Eleven

Emma

Of course Emma followed Joe. He might need help with whatever danger he was running toward.

And how could Emma bear not to know what had just happened, that made him run away?

She dived out the open window after him. Joe had gone feet-first, and Emma didn’t really think until she was half in, half out of the window that going arms-first meant she would have to roll herself into a somersault once she landed in the mulch outside. She tucked her head under just like she’d learned in gym class and was soon back up on her feet, too.

“Wait!” she yelled after Joe.

“No! Stay—” he called back to her.

But Emma lost track of what he was saying because the shouts of everyone behind her were louder: Chess yelling, “Emma, be careful!” and Finn crying, “Where are you going?” And somewhere in there was Mom’s voice calling, “Emma, I’m coming, too—but wait, here’s some money so they don’t think we just dined and dashed . . . or ordered and dashed. . . .”

And Emma wanted to giggle, because that was so Mom, that even as they were running away, she was still trying to be fair to the restaurant.

Joe sprinted across the parking lot, getting farther and farther ahead of Emma because his legs were about twice as long as hers. Still, Emma risked a glance back over her shoulder: Mom, Chess, and Finn were all trailing along behind her. So were all four Gustanos. Mrs. Gustano was still in the process of climbing out the window even as she yelled back to what must have been a startled waitress, “We’ll be back for the food in a minute! I think we will, anyway! Regardless, the money’s on the table. . . .”

When Emma turned back around to look for Joe, he was already speeding across the street. He ran up to a dark van on the other side. It had windows only at the front.

That’s the kind of van kidnappers use, Emma thought. Because no one can see in the back. She wanted to shout a warning to Joe, but she and her family and the Gustanos were already making enough of a scene. She shifted to looking at the van’s license plate instead.

It was blacked out.

Joe whipped open the doors at the back of the van. Emma reached the street and just barely remembered to look both ways for traffic—fortunately, there wasn’t any. She bounded over to Joe.

He was peering into the back section of the van, which was crammed so full of electronics gear that it took Emma a full minute to notice a girl sitting in the midst of it all. The girl wore one set of headphones smashed down onto her hair and had three others dangling along her collarbones like so many necklaces. She was also shouting into a microphone, “I didn’t say it was that kind of emergency!”

And she had the same wiry frame as Joe; her eyebrows had the same inquisitive arch. . . .

This girl looked so much like Joe she had to be related.

Emma remembered the day they’d first met Joe, when he’d explained why he hadn’t rushed to help Mom sooner in the other world: I have kids, too. Kids I was trying to protect.

Was this Joe’s daughter?

The next thing Emma noticed was a wave of stench coming out of the van. The smell was so vile and overpowering that she practically gagged.

“Hold your breath!” she yelled to the girl who was probably Joe’s daughter. Then Emma whirled toward Joe. “Do you think this is an attack? Did someone from the other world cross over and . . . Or, no, this smell isn’t making me feel hopeless or like giving up, so this is something new, some other unidentified source—”

“I know where this smell is coming from!” the girl in the van yelled back at Emma.

She reached down, and Emma braced herself for the girl to lift up a stink bomb, or something equally disgusting. Instead, she lifted up . . .

A baby.

It was actually a rather adorable baby in a lacy yellow dress, with a giant yellow bow wrapped around her dark curls.

But she really stank.

“You gave the emergency code word because Kafi has a dirty diaper?” Joe asked in disbelief. “Don’t you remember I said to stay inconspicuous? And now I’ve run across the parking lot with”—he looked back, to where Mrs. Gustano and Other-Finn was just now crossing the street—“eight people chasing me?”

“We’re out of fresh diapers. And wipes,” the girl said, waving the baby around as if she enjoyed sharing the stink. “So, Dad, if you want to sit in an enclosed space monitoring every movement within a mile while Kafi cries and you hold your breath, be my guest. We can trade places. I’m pretty sure I can deliver bad news as well as you can.”

“Bad news?” Emma repeated.

“You mean about the Gustano kids having smells tested on them,” Finn piped up. “Joe already told us that. We’re done with the bad news now.”

The girl holding the baby raised her eyebrows a little higher and peered at Joe.

Then she asked: “You didn’t tell them the rest?”