“But Jonah’s present in that time period too!” Angela protested, sounding almost exactly like Katherine always did when she didn’t get her way.
“Not in every version,” Jonah reminded her. “Remember the one where Lindbergh flies the plane on to the future without there being a baby removed first—because I was never on it?”
Part of Jonah wanted to do a victory dance, to rub it in to Angela that he got to go and fix everything, and Angela would be stuck waiting in a time hollow.
Another part of him wished fervently that it was the other way around.
Angela was still talking to her Elucidator, asking for suggestions about what Jonah could tell Lindbergh to get him to defy Gary and Hodge’s plans before it was too late.
Jonah was having trouble listening very well. He kept glancing over toward the kid versions of Mom, Dad, and JB in the car.
If I fail, he thought, all time travel ends. I won’t be able to come back for them. And all of them will be stuck in this time cave with Angela forever. Mom and Dad will be stuck here sleeping forever. JB will be crazy forever.
And Angela would, for all intents and purposes, be alone forever.
The planning went on and on. Finally, Angela looked up at Jonah and said, “Is there anything else you can think of to ask?”
“No,” Jonah said quickly. Angela looked at him doubtfully, and he added, “I’ll have the Elucidator with me. I can ask it anything I want, as I go along.”
Jonah expected her to scold him for wanting to do just seat-of-the-pants planning. Instead she nodded.
“That makes sense,” she said sadly. She seemed to be trying to smile. “I think you’re ready, then.”
Jonah took a deep breath.
“No,” he said. “I’m not. I want to say good-bye to Mom and Dad first. In case I fail and I never see them again.”
“Well, go ahead,” Angela said, gesturing toward the car.
“No,” Jonah said. “I want to say good-bye where they can hear me. We need to open the time hollow and go back to the twenty-first century so we can wake them up. And then I’ll say good-bye.”
“Jonah—” Angela began. And then she stopped, reconsidering. “You want them to know the truth either way, don’t you? And are you giving me a choice, too? In case things don’t work . . . you’re giving me the option of living out the rest of my life in real time. Even if time collapses.”
“Don’t you think that’s better than being trapped in a time hollow with three people who aren’t even awake?” Jonah said.
Angela seemed to be studying his face intently. Then she gave a quick bob of her head, up and down.
“You’re really a nice kid, you know that?” she said.
“No thirteen-year-old boy wants to be told he’s ‘nice’!” Jonah protested.
“Okay, let’s get through this, and I’ll tell you when you’re fourteen,” Angela said, grinning.
They set the Elucidators to tell them how to open the doors and wake up kid Mom and kid Dad.
“Shouldn’t we make ourselves visible again too, so we don’t completely freak them out?” Angela asked.
“Oh, yeah . . . ,” Jonah muttered.
He’d been so focused on getting information from the Elucidators that he’d stopped noticing that he, Angela, and JB were still mostly see-through from their time in 1932.
And Mom and Dad probably wouldn’t be able to see us at all, because they’ve never traveled through time, Jonah reminded himself. He didn’t think that their going into the time hollow would count. But staying invisible wouldn’t do me any good when I go back to talk to Lindbergh, because that would freak him out too. And anyhow, Gary and Hodge would be able to see me as translucent. . . .
Angela turned everyone visible again, and then Jonah woke his parents and opened the cave door. He led his parents outside into the autumn sunshine. Both of them were blinking groggily.
“Where are we?” Mom asked. “What happened? What’s going on?”
Dad let out a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Mom, Dad, I’ve got something to tell you,” Jonah said. “This friend of mine, Angela”—he pointed, and she waved—“she’s going to explain all the details. But I wanted to tell you . . . Katherine and I have been traveling through time constantly the past few months. Everything’s kind of a mess, but I’m going to go off and try to fix everything and rescue Katherine. I just wanted to tell you that before I left. Because . . . I’m not sure I’m going to be able to come back.”
They both stared at him blankly.
I can’t make them understand, he thought despairingly. This was a huge mistake.
But then both his parents launched themselves at him, engulfing him in an enormous hug.
“We’ll go with you!” Dad cried. “We’ll get Katherine and have an adventure together. As a family!”
For a moment Jonah just let them hug him. He let himself hug them back and draw in the strength he’d gotten from thirteen years of them being his parents.
And then he pushed them away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is the way it has to be. I love you.”
Quickly, because he was thoroughly embarrassed, he added, looking off to the side, “You too, Angela. Thanks for everything.”
He glanced down to make sure that nobody was still touching him. Then he told the Elucidator in his hand, “Take me back to the plane at the airport!”
Jonah knew that once he said that, the entire scene in front of him would disappear. He closed his eyes. But he could have sworn he heard Mom calling after him, “Be careful! Make sure you remember to brush your teeth, wherever you’re going!”
It seemed like no time at all before Jonah was landing again.
Timesickness—not too bad, he thought, blinking quickly. Of course it shouldn’t be, since I came through only thirteen years.
It seemed that he was lying in the aisle of the airplane. His vision was already clear enough that he could see numbers above the seats—his head was positioned right below the seats in row 11, and his feet were stretched out toward the front of the plane.
Okay, he thought. Stand up slowly, then go see if Lindbergh’s sitting in the pilot’s seat yet.
He was just stretching his hand up to grab on to the side of the row 10 seats to pull himself up when he heard a voice near the door at the front.
“Let me get this baby into place, and then you can take off immediately,” the voice said.
It was Hodge. Hodge was about to walk down the aisle, evidently to strap baby Katherine in. Of course. Of course Hodge would be sending her off to the future in this version of time too. Jonah knew that.
What Jonah didn’t know was: Where could he hide to get out of Hodge’s way?
FORTY-EIGHT
Jonah’s first thought was to scramble into the space between the rows of seats.
This is a plane full of babies—it’s not like they have long legs dangling down and taking up all the room between the seats, Jonah told himself.
But there was barely any room between the seats to begin with. And with only two seats on the right side of the aisle and one seat on the other side, Jonah could tell at a glance that some part of his body was bound to stick out into the aisle.
So . . . if not under the seats, then where? Jonah thought, frantically peering around.
He saw a door at the back end of the aisle, just beyond row 12, and was already crawling toward it before his brain asked him, Maybe the bathroom?
Jonah opened the door the smallest amount possible, as silently as possible, and squeezed in. Then he inched the door mostly closed behind him.
Hodge won’t notice, will he? Jonah thought. Surely this will be one of those times when he’s lazy and reckless and he won’t look up and down the aisles to make sure nothing’s changed since the last time he was on this plane?
Jonah had to stand up, because there wasn’t room to stay crouched down in the narrow airplane bathroom—and anyway, it wasn’t as if he really w
anted to crouch down with his face smashed against the side of the toilet. Even though Jonah knew that this wasn’t exactly a regular airplane, the bathroom had a too-realistic smell to it. Jonah almost wished he hadn’t gotten his sense of smell back so quickly.
And maybe I should have been a bit more specific about exactly where and when I told the Elucidator to put me on this plane? Jonah scolded himself.
He turned away from the toilet and peeked out the crack at the side of the door.
Hodge and Lindbergh were both on the plane now, directly in Jonah’s line of vision. Hodge was bent over a seat in the second row. Lindbergh, in his blue pilot’s uniform, was standing stiffly in the doorway that led to the cockpit.
Hodge straightened up, his arms empty.
“There,” he said. “Now I’ll be off.”
Wait—shouldn’t he be carrying the baby version of me? Jonah wondered. Did I somehow end up on the wrong version of this plane?
He was still timesick enough that it took him a moment to realize: The fact that Hodge wasn’t carrying baby Jonah off the plane was actually proof that Jonah was on the right version of the plane. He needed to be on the plane that Gary and Hodge had sent off from its last stop—in 1932, probably—without any baby at all in seat 2C.
It’s just the other two versions of time where I was ever on this plane, Jonah reminded himself.
Trying to figure out time and time splits and different versions of time made Jonah’s head ache. And he needed to focus on a more immediate problem: Hodge was looking toward the back of the plane. Had he seen Jonah?
No, Jonah told himself, holding his breath and silently backing away from the door. He’s admiring all the rows of babies that are going to make him rich.
Hodge turned back around toward Lindbergh.
“Remember,” he said. “You must follow our instructions exactly, or you will never see your son again. See you in the future!”
Lindbergh nodded once, curtly, and turned toward the cockpit.
Hodge began walking toward the door back to the Jetway.
He’s leaving, Jonah told himself. He’s leaving . . . he’s left!
Jonah heard the door click into place. Almost immediately, the plane pulled back from the Jetway.
Jonah shoved the bathroom door all the way open and took the first step back into the aisle. He had a clear view now of all the babies at the back of the plane—he couldn’t have said who any of them were, because they all just looked like sleeping babies.
I guess they aren’t really anybody at all yet, Jonah told himself.
They weren’t the children they’d been in the past or in the twenty-first century. If Gary and Hodge had their way, these babies’ entire identities lay in the future.
Gary and Hodge aren’t going to get their way, Jonah told himself.
The airplane turned and zoomed suddenly forward, and Jonah realized he didn’t have much time to stand around thinking about these babies. He took three quick steps—and stopped again beside row 2.
There was the only baby on the plane Jonah could recognize instantly: Katherine.
Like all the other babies, she was sleeping soundly. She had her thumb in her mouth, which made her look even more recognizable: Jonah could remember her sucking her thumb a lot when she was little. Sometimes, way back in their childhoods, she used to suck her thumb and hold on to Jonah when she saw something scary on TV.
Of course, that was back when her idea of scary was Cookie Monster on Sesame Street.
Before he quite thought it through, Jonah started unstrapping baby Katherine from her seat.
Because if this doesn’t work and I end up getting stranded somewhere—shouldn’t we at least be together? he told himself.
The plane lurched upward—taking off? Already?—and Jonah would have tumbled over backward, all the way down the aisle, if he hadn’t quickly grabbed on to the back of Katherine’s seat.
That made him think of the time that he and Katherine had sat on the backs of the train seats in 1903, when they were following Albert Einstein’s wife across Eastern Europe. He and Katherine had been a great team then, no matter how much they squabbled.
Stop thinking about the past, Jonah told himself. Just think about what you have to do now, all right?
Steadying himself as the plane leveled out, Jonah lifted baby Katherine from her seat and clutched her tightly to his chest. Then he walked on toward the cockpit.
Charles Lindbergh evidently heard Jonah’s footsteps, since he turned around. But no surprise showed on his face.
“You are a Lindbergh, if you figured out how to escape from them and come with me,” Lindbergh said calmly, even as he shoved one of the levels on the control panel forward.
Jonah had a sudden brainstorm.
“Uh, right,” he agreed cautiously. “And if you really believe I’m your son, don’t you think we should just go back to the 1930s together? Why bother doing what Gary and Hodge want you to do?”
“Because they’ve already proved that they can follow you anywhere you go,” Lindbergh said, shrugging. The motion made it easier for Jonah to see the futuristic tranquilizer gun Lindbergh had strapped on his hip. Jonah remembered how he’d seen Lindbergh use that very gun in the simulation of what Gary and Hodge wanted Lindbergh to do.
Don’t do anything that makes Lindbergh decide he needs to use that gun on me, Jonah reminded himself. No sudden moves.
“But—” Jonah began.
Lindbergh didn’t wait to hear Jonah’s argument.
“Mr. Gary and Mr. Hodge can still trap you; they could trap me—no, I want to finish this and get away, free and clear,” he said.
That was what Jonah wanted too. But his “free and clear” wouldn’t be the same as Lindbergh’s “free and clear.”
Jonah couldn’t think of a good answer. The plane lurched slightly. To be on the safe side—and buy himself some time to think—Jonah dropped into the empty copilot’s seat beside Lindbergh.
Lindbergh glanced Jonah’s way.
“That baby will be safer strapped in place in the back,” Lindbergh said. “This will be my first time landing this rig.”
If the plane landed on its own back at the airport, and if it’s supposed to land on its own when Lindbergh’s a baby again, I don’t think it’s going to take a lot of piloting skill for Lindbergh to land it once in the future, Jonah thought.
He decided that wasn’t the best thing to point out to Charles Lindbergh. Instead Jonah went straight for the main point.
“I’m not actually your son,” he said, and was surprised that he managed to sound apologetic about it. “Gary and Hodge have been lying to you.”
Lindbergh took his eyes off the instrument panel in front of him just long enough to glance toward Jonah.
“I already heard—well, saw—you say that back at the airport,” Lindbergh said. “Mr. Gary and Mr. Hodge already explained to me that you would be confused about your parentage. It’s understandable. You were kidnapped, after all.”
“Yeah—by Gary and Hodge!” Jonah protested.
“Don’t worry—you will lose your delusions once we get back to the 1930s and you’re a small child once more,” Lindbergh said soothingly, as if Jonah would automatically believe him just because Lindbergh said so.
Jonah remembered the proof that he and Angela had discussed.
“Look,” he said, holding out the Elucidator in his hand. It still looked vaguely cell phone–like, which Jonah thought was good. It would look futuristic to Lindbergh. “This is a machine from the future that can do many things, and one of them is a DNA test. DNA is like—genetics. How people are related.”
Jonah was pretty sure that that was a lousy explanation of DNA and genetics, but he kept going.
“I can take a hair from my head and a hair from your head and lay them across this Elucidator, and it can tell us whether you’re my father or not,” Jonah said.
As he spoke, Jonah demonstrated, making his gestures broad and dramatic so th
at Lindbergh saw his every move. Then Jonah laid both hairs across the surface of the Elucidator and said aloud, “Elucidator, please determine any genetic match between these two hairs. Reply verbally, so Mr. Lindbergh can hear.”
“It’s Colonel, not Mister,” Lindbergh corrected.
“Sorry,” Jonah muttered, feeling sorry only that he’d ruined the drama of the moment.
The Elucidator made various clicking sounds—Angela had thought to add that, because she said Lindbergh would be used to more mechanical devices.
“Here is your answer,” the Elucidator finally said. “These two hairs belong to people who are eighth cousins, twice removed.”
“See?” Jonah said. “I’m sorry, but—”
“Why should I believe you?” Lindbergh asked. “Mr. Gary and Mr. Hodge did the same test with the hairs, and their experiment showed that you are my son.”
They did? Jonah thought.
He pulled his Elucidator back from where he’d been holding it out so Lindbergh could see.
“Why didn’t you tell Angela and me?” Jonah demanded.
YOU DIDN’T ASK, the Elucidator flashed back.
Then, as if to prove its point, the Elucidator began showing video: Jonah with Gary, Hodge, Lindbergh, and baby Katherine in the airfield office. While Jonah was turned looking at Katherine, Gary very dramatically plucked a hair from Jonah’s sweater, took a hair from Lindbergh’s head, and pressed the two against his Elucidator watch. Gary’s Elucidator lit up with the words FATHER-SON MATCH.
How had so much happened while Jonah was just turned around looking at Katherine?
He peered down again at baby Katherine, still asleep in his arms. Somehow that gave him the gumption to argue back against Lindbergh.
“Gary and Hodge told me that I’m not your son. They said I’m just an ordinary kid that got dropped off at an orphanage,” Jonah said. “They’re liars.”
“How do you know they weren’t lying to you and telling me the truth?” Lindbergh asked.
How had the conversation gotten so turned around?
“Because they’ve lied to me before,” Jonah said. “And because I saw what they wanted to do, and part of that’s just tricking you. If you do what they want, you’ll be stuck in the future—as a baby. Turn this plane around!”
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