The Missing Collection by Margaret Peterson Haddix by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Author:Margaret Peterson Haddix
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-25T16:00:00+00:00

TEN

Jonah spun around—or, spun as well as anyone could, three seconds after vomiting. A man in a gray maintenance-staff sweatshirt stood leaning against the tile wall, but it wasn’t the same janitor who’d given him the Mountain Dew. That guy had been older, paunchier. This guy was young and didn’t really look like a janitor somehow.

“We’ve had to do way too much planning on the fly here—we just thought, twenty ounces of Mountain Dew, at some point you’d have to leave that office and go to the bathroom,” the man said. “So we could get you alone.”

Jonah realized he was practically trapped in the bathroom stall. To get out, he’d have to walk right past the man. Hadn’t this day already been horrifying enough? He darted a quick glance down—maybe if he dived fast enough, he could roll out under the wall of the stall and make it to the door out into the hallway before the man saw what he was doing.

The man caught Jonah’s glance.

“It’s not like that!” the man said, holding up his hands innocently. “I just wanted to tell you something.”

“What?” Jonah said, cautiously. Maybe he could swing the stall door into the man’s face, maybe he could jump up on the toilet and hang on to the stall’s walls to get leverage to kick, maybe—

“When you go back to Mr. Reardon’s office,” the man said, quickly, like he thought he might run out of time, “find a way to look in the file of papers on his desk. Memorize all the names you can.”

“There isn’t a file on Mr. Reardon’s desk,” Jonah said. “Just a laptop.”

He was sure of that. He could close his eyes and picture the vast expanse of the desk, almost completely empty.

“There will be when you get back,” the man said.

The man took a step toward Jonah, and Jonah tensed. But the man kept going, around the corner of the stall toward the door out into the hallway. Jonah didn’t hear the door open and close, but when he peeked out, the man was gone.

Jonah collapsed against the metal stall again. He took a deep breath. Steady . . . He found he was clearheaded enough now to remember to flush the toilet.

A pounding noise came from the hallway, somebody pounding on the door.

“Jonah! Jonah, are you all right in there?”

It was Mom, treating him like a kindergartener again.

“I’m fine!” he yelled out.

“Do you need any help?”

“No! Just give me a minute!”

He went to the sink, splashed water on his face, scooped water up into his mouth, and swallowed. His mouth still tasted gross. He leaned his forehead against the mirror.

Papers , he thought. Look into the file on Mr. Reardon’s desk. . . .

“Jonah?” Mom called from the other side of the bathroom door.

“Coming.”

Jonah wiped his face on his sleeve—okay, not good manners, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances—and left the bathroom. Mom was waiting right outside the door; Dad and Mr. Reardon were a little farther down the hall.

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