Wait a minute—Tony McGilicuddy had been in his second-grade class, and so had Jacob Hanes and Dustin Cravers…. What if they remembered too? What if they’d sent this letter because of that?
Jonah narrowed his eyes at Katherine, who took a step back under the intensity of his gaze.
“You know what?” he said, glaring at her. “You’re right. This isn’t funny at all.” He pulled the letter back out of his pocket and ripped it into shreds. He dropped the shreds into Katherine’s hand. “Throw that away for me, okay?”
“Um…okay,” she said, apparently too surprised to think of a smart-alecky comeback.
“Want to come out and play basketball with us when you’re done?” Chip asked, as she started to close the door.
Katherine tilted her head to the side, considering. Jonah figured she was adding up all the possibilities: seventh grader acting interested plus a chance to tick off older brother plus a chance to show off. (For a girl, Katherine was pretty good at basketball.) It seemed like a no-brainer to Jonah. But Katherine shook her head.
“No, thanks. I just did my nails,” she said, and pulled the door all the way shut.
Chip groaned.
“She’s your sister,” he said. “Tell me—is she playing hard to get?”
“Who knows?” Jonah said, but he wasn’t thinking about Katherine.
By dinnertime Jonah had convinced himself that Tony McGilicuddy and Jacob Hanes and Dustin Cravers were a bunch of idiots, and he didn’t really care what they thought or did. They could send him stupid letters all they wanted; it didn’t matter to him. He stabbed his fork into his mashed potatoes and savored the sound of the metal tines hitting the plate. He didn’t pay much attention to what Mom and Dad and Katherine were talking about—something about some brand of jeans that all the popular girls in sixth grade owned.
“But, honey, you’re popular, and you don’t have those jeans, so you can’t be right about all the popular girls having them,” Mom argued.
“Mo-om,” Katherine said.
Then the doorbell rang.
For a moment, everybody froze, Dad and Jonah with forkfuls of food halfway to their mouths, Mom and Katherine in mid-argument. The doorbell rang again, one urgent peal after another.
“I’ll get it,” Jonah said, standing up.
“Whoever it is, tell them to come back later. It’s dinnertime,” Mom said. Mom always made a big deal about family dinners. The way that certain other parents made their kids go to church, Jonah’s parents made him and Katherine sit down at the dinner table with them just about every night. ( And they usually had to go to church, too.) Jonah realized he was still holding his fork, so he stuck it into his mouth as he walked to the door—no point in wasting perfectly good mashed potatoes. It didn’t take him long to gulp them down, lick the fork one last time, and then transfer the fork to his other hand so he could grab the doorknob. But the doorbell rang three more times before he yanked the door back.
It was Chip standing on the porch. At first he didn’t even seem to notice that the door was open, he was so focused on pounding his hand against the doorbell.
“Hey,” Jonah said.
Finally Chip stopped hitting the doorbell. The chimes kept ringing behind Jonah for a few extra seconds.
“I’ve got to talk to you,” Chip said.
He was breathing hard, like he’d run all the way from his house, six driveways down the street. He shoved his hands through his curly blond hair—maybe trying to wipe away sweat, maybe trying to restore some order to the mess. It didn’t help. The curls stuck out in all directions. And Chip kept darting his eyes around, like he couldn’t keep them trained on any one thing for more than an instant.
“Okay,” Jonah said. “We’re eating right now, but later on—”
Chip clutched Jonah’s T-shirt.
“I can’t wait,” he said. “You’ve got to help me. Please.”
Jonah peeled Chip’s fingers off the shirt.
“Um, sure,” Jonah said. “Calm down. What do you want to talk about?”
Chip’s darting eyes took in the houses on either side of Jonah’s. He peered down the long hallway to the kitchen, where he could probably see just the edge of the dinner table.
“Not here,” Chip said, lowering his voice. “We’ve got to talk privately. Somewhere no one will hear us.”
Jonah glanced back over his shoulder. He could see the perfectly crisped fried chicken leg lying on his plate beside his half-eaten potatoes. He could also see Katherine, peering curiously around the corner at him.
“All right,” Jonah said. “Wait here for just a second.”
He went back to the table.
“Mom, Dad, may I be excused?” he asked.
“No clean plate club for you,” Katherine taunted, which was really stupid. Mom and Dad had stopped making a big deal about clean plates years ago, after Mom read some article about childhood obesity.
“I’ll put everything in the refrigerator and eat it later,” Jonah said, picking up his plate.
“I’ll take care of that,” Mom said quietly, taking the plate and fork from him. “Go on and help Chip.”
Jonah cast one last longing glance at the chicken and went back to the front door. He’d kind of wanted Mom and Dad to say no, he wasn’t allowed to leave the table. He didn’t know what anyone thought he could do to help Chip. The way Chip was acting, it was like he was going to confess a murder. Or maybe it was something like, he just found out that his parents were splitting up and he had to decide which one to live with. Jonah knew a kid that had happened to. It was awful. But Jonah couldn’t give advice about anything like that.
Chip practically had his face pressed against the glass of the front door, watching Jonah come back.