CHAPTER 1

"You two don't look much alike," Chip told her, dropping the basketball onto the ground. Katherine quickly spun it off the ground and onto her arm, grinning all the while, before turning and shooting in into the basket. It hit the rim, but close enough.

She waited until Chip had retrieved the ball to answer. "I'm adopted," she responded, giving him a Look that plainly asked whether he had a problem with that. Personally, Katherine didn't think it mattered all too much- it was just another fact that differentiated them, such as Jonah liking mint chocolate chip and Katherine liking orange sherbet. Yet, strangely enough, people got all weird about it, and started speaking to her as if she was abused, or something. It seemed that most people assumed that whenever someone is adopted that meant they had been abused by their former guardians, and while that was sometimes the case, it sometimes wasn't.

Chip had raised his eyebrows, as if he were interested, but not sure how to continue the conversation. Katherine knew that look very well, as she wore it a lot around her parents. Whatever he was doing, it wasn't being focused on the ball, and that gave Katherine the chance to slap it out of his hands. She took another shot, this time making it, and crowing, "Yeah! Two points!"

Chip was still lost in thought, it seemed, so Katherine just stood there, holding the ball under her arm. She was sweating a little, and her blonde hair had come out of its ponytail a little.

"Hey, if you're not related by blood or anything-"

Oh, boy, Katherine thought.

"Could you date him? Jonah, I mean?"

Katherine gagged, almost dropping the ball. "No!" She sputtered indignantly. "That's sick! We may not be blood related, but we're still family!" If Katherine had known Chip for longer than a few weeks, at most, she would've jostled his shoulder and gave him a noogie like she was his cousin. As stated earlier, Katherine had most certainly not known Chip for longer than a few weeks, as he had moved in about a month ago.

Now, Katherine shook her head. "You boys…" she muttered, bouncing the ball again. "Anyhow, if you think Jonah and I don't look alike, you should see my cousin Reina and her sister Ming."

"Why?" Chip asked, genuinely sounding curious. Katherine startled for a moment at the sincerity, but answered.

"She's Chinese, and Reina's American," she explained, "My aunts had to go through at lot to adopt her since she was from a foreign country, yet had no birth records. And because, you know…"

Katherine remembered this time very well: Aunt Olivia and Aunt Robin had spent months trying to fill out the paperwork, and planning to visit her, and whatnot. The whole time Mom and Dad kept saying how lucky they were, how thankful that getting Katherine had been so easy, etc.

Jonah had been jealous. Katherine has been being hugged by Mom and Dad, and she could clearly see her less mature, younger brother sticking out his tongue at her. She stuck out hers right back.

Then he had pouted and demanded, "What about me? I'm a miracle, too, aren't I?"

"Of course you are, dear," Mom had said, pulling him into the hug as well. "You're both miracles!" And that had satisfied him, thankfully.

But then Mom and Dad would repeatedly tell the story of she got adopted until even hearing the words "out of the blue" or "the week before Christmas" together in that order would fill both her and Jonah with an ungodly sense of dread.

Katherine shivered out of instinct. To clear the horrible words from her mind, she once again took the ball and sent it whooshing through the net. Chip went over to grab the ball.

"Wow," Chip said, impressed, "You're really good! You're going to make the team for sure!"

"And why," asked Katherine, in a drawling sort of way, "would I want to try out for basketball?"

Chip seemed surprised by the response and took a few moments to clear himself, before saying, "Well… you clearly like basketball, so I figured…" He cleared his throat, bouncing the ball a bit more. "Never mind."

"Oh, no, no," laughed Katherine, "No, it's fine. I don't know what I'm going to do, to be honest with you."

"What's that mean?" asked Chip in confusion, but before Katherine could explain her very complicated dilemma between cheerleading and basketball, they were interrupted.

"Kathie!" called the bane of Katherine's existence, a.k.a her brother Jonah. He was using the nickname he had used for her when they were around five years old, simply because he knew it irritated her so. He had poked his head out of the front doorway, looking less than pleased.

"What do you want, you little demon?" Katherine yelled back. Chip snickered, but hid it in his hand. Jonah rolled his eyes.

"Mom says to get the mail!" Jonah responded.

The mail? Did the mail even come by yet? Katherine turned and jogged down the driveway towards the mailbox. Sure enough, the little blue stick had been pointed upwards. Katherine opened the mailbox to find a variety of things, including a few ads, and one simple envelope with no return address. Looking at the envelope, Katherine frowned. It was addressed to… her?

Katherine shook her head and took the rest of the mail up to Jonah, who snatched it out of her hands as soon as she held it out. Katherine held onto her own letter, though, feeling very confused.

"Thanks- wait, you've still got one!" Jonah complained. He did a lot of complaining for a twelve year old.

"That's because it's mine, Jo-No brain." Katherine rolled her eyes. Chip had come up to where they were standing, and Katherine almost wanted to tell him off for it. But then she decided she didn't care.

"Really?" said Jonah, looking much too interested. "Who's it from?"

"No idea, it doesn't say," replied Katherine. Usually if she got mail, it was from the school in a very thick envelop with a clear school stamp on it. But this was a thin, practically unmarked envelope that didn't even feel like it had anything in it. Katherine reached out to rip the top off, but hesitated. Something about this rubbed her the wrong way.

"Well," Jonah said impatiently, "Open it!" Chip looked very interested as well. Clearly neither of them were sketched out like she was.

Katherine swallowed back her odd feeling, and obeyed, ripping the envelope and sliding out a single piece of paper. And it was mostly blank, but on this paper were six, simple words.

YOU ARE ONE OF THE MISSING.

a/n: well, here it is! this is an idea that i had a while back- what if katherine and jonah switch places? now, a lot of things are going to stay the same in this verse, but a lot aren't. you'll see what happens soon enough!