“Angela said there were thirty-six babies on the plane,” Chip whispered. “We only had eighteen names to start with. Nineteen, if you count Dalton without a last name.”
Did Chip think they should start interviewing all the kids around them? Jonah could just imagine it: Gotten any strange mail lately? Ever seen anyone disappear? Know anything about time travel? He didn’t think that would go over very well with the tough-looking crowd they’d already annoyed. Those kids were standing in a clump off to the side—now that he was behind them, Jonah could see that their sweatshirts all had skulls on the back.
Nice.
“All right!” a short enthusiastic man with wiry hair called as he dashed halfway up a stairway behind the registration table. He spun around to face the crowd. “Can everyone see and hear me now?”
Mumbles. “Yeah.” “Sure.” Someone—Jonah thought it was a kid in the skull group—muttered, “Why would we want to?”
“Great!” the man enthused, ignoring or not hearing the surlier comments. “I’m Grant Hodge, a caseworker at the county department of children’s services. There are soooo many of you—which is absolutely wonderful; I’m not complaining at all—but we’ve decided to break you up into two groups for our activities today. One group will come with me, and the other group will go with Carol Malveaux, over there by the door.” He pointed. “Wave at everyone, Carol.”
A woman with short dark hair lifted her arm and waved vigorously.
“One of us has got to get in the same group as Sarah Puchini,” Chip whispered in Jonah’s ear.
“I know,” Jonah said grimly.
Mr. Hodge was pulling a list out of a folder.
“When I call your name, come stand behind the table if you’re with me, or go over by the door if you’re with Carol. Got it?” Mr. Hodge was saying. “I’ll call my group first.”
“Listen to all the names!” Katherine hissed at Jonah and Chip. “We’ve got to pay very close attention!”
Jonah missed hearing the first name because of Katherine.
“Shh!” He glared at her.
“Jason Ardul,” Mr. Hodge said. “Andrea Crowell.”
Katherine grabbed Jonah’s arm and squeezed hard as a girl with light brown hair quietly slipped around the table at the front.
Jonah and Chip both nodded and mouthed the words, “I know,” at Katherine. Andrea Crowell was a name they all recognized. Jonah stared at the girl, to make sure he’d recognize her later on too. She had her hair pulled back in two braids—the style seemed to suit her, though Katherine would probably say it wasn’t very fashionable. Andrea was gazing down at her shoes, as if she was too shy to look out at the rest of the crowd.
“Maria Cutler,” Mr. Hodge continued. “Gavin Danes.”
Another squeeze from Katherine, this one a surprise. Jonah hadn’t remembered any Gavin.
Jonah got eight more squeezes before Mr. Hodge reached the middle of the alphabet. Katherine looked so excited she might burst, like a Miss America contestant waiting to hear her own name called.
“Daniella McCarthy,” Mr. Hodge said.
Another squeeze, practically breaking Jonah’s wrist this time. Jonah winced, squeezed Katherine’s arm back even harder, and glanced around, because Daniella McCarthy was someone he really wanted to see. But no one was shoving her way forward in the crowd. No one was stepping aside to make way for the girl who’d been so upset about moving.
“Daniella McCarthy?” Mr. Hodge called again.
The name hung in the air while everyone looked around. Jonah saw Katherine bite her lip, grimacing. Then, suddenly, decisively, she pulled the name tag off her shirt, and crumpled it in her hand.
The minute it was out of sight, she called out, “Oops, sorry. I’m Daniella.” She gave a sheepish wave. “My bad. I wasn’t listening.”
“Kath—” Jonah started to call after her, to yell, “you can’t do that!” but she stamped on his foot as she shoved her way forward. The “Kath—” turned into an “ow!” And then she was too far away from him to say anything. She slipped around the table and sidled up between Andrea Crowell and Michael Kostoff.
“What’d she do that for?” Jonah muttered to Chip.
“Beats me,” Chip muttered back.
“If we’re all in the same group because of this, and we don’t get to talk to all the kids, she is in big trouble!” Jonah fumed.
Sure enough, when Mr. Hodge got down to the end of the alphabet, he finished up with, “And Jonah Skidmore and Chip Winston, you’re in my group too. All the rest of you, go with Carol.”
Jonah stomped up to the front of the group, while everyone else around him except Chip was pushing back toward Carol. He slid up behind Katherine and hissed in her ear, “You go tell them you’re in the wrong group right now, so you can talk to the survivors in Carol’s group, or, so help me, I’ll, I’ll…”
He was too mad to think of an adequate threat.
Katherine turned to him with troubled eyes.
“Weren’t you listening?” she whispered back. “There isn’t anyone from the survivors list in the other group.”
Jonah blinked. His fury melted into disbelief.
“What?”
“Mr. Hodge called out every single one of the nineteen names we know, even Dalton Sullivan, who has to be the Dalton on our list,” she whispered. “Jonah, we were being sorted.”
The way she said sorted brought out goose bumps on Jonah’s arms. He forced himself to stay calm, to think back, his brain processing information he’d been too angry to fully take in before. Mr. Hodge had called out Sarah Puchini’s name—the blond girl was standing over by Anthony Solbers, a chubby boy with pimples. Haley Rivers was behind the table too and Josh Hart and Denton Price and…