Risked (The Missing ) (3 page)

Jonah cleared his throat, delaying.

“To . . . ,” Daniella prompted him.

“To . . . Hey, wasn’t there some problem with the paperwork for your house? Messing things up? Your parents must have worked it all out, huh?” Jonah asked. As soon as he said this, Jonah realized it was a mistake. He didn’t have a good excuse for knowing about the paperwork problems.

“Everything worked out. Unfortunately,” Daniella said, with an emphatic eye roll. “I still hate Ohio. And I hate my parents for making me move.”

“It’s not so bad here,” Chip said quickly.

Jonah saw that both of them were just acting. Neither one of them actually wanted to talk about the pros and cons of moving to Ohio. Daniella’s bright blue eyes darted
about, studying first Jonah’s face, then Chip’s. She seemed to be waiting to see what they would accidentally reveal next. Chip was watching Daniella just as carefully, as if waiting for her to ask,
Whoa, dude. How is it that you even know about my parents’ paperwork problems? And, while you’re at it, would you mind explaining how you two yahoos knew about my move in the first place—before I did?

Why didn’t she just come out and ask? Didn’t she trust them to give her a truthful answer?

Jonah guessed he could see why she wouldn’t. She didn’t even know them, and they knew too much about her. But why had she hunted up him and Chip anyhow? Had Chip even mentioned Jonah when he’d talked to Daniella on the phone?

“Um . . . did you come looking for us because your neighbor told you about us? Did she say we were on the middle-school welcoming committee, or something like that?” Jonah asked.

“
Are
you?” Daniella asked. She leaned in close. She was probably six or seven inches shorter than Jonah—physically, she shouldn’t have seemed any more threatening than a kitten. But Jonah took a step back.

What am I supposed to say?
Jonah wondered.
Should I admit we asked her neighbor nosy questions about her family? Should I tell her we know her original identity?

“How did you find us?” Chip asked. He put his hand on Daniella’s shoulder, maneuvering her to the side slightly, probably neutralizing any attack she might have been planning to launch against Jonah.

That’s how you do it,
Jonah told himself.
You ask a question instead of answering hers. All that stuff about “the best defense is a good offense” probably dates back to the medieval battle strategies Chip learned in the 1400s. It’s not just one of those things coaches say.

Daniella seemed to be blushing.

“You called me,” she said. “So I had your cell number, and then, uh—”

“But I never even told you my name,” Chip said. “And Verizon doesn’t give out customers’ info to total strangers.”

Chip’s voice stayed polite, and his face gave away nothing. At times like this, Jonah thought Chip really had missed out, not getting to stay in the 1400s and rule over his country for years and years and years. He could have been a good king.

Of course, if Chip had stayed in the 1400s, he would have ended up dead before he left his teens.

“Well, um . . . ,” Daniella began. She lifted her chin defiantly. “For your information, you weren’t the only one who contacted me.”

What was that supposed to mean?

Jonah looked to Chip, because Chip seemed to be handling all of this better than Jonah was.

“Who else called you?” Chip asked in a low voice.

Daniella smirked ever so slightly.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she teased. “Let’s just say there were evidently lots of people who couldn’t wait for me to move to Ohio.”

Did my friend JB contact you?
Jonah wanted to ask.
Or—did Second? Did Gary and Hodge?

Second and Gary and Hodge were Jonah’s enemies. It was distressing that he could more easily imagine them getting to Daniella rather than anyone he trusted.

No, Second’s gone off into another dimension, and he promised to leave original time alone,
Jonah reassured himself.
And Gary and Hodge are still in time prison. Aren’t they?

Just a couple months ago, Jonah probably would have blurted out all the names, all his questions. But he had learned a little caution on his dangerous trips through time. It would be much better if they could get Daniella to tell them what she knew before Jonah or Chip revealed anything.

Chip raised one eyebrow—putting on an act again. Acting as if it didn’t matter in the least if Daniella told them anything.

Jonah tried to imitate Chip’s expression.

Daniella started to giggle.

“He said the two of you could be kind of funny,” she snorted.

“ ‘He’?” Jonah asked, trying to sound as if he didn’t care that Daniella was laughing at him. And as if he’d caught her revealing some huge clue about her informant’s identity, when really all she’d made clear was that it was a guy.

At least we’ve narrowed it down to half the world’s population,
Jonah thought.
We know Daniella wasn’t secretly talking to, say, Katherine.

Of course, he wouldn’t have believed that, anyhow.

But thinking about Katherine made him wonder why Katherine hadn’t shown up at the door—because of hearing Chip’s voice, if nothing else. Chip and Katherine had kind of become boyfriend and girlfriend after the trip to the 1400s. But given that Katherine had ended up traveling with Jonah to three different centuries after that, Jonah guessed it wasn’t exactly a normal middle-school relationship.

At least Katherine was doing better with Chip than Jonah was with Andrea, the girl he liked. Andrea had given him the “let’s just be friends” talk after they’d both returned from the 1600s. Jonah hoped he might be able to change her mind someday, but so far that hadn’t happened.

Don’t think about Andrea right now. . . . Should I be worrying about what Mom and Katherine are finding online that would keep Katherine away from Chip?

Daniella had gone back to watching him and Chip very carefully. No—she had one of her own eyebrows raised, mocking them.

Jonah turned around and pulled the door open just a crack.

“Hey, Katherine?” he hollered into the house. “Want to come out here for a minute? There’s someone you might want to meet.”

Maybe Katherine could figure out how to deal with Daniella. Sometimes girls were better at understanding other girls.

A moment later Katherine pushed her way out the door. But—so did Mom. The last thing Jonah needed was Mom figuring out that something weird was going on.

“Hi,” Daniella said, holding out her hand. “I’m Daniella McCarthy. My family just moved here today.”

Jonah saw Katherine’s eyes widen. As soon as Mom and Daniella were distracted shaking hands, Katherine mouthed silently to Jonah and Chip,
Is that who I think it is?

Jonah winced and nodded. Then he looked quickly toward Mom to make sure she hadn’t seen him wincing and nodding.

Mom actually looked a bit dazed herself.

“Wow,” she was saying to Daniella. “Has anybody ever told you you look almost exactly like . . . ,” She caught herself and shook her head quickly. Jonah wasn’t sure if she was telling herself
That would be impossible
or
No kid wants to hear that she looks like some girl who’s been dead for nearly a century.
But Mom put on a polite smile. “Sorry. I guess it’s the power of suggestion. Retained images on the eyeball, or something like that. My daughter and I were just looking at some pictures online and it just made me think . . . um . . . have you met Katherine?” She kind of pushed Katherine forward. “Where did you say you moved here from?”

It had been a long time since Jonah had seen his mom act so flustered. It wasn’t like she was actually going to figure out that this really was Anastasia Romanov standing before them, but still. She was making him nervous. How could he get Mom to go away without making her even more suspicious?

Now Daniella was shaking Katherine’s hand and saying, “I’m from Michigan. Ann Arbor, Michigan.” And the whole time she was watching everyone carefully, observing Mom’s befuddled fumbling, and Katherine’s eyes widening all over again at the mention of Michigan.

“And you say you just got here today?” Katherine asked, her voice too high-pitched and curious.

Mom began looking suspiciously at Katherine, too. Katherine dug her hand into her sweatshirt pocket.

“Kath—,” Mom began.

Just then, the phone rang inside the house.

“Oh, excuse me. I’d better get that,” Mom said.

She disappeared back into the house.

Now it was Daniella looking at Katherine with wide-eyed amazement.

“You use that trick too?” Daniella asked. “I thought my parents were the only ones who didn’t have caller ID on their landline.”

Jonah realized what had happened: Katherine had secretly called the home phone on her cell, just to get Mom to go away.

Katherine flipped a strand of her long blond hair over her shoulder and smiled angelically.

“It’s only going to work for a minute,” Jonah said. “She’ll be back as soon as she picks up the phone and nobody’s there.”

Katherine kept smiling.

“But we won’t be here when she comes back,” she said. She opened the front door again and hollered inside, “Hey, Mom? Dad? Jonah and I are going down to Chip’s for a little bit. Okay?”

She didn’t wait for an answer.

“Smooth,” Daniella said admiringly.

Devious,
Jonah thought.
And—likely to get us in trouble, since, technically, we didn’t get permission.

But he stepped down from the porch with everyone else. The four of them walked through the yard and out to the sidewalk in an uncomfortable pack. Jonah wished he could pull Chip and Katherine aside and confer with them:
Should we just tell Daniella everything? Is it fair to keep her in the dark? How much should we worry about whoever else she’s been talking to?
Of course there was no way to do this without Daniella noticing. But Jonah glanced around anyway, on the lookout for hiding spots between his house and Chip’s.

That was how he first noticed the boy crouched behind the shrub in the next-door neighbor’s yard.

Jonah elbowed Katherine.

“Do you think that’s—,” he began.

He wanted her to tell him the boy was just one of the neighborhood kids playing hide-and-seek or capture the flag. It was a little early in the school year for the high-school kids to be out playing senior tag, but who knew, maybe this was a particularly ambitious senior class.

Jonah didn’t even get to finish his sentence.

Katherine was just starting to turn and look toward Jonah, when suddenly the boy sprang out from behind the shrub and lunged at them. Jonah saw only the boy’s
clothes: jeans and running shoes and a black sweatshirt, with the hood of the sweatshirt pulled forward to cover most of his face. And then the boy was grabbing all of them, pushing Jonah and Katherine together with Chip and Daniella, trapping them in his long arms.

“Now!” the boy cried.

Everything else around them disappeared.

“You set us up!” Katherine screamed at Daniella.

“I did not!” Daniella screamed back. “I didn’t know . . . Where are we? What’s happening? Where are we going?”

Her voice held pure, stark terror, so Jonah was inclined to believe that she was telling the truth. Or that if she had set them up, she hadn’t known where it would lead.

“Relax,” Jonah said. “You’re not in any danger. Well, not right at this moment. I know it’s hard to believe, but we’re traveling through time right now.” He looked around at the familiar blank darkness of Outer Time. The only lights were far off in the distance, rushing toward them. “There’s a lot that somebody should explain to you, but for now you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“How can you be so sure?” Daniella screeched. Jonah could barely see her, but he could tell that she was whipping
her head from side to side in panic. If she wasn’t careful, she might end up giving herself whiplash.

“Me and Katherine—well, and Chip, too—we’ve got a lot of experience traveling through time,” Jonah said, trying for a soothing tone.

“Not like this,” an unfamiliar voice growled near Jonah’s ear. “Not in this direction.”

Jonah turned his head to the side and made out the dim outline of a black hooded sweatshirt.

“You mean—” Katherine began.

“That’s right, Katherine,” the boy said mockingly. “This time we’re going to the future.”

Katherine gasped. For all Jonah knew, Chip and Daniella might have done the same thing, but Jonah blanked out of the conversation for a moment.

The future . . . ? Why . . . ?

Jonah wormed his right arm out of the boy’s grasp and reached out to knock the other kid’s hood back from his head. The boy’s face shone pale in the dim light, his hair unnaturally dark.

“You!” Jonah snarled.

“You know who I am?” the boy taunted.

“Alexis Romanov!” Jonah accused, because he’d just figured that out. “And—”

Before Jonah could explain the other identity he knew
for the boy, the boy suddenly let go of Katherine and Chip and Daniella. They floated ever so slightly away. But the boy kept his hold on Jonah. He slid his hands up until he had them cupped around Jonah’s neck.

“Don’t call me that!” the boy screamed. “Anyway, it should be Alexei, but—I am not Alexis
or
Alexei Romanov! I refuse to be him!”

Chip and Katherine and Daniella struggled back toward Jonah and the boy. They began tugging on the boy’s arms, pulling him back from Jonah.

“What is wrong with you?” Daniella asked the boy. “You never said anything about wanting to choke anyone to death! Or about traveling through time—”

“You were one of the kids with skulls on their sweatshirts, weren’t you?” Katherine asked. “That day at the time cave—”

“And you were the one who helped Gary and Hodge!” Chip accused.

Jonah rubbed his hands against his neck, trying to rub away the soreness where the boy had grabbed him. He felt dizzy. Could he be suffering from oxygen deprivation just from the one second the boy had had his hands around Jonah’s neck?