On a whim, probably because Tess was watching, Jaime drew a companion for the woman. A large cat. Sleek and black, like a panther, with a long tail. She—and he knew the cat was a she—had a brazen expression on her feline face. Just try to catch me, the expression said.

Tess reached under the mirrored glasses and wiped at her eye.

“I’m sorry,” Jaime said. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“No, no. I love it,” Tess said. “It’s just . . .”

“I know.” He did.

Tess readjusted the mirrored glasses. “Nine will be home when we get back.”

“I bet she will.”

A ghost of a smile touched Tess’s mouth, and then she turned from him, staring out the bus window again.

Jaime added more stray curls around the woman’s face and a sideways sweep to the coat, as if a strong wind were blowing, as if something were coming. One eyebrow was quirked. Dark eyes glinted. She stared right at him. Challenging him.

Why should he make himself smaller?

He pulled himself up in the seat, sat straight and tall the rest of the way.

Back at Aunt Esther’s, Tess ran around the house calling Nine’s name. She knocked on the neighbors’ doors and asked if they’d seen the spotted cat with striped ears. They hadn’t. She called her father at work and asked if there was any news about Nine, and then she called her mother. Her mother said that somehow Nine had escaped her cage, but they had no idea how she could have gotten out of the building, or where she’d gotten to. Someone was sure to see her and report it, however, because the video was still all over the news. She was sure Nine would show up. Tess just had to be patient.

Tess hung up Aunt Esther’s ancient wall phone, a yellow plastic thing with a long curly cord, but she kept her hand on it, as if hoping it would ring again, and someone would be on the other end with different news.

“Tess,” said Aunt Esther, “why don’t you all take those coveralls off and throw them in the wash. I’ll answer the phone if it rings.”

They peeled off the coveralls and put them in the washing machine as Aunt Esther suggested, and then took Ono and the stolen ledger upstairs to the twins’ room. They set it on the floor between them to examine it more carefully. Jaime let Ono roam around the room as they tried to make sense of the endless columns of numbers. “Oh no oh no oh no oh no,” the robot whispered softly to itself, as it bumped into walls and dressers and bed frames.

“So,” said Jaime, “we’ve got lots of lists of purchases. Feed for farm animals and food for the household. But I’m not seeing a pattern.”