Chapter 31
Jack

The small paper rectangle feels heavy in my shaking hands. That fake memory thing worked? I was just about to let George go, but how can I now?

I skip over the phone number, since Dad won’t answer anyway, and scan the rest of the card to find his address. He always used to work at home when he wasn’t traveling the globe, so I’m pretty sure he’s living in . . . Revere? So he was just a short ride away this whole time! And he never . . . I bite my lip and shake the thought from my mind. He must have an explanation, and I can’t wait to hear it soon.

I yank my phone out of my pocket and plug in the address. An orange subway train, then a blue one, getting off at the Wonderland station. “Guess it wasn’t Neverland, but I was pretty close,” I tell George, nudging him with a laugh.

He scrunches up a very confused brow. “Huh?”

“Forget it,” I say. “We need to get on a train.”

He salutes. “Aye, aye, sir!”

As I’m about to stuff my phone back into my pocket, I notice the stream of missed texts from Jason:

Are you alive, man?

Yo, Jack?

Helloooo?

WTF Jack

Answer the text or I’m telling my dad.

There’s one from Morgan, too: George says he BUMPED INTO you at the store????

I send her a blushing emoji with a quick, Please don’t tell.

To Jason, I merely type, I’m alive. It’s been hours since my last update. Has he told?

I see the three little dots that show he’s typing, and I wait. The anticipation is horrible as they disappear and reappear and disappear again.

After several agonizing moments, his message comes through. Not when you get home. I’m gonna kill you. Morgan and I have been freaking out.

Morgan? Freaking out? I decide not to address that questionable statement. Instead I type, I’ve almost found my dad.

Hurry, he replies. No arguments there.

“Come on,” I tell George, grabbing his hand and running toward the Orange Line subway stop just down the street.

George’s magic tricks have been more useful than I even dreamed. Not only did the cash we earned buy my train ticket, I also snagged a bag of pretzels and a Coke from the vending machine before boarding.

I chow down in silence as we ride, obsessively checking the map on my phone to make sure I know the way. Transfer at State to the Blue Line, I repeat in my head, again and again. Transfer at State to the Blue Line. It’s only a twenty-minute ride total, but I can’t stop worrying about everything that can go wrong before we get there.

After the incident of controlling George, I’m afraid to imagine what my family is doing right now in case it actually comes true—but that doesn’t stop the endless questions from bouncing around in my brain. Will Mom call Dad? Will Aunt Rachel and Uncle Dave find out I’m gone? Will Morgan’s friend ruin everything? Will Morgan? My stomach lurches as I realize out loud, “We forgot the bikes!”

Every other passenger on our train turns to face me: two old men, a group of four high schoolers who smell like the entire fragrance counter at a department store, a woman wearing a surgical facemask, her phone-obsessed son, and a bookworm reading the largest novel I have ever seen. Or is that a dictionary? “Sorry,” I say to them all, waving my hands as if I can push away their attention.

The train grumbles to a halt. “State Street,” the muffled speaker announces. Saved by my stop.

“Come on, George,” I whisper. “This is us.” As we rise and approach the open door, the surgical mask lady stops me with an outstretched hand. I’m afraid she’s about to grab me, but at the last moment, she seems to recall her fear of germs and stops just shy.

“Where’s your family, honey?” I hear through the mask.

“Right here,” George says, standing by my side and thumping his chest in some sort of display of solidarity. Her eyes almost flick in his direction.

“Wonderland,” I say with a confident nod, before grabbing George’s hand and yanking him off the train.

As our second train pulls us closer and closer to my dad, I feel heavy. My stomach is practically empty and yet it feels like it’s filled with rocks rather than half a bag of pretzels. The weight is even slowing down the train. I’ve only taken the Blue Line once before, when my parents took me to the beach, but I don’t remember it being so endless.

At the same time, it somehow doesn’t feel slow enough. This is what I’ve been waiting for, what I’ve wanted all this time, but all I can think about is the surgical mask lady’s question. Where’s your family?

George answered for me, and he’s right—he is my family. But the answer that came to my head? Not on an aimless cross-country journey ignoring her health to tour the world with her new motorcycle lover. Not somewhere at the other end of this too-short-to-never-visit train line, ignoring me and pretending I don’t exist. I thought of Aunt Rachel and Uncle Dave, both thinking I’m still in their house. I thought of Jason, glued to his phone as he waits for any sort of update from me. I even thought of Morgan, who maybe told her friend I was kind of okay.

I squeeze my fist, my too-long fingernails putting four tiny dents into the palm of my hand. Is it too late to turn around?

“Jack?” George asks, noticing my frustration. “Is something wrong?”

“Wonderland,” the voice announces as the train rolls to a stop.

I close my eyes for a second, then open them with a small shake of my head. “No.” Despite my hundred-pound stomach, I rise to my feet and lead George off the train, into the wonderland my dad calls home.