Revealed (22 page)

Angela will never step onto that plane
, Jonah realized, a bubble of panic starting in his chest.
Nobody at this airport will see those babies. Angela will probably start doubting she ever saw that plane. She'll think it was just a reflection in the glass, just a trick of the eye. She won't quit her job and spend thirteen years researching physics, trying to understand time travel. She'll . . . she'll throw away the note I gave her.

“Please,” Jonah whispered to Gary. “We were already so close to fixing everything. I was the only missing kid from history who hadn't gone back in time already. Well—I guess I have gone back now. And I guess maybe there's no way to keep me from having to live in the 1930s. But . . . for the other kids, for their families—can't you just let them stay here?”

Gary started laughing even more.

“Do you know how much money I'd have to give up?” he asked.

“But—for thirty-five families' happiness,” Jonah began. “All those parents who desperately wanted a kid . . . remember Andrea? Remember how her parents are going to die when she's twelve years old? Don't they deserve twelve years of happiness with Andrea before they die?”

Gary kept laughing.

“I can't believe that goody-goody JB lied to you for so long,” he said. “I can't believe you fell for it.”

“What are you talking about?” Jonah asked, even as he saw the plane pulling farther back from the Jetway. Most of the plane windows were in shadow now, so Jonah couldn't get one last glimpse of his friends as babies. But he could see into the cockpit as the plane went past. Charles Lindbergh sat in the pilot's seat, his face lit by the glow of the instrument panel.

Gary's laughter was horrible in Jonah's ears.

“It was
never
possible for time to survive with you or any of the other babies from that plane living in this time period,” Gary said.

“We had thirteen years here!” Jonah countered. “Once we fixed the past, everything was going to be great!”

Gary shook his head and rolled his eyes and laughed even harder.

And then Jonah couldn't argue anymore, because he could see the plane getting into position on the runway.
Evidently Gary and Hodge had gotten lucky with their timing, or they'd planned the plane's departure better than its arrival. Either way, there were no other planes in front of Lindbergh's waiting to take off; there were no other planes landing. The runway ahead of Lindbergh's plane was open and clear.

The plane zoomed forward, picking up speed. Jonah could see only its lights now, and they were a blur. Going, going . . .

“Andrea,” Jonah whispered. “Chip . . .”

There were other names he wanted to say, but they didn't matter now. The plane was gone. It rose from the runway—and vanished into thin air.

“Yahoo!” Gary screamed.

He let go of Jonah and began pumping his fists in the air. He spun around, practically howling with glee.

He thinks I'm too upset to do anything
, Jonah told himself.
But while he's celebrating, maybe I could just sneak away?

Jonah eased away from the window and inched toward the door. Gary made no move to stop him. Jonah sneaked his hand toward the door handle and quietly turned it.

I'll go find Angela and tell her everything. Maybe the two of us together can figure out what to do
, he thought.
No, I'll look for one of those time agents who were chasing the plane before. . . . No, first of all, I have to get Katherine back from Hodge. And the Elucidator, too. Or . . .

The door was moving outward faster than Jonah was pushing it. He turned to face the doorway head-on—and smashed directly into Hodge.

Jonah sprang back, because he didn't want to hurt the baby Hodge still carried in his arms. He was actually quite relieved to see that Hodge was still carrying Katherine around. Hodge had even wrapped her in an additional blanket, probably taken from the plane. Jonah couldn't see her face or head because of the way Hodge was carrying her, but it looked like she was contentedly sleeping against his chest.

Grab her without waking her up and making her scream
, Jonah revised his instructions to himself.
Grab the Elucidator. And then . . .

Was there anyone out there in the airport who could actually help him? Or would Jonah do better trying to escape from Gary and Hodge once they went back to 1932? Or would Jonah already be a toddler again by the time he landed, so he wouldn't be able to do anything even then?

Gary slapped his hand against Hodge's in a dramatic high five.

“We did it!” he crowed.

Should Jonah worry about the fact that neither one of them seemed the least bit concerned about grabbing Jonah again? Even though Jonah was still standing right beside the door?

Was there anything else he should be worrying about?

“How can you be so excited when Lindbergh's flying off in a plane that time agents are watching and wanting to attack?” Jonah asked, even though it made both Gary and Hodge look toward him. They still didn't try to grab him. “What if they shoot the whole plane down?”

“We've got nothing to fear from time agents,” Hodge said, beaming at Jonah. “Never again.”

“But—” Jonah began.

“Should we just go ahead and tell him everything?” Gary asked. “It'd be . . . like a kindness, to make him understand what just happened.”

“
You
want to be kind?” Hodge asked incredulously.

Gary broke out with a grin that was even wider than Hodge's.

“No, not actually,” he admitted. “I want to gloat. I want to rub it in how thoroughly we won and his side lost.”

Hodge high-fived him again.

“Not a bad idea,” he said.

“Shouldn't we be leaving for 1932?” Jonah asked. “So we can meet up with Charles Lindbergh there?”

He really meant,
So I don't have to listen to the two of you gloat. So we can get on with this—and my side really can win. So I can see for sure if Angela is there waiting for me with an Elucidator, and deal with everything if she isn't.

Maybe Jonah would have to spend some amount of
time as Charles Lindbergh's son. But surely JB and Angela would rescue him eventually, somehow.

Even if Charles Lindbergh's son is really who I'm supposed to be? Even if there's no other way to save time?
Jonah's treacherous mind threw at him.

He decided not to think about that.

“So, all right, here's the first secret we're going to tell you,” Gary said, leaning his face close to Jonah's in his exuberance. “Are you ready? We're not going to take you back to 1932 to meet up with Charles Lindbergh. You're never going to see him again.”

Jonah did a double take.

“What? But you promised him—” Jonah began.

“We aren't the type of people who keep their promises,” Hodge said with fake solemnity. “Didn't you ever notice that about us?”

Well, yes, Jonah had. Gary and Hodge had told awful lies to Jonah's friend Gavin, to convince him to pull Jonah, Chip, Katherine, and another friend, Daniella, back to 1918.

Jonah felt a little pang just thinking about his friends, who were now on their way to the future with Charles Lindbergh because Gary and Hodge had tricked him, too.

Jonah must have let some of his emotion show through on his face, because Gary said, “Ah, you can't tell me you
actually wanted to go back and live out your life as that man's son! He wouldn't even hug you, remember?”

Jonah grimaced.

“You know I don't, but—what happens when Lindbergh gets back to 1932 and I'm not there?” Jonah asked. “What if he takes revenge by talking a lot about time travel? What if he uses the Elucidator you gave him again and again and again? Or—the plane?”

“Kid, you are not very good at thinking like a criminal,” Hodge said, shaking his head. “Or like a liar.”

Jonah just looked at him.

“Charles Lindbergh's never going to make it back to 1932,” Gary said. He slapped his knee as if he'd told a good joke. “Once he drops off all the kids we want him to take to the future, he's not ever going to be able to return.”

“Genius,” Hodge said. With the hand that wasn't holding Katherine, he kissed his fingers to his lips like someone complimenting an excellent meal.

“Who could have thought of such a thing?” Gary asked. “Oh, that's right—us!”

He strutted around the cramped stairwell yet again.

“But—won't that ruin 1932 if Charles Lindbergh never goes back?” Jonah asked.

Hodge shrugged.

“It doesn't matter now,” he said. “We're going to be
crazy-rich. Who cares if we mess up 1932? Maybe it will even help us!”

Jonah's jaw dropped. The problem with dealing with liars like Gary and Hodge was that it was so hard to tell if anything they said was true.

He could believe that they cared about the money more than anything else.

“But . . . if it was such a big deal for me not to mess up 1932—such a big deal that you aren't sending me to the future and making a lot of money from me—then wouldn't it matter even more to have Charles Lindbergh vanish?” Jonah said. “I was just a little kid. He was famous! Nobody would have known anything about me if I hadn't been his son!”

Both Gary and Hodge started howling with laughter. The baby Hodge held against his chest startled at the noise, punching at the blanket as if Katherine objected to their mockery.

“He—actually—believed—our—lies!” Gary gurgled, the words coming out between bursts of merriment. “It . . . wasn't just . . . because I had the needle at his back. JB . . . must have told the same lie!”

“What are you talking about?” Jonah said. He didn't understand, but he felt prickles of panic along his hairline anyhow. It was like his body knew that he needed to prepare for shocking news.

“Jonah, Jonah, Jonah,” Hodge said, shaking his head slowly and condescendingly yet again. “Can't you figure it out? Why do you think we'd let you stand here in this stairwell while all the children of any value zoom on toward our glorious, wealthy future? You aren't Charles Lindbergh's son. You weren't born to be anybody important at all. You're nobody!”

Jonah stumbled backward, slamming against the wall.

“Nobody?” he repeated numbly. “But—but—I'm a famous missing kid from history! That's why I was on that plane. The first time, I mean. That's why you kidnapped me!”

It wasn't that he'd wanted to be Charles Lindbergh's son. It wasn't that he'd ever wanted to claim any identity besides Jonah Skidmore. But he'd had months—and centuries—of getting used to the notion that he'd started out life as someone incredible, someone worth kidnapping. Maybe even worth kidnapping again and again.

It felt like a punch in the gut to hear Hodge say he wasn't important.

Hodge was smirking.

“No, we kidnapped you because we could pass you off as Lindbergh's son,” he said, shrugging. “It was too hard
to get in to kidnap the boy himself. You look enough like him to fool his own father, and you were born the same year—your parents dropped you off at an orphanage in 1932 because they didn't want you anymore, and we just picked you up before the orphanage opened its doors. You were going to die of malnutrition a few days later, so nobody cared.”

Nobody cared?
Jonah thought.
I was supposed to die as a toddler and nobody was going to care?

There was an echo to those thoughts, immediate answers:
In this time period, Mom and Dad would have cared. Katherine would have cared.

He had such an ache in his throat now, because if Gary and Hodge really had won, then Mom and Dad would never get the chance to care about Jonah. If Gary and Hodge were telling the truth and Jonah wasn't in the planeload of babies this time around—and the planeload of babies had just flown on to the future, anyway—then Jonah's parents would never even meet him. And Jonah would just . . . well, what would happen to him now? If Gary and Hodge weren't going to take him back to 1932, what were they planning to do with him?

And Katherine?
Jonah wondered, because it was a little too terrifying to think about himself.
What are they going to do with Katherine?

Gary and Hodge had given such specific instructions to Lindbergh, to have him age her up and then turn her back into a baby. It had definitely not been random. What could they still be planning?

Hadn't they already ruined enough lives?

Jonah reached out and touched Katherine's blanket-covered back, because even if she wasn't the right age—even if he was scared to death about what might happen to either of them—it was still comforting to have her close by.

Hodge jerked the baby away from him. Jonah's fingers barely brushed the blanket. He couldn't even feel the ribbing of the pink-and-purple sweater that must still be wrapped about Katherine, beneath the blanket.

“You don't look like you're quite ready for the next revelation,” Hodge said. “Pace yourself, kid.”

“I don't care who I am,” Jonah said, trying for a defiant tone. What he really wanted to say was,
I don't care about being anyone except Jonah Skidmore.
But he wasn't sure he could get those words past the lump in his throat. He tried a different approach, snarling, “Everything you're doing can still be undone. There's still time.”

Gary looked down at his watch Elucidator.

“Actually, we're running out of time,” he said. “Maybe we should wrap this up, boss. Just in case.”

Hodge laughed merrily.

“No worries,” he told Gary. “Don't you want to savor this next part?”