Neither Jonah nor Katherine answered. Jonah kept running toward the car. Katherine, on the other hand, ran into Chip's house and started leaning toward him, the palm of her hand cradling his face. "I just have to make sure Chip's okay first!" she yelled, in answer to Jonah's protests. "You didn't have another panic attack about being back in the Middle Ages, did you, Chip?"

Jonah bounded back up the stairs. "Katherine! Nobody wants to watch you two kiss!"

"And—I've got the stomach flu. Really, that's all it is," said Chip, stepping back and separating himself from Katherine. "But I don't want you to catch it."

"I am not watching anyone else puke!" Jonah exclaimed, grabbing Katherine's arm. "Come on!"

Anyone else? thought Angela. Was Jonah referring to something that had happened at school or at home… or something that had happened on whatever time travel journey he and Katherine had just gotten back from?

She didn't have time to ask. Jonah had grabbed her arm as well, and she ran to keep up with him and Katherine as they raced to the car.

"You will tell me the whole story later on," Angela insisted as she searched the dashboard for the Elucidator. Remembering that Jonah had been the last to have it, she turned around and looked at his hands, but they were both empty. "Wait—where's the Elucidator to make this go?"

Instead of reaching into his pocket and pulling out the Elucidator—that was where Angela's Elucidator was, right?—Jonah reached over and turned the key in the ignition. The car started up as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened. "We don't need the Elucidator for that anymore. We're back in regular time," he said.

Angela stared at him in horror. If time had started up again, and Jonah and Katherine were still here rather than in their classrooms where they'd undoubtedly been before time had frozen… that meant that, to the perspective of their classmates and teachers, Jonah and Katherine had just vanished into thin air.

"I'll get you back to school immediately," Angela told them, shifting her car into gear and speeding out of the driveway.

This won't be like when I saw the plane, she told herself. None of the kids or teachers at Jonah and Katherine's school will decide to devote their lives to figuring out what could possibly make someone disappear. Jonah and Katherine will be back at school in a couple minutes, and they'll be able to explain it away. Say they just moved so fast that no one saw them. This won't mess up time.

But what if time was already so messed up it wouldn't matter?

Angela had the pedal down almost as far as it had been when the Elucidator was powering the car, only this time the car was going much faster. She made it to the front entrance of the school in mere minutes and slammed on the brake.

Jonah and Katherine didn't immediately get out of the car. "You'll have to come in with us, to sign us in. We'll have to think of some good excuse," said Katherine, her face tormented. "They've rigged the front doors so no one can get in the building without walking through the office first."

Jonah shook his head. "Katherine, we can't go through the front. There's that security camera right there—we can't leave a record that we were outside of school."

Suddenly, he pushed Katherine's head down below the level of the window, ducking his own head down as well. Angela looked up and saw a silhouette inside the front door, no doubt some administrator on the lookout for kids who were skipping school.

Katherine was whispering to Jonah in the backseat. Angela couldn't hear everything she said. Then Jonah looked up at Angela. "Drive on around to the side door," he said.

"It's going to be locked, and we'll just waste even more time—" Katherine began, but Jonah cut her off.

"That's where the cook and the janitor were kissing, remember? What do you bet they have the door propped open?"

Angela sped around the corner, just as the door Jonah and Katherine had been talking about started swinging shut. "Run!" Jonah shouted to Katherine, pushing her out the car door. "Angela—"

Angela desperately wanted an explanation, but there was no time. "I know—later," she said. "Now, go!"

She watched as the two kids made it to the door barely on time to catch it before it locked shut. They stood, catching their breath, and then went inside.

Angela had just a moment to catch her own breath before she felt herself falling through time.