Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix Read Free Book Online

words, total—and I’m freaking out? I’m as bad as Mom and Dad!
    First period was study center, and he forced himself to look over his social studies notes. He studied so hard that, second period, the test was a breeze. He filled in the meaningless words— Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Homo sapiens, Neanderthal —with great relief. These, at least, were questions he could answer. He turned in his paper feeling confident that he’d gotten everything right, even the bonuses.
    See, Katherine, I am not going to flunk out as a cry for help! he thought. That’s going to be my best test grade all year!
    Some of the other kids evidently weren’t so happy.
    “Come on, Mr. Vincent,” Spencer Patton said. “Even you’ve got to admit this stuff is stupid. Why do we have to study history anyway?”
    “So you know where you come from,” Mr. Vincent said.
    I wish , Jonah thought.
    “And—Oh! I know!—it’ll help if anyone ever invents a time machine,” Jeremy Evers wisecracked. “This way, when you go back in time, you can recognize people, so you’ll know who you’ve got to speak Neanderthal to, and who just uses regular caveman talk.”
    “Very funny, Jeremy,” Mr. Vincent said in a tone that didn’t sound amused. “Let’s stay within the realm of reality, shall we?”
    The realm of reality —Jonah liked that term. He imagined telling Mr. Vincent about the letters, and having Mr. Vincent shake his head dismissively and say, “Come on, Jonah. Stay within the realm of reality.” Reality was supposed to be social studies tests and cafeteria pizza, not strange letters and worrying that someone was going to snatch him away, worrying that he’d made a big mistake not telling Mom and Dad about the letters and having them taken to the police to be fingerprinted….
    What am I thinking? Mom and Dad would laugh their heads off, me acting like they should report some seventh-grade prank to the police!
    Mr. Vincent called on Jonah to answer a question, and Jonah didn’t even know what he’d asked.
    The rest of Jonah’s day went like that too. In science class he dropped a test tube full of a liquid that tested as strongly acidic. (It turned out that it was only lemon juice, but his lab partner still got mad that he’d splashed it on her Abercrombie & Fitch top.) In gym class he got hit on the head with a volleyball. In band he miscounted the rests and came in at the wrong time, the only trumpet playing in a measure that was supposed to be all flutes. It was like he’d used up all his focus on the social studies test. He was glad when school was finally over, so he’d be able to go home and plop down in front of the TV, and nobody would notice that he wasn’t paying attention.
    But as Jonah stepped down from the school bus that afternoon, the last one off, he heard Chip say in a tense voice, “Come with me.”
    “Huh?” Jonah said, feeling dazed. He hadn’t even noticed that Chip was right in front of him. Had he accidentally agreed to help Chip unlock more safes, sort through more records? Had he even spoken to Chip since this morning at the bus stop?
    “Just to my mailbox,” Chip said.
    Jonah stopped in the street and squinted at him stupidly.
    “You know how you can mail two letters from the same mailbox on the same day, and they might arrive wherever they’re going on different days?” Chip asked. “Even if where they’re going is just two different mailboxes on the same street?”
    Comprehension flowed over Jonah.
    “You’re scared you might get the letter today,” Jonah said. “The same letter I got yesterday.”
    “Not scared ,” Chip corrected quickly. “I mean, if you’re busy, I can get the mail by myself. It’s just—you’re used to being adopted, and you laugh things off, but this is all new to me, you know?”
    Oh, yeah, Jonah thought. This day’s been a bundle of laughs. But he silently turned and followed Chip toward the mailbox at the end of Chip’s driveway.
    The Winstons’