Read Caught (Missing) for Free Online

Katherine do to make sure the young Albert Einstein they’d seen in this room was going to turn into the bike-riding, tongue-sticking-out, homework-helping old man that everybody loved? What could they do to make sure time went right?
    And, oh, yeah—what was the deal with Einstein’s daughter? How did she fit in with all of this?
    Jonah shifted nervously in his seat, and something jabbed him from his jeans pocket.
    The Elucidator.
    “Hey, maybe we can ask JB all our questions,” he told Katherine. “We haven’t tried talking to him since we got here—maybe that will work now.”
    “It’s worth a shot,” Katherine said, shrugging.
    Jonah drew the Elucidator from his pocket. When he’d begged for invisibility in the last moments of their tripthrough time, he’d neglected to ask the Elucidator to make itself invisible, too. So once it was out of his pocket, the Elucidator was fully visible. For a few seconds he amused himself by covering it with his hands—making it disappear completely—and then holding it flat in his crystalline palm. All he had to do was squint, and it looked as if the Elucidator were appearing from nowhere and floating in midair.
    “You are such a boy ,” Katherine snorted. “Playing games when we’ve got serious problems to deal with!”
    Why was it okay to insult males, but totally wrong and sexist to say anything bad about females?
    Jonah knew better than to ask this question out loud.
    “This isn’t a game,” he said in an offended tone. “It’s a science experiment. I bet Albert Einstein would be doing the same thing if he was me.”
    “Only if his IQ fell into negative numbers,” Katherine said. “Oh, wait—that is you!”
    She snatched the Elucidator out of his hand the next time he opened his palm.
    “Interesting,” she said, rubbing her fingers over its carved surface. “What’s it imitating now?”
    When they’d left the twenty-first century, the Elucidator had been black and sleek, resembling the most updated cell phone Jonah had ever seen. But somehow onthe trip through time it had transformed itself into an old-fashioned wooden-and-leather case.
    That’s probably what cell phones would have looked like if they’d had cell phones in the Victorian era, Jonah thought. But—they didn’t. They barely even had phones.
    Katherine flipped a clasp at the front of the Elucidator, and the lid sprang open, revealing a layer of glass and a needle and face below.
    “Oh—it’s a compass,” Jonah said.
    “I guess that’s a step up from a rock or a candleholder,” Katherine said, making a face. “But how do we talk on it?” She tapped the glass. “Hello? JB? Hello? Are you there? Are you somewhere with Einstein’s daughter?”
    There was a noise behind them—a gasp. And then the sound of running: thump-slide-thump-slide-thump-slide . . .
    Jonah whirled around to see Mileva dashing toward them.
    She can’t see us. We’re invisible, he reminded himself. But—the Elucidator—
    He put his hand out to cover over the Elucidator, to hide it. But he was too late.
    Mileva had already snatched the Elucidator from Katherine’s grasp.

NINE
    Jonah immediately tried to grab the Elucidator back from Mileva. But he had to be careful not to touch her hand, only the wooden case. He darted around, waiting for the exact right moment, the exact right angle.
    Greedily, Mileva encircled the entire compass case with both hands, effectively killing all of Jonah’s best chances.
    Beside him, Katherine shot him an anguished look, mouthing the words, What do we do? What do we do?
    Jonah held up his hand warningly.
    Wait, he mouthed back. But how long had Mileva been behind them? How much had she seen? How much had she heard? What did she know?
    Mileva huddled on the floor and bent down over the Elucidator/compass case.
    “What do you know about Lieserl?” she shouted at it. “You haven’t harmed her, have you? Please, God, no . . . Why would you? We’re nobodies.