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cordless phone.
    “Here—I’ll put it on speakerphone so you can hear too,” Chip said.
    “Chip, I don’t think—” Jonah stopped, because he couldn’t explain why this suddenly seemed like such a bad idea to him.
    Chip was already punching in numbers, each digital beep adding to Jonah’s sense of apprehension. Jonah rushed over to Chip’s side, as if being able to see the phone as well as hear it would make everything easier.
    The phone clicked, making the connection, and then smoothly flowed into ringing. It rang once, twice…. Another click. Then a gruff voice boomed out of the phone: “Federal Bureau of Investigations. Reardon speaking.”
    Jonah stabbed his finger at the button to break the connection.

FIVE
    “What’d you do that for?” Chip demanded.
    “I—I don’t think this is the right way to do this,” Jonah said. “Sneaking around, looking at papers your parents don’t want you to see, calling people…I know you’re really mad at your parents right now—okay, fine. I don’t blame you. But this isn’t going to help. Calm down; let them calm down; wait until you can all sit down and talk about it….”
    Chip shoved hard against Jonah’s chest, pushing him away. The phone fell to the floor between them.
    “I don’t know what your parents are like,” Chip said harshly. “But if my dad says he doesn’t want to talk about something, he…doesn’t…talk!” He grabbed the phone and began punching numbers again.
    Okay, so maybe family therapist was out as a future career option for Jonah.
    “Maybe you should talk to one of the counselors at school or something,” Jonah said.
    Chip kept punching numbers, stabbing them even harder now.
    “I’m not crazy!” he insisted.
    “I never said you were,” Jonah countered. He guessed Chip had hit about five of the seven numbers for James Reardon now. “But tell me—what do you think the FBI has to do with your adoption?”
    Chip stopped hitting numbers.
    Jonah eased the phone out of Chip’s hands. He pressed the button to hang up.
    “Think about it,” Jonah said. “This Reardon guy probably doesn’t have anything to do with you. That Post-it must have been on some other paper in there. Maybe…Is your dad a spy or something?”
    “He’s a stockbroker,” Chip muttered. He cleared his throat. “If he was a spy, he’d probably be on the terrorists’ side.”
    “Maybe he’s secretly working for the government,” Jonah said. “Maybe he’s like a double agent, and he’s pretending to launder money for some terrorists, but really he’s reporting everything to the government. And maybe if you call this number and blow his cover, like, five years of secret-agent work will go to waste, and they’ll have to start all over again. And it will all be your fault.”
    Jonah had seen a movie once where something like that happened.
    “You think my dad’s a hero?” Chip asked. “Fat chance.”
    But he didn’t grab the phone back to begin dialing again. He just stood there, looking lost.
    “I just want to know who I really am,” Chip said. His words came out as a whimper, the kind of sound no self-respecting thirteen-year-old boy would want anyone to hear him making.
    Jonah decided not to make fun of him for it.
    “I do, too,” Jonah said.
    “You do?” Chip asked, and this, too, came out sounding pitiful.
    Jonah nodded.
    “Well, yeah. I mean, my parents are okay, and I guess it’d be possible to have a worse sister than Katherine. But sometimes I wonder…who do I look like? Are my birth parents good people who just kind of made a mistake? Or are they druggies, alcoholics, criminals…are they in jail? Mental hospitals? Did they have any other kids besides me? Did they—did they keep the other kids?”
    Sometimes Jonah’s mom would say things like, “You have such great dimples and such beautiful eyes—do you suppose those came from your birth mother or your birth father?” Or, “You’re so good at math—wonder who you