ON SATURDAY MORNING, LU sat with her aunt and uncle in front of Jenny’s computer screen, watching intently with tired eyes.

“This is futile,” Uncle Nathan said, exasperated. “It’s a shot in the dark. One in a million. We’re wasting our time.”

“Oh?” Aunt Tina said coldly. “Is there something more important you’d rather be doing?”

Uncle Nathan didn’t respond to that. He sat there quietly, chastised.

The three had been up all night at the computer. Waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. While they took turns trying to get some sleep in Jenny’s bed, one person stayed focused on the screen.

Hoping. Praying.

The night before, soon after Lu had charged into her aunt and uncle’s room to wake them, they had started a Skype account under Lu’s name and a Facebook account for her aunt Tina. Both sent a friend request to Jo Wong. Since they had already discovered that Jenny’s phone wasn’t working, the hope was that Jo Wong’s was. Or better still, that she would log on to Skype or Facebook and discover that Jenny’s family was trying to reach her. Every fifteen minutes they made a Skype call to Jo’s number, and every fifteen minutes it wasn’t answered.

“I think we should call the police there,” Uncle Nathan said. “They have a better chance of tracking her down than we do.”

“But where would we call?” Lu asked. “Which police department?”

Uncle Nathan wanted to answer, but he stopped because he knew Lu was right. That would be another long shot.

“Let’s give this a few more hours,” Aunt Tina said. “If we don’t hear anything, we’ll have to take a stab and call our own police department, and maybe they can suggest—”

“Wait!” Lu exclaimed.

The screen changed. After hours of painful, anxious waiting, someone was answering their Skype call.

“Oh my God,” Aunt Tina said with a gasp.

All three crowded around the monitor. Nobody was breathing. Seconds felt like days as they stared at the small screen that would reveal who was answering their call. Their plea. The smaller window was dark, then suddenly flipped to an image. It was distorted by slow computer speed, but it was unmistakable.

Jo Wong had answered the call. She looked out at them from the computer screen.

“Hello?” Jo said. “Annabella?”

Aunt Tina gasped.

“Yes!” Lu exclaimed in a loud, clear voice. “This is Annabella. Can…you…hear…me?”

Jo laughed. “Sure. I’m in Australia, not on Mars. What’s up?”

Jo’s casual response took everyone by surprise.

“What’s up?” Uncle Nathan exclaimed while crowding next to Lu. “Are you kidding me? Where is my daughter?”

“Mr. Feng?” Jo said. “Are you there too?”

“And so am I!” Aunt Tina said, pushing next to Lu. Now all three could be seen huddled together in their own window.

“Where is Jenny?” Aunt Tina demanded.

Jo scowled. She didn’t expect to answer the Skype call and be attacked by three very anxious people. She looked off camera and said, “I think they want to talk to you.”

“Jenny!” Aunt Tina yelled. “Are you there?”

She strained to see who Jo was talking to, as if moving to the side would let her see around the corner, off-camera.

Jo slid out of the shot, and another girl took her place.

It was Jenny.

Alive and well.

“Hey,” Jenny said with a smile. “Is there a problem?”

The three sat there with mouths open in shock. Nobody knew how to react. It was Uncle Nathan who was finally able to speak.

“You’re okay?” he asked tentatively.

“Of course,” Jenny said, laughing. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

The three shared stunned looks. In that moment their emotions sped from nervousness, to relief, to confusion, and finally…to anger.

“Are you kidding me?” Lu shouted. “Problem? Yeah, there’s a problem! You disappeared for weeks! Nobody knew what happened to you!”

“What?” Jenny said, shaking her head. “That’s not true. I left a note.”

“What note?” Uncle Nathan exclaimed. “I didn’t see any note!”

“I put it on the kitchen counter the day before I left,” Jenny said. “It explained everything.”

“There was no note on the counter,” Aunt Tina said.

Uncle Nathan ran out of the room, headed for the kitchen.

“Well, that’s where I left it,” Jenny said. “In an envelope with your names on it. It explained everything.”

“Why didn’t you just tell us you were going to Australia with your friend?” Aunt Tina asked, tears forming in her eyes.

“Because you would have told me not to go, Mom,” Jenny said. “You know that. Jo had a great opportunity. A whole semester in Cairns to study erosion of the Great Barrier Reef. She asked me to tag along, and all I had to do was come up with the airfare. If I had told you I wanted to go, you would have gone off on how irresponsible it was and how I couldn’t miss work, and you would have done everything you could to stop me. So I didn’t ask. I left you a note and took off.”

Uncle Nathan came back into the room holding a note and the envelope it had been in.

“It was stuck in a pile of junk mail,” he said. “We must have dumped the mail on the counter and scooped it all up together. Jenny, why didn’t you just tell us you wanted to go?”

“Because you would have stopped me, Dad. You know that.”

“Then why didn’t we hear from you?” Aunt Tina asked.

“My phone doesn’t work in Australia,” Jenny answered. “And you guys don’t go online. I left you numbers to reach me, but when you didn’t call, I figured you were mad and didn’t even want to talk. We Skype with friends from Internet cafés all the time. We just logged on, and when Jo saw that Annabella had an account, she answered right away.”

Uncle Nathan examined the note. “All her numbers are right here,” he said, dazed, still trying to get his head around what had happened.

“We’re not mad at you, Jen,” Aunt Tina said.

“I am, a little,” Uncle Nathan said.

“We were so worried,” Aunt Tina said. “We didn’t know where you were or if something terrible had happened.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I really am. I didn’t mean for you to worry. But there was no way I was going to miss out on this chance. I mean, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Lu took the fortune card from the desk and read from it. “ ‘Seize the moment. You may not get another opportunity. Follow your heart.’ ”

Jenny laughed. “You found that? That card is the reason I’m here. A dumb fortune I got from a machine at Playland. I actually followed the advice. If I hadn’t gotten it, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. Can you believe it?”

“Yeah,” Lu said. “I can.”