But in 1483, people must have cared about that kind of thing a lot, if it determined who became king.
“So if everybody was saying that you weren’t king after all, why’d they bother throwing you out the window?” Jonah asked.
“Just because Richard can convince everyone that I’m not the king now, that doesn’t mean that he can keep them convinced,” Chip said. “Any time he does something people don’t like, they can start plotting to get rid of him. As long as I’m alive, they could say, ‘Oops, we were wrong. Edward’s parents really were married after all. He’s the real king! Let’s get rid of that Richard guy!’”
Jonah thought about this. Being king didn’t sound so great, really. It sounded like you’d spend your whole time worrying that someone was going to knock you off.
“Oooh,” Katherine said. “It’s just like fifth grade.”
“What?” Jonah said.
“Remember?” Katherine said. “Last year when Kelly Todd was kind of the queen of all the fifth-grade girls? And then Courtney LaRosa moved in from California, and everyone thought she was really cool, being from California and all. But that wasn’t enough for her, and she had to make sure that everyone started hating Kelly Todd too, so it wouldn’t be like Kelly ever got back her power. And then—”
“Katherine! The royal family in England is not like a bunch of stupid fifth-grade girls!” Jonah said.
“But it is!” Katherine said. She sounded excited now. “See, Chip, this is what ended up working for Kelly, what you ought to do about your uncle. You should—”
“He shouldn’t be trying to get the throne back,” Jonah said sternly. “We’re supposed to be making everyone think that he’s dead. Remember?”
“Oh. Yeah,” Katherine said.
They all fell silent for a moment. Jonah could hear the cheers from up above again.
“We must have convinced Richard that Alex and I are dead,” Chip said. “Since he didn’t chase after us. Do you think that’s good enough?”
“Our mother needs to think that too,” Alex said forlornly.
It was funny how Alex could sound so sure of himself, so expert when it came to talking about scientific facts or details about 1483. But whenever he talked about his mother, the queen, he sounded like a little boy again.
“So we figure out how to turn invisible again,” Jonah said. “We go haunt your mom. Do you think that will fix time enough? Do you think after that we can just go home?”
To his embarrassment, his voice broke on the word “home.” He wasn’t going to be like Katherine. He wasn’t going to think about how much nicer it would be to go back to a time when people didn’t consider you heretics just because you dressed a little funny. He wasn’t even going to think about how nice it’d be to have a thick, juicy twenty-first-century cheeseburger right about now.
But when Alex said, “Why don’t we all look at the Elucidator now?” Jonah had it out of his pocket instantly.
TWENTY-ONE
They decided to wait until dark to leave the crypt. It seemed safer that way, even though Alex figured out how to make them all invisible again.
Oddly, that was just about all they could figure out about the Elucidator. None of them could get the Elucidator to show the long list of choices they’d seen before. No matter how much they poked, prodded, pressed, rubbed, turned, tossed, or even shouted at it, the Elucidator’s screen showed only one option: INVISIBILITY? Y/N.
“Maybe it caught a computer virus, going through time?” Alex suggested, his voice thick with frustration.
“Or maybe it’s still broken from Chip throwing it at the ground,” Katherine said.
“It said the restoration was complete,” Chip argued.
“At least the invisibility works,” Jonah said, trying to calm everyone down. He amused himself by pressing the Y, then the spot on the screen where the N had been, when it was visible. Then Y again. … He could feel himself turning invisible, then visible, then invisible.
“Stop that!” Katherine said. “Now you’re going to break it!” She swallowed hard. “And … turning invisible, going back and forth—that makes me feel sick.”
“Really?” Jonah asked. He resisted the urge to hit N again, just to show her that he could.
“Timesickness, remember?” Katherine said. It was dark enough in the crypt that Jonah couldn’t be entirely sure, but he thought he saw her stick out her tongue at him. She went on in a scolding tone, “And what if there’s a limit to the number of times we can become invisible? What if you run down the batteries—or whatever that runs on—and then it doesn’t work when we need it to?”
“Stupid thing doesn’t work very well anyhow,” Alex muttered, taking the Elucidator from Jonah, turning it upside down, and shaking it. He turned it over once more—the screen still said, INVISIBILITY? Y/N.
“Maybe you’re just doing it wrong,” Chip said, jerking the Elucidator away. “Let me try.”
Pizza, Jonah thought. If we just had a big pizza in front of us, this wouldn’t seem like such a big problem. Or a big bowl of spaghetti. Or lasagna.
Maybe his true identity, whatever it was, had something to do with Italy, since all he could think about was Italian food?
Alex was yanking the Elucidator back away from Chip.
“Oh, no,” he said. “You’ll just end up throwing it on the floor again.”
“Stop it!” Katherine said. “Stop fighting! If we’ve got any hope of getting out of this place, we’ll all have to work together.”
“Fighting? Who’s fighting?” Chip said.
“Squabbling, then,” Katherine said. “You know what I mean.”
“We’re in the fifteenth century. In 1483 even squabbling involves bows and arrows or giant spears,” Chip said harshly.
“Or lances,” Alex said.
“Swords,” Chip said.
“Battering rams,” Alex said.
“You’re not making me feel any better about the fifteenth century,” Katherine said.
Alex stopped shaking the Elucidator for a moment.