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Excerpts

"You don't look much like your sister," Chip said, bouncing the basketball low against the driveway.

Jonah waited to answer until he'd darted his hand in and stolen the basketball away.

"Adopted," he said, shooting the ball toward the backboard. But the angle was wrong, and the ball bounced off the hoop.

"Really? You or her? Or both?" Chip asked, snagging the rebound.

"Me," Jonah said. "Just me." Then he sneaked a glance at Chip, to see if this made a difference. It didn't to Jonah -- he'd always known he was adopted, and as far as he was concerned, it wasn't much more of a deal than his liking mint chocolate-chip ice cream while Katherine liked orange sherbet. But sometimes other people got weird about it.

Chip had one eyebrow raised, like he was still processing the information. This gave Jonah a chance to grab the ball again.

"Hey, if you're not, like, related by blood or anything, does that mean you could date her?" Chip asked.

Jonah almost dropped the ball.

"Yuck -- no!" he said. "That's sick!"

"Why?" Chip asked.

"Because she's my sister! Ugh!" If Chip had asked him that question a few years ago, Jonah would have added, "And she's got cooties!" But Jonah was in seventh grade now, and seventh graders didn't talk about cooties. Anyhow Jonah hadn't known Chip a few years ago -- Chip had moved into the neighborhood just three months ago, in the summertime. It was kind of a new thing for Chip to come over and play basketball.

Carefully, Jonah began bouncing the ball again.

"If you think me and Katherine don't look alike, you should see my cousin Mia," he said.

"Why?" Chip asked. "Is she even cuter than Katherine?"

Jonah made a face.

"She's only four years old!" he said. "And she's Chinese. My aunt and uncle had to go to Beijing to adopt her."

He could remember, the whole time Aunt Joan and Uncle Brad were arranging to adopt Mia -- filling out the paperwork, sending away for the visas, crossing dates off calendars, and then buying new calendars to cross off new dates -- his own mom and dad had spent a lot of time hugging him and exclaiming, "We were so lucky, getting you! Such a miracle!"

Katherine had been jealous.

Jonah could just picture her standing in the kitchen at age five or six, wispy blond pigtails sticking out on both sides of her head, a scowl on her face, complaining, "Weren't you lucky to get me, too? Aren't I a miracle?"

Mom had bent down and kissed her.

"Of course you're a miracle too," she said. "A big miracle. But we had nine months to know you were coming. With Jonah, we thought it would be years and years and years before we'd get a baby, and then that call came out of the blue -- "

"The week before Christmas -- " Dad added.

"And they said we could have him right away, and he was so cute, with his big eyes and his dimples and all that brown hair -- "

"And then a year later, lovely Katherine came along -- " Dad reached over and put his arm around her waist, pulling her close, until she giggled. "And we had a boy and a girl, and we were so happy because we had everything we wanted."

Jonah's parents could be so sappy. He didn't have too many gripes about them -- as parents went, they were pretty decent. But they told that story way too often about how excited they'd been, getting that call out of the blue, getting Jonah.

Also, if he was listing grievances, he often wished that they'd had the sense not to name him after a guy who got swallowed up by a whale. But that was kind of a minor thing.

Now he aimed carefully and sent the ball whooshing through the net. It went through cleanly -- the perfect shot.

Chip flopped down onto the grass beside the driveway.

"Man," he said. "You're going to make the basketball team for sure."

Jonah caught the ball as it fell through the net.

"Who says I'm trying out?"

Chip leaned forward.

"Well, aren't you?" he asked. "You've got to! That's, like, what everyone wants! The basketball players get all the chicks!"

This sounded so ridiculous coming out of Chip's mouth that Jonah fell into the grass laughing. After a moment, Chip started laughing too. It was like being a little kid again, rolling around in the grass laughing, not caring at all about who might see you.

Jonah stopped laughing and sat up. He peered up and down the street -- fortunately, nobody was around to see them. He whacked Chip on the arm.

"So," he said. "Do you have a crush on my sister?"

Chip shrugged, which might mean, "Yes," or "Would I tell you if I did?" or "I haven't decided yet." Jonah wasn't sure he wanted to know anyway. He and Chip weren't really good friends yet, but Chip having a crush on Katherine could make everything very weird.

Chip lay back in the grass, staring up at the back of the basketball hoop.

"Do you ever wonder what's going to happen?" he asked. "I mean, I really, really want to make the basketball team. But even if I make it in seventh and eighth grades, then there's high school to deal with. Whoa. And then there's college, and being a grown-up....It's all pretty scary, don't you think?"

"You forgot about planning your funeral," Jonah said.

"What?"

"You know. If you're going to get all worried about being a grown-up, you might as well figure out what's going to happen when you're ninety years old and you die," Jonah said. Personally, Jonah didn't like to plan anything. Sometimes, at the breakfast table, his mom would ask the whole family what they wanted for dinner. Even that was way too much planning for Jonah.

Chip opened his mouth to answer, then shut it abruptly and stared hard at the front door of Jonah's house. The door was opening slowly. Then Katherine stuck her head out.

"Hey, Jo-No," she called, using the nickname she knew would annoy him. "Mom says to get the mail."

Jonah tried to remember if he'd seen the mail truck gliding through the neighborhood. Maybe when he and Chip were concentrating on shooting hoops? He hoped it wasn't when they were rolling around in the grass laughing and making fools of themselves. But he obediently jumped up and went over to the mailbox, pulling out a small stack of letters and ads. He carried the mail up to Katherine.

"You can take it on in to Mom, can't you?" he asked mockingly. "Or is that too much work for Princess Katherine?"

After what he and Chip had been talking about, it was a little hard to look her in the eye. When he thought about the name Katherine, he still pictured her as she'd been a few years ago, with pudgy cheeks and those goofy-looking pigtails. Now that she was in sixth grade, she'd...changed. She'd slimmed down and shot up and started worrying about clothes. Her hair had gotten thicker and turned more of a golden color, and she spent a lot of time in her room with the door shut, straightening her hair or curling it or something. Right now she was even wearing makeup: a tiny smear of brown over her eyes, black on her eyelashes, a smudge of red on her cheeks.

Weird, weird, weird.

"Hey, Jo-no-brain, can't you read?" Katherine asked, as annoying as ever. "This one's for you."

She pulled a white envelope off the top of the stack of mail and shoved it back into his hands. It did indeed say Jonah Skidmore on the address label, but it wasn't the type of mail he usually got. Usually if he got mail, it was just postcards or brochures, reminding him about school events or basketball leagues or Boy Scout camp-outs. This envelope looked very formal and official, like an important notice.

"Who's it from?" Katherine asked.

"It doesn't say." That was strange too. He flipped the envelope over and ripped open the flap. He pulled out one thin sheet of paper.

"Let me see," Katherine said, jostling against him and knocking the letter out of his hand.

The letter fluttered slowly down toward the threshold of the door, but Jonah had already read every single word on the page.

There were only six:

YOU ARE ONE OF THE MISSING.