by Jane Kurtz
“Thanks,” Dakar said to Jakarta and Pharo, shaking off their hands. “I can go the rest of the way by myself.”
Her feet were numb so that she could hardly feel the steps as she ran up them, but she knew Dad would have a fire going, and she couldn’t wait to let Mom pull her inside.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my parents for the Maji memories, most of which are very real and cherished, and my sisters and brother who played all the inventive games with me, including the water babies. Special thanks to my youngest sister, Jan, who gave me comfort and joy on recent trips to Ethiopia and Kenya and whose family interviews about our Maji years helped fill in some blanks. I deeply appreciate my older sister, Caroline, and her family for sharing their Kenya home and lives so warmly. I’m also grateful for schools—my own Good Shepherd School, the other three I visited in Addis Ababa in 1997, and two schools in Nairobi, Rosslyn Academy and the International School of Kenya, that made my Kenya trips possible and drew me gloriously in.
The town of Cottonwood, North Dakota, is fictitious. I am, however, grateful to my children and their friends for glimpses into adolescent life in the upper Midwest, since I went to high school in Ethiopia and, as my son David once told me, didn’t really “get it” about junior high and high school life in the United States. Jonathan and Rebekah will especially see themselves reflected in these pages; a big thanks to both of you. Thanks, also, to so many basketball teams in eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota for hours of gleeful watching, especially to the teams my sons, David and Jonathan, played on. And this book couldn’t have been written without my husband, Leonard Goering, who sat beside me through so many games and who has supported countless hours of writing and speaking.
Dr. Kevin Young used his knowledge of microbiology to help me understand what I needed to know about parasitology. I owe him thanks and take responsibility for any mistakes. Another thank-you goes to Sam Keen, whose book Learning to Fly (Broadway Books, 1999) made me intrigued with trapeze artistry and taught me almost everything I know about it.
Finally, I owe a huge debt to my astute early readers, who loved the story and told me the places where they didn’t love it. Special thanks to Franny Billingsley and Deborah Marie Wiles, who held my hand through a dark writing night.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jane Kurtz was born in Portland, Oregon, but moved to Ethiopia when she was two years old and lived there for most of her childhood. She visited Boise, Idaho, for one year when she was seven, and she spent one year in Pasadena, California, when she was thirteen.
As an adult, she has spent time in several African countries but lives in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where she teaches part time in the English department at the University of North Dakota. She says, “My whole life has been shaped by that feeling of never being able to go home again. Luckily for me, my writing can transport me anyplace in the world.”
Jane Kurtz is the author of both picture books and novels, and her titles include The Storyteller’s Beads and Faraway Home.
www.janekurtz.com
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CREDITS
Cover art © 2001 by Melissa Sweet
Cover © 2001 by HarperCollins Publishers
COPYRIGHT
Jakarta Missing
Copyright © 2001 by Jane Kurtz
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kurtz, Jane.
Jakarta missing / by Jane Kurtz.
p. cm.
“Greenwillow Books.”
Summary: When her sister, star-athlete Jakarta, finally joins them, Dakar feels much safer and happier in Cottonwood, North Dakota, where she and their parents are living for a year, but she still longs for their home in Africa.
ISBN 0-06-029401-9 (trade). ISBN 0-06-029402-7 (lib. bdg.)
EPub Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780062239266
[1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Family life—North Dakota—Fiction. 3. Homesickness—Fiction. 4. Courage—Fiction. 5. Women athletes—Fiction. 6. Moving, Household—Fiction. 7. North Dakota—Fiction. 8. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K9626 Jak 2001 [Fic]—dc21 00-056195
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 First Edition
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