“So Anastasia and Alexis could have escaped!” Jonah exclaimed. “The fact that their bones weren’t with the rest of the family’s—isn’t that kind of proof that they did?”
Mom was scanning the computer screen.
“Well, there was some disagreement about whether it was Anastasia or Maria whose bones were missing,” she said. “And anyhow—here it is—in 2007 someone found other bones nearby, and they did DNA tests and then the scientists pretty much said, ‘It’s a hundred percent certain. These are the missing Romanov bones. The whole family died in 1918. No one escaped.’ Tragic, isn’t it?”
Now Jonah was the one trying to catch Katherine’s eye. The year 2007 wasn’t that long ago. If he and Katherine had changed something in history that led to the death of Anastasia and Alexis Romanov in 1918, wouldn’t time agents like JB have tried to keep it secret as long as they could?
Would JB have even bothered to tell Jonah and Katherine what had happened?
Was there any way to undo whatever had changed Anastasia’s and Alexis’s fates?
“JB, we really need an explanation,” Jonah muttered, softly enough that there was no way Mom could hear.
The doorbell rang just then, and the sound made Jonah jump.
“I’ll get it,” he said, sliding out of the chair.
If that’s JB—wow, that was quick, he thought.
He just needed to be prepared to play along with whatever story JB would come up with to explain his presence to Jonah’s parents.
Jonah rushed down the hall and yanked the door open.
It wasn’t JB. But it was someone Jonah recognized.
There, on the Skidmores’ porch, stood Anastasia Romanov.
THREE
To his credit, Jonah did not blurt out, Aren’t you supposed to be dead?
He did consider it. His mind tried out and discarded several other possible things to say, but most of them sputtered away after an initial What . . . ? How . . . ? Why . . . ?
Maybe you could figure out a few things before you say anything, he told himself.
He blinked a few times, and his eyes kept assuring him that this was the exact same Anastasia Romanov he’d seen on the computer screen only a moment earlier. She had the same rounded face, the same impish gleam in her eyes, the same long, flowing hair. But this wasn’t like seeing a black-and-white picture colorized and come to life. The Anastasia standing before him wasn’t wearing a strand of pearls around her neck. She didn’t have her dark blond hair pulled back in some puffy old-fashioned style; it was parted on the side and tucked behind her ears. The long, lacy white dress from the picture had been replaced with blue jeans and a University of Michigan sweatshirt.
So it’s not Anastasia zapped straight from the early 1900s to our front porch, Jonah thought. It’s modern Anastasia, Anastasia who’s grown up in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, just like me.
So if Anastasia was standing on Jonah’s front porch, why did the Internet say DNA tests proved she had died in 1918?
And if she was one of the kidnapped/time-crashed missing children from history, like Jonah, why didn’t Jonah remember seeing her at the time cave when almost all of them had been gathered together? Especially since, now that he was looking right at her, he could tell that even in blue jeans and a sweatshirt Anastasia Romanov looked 100 percent like Anastasia Romanov?
Jonah realized that he’d been standing there for a ridiculously long time staring at Anastasia without saying anything. The only thing he’d done was blink and maybe open and close his mouth a few times like a fish.
“Okay, okay,” Anastasia burst out. She crossed her arms defensively across her chest. “I get it that people in Ohio hate the University of Michigan, and I’m making everyone I meet hate me by wearing this shirt. But get over it. All my other clothes are in boxes being carried off the moving van right now. I’ll wear something different tomorrow. Sheesh.”
University of Michigan, Jonah thought. The University of Michigan was in Michigan, of course. Jonah even knew what city it was in: Ann Arbor. And there was something important about Ann Arbor, Michigan, something that had to do with someone moving . . .
Jonah’s brain couldn’t quite make the shift from thinking about people moving from one time period to another, to thinking about people moving from one state to another.
He was still squinting stupidly at Anastasia when he noticed his friend Chip jogging up the sidewalk.
“Daniella insisted on meeting you,” Chip said. “Posthaste.”
Jonah frowned at Chip and shook his head warningly. Chip had been back from his trip to the 1400s for a couple of weeks now, but he still sometimes acted and sounded like he was stuck in the Middle Ages. He’d lived the years 1483 to 1485 as Edward V, an English king who’d mysteriously vanished from history. Jonah could see how it would be a little hard to just snap back into normal life. But Chip really needed to be more careful.
“Er . . . remember Daniella McCarthy?” Chip asked, trying to cover his mistake. He gestured toward Anastasia. Evidently, Daniella was her twenty-first-century name. “Remember how I talked to her on the phone before she moved down here?”
That was the hint Jonah needed. It was a first step, anyhow. Way back when Chip and Jonah and Katherine were just starting to figure out that something very, very weird was going on, they’d come across two lists of names, one labeled “survivors” and one labeled “witnesses.”
Daniella McCarthy’s name, like Chip’s and Jonah’s, had been on the survivors list.
But is she actually a survivor if she’s really Anastasia and the Internet says Anastasia Romanov died in 1918? Jonah wondered. What sites were we looking at, anyway—would the school librarian say they weren’t reliable?
But if this was just a case of getting bad info from the Internet, why had Jonah’s own mother been convinced that Anastasia was dead?
Jonah realized he was still staring stupidly at Daniella.
“Oh, uh, welcome to Ohio,” he managed to say. “Your family’s moving into your new house right now? To—” He barely stopped himself from saying, To 1873 Robin’s Egg Lane? It would seem way too creepy and stalkerish that he remembered her street address. Especially if she didn’t know . . .
Wait a minute, Jonah thought. She doesn’t know anything. Daniella McCarthy was the one and only missing kid from history who wasn’t in the time cave that day we found out everything. Because there was some kind of mix-up that delayed her move. So she doesn’t know she’s in the wrong time period. She doesn’t know people have been fighting over whether to take her back to the past or on to the future. She only knows what Chip told her when he called her on the phone, and that was before we knew much of anything ourselves.
Really, the only thing Chip had talked about with Daniella was her move. Not time travel. Not history. Not her identity.
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?
&n
bsp; 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.