The day Helen disappeared, Aunt Sadie slept over, which she never did. The next morning Thomas came downstairs and found her and his father in the kitchen.

Mr. Moran repeated what he’d told Thomas when they’d come home from the airport: “Your mother has gone somewhere, and we don’t know where. We searched for her, but we didn’t find her.”

Aunt Sadie lifted her head from her crossed arms on the table. “We contacted airport security; we called the police, too. Everyone is looking for her, Thomas. A detective is coming over this morning.”

“Will he need a picture of her? Like on TV?”

“Yes, but we’ll take care of that,” his father said. “You’ll be at school.”

“School?”

“There’s no point in your staying home, Thomas. You’ll be better off at school—”

“That is fanciful!” Thomas used his fist to pound an exclamation point onto the kitchen table. “You do not know where I’ll be better off!”

For a moment, everyone was still. It was not like Thomas to make a fuss.

“You’re right.” Stroking Thomas’s arm, Aunt Sadie said, “We don’t know anything, really. But we’ll be in and out. We don’t want to leave you alone.”

“She flew somewhere. I told you! You should check all the flights.”

“We are, Duck. We are,” Aunt Sadie said, using her favorite pet name for her nephew.

“I’ll stay with Mrs. Sharp. She’s said she’s happy to watch me anytime.”

“I know. But we may need to call on her tonight. Please, Thomas?” His father was begging, which he never did.

“As soon as we talk to the detective, we’re going back to the airport,” Aunt Sadie said in her bank voice. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

Thomas waited for his father to tell Aunt Sadie not to presume. What evidence did they have that they would find his mother? But his father said nothing.

Thomas went to get his coat.

“I’ll drive you to school.” Aunt Sadie put on Helen’s big down coat and started her car from inside the house, the way she liked to do in winter.

Pressing her hand into his back, Thomas’s aunt hustled him into the passenger seat of the now-warm car.

He watched from the window as Giselle left her house and ran to her mother’s car. She had on a skirt with blue tights underneath and her purple puffy jacket. Pulling her hair out of her collar as she ran, she stopped short in the driveway when she saw them: “Thomas!” she shouted. “Bonne journée! Have a great day!”

Ms. Dover rolled down her car window. “Hello, Thomas. And…” She lowered her sunglasses. “Is that…Helen?”

“I’m Sadie. Thomas’s aunt. We met last Halloween. I’m sorry, but we’re…late.”

“Of course. I remember you, Sadie. We won’t keep you. Giselle’s last-minute costume changes—” She broke off and gave them a big wave that seemed to encompass the neighborhood. “Isn’t this sunshine lovely?”

Thomas and Aunt Sadie could hear the Dovers laughing as Giselle’s mother rolled up her window.

After they drove away, Aunt Sadie got into the driver’s seat and leaned her head against the steering wheel. “Just so you know, Thomas,” she said finally. “That is normal.”

They drove to school, and though Aunt Sadie dropped him off at the entrance, she didn’t leave. Thomas watched her car circle the parking lot before coming to a stop in one of the visitor spaces. Then he spotted Martin waiting for him on the front steps, students streaming past.

“Here’s something for you to count,” Thomas said, tugging on Martin’s shirt.

“What?”

“The number of seconds from the time we get in the classroom until Mrs. Evans leaves.”

Counting time was Martin’s favorite. You could surprise him with the question “How long have you been alive?” and by the time he answered “Let’s see, that would be…” he could give you the time down to the second. “3,834 days, 11 hours, 42 minutes…and, as of right now”—he’d glance at his luminous digital watch face that kept exact time—“37 seconds.”

“Okay.”

When they got to the classroom, Martin consulted his watch and the boys took their seats just as the bell rang.

Mrs. Evans was writing a journal question on her whiteboard. “That’s enough, George,” she said without turning around.

“What? I’m just sitting here.” George stuffed a giant rubber tarantula into his desk.

She put down her marker and turned to face the class. “Why is it that when Bella screams, I immediately think of George Panagopoulos?”

“I don’t know,” George mumbled. “Are you sexist?”

Mrs. Evans was not a fan of mumbling, but her reply was interrupted by a knock on the door and Principal Bowen leaning in. “Mrs. Evans, can you go down to the office for a conference?” She glanced at Thomas. “I’ll stay with the class.”

Martin whispered, “Three hundred and twenty-seven seconds.”

“Mary Mallender. Will you bring me up to speed?”

“Yes, Principal Bowen. Mrs. Evans was asking why every time Bella screams, it has to do with George.”

“And I was suggesting that I am the victim of profiling,” George remarked, this time quite clearly.

“No, you didn’t,” Mary corrected him. “You said she was sexist.”

What George had really done was ask if Mrs. Evans was sexist. Mary Mallender was a know-it-all, but she didn’t really know it all. To be more precise, her slight mistake changed the meaning entirely.

Principal Bowen didn’t care about who was being profiled or who was sexist. She led them through the Pledge of Allegiance and sat at Mrs. Evans’s desk while the announcements were read over the intercom. Following that, she gazed at the class over her bifocals and said, “I see a journal prompt on the board. The next thing I’d like to see is you busy answering it.”

Thomas got out his journal and wrote the date at the top of the page. Yesterday at this time, his mother had not left the house. Mrs. Sharp had said she left around noon. Yesterday at this time, she was still safe. Now, only God knew. Well. What Aunt Sadie had said, after his father had tucked Thomas back into bed last night and he’d gotten out and lay down by the cold air register so he could hear them talking, was, “Only God knows where Helen’s gone.”

Thomas looked at the page in his journal. He didn’t need to write about what happened yesterday as they were instructed to do. Aunt Sadie would be telling Mrs. Evans right now.

He felt a wriggling deep inside and put his hand over his stomach to quiet it. He knew from his book about butterflies that he and Mrs. Sharp had looked at last night that caterpillars wriggled as they spun their chrysalises. She had pointed out that what seemed like one tiny point where each chrysalis attached itself to a branch was, in reality, dozens of tiny hooks. The hooks were firmly embedded or the chrysalis would fall and break when the wind blew hard, for example.

He thought the caterpillars must be attaching themselves to the top of his stomach, where they would hang upside down like a row of Houdinis, soon to be wrapped in a layer of gauze.