Redeemed by Margaret Peterson Haddix

told us Sam Chase was his best projectionist.”
    â€œAnd a projectionist is . . . ,” Dad prompted.
    â€œSomeone who makes predictions for time travelers,” Katherine answered. “So they can see how their trip might affect time. Usually you don’t want to change anything about the past, because it could mess up everything.”
    â€œBut Sam Chase got sick of things not changing.” Jonah took up the story. He crossed his arms in a way that made him look furious. “He tricked JB—and, well, me and Katherine and our friend Andrea, too—and he decided to rearrange history. He started calling himself Second Chance.”
    â€œAnd he shifted and split time, just for the fun of it,” Katherine finished. “He almost destroyed it completely.”
    Jonah and Katherine were just talking. They were just kids . And there was nothing remotely dangerous anywherein sight. Even the face Jordan had seen back in the lab hadn’t seemed that menacing—the guy had mostly just looked like a computer nerd with messy hair.
    But Jordan still found himself having to fight the urge to shiver in fear.
    â€œJB thinks Second is the one who taught Gary and Hodge how to make their split dimensions,” Jonah said.
    â€œReally?” Katherine said. Evidently this was news to her, too. “So you and Jordan growing up in different dimensions—that all traces back to him too?”
    â€œHow is he at re-aging people who already lived through their teen years once and would rather just be adults again?” Mom asked, and at least she managed to sound slightly humorous about the whole thing.
    â€œI don’t know,” Jonah said, shrugging helplessly. It was still strange how much looking at Jonah was like looking into a mirror. But Jordan had never seen his own face look so miserable. “I don’t know if that was Second when he was still Sam Chase and still loyal to JB. I don’t know if he’s told the whole time agency we were there, and now we’ve gotten JB into serious, serious trouble. I don’t know if we somehow managed to cross over into the new dimension Second created, and maybe he’d try to follow us if we went back home. I don’t even know if this plastic thing I grabbed is an Elucidator or not!”
    He held up the thin sliver of plastic he’d swiped from the table back at the lab.
    â€œOkay. Okay,” Mom said. She took a deep breath, just like she always did when she was trying to talk Katherine down from some stupid sixth-grade drama with her friends. “Let’s just look at this logically. Something got us out of that lab and into this . . . what did you call it? A time hollow? And we know the other Elucidator Jordan took from JB wasn’t working. . . .”
    â€œ Do we know that?” Jonah asked. “That Elucidator took us from our kitchen into the lab in what must have been the future. I was thinking the Elucidator was broken the same way as the light switch in our bathroom last summer, where sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t, and it was impossible to predict. Remember, Dad, you had me help you fix that?”
    â€œUmmm . . . ,” Dad said.
    â€œNo, I helped Dad fix the bathroom light switch!” Jordan said hotly. It’d been, like, a five-minute job, and Jordan had complained the whole time. But he still didn’t want Jonah taking credit.
    Dad scrunched up his face.
    â€œI . . . can’t really remember which of you helped me,” he said. “It might have even been Katherine. . . . Sorry, guys.”
    Katherine was squinting too.
    â€œI guess it was probably both of you, just in the different dimensions,” she said. “ I don’t remember doing it.”
    â€œAnyhow,” Mom said, waving her hand as if trying to shove away any possible arguments. “Let’s get back to the Elucidator.