“Come on,” Jonah said. “Let’s go to my room.”
This was strange too because Chip had never been in Jonah’s room before. They were play-basketball-in-the-driveway-and-maybe-come-into-the-kitchen-for-a-drink-of-water friends, not let’s-go-hang-out-in-my-room friends. Jonah held the front door open for Chip, and then Chip followed him up the stairs. Chip didn’t even glance around when they got to Jonah’s room. Which was good—maybe he wouldn’t notice that along with his sports posters, Jonah still had one up from third grade that showed a LEGO roller coaster.
Jonah shut the door and sat down on the bed. Chip sank into the desk chair.
“I got one, too,” Chip said. He was clutching his face now, almost like that kid in the Home Alone movie.
“One what?” Jonah asked.
“One of those letters. About being missing.”
Chip pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. Jonah could tell that Chip had already folded and unfolded it many times: the creases were beginning to fray. Chip unfolded it once more, and Jonah could see that it was just like the letter he’d gotten, six typewritten words on an otherwise blank sheet of paper:
YOU ARE ONE OF THE MISSING.
“Chip, it’s a prank,” Jonah said. “A joke that’s not even funny.” But he was thinking, Chip wasn’t in that second grade class with Dustin and Jacob and Tony. He’s not adopted, I don’t think. So this is really stupid. Jonah leaned back against the wall, more relaxed than he’d been in hours. “It’s nothing,” he told Chip.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Chip said. “You know what the worst thing is? I was even kind of happy when I pulled this out of the mailbox. Like, ‘Hey, I’m not just the new kid anymore. Somebody’s actually noticed me enough to try to play a prank on me. A stupid prank, but still.’”
Jonah shrugged.
“So, stay happy,” he said. “Congratulations. You got a prank letter.”
Chip bolted forward, his face suddenly hard.
“No,” he said. “No. ‘Cause, see, then I went inside. And my dad was standing there, and I was like, ‘Look, Dad, I got this prank letter.’ And then I’m telling him all about it, about how you got the same letter, and you’d just told me about being adopted, and I could tell you were kind of mad about this letter, and I thought it might be because you’re sensitive about the whole adoption thing—”
“No, I’m not!” Jonah said.
Chip ignored him.
“And you ripped up the letter and threw the pieces in your sister’s face—”
“I did not! Not in her face!”
Chip kept talking, as if Jonah hadn’t said a word.
“And I’m just going on and on, about how obviously the letter had nothing to do with you being adopted because I got the same letter and I’m not adopted and—and—I don’t know what I was thinking, because then I said, ‘Right, Dad? I’m not adopted, am I, Dad?’ And then my dad said…my dad said…”
Chip’s mouth kept moving, but no sound came out. It was like he’d run out of words. Or at least run out of words he wanted to say.
Jonah froze, sitting very precisely in the center of his bed.
“What did your dad say?” he asked very carefully.
Chip was staring straight ahead, his eyes vacant.
“ Are you adopted?” Jonah whispered.
Wordlessly, Chip nodded.
THREE
“Well, why didn’t you tell me that this afternoon?” Jonah asked. He felt kind of silly. It was like when he was on the swim team and some of his friends had hidden his clothes, so he had to walk through the rec center lobby wearing nothing but a Speedo while everyone else was fully clothed. “I told you I was adopted—why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know!” Chip exploded. His whole face was red. “Mom and Dad never told me anything! All this time I thought my parents were my real parents—”
“They’re still your real parents,” Jonah corrected automatically.
“They are not!” Chip said furiously. “They’re total strangers to me now! How could they not tell me?”
That wasn’t a question Jonah could answer. After a certain point, he’d stopped reading all the kid-approved “Isn’t adoption wonderful!” books his parents had bought for him and had started sneaking peeks at some of the books on their bookshelves: Raising the Well-Adjusted Adopted Child, What to Tell Your Adopted and Foster Children, Adoption Without Secrets. All the adoptive-parents books Jonah had ever seen acted like there was one commandment Moses had forgotten to bring down from Mount Sinai: tell adopted kids the truth.
Chip was running his hands violently through his hair again. If he kept that up, he’d end up pulling it all out.
“Stop that,” Jonah said. “Your parents probably thought they were doing the right thing.”
Chip laughed bitterly.
“Yeah—the right thing for them.” He stood up abruptly, knocking the desk chair over backward. “This is just like them. They always want to pretend that everything’s normal, that everything’s fine: ‘No, Chip, you didn’t hear anyone yelling last night. Your father and I never fight—’”
“Adoption is normal,” Jonah said stiffly. “It’s been part of human society for centuries.”
Chip shot him a “get real” look and began pacing. When he reached Jonah’s door, he pounded his fists on the wood. Then he lowered his forehead onto his fists and just stood there.
“Uh, Chip?” Jonah said nervously. “Are you okay?”
“You know what’s funny?” Chip said in a strangled voice, without lifting his head. “It’s kind of a relief…not being related to them. I don’t want to be like Mom and Dad, anyhow. But who am I for real? Who are my real parents?”
“Birth parents,” Jonah said quietly. “They’re called birth parents.”
Chip rolled his head to the side.