas. Luke feels extremely guilty for taking food from hungry people, but he begins to feel better when he reads the articles, which insist that the way shadow children suffer is effectively genocide.
When Luke returns to Jen’s and asks which side is right, Jen says the books are just government propaganda, so the articles are right. Luke isn’t sure, but Jen says this is why her rally is important: shadow children don’t deserve to live in hiding. She says she’d never accept a fake ID (which allow shadow children to assume legal identities), because she wants to live freely as herself. Luke, as well as the kids in the chat room, don’t agree—Luke, at least, is too afraid of being killed to think the rally is a good idea.
Over the next few months, Luke only visits Jen a few times and feels increasingly guilty about his own existence. When he visits early in April, Jen is ecstatic—she thought she’d have to just pick Luke up on Thursday to go to the rally. She explains that she’s stealing her parents’ car, and that a thousand kids will be at the president’s house to protest. They’ll be safe, since the Population Police would never shoot that many kids, especially when so many of them are Government officials’ children. When Luke refuses to go, insisting only wealthy Barons like Jen can make change, Jen says she doesn’t have time for Luke anymore. Luke is enraged and terrified for Jen. She might die.
On Thursday night, Luke wakes up to Jen shining a flashlight in his face. He says he’s still not going to the rally, so Jen apologizes for being mean, says Luke was a good friend, and tells him goodbye. For the next week and a half, Luke listens to the radio every chance he gets for news of the rally. He flashes the signal to Jen’s house and gets no answer. Finally, Luke decides to sneak over to see if Jen is okay. He has to break into Jen’s house, and when he doesn’t find her, he pulls up the chat room on the computer and asks where Jen is. Suddenly, a hulking man with a gun appears behind Luke.
The man is Jen’s dad. When he learns that Luke is a shadow child and a friend of Jen’s, he lowers the gun and reveals that all 40 protesters, including Jen, were killed. The Government is suppressing news of the rally. He says that by logging into the chat room, Luke set off an alarm at the Population Police. Jen’s dad has been able to keep his bosses from realizing he’s Jen’s dad, but he works for the Population Police—and they’ll be on their way now. Luke snatches the gun, terrified, but Jen’s dad calms Luke down and explains that he works to sabotage the Population Police from within. He doesn’t think it’s true that there’s not enough food for everyone, and he doesn’t believe the Government had to take people’s rights away (such as by passing the Population Law) in order to fix things when the famines hit. He offers to get Luke a fake ID just as the Population Police knock on the front door.
Jen’s dad tells Luke to hide in the closet and tries to ward off the Population Police, but they insist on searching the house anyway. They only search the closet where Luke is hiding and then leave. When they’re gone, Jen’s dad writes on a piece of paper that he and the house have been bugged, so he can’t speak. In writing, he explains that he bribed the officers with fur coats, but the Population Police will be after him. If Luke wants a fake ID, he needs to say so now. Luke realizes he can only help other shadow children if he has a legal identity, so he says yes.
Luke tells his parents everything when he gets home that night, and a few days later, Jen’s dad drives up. Luke is now Lee Garner, a Baron boy who ran away from home, and his punishment is to go to a boarding school. Luke is sad to leave his family, and he’s afraid—but he gets in the car and drives away with Jen’s dad, excited for the future.
