It was a sunny November day, and nothing around them seemed to require suspiciousness. The white picket fence bordering the front of their yard stood perfectly straight; the two-story houses up and down the street were neat and well-tended; the trees and bushes and fall flowers that surrounded the houses seemed just as tidy. From what he could see around them, Jonah thought the worst danger anyone could expect here was that in a strong gust of wind the red maple in the front yard might drop a few leaves on his head.
But just last night Jonah—and Katherine and Chip and another friend, Daniella—had been kidnapped from the sidewalk between the Skidmores’ house and Chip’s. And only a week before that Jonah and Katherine had been zapped from the doorstep in front of Chip’s house back to the year 1903. And . . .
Stop thinking about the past, Jonah told himself. Figure out how to fix today’s problems.
“Um, Mom?” Jonah said, though it seemed wrong to call her that. He was almost tempted to say, Linda? He forged ahead anyway. “Who was Charles Lindbergh?”
Kid Mom turned and looked at him as though she had no clue why he was asking. Maybe she’d forgotten the conversation she and Jonah and Katherine had had in the living room before she’d un-aged thirty years.
“One of those old-time pilots,” Mom said. “The pilot who—”
Mom broke off suddenly. Her eyes bulged slightly, as if something had taken her by surprise. She gulped, swayed dizzily back and forth—and then crumpled to the ground.
EIGHT
“Mom!” Jonah cried.
He fell to his knees beside her, pushing back her hair and the hood of Katherine’s stupid CHEER! sweatshirt.
Check for the pulse point on her neck, Jonah told himself, scrambling to remember what he’d learned about fainting for his First Aid badge in Boy Scouts. Healthy people didn’t just collapse like that, did they? Especially not healthy thirteen-year-olds?
What if un-aging grown-ups back to being thirteen was something that could kill them?
Mom’s pulse was thumping nice and strong, and her chest rose and fell in what seemed to be normal breaths. But her eyelids didn’t even flutter. Jonah started to grab her shoulders to try to shake her back to consciousness. But maybe he wasn’t in such great shape himself—he was trembling so much that his left hand slipped from her shoulders and slid up onto her neck.
Something metallic hit his hand.
A necklace? Jonah wondered.
He was pretty sure Mom hadn’t been wearing a necklace.
The metal thing seemed to be embedded in Mom’s neck. And it seemed to be barbed, like a dart or . . .
Jonah decided he didn’t have time to analyze it further. All he needed to know was that this was some kind of projectile that had knocked Mom out. He grabbed Mom’s feet and pulled her back around the corner of the house. He thought about pulling the barb out, but was afraid that could cause worse damage. Instead he flattened his back against the side of the house and peeked around toward the front.
This is when I need Chip with all his Middle Ages training, Jonah thought desperately. He’d know how to figure out where that barb was shot from. He’d know how to set up a defensive battle station. He’d know how to put together scary-looking weapons from a few sticks from the ground and a handful of dead oak leaves. And he’d know how to fight off dozens of enemies. . . .
Jonah didn’t even know how far it was safe to stick his neck out, peeking around the corner of the house.
He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary—he could barely see anything at all through the various tree limbs blocking his view. Why had his parents in their adult days thought it was such a great idea to plant a spruce tree right there at the corner? He shoved his head out a little farther—and then instantly jumped back.
“Ha-ha!” someone screamed right beside him, right at the edge of the tree. “You should have seen your face a minute ago!”
Jonah backed away even more, slamming his elbow into the side of the house. He had to get that much distance to actually see who was laughing at him: a kid. A kid who looked about thirteen; a kid with thick, glossy dark hair; a kid who was so good-looking Jonah was willing to bet all the girls at his middle school would be in love with him . . .
That is, if the kid actually was in middle school, and Jonah was pretty sure that he wasn’t.
At least he wasn’t now.
“JB?” Jonah whispered.
“He’s a genius!” the kid said mockingly, and laughed again.
“You went back to being thirteen too?” Jonah asked.
This time the kid—JB—only nodded and frowned.
“Do you know how to fix it?” Jonah asked.
“Well . . . ,” kid JB began.
“No,” someone else said, stepping up quietly behind JB.
This was another kid—probably another thirteen-year-old, Jonah guessed. But this was a very tall, very pretty girl with dark skin.
“Angela?” Jonah said. “You’re a kid now too? Are there any adults around who are still adults? What about Hadley or the other time agents—”
“We can’t reach Hadley or any other time agent,” kid Angela said, her face creased with worry. “Whatever changed us also zapped our Elucidator.”
“We know the un-aging affected at least this immediate area,” kid JB said. “We’re not sure how much farther it went than that, but Angela and I were just turning in to your neighborhood—”
“—when suddenly my feet didn’t reach the gas pedal anymore,” kid Angela said. “Or the brake.”
“I had to dive down and hit the brake for her,” kid JB bragged.
“I told you, I would have gotten it myself!” kid Angela argued. “I was stretching my leg out and sliding forward . . . And then I was going to move the seat up—that was all I needed! You almost caused an accident, getting in my way!”
JB and Angela didn’t sound like themselves. It wasn’t just their kid voices—it was the fact that they were squabbling like . . . well, like Jonah and Katherine.
It’s like one of those stupid cartoons from when we were little, Jonah thought. Baby Looney Tunes. Bugs Bunny should not be a baby. Tasmanian Devil should not be a baby. JB and Angela should not be teenagers.
JB and Angela were supposed to be the adults. The ones who could take care of Jonah’s problems.
Jonah looked down at kid Mom, still unconscious on the ground. She was someone else who had always taken care of Jonah. But now she had dead leaves blowing over against her body, starting to bury her.
Jonah shivered.
“So—were you two planning to shoot my mom with a tranquilizer dart even before you turned into teenagers?” he asked, and was surprised at how much anger his voice carried. “It was just a tranquilizer dart, right? What’s going on?”
He was relieved to see JB nod and mumble, “Right—just a tranquilizer dart.”
But then Angela admitted, “We don’t know what’s going on.”
At least now there was a little bit of the compassion in her voice that she’d always had as an adult.
Kid JB stepped closer to Jonah, practically pushing kid Angela out of the way.
“We got a report that there was an unspecified threat against all thirty-six of the missing kids from history who were now in the twenty-first century,” JB said. Jonah had come to appreciate how authoritative JB’s adult voice almost always sounded; even when everything was falling apart around them, JB as an adult could usually still sound calm and confident and in control.
Kid JB sounded like this too. But that tone sounded fake coming from a kid. It made Jonah want to punch kid JB, not listen carefully and do what he said.
Jonah made himself listen anyway.
“Angela and I were hurrying to watch over you and Chip,” kid JB continued.
“Yeah, well, you were too late,” Jonah said bitterly. “And wrong about who was actually in danger.”
The other two kids stared at him blankly.
“You’re still here,” J
B said, practically smirking. “You look fine.”
“Katherine’s not,” Jonah said. And somehow, having so many adults suddenly become much younger, Jonah kind of wanted to act a lot younger himself, too. What he really wanted to do was throw himself down on the grass and sob and scream and pound his fists like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
He didn’t do any of that.
JB and Angela just kept squinting stupidly at him.
They don’t know, Jonah thought numbly. They don’t know anything about what happened.
Did that also mean that they wouldn’t know how to get Katherine back?
Jonah gritted his teeth and swallowed hard. And then he forced himself to tell them everything that had happened. The other two only interrupted once, to repeat incredulously, “Charles Lindbergh? It was Charles Lindbergh in your living room?”
“That’s who Mom said it was,” Jonah said. “She acted totally certain.”
The other two exchanged worried glances. Jonah could tell they were really hoping Mom was wrong.
“Here—see for yourself,” Jonah said, remembering that he still had the cell phone in his pocket. He pulled it out, scrolled over to the photo roll, and showed the other two. “Katherine took a picture.”
Angela took one glance and nodded.
“That’s Charles Lindbergh all right,” she said.
Digging around in his pockets reminded Jonah that he also had the scrap of paper Lindbergh had left behind. He showed that to JB and Angela too.
And then there wasn’t anything else to tell.
JB was backing away from the Lindbergh paper. He smashed right into the spruce tree and didn’t even seem to notice.
“This is bad,” he said dazedly. “Really, really bad.”
“Thanks for your expert analysis,” Jonah said sarcastically. “What should we do?”
JB winced and clutched his chest. He seemed to be struggling to catch his breath.
“Had asthma as a child . . . the first time,” he gasped. “I guess . . . it’s back. Need . . . inhaler. Anyone have . . . ?”
Did JB think there’d be one just lying around somewhere?
Jonah racked his brain for some other solution. Hadn’t they said in his first-aid training that there were treatments for asthma that didn’t involve drugs?
“Do you remember any special breathing techniques you can use?” Jonah asked.
JB shook his head.
“Would it help to be around steam?” Jonah asked.
“Maybe?” JB struggled to say. “I think my mama used to . . . boil a pot of water . . .”
Jonah tugged on kid JB’s arm, pulling him toward the door back into the house.
“Could you bring my mom inside too?” he hollered back at kid Angela. “I don’t want to just leave her lying on the ground!”
Angela nodded, but her eyes were wide with fear and worry. She looked even more terrified than Jonah felt.
And I thought if JB or Angela showed up, they’d solve everything, Jonah thought frantically. But now JB is just someone else who needs my help. . . .
Jonah hesitated. He stopped dragging JB toward the house just long enough to toss the cell phone back to Angela.
“After you get Mom inside, call the school,” Jonah said over his shoulder. “The number’s on the refrigerator door—Harris Middle. Pretend to be Chip’s mom or Chip’s dad’s assistant or something like that—some kind of adult. Tell them there’s an emergency at home and Chip needs to get out of school now.”
If the adults weren’t going to be any help—for that matter, if they weren’t even adults anymore—then Jonah needed another kid around he could count on.
And since Chip had lived part of his life during the Middle Ages, maybe he knew how someone could survive an asthma attack without an inhaler.
Or maybe everyone with asthma back then just died?
Jonah didn’t bother watching to make sure that Angela understood what he was talking about. He pulled JB, still wheezing, through the back door of the house and then into the downstairs bathroom. He turned the shower on, full strength.
“Maybe if you just try to relax?” Jonah said. “And lean your head in?”
The steam began to rise, fogging up the mirror and the shower door.
“K-Katherine,” JB stammered.
“Don’t worry about her right now,” Jonah said. “Don’t think about anything but breathing.”
Because I’m worrying enough for both of us, Jonah thought. I’m trying to save your life and keep Mom and Dad safe too—and meanwhile no one’s going after Katherine; none of us know what to do. . . .
Someone knocked at the bathroom door. Jonah opened it just a crack, trying not to let the steam out.
He was glad to see Angela pressing her face close. If it had been kid Dad, Jonah would have had no idea what to tell him.
But Angela’s face was taut with distress.
“We can’t get Chip,” she said.
“Why not?” Jonah demanded. “Couldn’t you convince the school that you were an adult?”
“That’s not the problem,” kid Angela said. “It’s because . . .”
She paused, as if trying to steady herself enough to keep speaking.
“What?” Jonah exploded.
Angela gazed sadly back at him.
“Because,” she whispered. “He’s vanished too.”
NINE
The steam swirled around Jonah’s head. For a moment his brain felt just as foggy, but he reminded himself that Katherine and Mom and Dad and JB and Angela—and now Chip as well?—needed him to stay sharp.
Focus, Jonah told himself. Try to think . . .
“Did Charles Lindbergh snatch Chip, too?” Jonah asked. “Did anyone see it happen? Why—”
Kid Angela winced.
“The school office says Chip hasn’t been there all day,” she said. “So I went over to Chip’s house and snooped around. . . . His parents look like they’ve turned back into thirteen-year-olds too. Not very pleasant thirteen-year-olds, actually. But because Mr. Winston was smoking and had the living-room window open to let the smoke out—and because he and his wife were screaming at each other—I heard exactly what happened.”
“Which was . . . ?” Jonah prompted.
“Chip had been standing by the front door, ready to go to school,” Angela said. She’d slowed down the pace of her voice, as if she was dreading describing what happened next. “One minute he was there; the next minute . . . he wasn’t.”
“Maybe he did go out the door,” Jonah said. “Maybe he just didn’t go to school.”
A few months ago, when Chip had been angry about finding out that he was adopted, Jonah could have imagined Chip skipping school just to get back at his parents. But after traveling back to the Middle Ages—and sort of temporarily growing up—Chip wasn’t like that anymore. This morning he should have been trying just as hard as Jonah and Katherine to act like everything was normal.
“Jonah, Chip’s mother saw him disappear,” Angela said. “That’s what his mom and dad are fighting about—Chip’s dad says she has to be lying. So she just keeps telling the story over and over again, in her whiny voice. . . . Sorry. Editorial comment there. But I really don’t like Chip’s parents.”
“Nobody does,” Jonah muttered.
He felt numb.
Chip can’t help? he marveled. And now I need to figure out a way to rescue him, too? All by myself?
He realized that Angela had actually helped a lot. He shouldn’t think she was useless just because she was only thirteen. Didn’t Jonah hate it when people assumed that about him?
“We need to check on everyone else, then,” Jonah said. “The other missing kids, I mean, to see if they’re okay. Gavin and Daniella and . . . and Andrea . . .”
Jonah choked up and couldn’t say another name after Andrea’s. She was another missing child he and Katherine had helped back in the 1600s, when everything about history had been horribly confused. There was a time when he�
��d hoped she’d become his girlfriend, but she’d given him the “just friends” speech. Or the “we can’t be anything except friends right now, because time travel has left me too messed up” speech, which was even worse.
Something slammed into Jonah from the back. It was JB, still wheezing a little, but able to talk better now.
“No,” kid JB said, his imperious tone back. “There’s no time for checking on anyone else. First things first. If Chip’s been taken, we’ve got to get you to safety. So nothing happens to you.”
JB was pushing Jonah forward, trying to hustle him out the door. Jonah shoved him back. JB was actually a little smaller and shorter than Jonah right now—the force of Jonah’s elbow knocked the other boy against the back wall.
“What about the others?” Jonah asked. “What about their safety?”
“They already have time agents assigned to them, taking care of them,” JB growled.
“Yeah, because you and Angela did such a great job protecting Chip,” Jonah grumbled.
And Katherine, Jonah thought, though maybe it wasn’t fair to blame JB and Angela for her disappearance. Katherine wasn’t a missing kid from history and wasn’t supposed to have been in danger.
While Jonah was thinking all that, JB shoved off from the wall, pulling a towel with him.
“Get down!” kid JB ordered. “Hide!”
He tackled Jonah with the towel, covering his head and knocking him down to the floor halfway out into the hall.
Jonah heard footsteps nearby. He peeked out from the towel.
“What are you all doing?” kid Dad asked, standing over them. “Playing tackle football inside the house? Or capture the flag? Can I play too?”
Real, normal, adult Dad would never in a million years ask that. He’d be lecturing Jonah about how much it would cost to replace the towel racks or the wall tiles if Jonah broke them with his roughhousing.
“Actually, Dad . . . ,” Jonah began, trying to think of a good explanation.
JB didn’t wait for words. He lifted his hand. Jonah heard a zinging noise, and a second later kid Dad slumped to the floor.
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