Found (19 page)

“Some kids are smart enough to know the future’s the only choice!” Gary shouted.

“But—” Somehow Jonah had expected them all to vote on their decision. Didn’t everyone believe in democracy?

Suddenly he realized where Gary was headed.

“Chip!” Jonah yelled. “Watch out!”

Gary was already slamming against Chip, jerking the Taser out of his hands before Chip had time to react. Gary whirled around, running again. He pointed the Taser at Jonah.

No—he was pointing it at Katherine.

“AHHHH!” Katherine screamed, crashing to the floor. The Elucidator dropped from her hand.

Jonah bent down to pick it up, but Gary was already there, pulling it away. And…punching in instructions, it seemed. He tucked the Taser under his arm and pounded in a whole string of coding on the Elucidator. Then he looked up, smirking, in JB’s direction.

“Too bad, loser,” Gary said mockingly. “I guess some of us are just better at being persuasive.”

“No—you can’t—” JB gasped.

“Do the age reversal first,” Mr. Hodge suggested from across the room, completely ignoring JB. “This group will be easier to deal with as babies.”

“Yes, sir,” Gary said, grinning broadly as he punched more buttons. He took a step back and pointed the Elucidator toward Jonah and Katherine and all the other kids gathered around Angela.

“You feel well enough to stand up yet, sweetie?” he said to Katherine, who was still sprawled on the floor, recovering from the Taser blast. Emily was bent over her, quietly pulling the barbs out. “That would make things a little easier for me.”

Katherine lifted her head.

“I’m not Daniella McCarthy!” she screamed. She had tears in her eyes—being Tasered must truly hurt. “I lied! I’m not one of your missing kids from history. I’m just—his sister!” She pointed at Jonah. “You have to let me go! You have to let everyone go!”

“No. That can’t be.” Mr. Hodge glared at Gary and hopped toward him, pulling against the ropes. “I thought you said the handprints all matched.”

“They did,” Gary insisted.

“I didn’t touch the rock,” Katherine said. “I just pretended. So you can’t zap me.”

Gary looked at Mr. Hodge, who’d stopped hopping. They both shrugged.

“Oh, well,” Gary said. “Thirty-five treasures, one mistake.” He smirked at Katherine. “I’m sure we’ll find someone who might be willing to take you.”

“You can’t do this!” JB screamed. “That’s another violation of time!”

Gary raised the Elucidator, pointing it carefully again.

“What will you tell our parents?” Katherine demanded.

“Freak rock cave-in. Such a tragedy,” Gary said carelessly. “Thirty-six children killed. And, sadly, the bodies will never be found.”

Jonah thought about his parents losing both him and Katherine, all because Katherine had been so stubbornly loyal. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. But what could he do? Gary had the Taser and the Elucidator. He had muscles in his arms thicker than Jonah’s legs.

Jonah leaped at Gary anyway.

Even in midair, Jonah had no idea what he intended to
do
to Gary. Arm-wrestling him for the Elucidator or the Taser was out of the question. Punching him would be as useless as punching a brick wall.

So Jonah decided to take a page out of Katherine’s book. With one hand, he grabbed for Gary’s hair. With the other, he poked his fingers into Gary’s eyes.

“Ow!” Gary screamed. Reflexively, he lifted his hands toward his face. The Taser clattered toward the ground.

Gary trapped it again with one foot.

Jonah let go of Gary’s hair and grabbed for the Elucidator just as Gary was shoving him away, flinging him toward the stone wall.

Jonah slammed against the wall hard. He thought he could feel every bone of his spine hitting rock, one bone after the other. So it took him a few moments to realize…

The Elucidator was in his hand.

“Ha!” Jonah shouted at Gary.

Gary only smiled.

“It doesn’t matter, kid,” he said. “It’s already programmed. That’s one of the newer models—you don’t even have to point it. We just do that out of habit.”

Jonah looked down at the screen of the Elucidator, which seemed to be engaged in some kind of countdown:
10, 9, 8
…

As the
7
blinked onto the screen, Jonah threw the Elucidator as hard as he could, toward the far corner of the cave.

“JB!” he screamed. “Make it stop!”

Jonah could see JB catching the Elucidator, hitting buttons. Somehow Jonah managed to get up, to rush across the cave toward JB. Other kids had the same idea, flocking together toward JB. Jonah started to trip over something—the Taser? Wait a minute—where had Gary gone?

“Good-bye, friends,” JB said softly. “I hope you enjoy time prison.”

And then Mr. Hodge vanished, too, from right in the middle of the room.

Stunned, Jonah leaned over and scooped up the Taser. He kept running toward JB.

“Is it safe now?” Jonah asked. “Did you stop the countdown?”

JB still had his head bent over the Elucidator. He was still punching buttons. Jonah crowded close, with Chip and Katherine and Alex pressed in tightly beside him.

JB raised his head.

“I’m truly sorry,” he said. “This is what I have to do.”

He pointed the Elucidator at Alex, and Alex disappeared. Then he turned the Elucidator toward Chip.

“No!” Chip screamed.

Katherine clutched Chip’s right arm and joined her screams to his. Jonah still had the Taser in his right hand, but there wasn’t time to use that. He looped his right elbow around Chip’s arm, hoping to hold him in place. With his left hand, Jonah made a swipe for the Elucidator.

The cave was already melting away.

“Noooooooo….”

Jonah wasn’t even sure who was screaming. Katherine? Chip? Himself? The Elucidator?

Hold on—the Elucidator?

He could feel it in his left hand. He was clutching it as tightly as he was clutching the Taser, as tightly as he had his arm wrapped around Chip’s. But he couldn’t see anything, because he had his eyes squeezed shut.

He dared to open one eye, just a crack.

He and Chip and Katherine seemed to be tumbling through the outer nothingness, but tumbling toward a vague hint of light, far off in the distance.

“Nooo….”

This time he was sure: the wail was coming from the Elucidator, speaking in JB’s voice.

“Jonah, there’s been a mistake,” JB’s voice came out loud and clear and anxious, straight from the Elucidator. “You and Katherine have no business going into the fifteenth century with Chip and Alex. You’re not allowed. You could cause even more damage. And you can’t take the Elucidator or the Taser there—”

“You should have thought of that before you zapped Chip,” Jonah said, and he was amazed that he could sound so defiant, out here in the middle of nothingness. “You should have known that we’d stick together.”

There was a silence, as if JB was trying to accept that. Maybe he hadn’t known they would stick together.

“Look, I’ll tell you what to do so you and Katherine can come back,” JB said, his voice strained.

“No,” Jonah said stubbornly. “Tell us what to do so we can
all
come back. Even Alex.”

Chip looked over at Jonah, gratitude gleaming in his eyes.

“Jonah,” JB protested. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Certain things have been set in motion. Chip and Alex
have
to go to the fifteenth century.”

“Then Katherine and I are going too,” Jonah said. He didn’t know how it was possible, but he could feel time flowing past him, scrolling backward. He felt like he had only a few more seconds left to convince JB. “What if…what if we could fix the fifteenth century? Make everything right again? Then couldn’t Alex and Chip come back to the twenty-first century with us?”

Silence.

Jonah had nervous tremors in his stomach. The hand holding the Elucidator was shaking. He wasn’t even sure what he was asking for. But he couldn’t stop now.

“You have to let us try,” Jonah argued. “Let us try to save Alex and Chip
and
time. Or else…” He had to come up with a good threat. Or else what? Oh. “Or else we’ll do our best to mess up time even worse than Hodge and Gary did.”

The silence from the Elucidator continued. Jonah worried that they’d floated out of range, or that the battery had stopped working, just like a defective cell phone.

Then JB’s voice came through again, faint but distinct.

“All right,” he said wearily. “I’ll let you try.”

The lights on the horizon were getting brighter. Jonah knew nothing about the fifteenth century. He truly didn’t know what he’d just bargained for.

“Wow,” Chip said. “When you make a promise, you really keep it.”

Promise
? Jonah wondered.
What promise?
Then he remembered what he’d told Chip, right after Chip found out that he was adopted.
I swear, I’ll do everything I can to help you.
It seemed like he’d said that hundreds of years ago, hundreds of lifetimes ago.

No—hundreds of years and lifetimes
ahead
.

Jonah’s stomach gurgled. He could tell he was out of the nontime limbo because he was hungry again. Starving, in fact.

“Do you think they have good turkey legs in the fifteenth century?” he asked.

There was no time for Chip and Katherine to answer him or even to make fun of his question. The lights were getting brighter and brighter, rushing at them faster and faster and faster….

They landed.

“Welcome to the fifteenth century,” JB said grimly through the Elucidator. “Good luck.”