“Oh, we’re not selling anything,” Katherine said quickly.
Jonah jabbed his elbow into her ribs, because what if the woman jumped to a worse conclusion? What if she thought they were planning to break in?
Katherine ignored him.
“We’re just from the, uh, middle school Welcome Wagon,” she said. “We had information that a thirteen-year-old girl was moving in here, and we came to make sure that she feels comfortable in Liston. Do we have our dates wrong? Do you know when the McCarthys are moving in?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that,” the woman said. “I do seem to remember hearing something about the paperwork on that house being messed up, delaying everything—but, of course, it’s none of my business.” She gave them a sharp look. “Or yours.”
Friday afternoon, Jonah shoved aside his math homework and wrote on a clean sheet of paper:
JB,
We could use a little help here. Hints? Clues? Can’t you tell us anything?
Then he tore the paper into pieces and threw it in the trash can beside his desk, because how would JB know that they called him JB? And what if E found the note instead?
It was a good thing that he’d destroyed the evidence so quickly, because a few moments later his mom poked her head in his door.
“Jonah, I didn’t want to bring this up in front of Katherine, but we got this flyer in the mail today.” She held out a glossy sheet of paper. Halfway across the room, Jonah could read the title: Adoptees on the Cusp of Their Teen Years…a Conference for Adolescents and Their Parents.
“It’s part of a series put on by the county department of social services,” she said. “This conference is just for families in Liston and Clarksville and Upper Tyson, so it probably wouldn’t be a huge crowd. You’ve just been acting so…disturbed lately, ever since we met with Mr. Reardon. Not that I blame you—I was disturbed by that man too! But even before that, you were asking questions about your adoption…. All the books say the teen years are when a lot of adoptees begin struggling with their identities. I think we should go to this. You and Dad and me.”
Liston and Clarksville and Upper Tyson, Jonah thought. Perfect.
“Okay,” Jonah said, trying very hard to hide his eagerness. He needed to sound reluctant, put-upon—maybe even still disturbed. He tried to sound as if something new had just occurred to him, as if he didn’t much care: “Oh—could we make a copy of that? I think Chip and his parents will want to go too.”
TWENTY-FOUR
“What if it’s a trap?” Katherine asked.
“How could it be a trap?” Jonah asked. “It’s sponsored by the county.”
The two of them were rather listlessly playing basketball in the driveway. Mom had shooed them outside—“Go! Get some fresh air! You’ve both been so mopey lately. I don’t think you’re getting enough exercise!” So they were standing under the hoop, but they kept forgetting to bounce the ball, to shoot it.
Chip was at a dentist’s appointment, so they hadn’t been able to share the news about the conference with him yet.
“The county,” Katherine snorted, giving the ball a hard shove toward Chip. “Yeah, and we got the list of survivors and witnesses from the FBI, which is also the government. How do you know that E didn’t set this whole thing up?”
How do we know that the government’s not involved in everything? Jonah thought. How do we know that they didn’t help E tap our phones? How do we know that the time travelers—JB or E or both of them—can’t manipulate the government however they want to? How do we know that anything’s safe?
He didn’t care anymore. He was going to the conference, no matter what. He was sick of feeling stymied.
What he said to Katherine was, “I went back and looked at the county Web site—the conference has been on their schedule for more than a year. It’d be hard to set that up as a trap.”
“The county Web site?” Katherine’s eyes bugged out a little. “So you left a trail on our computer….”
“Don’t worry, I went back in and cleared the browsing history,” Jonah said. “A kid at school showed me how to do that.”
He shot the ball with exaggerated swagger, false confidence. The ball sailed through the hoop, but Jonah had the feeling that it could just as easily have bounced off.
Just as the conference could be a trap.
“I don’t like it,” Katherine said, grabbing the rebound. “It just seems too convenient that it’s for Liston and Clarksville and Upper Tyson, and those are the same places where all the kids on the survivors list moved.”
“But it will be a perfect opportunity to talk to some of the kids from the list—I’m sure at least some of them will be there. You do remember the names, don’t you?” Jonah said.
“Sure,” Katherine said. “Andrea Crowell. Haley Rivers. Michael Kostoff.” She began bouncing the ball in time with the names. “Sarah Puchini. Josh Hart. Rusty Devorall. Anthony Solbers. Uh—” The ball landed on her foot and began rolling down the driveway. She waited while Jonah chased the ball out into the street. “Chip probably remembers the other names, or we’d remember them if we heard them.”
“Wait a minute,” Jonah said, running back. He bounced the ball back to Katherine, a little harder than necessary. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”
Katherine took a shot. The ball swished cleanly through the net. She didn’t even look surprised.
“I mean, I’m going too, of course,” she said, grabbing her own rebound and holding on to it. “You and Chip will have to pretend to be paying attention to—what are some of the sessions called?—’Identity Issues for Teen Adoptees’? Or whatever. So you’ll need me there too to get a chance to talk to all the other kids.”
Jonah didn’t want to admit it, but what she said made sense.
“How are we going to explain this to Mom and Dad?”