Invisible? Jonah thought. We’ve got to worry about invisible people too?
“Angela didn’t look upset or anything,” Jonah said. On the contrary, when he pictured her stepping into nothingness, re-living that moment he’d already re-lived so many times already, he thought she’d had an excited expression on her face. Or…determined. “But—maybe we should call her. Just to make sure. And to see if she has our lists.”
“Call her?” Chip asked. “Fifteen minutes ago, you wouldn’t even talk to me on the phone!”
“I know, but if we’re careful about what we say, just kind of hint that we want to meet with her again, to find out what happened, to see if she has our lists…. Hand me the cell phone, Katherine,” Jonah said.
Katherine dug the phone out of her pocket and handed it over.
“We don’t have her phone number anymore, remember?” Chip said.
“I’ll call information,” Jonah said. He was already starting to punch in numbers.
Katherine scrunched up her face, like she was thinking hard.
“She lives on Stonehenge,” she said. “Stonehenge Court or Street or something like that—I remember thinking that someone involved in a mystery should have a mysterious address like that.”
“Thanks,” Jonah said. To the operator, he said, “I need the number for an Angela or A. DuPre on Stonehenge—DuPre— D-U-P-R-E.”
“Thank you,” the operator said. And then, a second later, “I don’t have a listing for any A. or Angela DuPre anywhere in the city.”
“But I know she’s there!” Jonah protested.
“Maybe her number’s unlisted,” the operator said. “Or she just uses a cell phone. Lots of people are doing that now, and they’re not in the directory.”
It would be like Angela to have an unlisted number, Jonah thought.
“Thanks anyway,” he said, and cut off the call.
Chip and Katherine were staring, like they were worried about him now.
“It doesn’t matter,” Chip joked. “She’s probably not back from the time warp anyhow.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Katherine said. “You could go through a time warp, and stay in the other time for thirty years, and then return just a split second after you left.”
“I was still watching a split second after she left,” Jonah said grumpily. “She didn’t come back.”
Not being able to find Angela’s number bothered him more than it should have. It was like he didn’t have control over anything.
“Okay, then,” Katherine said, with forced cheer. “How about all the stuff Angela told us about the plane and the babies? And—her theory about you two being from the future?”
“That’s all impossible,” Chip said. “Isn’t it?”
And yet, they’d sort of begun treating it like it was real, like they believed it.
“Why would anyone come back from the future to now?” Jonah asked. “What’s happening now that matters? And here—in Ohio?”
“Yeah,” Katherine said. “If you’re going to go back in time, you save Abraham Lincoln from being assassinated. Or John F. Kennedy. Or, you keep the Titanic from sinking. Or you stop 9/11. Or—I know—you assassinate Hitler before he has a chance to start World War II.”
“Or you bet on who’s going to win the World Series, which you already know because—duh!—you’re from the future,” Chip said. “Or you invest in Microsoft stock before anybody’s ever heard of Microsoft.”
Jonah shrugged.
“Maybe there’s something big that’s about to happen here that we don’t know about,” he said. He saw Katherine trying to suppress a shiver. “What I don’t get is why there are two sides fighting over us.” He looked down at Katherine’s list, which was full of JB’s and E’s. “What do they want from us?”
“And how can we find out before it’s too late?” Katherine asked.
TWENTY-THREE
They were stymied.
For the next week, practically every day, one of them had a brainstorm.
On Monday, Katherine thought of actually walking or riding their bikes to visit every single kid in Liston they remembered being on their list. But they couldn’t remember very many street names, and the ones they remembered turned out to be way over on the other side of the highway, too far away.
On Tuesday, Jonah thought of calling other DuPres to ask them if they knew Angela, and, if so, if she was all right.
“JB and E already know that we know Angela,” he argued with Chip and Katherine. “They saw us talking to her. What could it hurt if they find out that we’re looking for her again?”
His arguments didn’t matter—the only DuPre he could find from directory assistance had just moved from Louisiana and had never heard of Angela.
On Wednesday, Chip said, “That’s it. I’m calling Daniella McCarthy back. I don’t care who hears me.”
But her phone rang and rang and rang, and then a computerized message clicked on: “This phone has been disconnected.” There was no other number given.
“Ergh!” Chip kicked his desk chair, and sent it spiraling across the basement floor. “They probably canceled their landline and went down to just cell phones during the move. That’s what we did—oh, why didn’t I call her back last week?” He pounded his fists on the desk.
On Thursday, Katherine thought of riding their bikes slowly down Robin’s Egg Lane, looking for FOR SALE or SOLD signs or—if they got really lucky—moving vans. They did find a McCoy Realty sign stuck in the yard at 1873, which sounded right to Jonah and Chip. But when they knocked at the door, the sound echoed vacantly. All the windows were covered with blinds, so they couldn’t see in.
A woman stepped out on the porch across the street.
“Nobody’s going to buy your band’s candy or raffle tickets or whatever it is you’re trying to sell there,” she said. “That house has been empty for months. And while we’re at it, I don’t want to buy anything either.”