Everyone looked at Benny, and he realized as an afterthought that someone had probably asked him a question, but he’d been so deep in melancholy thoughts that it had sailed right past.

“What? Oh… I was just thinking about the jet,” Benny lied.

“Ah,” said Chong dryly. “The jet.”

The jet, and all that it symbolized, was a big silent monster that had followed them around since they’d returned last September. The jet meant leaving, something that Nix and Benny were going to do and Chong and Morgie were not. Tom called it a “trip,” suggesting that they would eventually return, but Benny knew that Nix had no intention of ever returning to Mountainside. The same was probably true of Tom, who still grieved for Jessie Riley. Benny, however, did want to come back here. Maybe not forever, but at least to see his friends. Once they left, though, he was pretty sure that their road trip was going to be permanent.

It was a horrible, heartbreaking thought, and none of them liked talking about it; but it was always there, hiding inside every conversation.

“That freaking jet again?” griped Morgie, and gave a sour shake of his head.

“Yeah. I thought that I’d go to the library tomorrow and see if they have any books about jets. Maybe I’ll see the one Nix and I saw.”

“Why?” Morgie persisted.

“If we know what kind of plane it was,” Nix said, “we might have some idea of its range. Maybe it didn’t come all the way across the country. Or maybe it came from Hawaii.”

Morgie was confused. “I thought you said it came from the east and went back that way.”

“They’re not air traffic controllers, Morgie,” added Chong. “The more they can learn about the jet, the better the chance they’ll have to find it. I think.”

“What’s an air traffic controller?” persisted Morgie.

That allowed Chong to steer the conversation away from the road trip and into areas of pre-First Night trivia. Benny cut a sly sideways look at Nix, and there it was: just the slightest slice of a smile. She reached under the table and gave his hand a quick squeeze.