Emma didn’t like it when math failed her.
“The . . . kidnapping,” Mom whispered. “The odds that anyone’s children would be kidnapped are . . . are . . .”
“Tiny,” Emma finished for her. “But this is like the chances of winning the lottery. There are overwhelming odds against anyone winning the lottery, so it’s stupid to buy a ticket. But somebody is going to win. Somebody gets to be the one in a million. Or else it’d be zero-in-a-million chances. But it’s only one person who has that good luck.”
“Being kidnapped sounds like bad luck to me,” Finn said, giggling. Then he furrowed his brow and pointed at the laptop screen. “Or are you saying those kids used up all the bad luck, so we never have to worry about being kidnapped? Thank you, Other-Finn and Other-Emma and Other-Rochester! Hope you get found soon!”
Mom seemed to shake herself and looked down at Finn as if she was seeing him—really seeing him—for the first time since he’d walked into the kitchen. Then she lifted her head, and her gaze darted first to Emma, then to Chess. She reached out and hugged all three kids, pulling them together so tightly that Emma could barely breathe.
“You don’t have to worry about being kidnapped,” she said in her usual firm voice. “I promise. I’ll do everything I can to prevent that.”
It would have been really reassuring, except that Mom’s voice quivered at the very end.
And why would Mom think she’d need to prevent anything?
Six
Chess
Chess woke up in the middle of the night with aches in his legs. Growing pains, he thought. Mom had explained them to him a year ago, and then she’d helped him look them up online. Finn had asked, “What? It hurts to grow as tall as Chess? Maybe I’ll just stay short!”
Finn was still so little he thought you could control things like that. Chess couldn’t remember his own brain ever working that way, thinking he got to choose whatever he wanted. For as long as Chess could remember, he’d had to be the responsible oldest kid, the one who had to help Mom with Emma and Finn. The mini grown-up.
Was it just because Dad had died when all three of them were so young? Or did the other Rochester, the one who’d been kidnapped, feel that way, too?
Chess could picture the other Rochester—Rocky—crouched beside his younger brother and sister in some locked, windowless back of a van somewhere, or some locked, windowless basement. The younger kids would be crying. But Rocky would be telling them, Everything’s going to be all right. I’ll take care of you. Even if he was really thinking, There’s no way out! What are we going to do?
Chess could picture it too well.
Those kids have probably already been rescued, he told himself. They probably got balloons and welcome-home banners and toys and ice cream—just like Finn said—hours ago.
But Chess had seen how Mom kept checking her phone under the table all through dinner, and even afterward, while everyone was doing homework. She also kept her laptop balanced on her knees when, as a special treat before bedtime, she let them watch the first half of The Lego Batman Movie. She said she was just typing up invoices to send out for her business, the kind of mindless work she could do while keeping one eye on animated Legos. But Chess was pretty sure she’d been checking news websites, too.
Mom would have told them if there’d been any news about the kids in Arizona being rescued.
Chess stretched his legs, then he slipped out of bed. Sometimes it helped to stand up. Sometimes it helped to walk.
He decided to go get a drink of water, but just as he put his hand on his doorknob, he heard another door open down the hall. Chess peeked out. The nightlight in the hallway cast eerie shadows, but he could tell that Mom’s door was open, down at the opposite end of the hall. A moment later, he heard the creak of the third step down on the stairway.
So Mom’s going downstairs, Chess thought.
Sometimes when she couldn’t sleep, she got up and worked in the middle of the night. She always said, “That’s the great thing about working for myself! I can work all night and sleep all day if I want to! I don’t have a boss telling me what to do!” But Chess wondered if that happened more often when she was worried or upset.
Did she ever wake up in the middle of the night and try to remember everything she could about Dad, the way Chess did sometimes?
And was that maybe the reason she decided to get up and work instead?
Chess decided to follow her. He tiptoed down the hall and went down the stairs by twos—it was only the third and the ninth ones that squeaked, so his descent was totally silent. He didn’t want to wake Emma or Finn. Sometimes when the younger kids weren’t around, Mom would tell Chess things she wouldn’t tell them.
But when Chess got down to the first floor, Mom was nowhere in sight. With all the curtains and blinds drawn, Chess had to navigate by the thin slats of moonlight that trickled in along the edges. Once he got to the kitchen, he also had the red glow of the digital clock on the stove.
It was 3:15 a.m. exactly when Chess noticed that the door to the basement was slightly ajar.
Seriously? Chess thought. It’s the middle of the night, and Mom still has to go down to the Boring Room to keep from being distracted?
He started down the basement stairs but froze when he heard Mom talking.
“I thought you’d never call!” she was saying.
Who would call Mom in the middle of the night? Who would she want to talk to then?
Chess strained his ears, trying to listen for even the barest hum of a reply, but there was nothing. Maybe the person on the other end of the phone call was whispering.
“Do not tell me to calm down!” Mom said. “This is exactly what I was afraid of!”
The pause was shorter this time, then Mom exploded again.
“Oh, right, it’s not my kids,” she said. “Not yet. But it’s somebody’s kids. It’s kids I can imagine really well, because I know exactly what an eight- and a ten- and a twelve-year-old are like. And I’ll tell you, they’re completely innocent. They’re—”
The person on the other end of the phone call must have interrupted her. But maybe she interrupted him—or her—right back, because she didn’t pause long enough to take a breath.
“It’s not a coincidence, Joe,” she said. She didn’t even sound like Mom now. She sounded cold and mean and cutting. “You have to fix this. Or so help me, I will.”
Seven
Finn
Finn could smell the French toast as soon as he woke up.
“Special breakfast?” he shouted. “It’s a special breakfast day? Is school canceled? Is it a snow day? Or a holiday nobody told me about?”
He jumped out of bed and raced out into the hall. Emma was standing sleepily in her own doorway, sniffing the air.
“It’s sixty-eight degrees out,” she said. Finn was pretty sure she knew that because of a weather app, not from the smell of the air. But there was no telling with Emma.
“Okay, it’s not a snow day,” Finn admitted.
“Not a holiday, either,” Emma said sadly. She leaned in close and whispered, “It might be a bad-news special breakfast.”
Finn remembered that the last time Mom had made French toast, it was because she’d gotten overwhelmed with her job and had to work an entire Saturday. That French toast was like an apology for not taking the kids to the park.
“There shouldn’t be any such thing as bad-news special breakfast,” Finn said. “It’s going to make me stop liking maple syrup.”
“You will never stop liking maple syrup,” Emma said.
That was probably true. Finn was pretty sure he’d be able to drink it by the gallon, if Mom ever let him.
“I think it’s going to be about good news,” he said. “Maybe they found those kids in Arizona, and Mom’s celebrating.”
Finn expected Emma’s face to light up at that idea, but she stayed serious.
“Finn, don’t worry about those other kids,” she said. “They—”
<
br /> “Chess! Emma! Finn!” Mom called from downstairs. “Are you all up and moving?”
“I’ll wake up Chess!” Finn shouted back. He realized Emma had yelled the same thing. They both took off running for Chess’s room. Normally Chess was the first one up, so this was a treat, too.
As soon as he shoved past Chess’s door, Finn launched himself toward the bed.
“Time! For! Breakfast!” he shouted as he landed. He bounced up and down with each word.
Beside him, Emma yelled, “Get up! Get up! Get up!”
Her bounces coordinated perfectly, too.
“We should be in the Olympics,” Finn said, giggling. “Mom should sign us up for gymnastics. We’d win all sorts of medals.”
He braced himself for Chess to push him and Emma off the bed. Maybe Chess would growl like a bear and pretend to be angry, and then they could have a mock wrestling match before breakfast.
But Chess just lay there. He blinked once, then twice. He had dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t gotten enough sleep. But he’d had the whole night for sleeping.
“Chess?” Finn said, tugging on his brother’s arm. “Talk to me, dude. Let me know you’re in there!”
Finn saw Chess’s face change, as if someone had flipped a switch. One moment, he looked groggy and sad—and just wrong, with those circles under his eyes. Finn might have even said Chess looked old, which was crazy.
The next moment, Chess had a goofy grin plastered on his face, but even that felt wrong.
“Arr, matey, who dares to disturb the pirate captain’s slumber?” Chess growled, which was from a book Finn had loved when he was little. Normally this would have been just as much fun as the bear growl and the wrestling match. But something was wrong with Chess this morning. He wasn’t just pretending or acting; it was more like he was pretending to pretend and acting like he was acting. He had layers. Lots of them.
What if that had always been true about Chess, and Finn had just never noticed before? What if noticing was a sign that Finn was growing up?
Finn kind of wanted to tell Chess and Emma this. Maybe both of them would sling their arms around his shoulders and say, “Ah, grasshopper, let us initiate you into this stage of growing up. We’re so proud of you! Neither of us figured out anything like that until we were nine!”
But Finn kind of didn’t even want to think about it.
Mom poked her head into Chess’s room just then. She put a stack of laundry on Chess’s dresser.
“Come on, kiddos—get a move on!” she said. “As soon as you’re all dressed, I have a special breakfast ready for you. . . .”
“It’s because you have bad news, isn’t it?” Finn blurted out. “We’re having bad-news French toast. Like that day we couldn’t go to the park.”
For a moment it seemed like Mom had been wearing a mask, and the mask slipped. It was almost like how Chess’s face had changed, except in reverse. For just that one moment, it looked like Mom might start crying the way really little kids did, with a trembling lip and huge puddles of tears in each eye. But then Mom smiled and came over and ruffled his hair.
“You’re onto me, huh?” she said. “I guess I’ll have to save the French toast for good-news days from now on. Anyhow, it’s not really bad news, just . . .”
“Spit it out,” Emma demanded.
On a normal day, Mom probably would have scolded Emma for how sassy and disrespectful that sounded. But today Mom just gulped and smiled harder.
“I found out this morning that I have to go away for a few days,” she said. “For work. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, that’s not so bad,” Finn said. And maybe he was acting and wearing a mask a little bit, too. Mom didn’t travel for her job very often, but when she did, Finn always felt strange the whole time. Even when he was at school and wouldn’t have seen her, anyhow. “Tell you what, you could make French toast every day between now and then, to make it up to us.”
Mom laughed, but it sounded especially fake. And sad.
“Finn, this is really last-minute,” she said. “I have to leave today. How about if we have bad-news French toast today, and then a celebration special breakfast when I get back?”
“When will that be, Mom?” Chess asked.
Chess wasn’t one of those kids who yelled at adults—neither were Finn or Emma. And Chess had actually spoken more quietly than usual, not louder. But Finn got a picture in his mind of Chess slashing a sword through the air and driving its point into the ground, like someone issuing a dare.
Finn glanced quickly back and forth between Mom and Chess. They both looked perfectly normal for a Tuesday morning. Chess’s hair was mashed on one side and sticking out on the other. He was wearing his Lakeside Elementary Safety Patrol shirt over his pajama bottoms. Mom had on an old Ohio State University sweatshirt that had once belonged to their dad, along with old jeans with a rip in the knee that had happened because she’d worn them a lot, not because she bought them that way. Her hair, which was just as dark and curly as Emma’s, was pulled back into a messy ponytail.
Still, Finn felt a little bit like he was watching strangers.
Mom started acting like she really needed to straighten one of the pictures on Chess’s wall, above his bed.
“I’m not quite sure when I’ll be back,” she said as she reached for the frame. She kept her head turned away from the kids. “Things are a little up in the air. I . . . I may not even be able to call home every day.”
Mom had turned into a stranger. She didn’t leave things up in the air. Whenever she went away, she left behind a list of what she was doing every day, and exactly where she would be, and how the kids or their babysitter could reach her every single minute, even if her cell phone broke.
Finn stopped feeling like he’d reached a new stage of growing up. No matter how much he tried to hold it back, his bottom lip started to tremble.
Eight
Emma
Hello? Mom? Don’t you see you’re going to make Finn cry? Emma wanted to shout. You do not do that to a second grader right before school!
“So you’ll have Mrs. Rabinsky stay with us while you’re away?” Emma asked quickly. Mrs. Rabinsky was an old, grandmotherly type who made no secret of the fact that Finn was her favorite of the three kids. The idea of even just one afternoon and evening of Mrs. Rabinsky asking constantly, “What would you like for dinner, Finn?” and “Finn, could you tell us more about your day at school?” and “Do you want me to read you a bedtime story, Finn?” kind of turned Emma’s stomach. But she wasn’t going to complain if it would cheer Finn up now.
“Actually, no,” Mom said. She had her face turned to the side, but Emma could see that Mom was biting her lip. “I’m, um, still working out those arrangements, too. Like I said, this just came up. You know I’ll cancel the trip if I can’t be sure the three of you are all right.”
“So why don’t you just cancel the trip already?” Finn asked eagerly. “If it’s not that important. If it’s cancel-er-able.”
Mom didn’t laugh and tell him that “cancel-er-able” was not a word.
“Finn . . . ,” she began.
“Two things can be important at the same time,” Chess said tonelessly. “Mom’s job and spending time with us, both.”
Emma glanced over her shoulder at her older brother. Chess was just quoting an explanation Mom gave all the time. But did he actually think that was going to help, when he sounded so much like he was reading from a script?
Emma waggled her eyebrows warningly at Chess and mouthed at him, Sound normal!
The truth was, sometimes she, Chess, and Mom all acted like Mrs. Rabinsky. As if taking care of Finn and keeping him happy was the most important thing.
“I think Mom’s going to have some big adventure,” Emma announced. “And she’ll bring back great stories. And presents.”
This time, Mom did laugh. But it was an odd laugh, one that trailed off awkwardly.
“Emma, I’m just meeting with a client in Ch
icago who needs a lot of hand-holding,” she said. “I don’t think it will be much of an adventure. But I will bring presents. Okay?” She looked down at the clock on Chess’s bedside table. “Now, seriously, everyone—move!”
They all scattered for a frenzy of clothes changing, face washing, and teeth brushing. Emma skipped combing her hair, because she wanted to be the first one down to the kitchen. She had a secret, and she hadn’t quite decided yet if she wanted to tell Mom.
Last night after everyone had gone to bed, Emma had crept back out of her room and gone downstairs and slipped Mom’s cell phone out of her purse. Disappointingly, Mom was one of those parents who thought kids should wait until middle school before getting phones of their own; she also didn’t think looking at a screen right before bedtime was a good idea. So Emma had had to be sneaky. She’d typed in the password, which Mom probably didn’t know Emma knew. And then, sitting alone in the dark, Emma had looked up everything she could about those kids in Arizona.
They’d actually been kidnapped on Friday. So three whole days had passed while three kids named Rochester, Emma, and Finn in Ohio had no idea that three other kids named Rochester, Emma, and Finn had been kidnapped in Arizona.
That was weird. It seemed like Chess, Emma, and Finn should have known instantly about everything that happened to their Arizona doubles. Like Emma should have felt a twinge in her side when she was sitting in social studies class and realized, Oh no! The other Emma Grace is in danger!
It felt like Chess, Emma, and Finn should have known all along that those other kids existed.
Emma found a site dedicated to missing children, and she tested herself looking at the page about the Emma from Arizona. Why does this make me feel so weird? Would I feel this way if Emma Chang, Emma Pulaski, or Emma Jones from school were kidnapped?
She would feel sad about any kidnapped kid. But she would feel even more sad if it was someone from her school, regardless of the kid’s name. Just being from her school was enough of a link.
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