She passed back a stack of blank name tags and markers. Jonah’s hand shook as he carefully wrote his name, Jonah Skidmore. His name had never looked so strange to him before, so alien, as if it didn’t really belong to him.
What if I really am supposed to have some other identity? he wondered. The identity of a boy who’s…missing? Or from the future? Would I want to know that or not?
“Hurry up!” Katherine muttered beside him, jabbing her elbow into his side. “We’re going to run out of time!”
Jonah put the cap back on the marker, peeled the backing off the name tag, and slapped it on his chest.
“I’m ready,” he said, though he didn’t feel ready.
The three of them drifted through the crowd, peering at other kids’ name tags. Sam Bentree? Nope. Allison Myers? Nope. Dalton Sullivan?
“There was a Dalton on the list, but the last name and the address and phone number were cut off,” Chip whispered excitedly. “That could be right.”
“Let’s see if we can find anyone we’re sure about, before we try to talk to Dalton,” Katherine said. “We can get back to him at the end.”
They headed on into the auditorium. Right inside the door they saw a group of kids who were laughing and talking together, as if they had known each other for years. They wore ripped jeans and dark sweatshirts and glared when Jonah stepped close, trying to read their name tags.
“What are you looking at?” one of the guys jeered.
“Oh!” Katherine giggled flirtatiously. “Sorry. We’re just looking for some kids we met online, in an adoption chat room. We know their names, but not what they look like. And”—she glanced around, lowered her voice conspiratorially—“our parents don’t know we visit those chat rooms!”
“Only dorks visit chat rooms,” one of the girls said, looping her arm around the jeering guy’s elbow.
“Um,” Jonah said. “Okay. Thanks anyway. We’ll leave you alone now.”
He pulled Katherine away.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Trying to get beat up?”
“Oh, please,” Katherine said. “We have to have some cover story.”
“That girl thought you were hitting on her boyfriend!”
“So what?” Katherine put her hands on her hips and stared defiantly at Jonah.
Jonah’s head swam. Didn’t Katherine understand anything? What if he hadn’t been there to protect her?
Chip tugged on Katherine’s arm and Jonah’s sweatshirt.
“Come on, you two,” Chip said. “Cut that out. Let’s keep looking.”
But Mom and Dad came through the doorway just then. At the front of the auditorium, a man stepped toward a podium on the stage.
“Take your seats, please,” he said into the microphone. “We’ve got a full slate of activities for the day, and I’m sure you’re all eager to get started!”
Everyone began sitting down, even the group of tough-looking kids in the back.
Jonah got a seat right on the aisle, so he could peer over sideways at the kids in the next section of seats. The man at the microphone began talking excitedly about what a great turnout they had, what a great program they had planned, how well the county department of social services worked…. Jonah tuned him out. There was a Bryce Johnson in the aisle seat across from him, a Ryan—or was that Bryan?—Crockett one row up. Jonah wondered if he could write those names down, pass them along to Chip and Katherine, and get them to shake their heads yes or no without Mom or Dad’s noticing. He felt a little guilty that he’d never studied the survivors list the way they had, that he hadn’t made a single phone call to any of the other kids.
Jonah turned his head farther, so he could see the girl behind Ryan/Bryan Crockett. She had long blond hair covering her name tag, but she chose that exact moment to flip the hair over her shoulder.
Her name tag said Sar—. She flexed her shoulders, stretching in her seat and revealing the rest of the name tag: Sarah Puchini.
Sarah Puchini. Yes!
Jonah remembered that name. It was one Katherine had told him when they were in the driveway, playing basketball. So there was at least one other kid at the conference who’d received the mysterious letters, whose name was on the survivors list, who might want to hear what Jonah, Katherine, and Chip knew—and who might have information to share with them, too.
Jonah turned to Chip beside him.
“Sarah Puchini,” he whispered in Chip’s ear. “One row back.”
Chip’s face lit up.
On the other side of Chip, Katherine was already standing up.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jonah muttered.
Katherine looked at him blankly.
“They just said for all the kids to go back out to the lobby, to start our activities,” she said. “Weren’t you listening?”
“Oh,” Jonah mumbled.
Mom leaned over the seats.
“It sounds like you guys will be eating your lunch out there on your hike. So we’ll just meet you back here at three, okay?”
“Sure,” Jonah said.
Dad raised his hand from his armrest in a miniature good-bye wave and mouthed something that might have been, “Have fun.”
Jonah whirled around, hoping he could catch up with Sarah Puchini in the aisle, but her blond head was already disappearing through the door back out into the lobby.
Jonah joined the stream of kids flowing toward the lobby. Chip and Katherine were right behind him. The three of them rushed through the doors together.
“Where is she?” Chip asked, as the crowd came to a stop near the table where everyone had signed in. Jonah could see a woman quietly closing the door to the auditorium behind them, probably to keep the noisy cluster of kids from interrupting the adults’ program.
“Don’t know,” Jonah said, trying to stand on his tiptoes, to get a better look. There was a blond head right up front near the table. No, wait—was that Sarah over toward the side?
“How many kids do you think are here, altogether?” Chip asked.
“Fifty?” Jonah guessed. “Sixty?”