JB stepped forward and crouched down before both boys.
“Alex, I can see where you would think that,” he said gently. “But you’re proceeding from a flawed hypothesis. Or … incomplete information. You don’t have to worry about trying to stay invisible in this time. Live. Use your brain to make all the discoveries you want, scientific or otherwise. Fall in love, marry, have children—well, years from now, I mean. Have an impact. There are time experts who would have agreed with your assessment, before. But we’re all seeing things a little differently now. This time period is much more in flux than we thought. It’s starting to seem like … well, like maybe the time crash was supposed to happen. Like maybe it’s supposed to be part of history.” He chuckled. “We’re not even worried anymore that Angela DuPre is never going to marry that plumber we thought she was supposed to marry. Which would be a relief for Hadley …” He muttered this almost to himself, then looked back up at the kids. “All sorts of things are changing. And that’s okay.”
If Jonah were making any bets about which of them was most likely to make the scientific discoveries of the future, he’d put his money on Alex. Even Katherine always did better in science at school than Jonah ever did. But Jonah had a thought about time travel that nobody else seemed to have figured out.
What if all those changes are because of us too? he wondered. What if we had an even bigger impact than we’ll ever know?
“Speaking of changes …,” JB began, putting his knee down and turning slightly so he could look at all of the kids at once. “I really didn’t come here just to talk.”
Katherine put her hands on her hips.
“I knew it!” she said. “You’re still going to try to get Jonah to take his turn now, aren’t you? I told you, I am not going to let that happen!” She whirled toward the house as if she was about to let out a huge bellow: Mom! Mom! Come quick! Call 911! Someone’s trying to kidnap Jonah!
“Will you just let me explain?” JB interrupted. “Before you start panicking?”
Katherine looked confused for a moment, then let the air fizzle out of her lungs.
“Explain fast,” she muttered.
“We are ready to send the next kid back in time—but it’s not Jonah,” JB added quickly. “It’s Andrea Crowell. Remember her?”
“Oh, yeah,” Jonah said. “The really quiet girl with the braids?”
“That’s right,” JB said. He began toying with a twig that had landed on the driveway. He pushed it one way, then the other. He looked back up, directly at Jonah. “We’ve run all sorts of projections, like we always do. And we keep finding unbelievable odds against success. Unless …”
“Unless what?” Katherine said suspiciously, glaring down at JB.
“Unless she has help from people who aren’t time travel experts,” JB said.
“Us?” Alex gasped.
JB nodded.
“Partially. It’s Jonah, Katherine, and …” He grimaced, as if he found what he was about to say preposterous. “This dog.” He lifted the leash toward Katherine’s hand. “Don’t ask me why that combination works. I don’t know. I don’t even know why the analyst thought to include the dog in the projection. But … sending the two of you and the dog with Andrea gives us our best chance of success.”
Katherine pointedly did not take the leash from JB’s hand. She looked like she was in shock.
“You want us to go back in time again,” Jonah said numbly. “And not even to my own time. To help someone else.”
“I thought we were done.” Katherine spoke as if she was in a trance, staring off past the basketball hoop, past the neighbor’s chrysanthemums. “I thought all I had to do was make sure you didn’t take Jonah away. … Do you know I have nightmares about the fifteenth century? Every night I’m back there on the battlefield. Every night I’m invisible, and I can’t get Chip and Alex to listen to me, to hear what they have to do. …”
“Are you refusing?” JB asked.
“Oh, I didn’t say that …,” Katherine mumbled dazedly.
JB didn’t pressure them. He didn’t say, “You do realize that all of history is depending on you, don’t you?” He didn’t say, “You don’t really have a choice.” Jonah almost wished he would pressure them and try to boss them around—because then it would be easier to say no. Then it would be all about standing up for himself, about defending his rights. Defending his life.
This was something else. This was leaving him free to imagine another kid, Andrea, going back in time all by herself, having no one at all to help her through. This was forcing him to be all mature and self-sacrificing and responsible—and choosing it for himself.
He sighed.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
“Really?” Katherine stared at him. “Well, that’s just great. It’s horrible having you for a big brother, always trying to set a good example. Because now I have to do it too!” Despite her words, there was a note of excitement in her voice now. “Please, can’t Chip and Alex come too?”
“No,” JB said. “Sorry. After their experiences they’d be just a little bit too trigger happy. Er—arrow happy.”
Another time period with bows and arrows? Jonah thought. Great. I bet they won’t have decent food then, either.
“Katherine,” Chip said. “Please …”
Katherine glanced at him, and it was almost like watching Mom and Dad communicate silently. It was like she was telling Chip, Don’t get all mushy or macho-boy protective on me now. Don’t make this harder than it already is.
“To you it’ll be like they’re just gone an instant,” JB assured Chip.
“But I’ll know,” Chip retorted. “I’ll know that they’ll really be gone much, much longer. They’ll be so far away. …”
He was gazing toward Katherine, but Katherine dived down toward the dog’s head, burying her face in the fur.