A moment later, Andrea came stomping toward Jonah and Katherine and Second.
“Don’t ruin it!” she ordered Katherine. “When my grandfather sees or hears something he doesn’t understand, he gets confused. He has to fall asleep again. And you and Jonah don’t fit for him. You—”
“What, you’re saying we don’t belong here?” Katherine asked indignantly. “After all we’ve done for you? The help we’ve given you?”
Impatience played over Andrea’s face.
“That’s not it,” she said. “I’m grateful. I appreciate everything you’ve done. But can’t you feel how fragile this is? One wrong move, and time could snatch me back. I’ll be running toward the woods”—she pointed into the trees, and for an instant, Jonah thought he could see the other ghostly tracer again—”and my grandfather will be floating away. Out of reach.”
“Really?” Second said, as if Andrea had just provided him with an amazing detail. “You still feel the pull of the original tracer?”
“Less and less with each moment that passes,” Andrea said. “But still . . .”
Second frowned.
“But I was so sure,” he muttered.
Jonah decided it was time to take control of the conversation.
“Don’t worry, Andrea,” Jonah said. “Remember, this is all just temporary. We’re going to fix time—well, whatever that means now—and then we’re all going back to the twenty-first century and have our normal lives.”
Normal was sounding especially good to Jonah right now. Even the most boring moments of his ordinary twenty-first-century life seemed achingly precious. The time he’d spent brushing his teeth. Opening the refrigerator to look for a snack. Flipping through the TV channels with the remote control. Waiting for the computer to fire up. Sitting through Social Studies class at school and feeling like none of it really mattered—it was all history and dead and gone and past. . . .
“Oh, Jonah,” Andrea said, shaking her head sadly. A hint of tears glittered in her eyes once again. But, oddly, this time it seemed as if she was about to cry over Jonah. She was staring straight at him, just as intently as she’d always stared at her grandfather. “You never give up, do you? I just hope . . .”
She broke off, because something strange was happening to Second. He let out a strangled cry: “Erp—” It sounded like he was having trouble swallowing.
No. It was more like he was being swallowed.
In the next moment, Second seemed to age several years at once. His blond hair suddenly looked blond and brown, all at once. His face seemed to unravel and reknit itself into a completely different form.
And then Second pitched forward, looking like himself again. But he left behind someone else in the space he’d occupied a moment earlier. Someone taller and older, with darker hair.
JB.
JB glared down at Second on the ground before him.
“Traitor,” JB said.
The next thing JB did was surprising: He reached out and grabbed Katherine with one arm and Jonah with the other, so he could draw them both into a tight hug.
“I was so worried about you,” he murmured. “Are you all right?”
Jonah pushed away, because he wanted to show JB he could stand on his own two feet.
“We’re fine,” he said. He couldn’t stop himself from adding the rest: “Now that you’re here.”
It was such a relief to know that JB would fix the mess that Second had made of time. It was such a relief to see the smug look wiped from Second’s face. He seemed almost harmless now, lying stunned in the sand.
“I’m sorry,” Jonah told JB. “We let him manipulate us.”
“You did the best you could, under the circumstances,” JB said. “Nobody could expect any more than that.”
Katherine surprised Jonah by pulling away from JB and kicking Second’s shoulder.
“You lied to us!” She cried. “You were working for Gary and Hodge the whole time, weren’t you? You were going to steal Andrea and Brendan and Antonio—and, and Jonah—and take them off to be adopted in the future . . . and you probably would have left me here alone. . . .”
She would have kicked him again, except that JB pulled her back.
“Katherine,” he said warningly. “He actually didn’t tell you any lies. A few evasions, yes, a few partial truths, but no actual lies.”
Katherine stopped in confusion.
“But—he said he worked for you! He said he was your projectionist!”
“That’s true,” JB said grimly. “Or—it was.” He narrowed his eyes, peering down at Second. “You’re fired.”
“Wh-what?” Second moaned.
“You heard me,” JB said. “Would you like to hear my reasons? Number one, for sabotaging a crucial time mission, completely subverting the purpose of sending these kids back in time. Number two, for repeatedly endangering six lives—all the kids’, plus John White’s. No, make that seven lives. I’ll count the dog, too. Number three, for double-crossing my every effort to find Jonah and Katherine and Andrea after they disappeared from contact.”
Jonah felt oddly cheered by this item on the list. He knew JB wouldn’t have left them stranded and scared on Roanoke.
“Weren’t you looking for Brendan and me?” Antonio interrupted. Jonah was surprised—he hadn’t even noticed when the other two boys and Dare had shown up beside them.
JB glanced sympathetically at Antonio and broke off his list making.
“To the best of my knowledge—which, obviously, wasn’t very good—I thought the two of you were still safely in the twenty-first century,” JB said. “You were supposed to be going on with your lives, waiting your turn to go back in time. And”—JB glared at Second again—”it wasn’t their turn yet.”
“But—but—Andrea and us,” Brendan said. “We’re connected.”