Forty-Eight

Chess, Emma, Finn, Kona, Kafi, Rocky, and Lana

“Everybody, grab a bucket of coins!” Emma yelled. “Grab two! Grab as many as you can carry!”

“That won’t work!” Rocky moaned. “We can’t go into that stadium! We can’t! We’d be trapped forever. . . .”

“You won’t have to do that!” Emma exclaimed. “None of us will be trapped!”

And then . . . she stood up. She turned toward the SUV.

The other kids stared at her as if she’d just found a way to levitate. Or fly. It seemed that amazing that she could resist the voice coming from the stadium so easily.

It’s because she believes her plan will work, Chess thought. Because she’s still trying. Because she still has hope.

“Come on,” Chess said, hoisting Finn toward the SUV as well. At the same time, Kona lifted Kafi; Lana stood and held out a hand to Rocky.

We can move like an amoeba toward good things, too, Chess thought.

No. They weren’t moving like a brainless amoeba—they were moving like a team of individuals capable of thinking for themselves.

A team of individuals who all trusted Emma.

Emma began handing out buckets of coins to the other kids.

“What’s the plan?” Kona asked. “Where are we taking these?”

Emma pointed.

To Rocky, who had a fear of heights that he’d never confessed to anyone, it seemed like she was pointing straight into the sun. Lana moaned, “Up there? On the catwalk?”

And then Rocky realized what both girls meant: There was indeed a walkway at the top of the giant screen.

“You want us to go up there and dump all the coins down in front of the screen,” Kona said, catching on. “And all the people in the stadium will see them and remember their own stories, not the evil lies the giant screen is putting into their heads.”

Chess, Rocky, and Lana exchanged glances. They were the oldest kids; they were also the most naturally inclined to be pessimistic. They weren’t doubles of one another—or would it be triples? But in that moment, it felt like they were all thinking the same thought: That is such a long shot. But . . . it’s worth a try.

“And at the exact moment that everyone sees the coins—” Emma began.

“One of us will swing the lever,” Finn ended for her. “Because having people think about the coins instead of the giant screen will weaken the bad guys.”

“And that could reopen the boundaries between the worlds,” Kona added excitedly, bouncing Kafi. “At least temporarily.”

“It’ll be long enough,” Finn said. “We can do this!”

All the kids moved quickly after that. For Lana, it reminded her of the first time she’d picked up a coin, the way just that simple motion had silenced the voices in her head whispering, You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You’re alone. Nobody cares about you. Just that one action had made her start thinking, At least I can do something. Maybe this one little change can make a difference. . . .

Now she stopped hearing the roar of the voices coming from the giant screen. Even as she carried bucket after bucket toward the screen, she could focus instead on the gleam of the coins, the chatter of the other kids around her, the hope that Emma’s plan would work.

This is actually better than the first time I picked up a coin, she thought. Because then I was still alone. Or . . . I thought I was.

It was eight flights of stairs up to the catwalk above the screen. The kids traveled in a pack: Chess and Rocky carrying four buckets apiece, Kona carrying two plus Kafi. Finn strained to be like Lana and Emma and carry one in each hand.

“If you start feeling scared or hopeless or like the screen is getting power over you, let the rest of us know,” Emma directed. “We can cheer each other up. We can make each other brave.”

That’s what we’ve been doing all along, isn’t it? Chess thought. From that very first day we heard about the Gustanos being kidnapped . . .

It made him think about how much Natalie had helped him and Finn and Emma on their previous trips to this awful world, and how much he missed having her along this time. The voice coming from the screen seemed to get louder, and he began to wonder, Why did Emma, Finn, and I think we could accomplish anything without her?

He tapped his wrist against the coins he still held in his pocket. He focused his gaze on Finn skipping up the stairs ahead of him. And then he thought, I am doing this for Natalie, too. I am doing this for her and her mom, and her double in this world, and my mom and Joe. And for this whole world, and for the entire better world, and . . .

And that was all it took to carry him to the top of the stairs.

The view from the catwalk was dizzying. The kids were so high up now that they could see the entire stadium below them. Hundreds of people—maybe even thousands—stood silently facing the screen, both on the ground and in the stands. From above, it was impossible to pick out individual faces. But all the people in the crowd cocked their heads at the same time; all of them turned toward the action on the left side of the screen at the same time, then back to the right side of the screen at the same time. It was like watching hundreds of people moving as one, because they were all thinking the same thoughts.

Because none of them were thinking their own thoughts.

“Space out the buckets evenly, and then we can topple them all at once,” Emma suggested. “That’ll get everyone’s attention, and that’s when we can swing the lever.”

“Emma, didn’t you say the lever only works in a place that’s duplicated in both worlds?” Kona asked. “So it can’t be here on this catwalk, right?”

“No,” Emma said. Her voice went slightly shaky. “I was thinking I’d . . . run over to the Cuckoo Clock building and use the lever there. We know that building’s in both worlds.” She pointed, and the other kids gawked. They could see the alternate world’s Cuckoo Clock building from this height, but it seemed tiny and impossibly far away.

“You can’t go by yourself!” Chess protested.

“I’ll go with you,” Kona said, looping her arm through Emma’s.

“But you have Kafi to worry about,” Rocky argued, putting down his buckets.

Kona slid the little girl into his arms.

“I’m trusting you to take care of her,” she said.

Rocky squinted at her in confusion for a moment, then he snorted.

“You’re doing that to help me, aren’t you?” he asked. “Because if I’m busy making sure Kafi isn’t eating any coins, I won’t get too scared.”

“I know what it’s like to be the oldest,” Kona said. “And—we oldest kids have to watch out for each other!”

This is working, Emma thought. We’re all functioning as a team. It’s like we’re all doubles of one another in some way—we all have something in common with everyone else in the group. And sometimes we think alike. But it’s not because anyone’s forcing us to. That’s a totally different thing.

She lifted a coin from the top of one of the buckets.

“When Kona and I get over to the Cuckoo Clock building, we’ll signal you with this coin,” she said. “The sun’s at the right angle so that we can flash a message in your direction. I’ll do Morse code. Two dashes, one dot, then three dashes—that means ‘Go!’”

Of course Emma knows Morse code for “Go!” Finn thought admiringly.

Emma and Kona left their buckets behind and went racing down the stairs. The sound of their footsteps disappeared into the roar of the voices coming from the screen.

And then there was nothing for the other kids to do but wait and try not to listen to the mind-control voices.

“We should stick close together until we see their signal,” Chess suggested. His teeth were chattering even though he wasn’t cold. He, Finn, and Lana moved in close beside Rocky and baby Kafi. Kafi patted each of their cheeks in turn and giggled.

“Kona left Kafi here to help all of us!” Lana exclaimed. “That was really smart!”

Finn leaned his head back against Kafi’s arm. It reminded him of leaning against the coins. And of taping them to his forehead. Maybe that hadn’t mattered as much as he’d thought. Maybe it was enough that the coins existed—and that they reminded him that other people wanted to share truth, not lies; good things, not bad.

Being near baby Kafi was good, too.

Finn peered out toward the Cuckoo Clock building. He hoped Kona and Emma were running as fast as they possibly could. They hadn’t gotten to the open space yet where he might be able to see them.

Finn touched his forehead—somehow, all the coins he’d taped there had fallen off and he hadn’t even noticed. He switched to pulling a coin out of his pocket: the one Gus had given him. The one that contained the story of how Mom and Dad had wanted a better world for their children. The one Finn had intended to keep as a memento of the father he never knew.

Finn held the coin over one of the buckets. And then he let it fall.

Because maybe that one extra coin will make the difference for someone in this stadium, he thought. Because I’d give that up to fix the worlds and get back to Mom.

Because he’d never forget what Gus had said about his father, anyhow.

He would always have that, no matter what.