Katherine sat there quietly for a bit, feeling close to her daughter...her baby. She needed that right now. She had been on edge all week. Maybe it was just the new job, but she had been parachuted into many schools over the last few years to “Help” the staff bring their school back on the right track.
Maybe this time she would be able to stay at this school for a while. She was getting tired of moving every few months. Her girls had just gotten settled, and then she had to move again, and the girls had to start from scratch once again. She thought about calling the head of the local schools department to see what her chances were, but that would have to wait until the morning.
A few streets away, Melissa Madison sat on her sofa watching the late news. She had spent the evening trying to get Jon to tell her what was wrong. He seemed upset about something, but every time she would try to get him to say something, all he would say to her was.
“Everything is ok …Mom”
She knew better; she was his mother after all. She would try again in the morning; right now, she would settle down to watch some TV. She had just finished working late for the last two days. She got everything ready for the coming case and had tomorrow off (as long as nothing went wrong) to make up for it. Her boss had put her up in a hotel near the courthouse so that she could get there as early as possible to look over all the evidence for the trial on Wednesday, so this might be her only chance to relax. She hated when she had to spend so much time away from her kids. She was glad that she had stopped at two. Sarah and Jon were enough for her, although sometimes she thought it might have been nice to have another child, but only sometimes.
Upstairs
Jon had spent his time after the family meal trying to come to grips with the fact that his family no longer existed; both his sister and his mother had been replaced by cheerleaders. He was wondering where Mikey was, but the other Madisons didn’t notice that anyone was missing. His new mother didn’t notice anything wrong with her youngest son’s room being her home office, as far as she was concerned, it had always been her home office.
There was Karyn, who had been missing for days, but now she was no longer missing. He knew exactly where she was now, but that was the only good thing that had happened today. Yeah, he knew where she was, but she had lost twenty years of life and was now a teacher at their school. His current best friend, Tina, had been off all day for some reason. He had tried to speak to her at school, but she didn’t seem to have time. He would try to speak to her tomorrow. He turned back to the sheet of paper in front of him. He knew that he couldn't keep notes of anything that he learned from the Palimpsest app, so he decided to try to solve his problem from a different angle.
Instead of keeping stock of who had changed, he would try to work out who might want to see these people replaced. Who would want the head cheerleader of the local high school replaced by someone? He didn’t write Sarah’s name down because he thought it might vanish.
Anyone on the cheerleading team. (He thought, smiling to himself) Given the way that Sarah had acted towards them, he thought. Would that same person be able to change the age and race of the mother of the school quarterback?
No, there had to be someone with money and the means to organise people to help them. So, no one at school he thought they would be able to organise that many people. So an adult, then, yes, an adult, but who? Sarah's original mother might be able to get that many people together, but would she want to get rid of her daughter? No, it couldn’t have been her.
He checked the time; it wasn’t that late, but even though he wasn’t going to go out tonight, he knew he needed more puzzle pieces and wasn’t going to get them back by sleeping through the next set of changes. So he turned and set his alarm for 3.30 am. He hadn’t been able to speak to Tina to tell her of his change of plans. He put the sheet of paper in the spot where he kept the rock and went to bed to grab a couple of hours' sleep before hitting the streets once more.
