What Janie Found

by Caroline B. Cooney

  “My father really is retired from the FBI,’” said Kathleen. “He isn’t investigating anything. He’s a consultant now, he advises airports on security. That’s why he was in Denver again and could drive out to Boulder. We were just curious about you. He wanted to look at you.’”

  People loved the shiver and drama of being next to an actual kidnap victim. It was time for Janie to admit that, to shrug and answer their questions and get it over with. Put an end to melodrama.

  Time, in fact, to stop being a kidnapette.

  Stephen adored her, thought Janie. Maybe he still does. Maybe they will put it back together. Who am I not to help? She said to Kathleen, “Jodie would sure agree that I’m a kidnapette. After we get home, I’ll tell her about it. She’ll laugh for days.’”

  She wondered if Stephen could forgive Kathleen for cramming the past back down his throat. Janie, personally, found forgiveness very hard.

  When Reeve had sold her on the air just to hear the sound of his own voice—this boy who had filled her thoughts and hands and hopes—the hurt was so intense. But how minor his voice on the radio seemed now. Reeve mattered, not what he had done last year during a dumb streak.

  What Reeve yelled at the races was true, she thought. If I had gone and found Hannah, I would have been betraying my parents more viciously than he betrayed me.

  Reeve had become very careful around Janie, rehearsing his words, practicing his smiles, offering little gifts, like tickets to a race. It wasn’t friendship when you had to be that careful.

  Suddenly she couldn’t stand it. All that uncertainty! All that tiptoeing!

  If I were dressed, she thought, I’d race across the campus, dart up the stairs into Stephen’s dorm, fling myself on top of Reeve, smashing him in his sleeping bag, flattening him on the floor, and I’d yell, Guess what! I like you again!

  He’d love that.

  She just might do it. She wiggled her toes to decide if she had enough energy.

  In her greedy, curious voice, Kathleen said, “So what did Reeve do to make the Springs hate him?’”

  Janie slid halfway out of her sleeping bag, leaned over the floor and retrieved the huge purse. Lumpy and cold as it was, she drew it down inside the sleeping bag with her. She could imagine Kathleen rifling through it.

  And as it touched her body, it touched her mind.

  The nightmare was still there.

  The checkbook was waiting.

  Did she, or did she not, continue to support her kidnapper?

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Brian was astonished and mad when, first thing Sunday morning, Kathleen and Janie knocked on Stephen’s door. Hadn’t they agreed that Sunday would take place without Kathleen?

  Janie was giggly and hysterical and silly, the kind of girl who made Brian crazy and made him want no sisters, ever, and no girlfriends, ever, and no wife and no daughters.

  Kathleen was worse. She was a fish in a tank, swimming from side to side, mouth open and fins wiggling.

  Stephen just looked at them briefly and then chose a baseball cap from a long dangling rack. He jerked the cap hard down over his forehead until the bill covered his eyes.

  Kathleen did all the talking. “If we don’t go out in the car the way we planned, you will miss the Rockies. You cannot come out West for the first time and not go for a long mountain drive.’”

  Kathleen won, because Stephen chose to stay silent, Janie was giggling, Brian was too little to have a vote, and Reeve couldn’t figure out what team to be on.

  It was the Lincoln without the father.

  Kathleen got behind the wheel, beaming at Stephen and patting the front seat, but Stephen insisted Brian had to be in front and get the best window.

  Great. Put me next to Kathleen, thought Brian.

  Stephen took the middle back, drawing his knees up to his chest, and opened his geology text on his kneecaps, snapping each page, just in case Kathleen didn’t notice that he didn’t intend to look out any windows.

  But Kathleen was right. Brian found the scenery awesome. Compared to these, Eastern mountains were tree-studded bumps. These slopes were barren and brown, but each fold of hill gave off a sense of wildlife; of cougar beyond the horizon and elk over the rim. Brian loved every mile.

  Reeve, however, was not managing very well. Hour after hour, he produced long sighs, recrossing his knees, putting the window down, putting the window up, arching his back, cracking his knuckles. It became a contest between Reeve and Stephen to see who could fidget more.

  “No fair,’” said Reeve to Stephen, “you have a book for an accessory.’”

  Brian was jealous of the backseat. Coming home, he’d make Janie sit up here with Kathleen. He turned sadly in his seat to look at his brother.

  “Kathleen,’” said Stephen, addressing her for the first time, “I think the enthusiasm for scenery is bottoming out.’”

  Kathleen was not entirely worthless. “How’s your enthusiasm for food?’” she said, whipping into the parking lot of a country store.

  They leaped from the car, bought sandwiches, drinks and chips and sat on benches under pines.

  Brian wanted to sit next to Stephen, but Kathleen beat him to it and he had to sit next to Kathleen instead. I hate you, thought Brian, and your father is worse. Telling my brother he’s not strong.

  Kathleen put her arm around Brian. “I know what you’re thinking.’”

  Not likely, thought Brian.

  “Whenever I’m up here,’” she said, “I feel as if the whole beautiful world is stretching before me. I’m in a glider, floating through the sky, and my life could land anywhere; any wonderful place at all.’”

  Kathleen talked Stephen into walking down a trailhead with her.

  The moment they were out of sight, Brian said, “Now what? What’s happening, Janie? You’re not going to do anything, are you? I don’t want you to do anything. But Sunday will be over by the time we get back to Boulder and then we just have Monday because we fly out early Tuesday morning.’”

  Reeve jammed garbage into a paper bag and crushed it into a smashed brown football. He tossed it in a perfect arc toward the open trash can, and in it sailed. At least I can do something right, thought Reeve. He said to Janie and Brian, “You know, Kathleen got it right. I guess even really annoying people can be right sometimes. Whatever we do here, we have to leave with the whole beautiful world before us.’”

  Janie and Brian stared at him.

  He shrugged and sipped his root beer. It came in a bottle. He liked holding a bottle to his lips much more than a can. He was exhausted from worrying about everybody. “What you have to do, Janie,’” he said, “is unkidnap yourself. Stephen told Brian to untwin, Stephen learned to unhate, and now you have to unkidnap.’”

  Janie took his left hand and spread his fingers out and traced the lines on his palm. Then she turned his hand over, folding it into a fist and stroking his knuckles.

  “Unkidnapping would be hard,’” said Brian, “because of the money. If you ignore it and skip Hannah, the money is still there. And it’s bad money. You can’t spend it. It’s kidnap money. But if you do anything about Hannah, then what about Stephen? He said he’d turn to stone, Janie.’”

  “I won’t let him turn to stone,’” said Janie quietly.

  Kidnap money, thought Reeve.

  He felt blind and deaf, the way he did when he was close to a good idea but couldn’t tap into it. He’d told Lizzie about that feeling once, and Lizzie had said, “That just means you aren’t very smart, Reeve. Smart people have good ideas without having to be blind and deaf first.’”

  William in love with that. What could William be like?

  Brian expanded on his theory. “Every single time you’re downstairs in your own house, Janie, you’ll feel that money sitting there. This pile of dollars for the wrong reasons. Your questions will swarm all over you and sting you. You’ll want to come back here and try again. You’ll say to yourself, I can skip little pr
oblems like Stephen. Who isn’t as strong as a tire iron after all, by the way.’”

  “Nobody is,’” said Reeve. He moved one hand to the back of Janie’s neck, a place of which he was very fond, where thick red hair met soft skin. He looked up the trailhead. No Kathleen and Stephen yet.

  Reeve finished his root beer, dropped the bottle at his feet and spun it. It pointed to Janie. She looked at him. Very slowly she shifted Brian out of their way and very slowly leaned toward Reeve to place a kiss on his lips.

  “Cut it out,’” said Brian. “We have things to decide.’” Brian ate his last potato chip. He looked sadly into the empty bag and said, “What that checking account really is, Janie, is a ransom. You know what I was thinking last night? In the end, Mr. Johnson paid a ransom to keep you.’”

  Reeve’s hand dropped from Janie’s neck and he sat up straight, holding himself very still. Paying a ransom.

  “We need a Trojan horse,’” said Brian. “We need to get into the enemy camp in such a brilliant way that Hannah doesn’t realize we’re there. We leave her with a magnificent gift—but she opens it and it’s the end of her.’”

  Reeve began laughing. Janie remembered how much she liked the sound of his laugh. She and Brian were both caught on the laugh, and looked up at him and waited.

  “Brian, you are brilliant,’” said Reeve. He whacked Brian on the back and then hugged him. “We’ve got a Trojan horse and we are going to pay a ransom.’”

  His grin was the one Janie had loved for years, a face-splitting laugh of delight. For the first time since the radio, he looked totally proud of himself. “Janie,’” he said excitedly. “All that money. It’s our ransom.’”

  A hundred yards away, Kathleen and Stephen were walking back. They were not touching.

  “What you do, Janie,’” said Reeve, talking quickly, to explain everything before Kathleen and Stephen were back, “is give it all to Hannah. All at once. Now. Write a check for the entire amount. Brian’s right. That’s bad money. It can’t be spent any way except the way Frank planned. It is a ransom. You are buying yourself back. It’s your unkidnap.’”

  Reeve had the puppy look he’d carried through high school, when all their dates were perfect.

  Reeve doesn’t care about Hannah, thought Janie. This is about me. He’s trying to unkidnap me. Trying to pay my ransom.

  He loves me.

  Her eyes filled with tears again, the same childish maddening tears, but she let go and found herself smiling, and she nodded. “It’s a wonderful idea,’” she told him.

  Her love for Reeve had evaporated, like water on the track. Now it had come back, like sweet rain.

  Give all the money to Hannah. Now. In full. Not just a ransom, but an escape. A way out. Here it is, Hannah. This settles the account. You are not ours and we are not yours.

  If Hannah had wanted love or parents, she would have made more than that one terrible phone call in New York. Hannah did not want love. She wanted money.

  “But how will Hannah understand what we’re doing?’” Brian wanted to know.

  He was looking at Reeve for wisdom. He too had forgiven Reeve, all the way through. Janie blinked back tears. It would be wonderful to cry, and she thought that Reeve might actually want to know that his solution was worth weeping over, but she didn’t want to explain anything to Kathleen or Stephen.

  “I figured that out,’” said Reeve. “Janie writes a note that says: This is it. You haven’t done anything else well, Hannah, but this buys you a chance to do something well. It’s over. Good-bye.’”

  Not a letter to open a door, but a letter to close it, thought Janie.

  Reeve’s plan filled her mind, filled the crevices through which she had expected to fall and made the earth solid again. “It won’t just be my ransom, Reeve,’” she said. “Did you realize that? I bet you did. It will be my father’s, too. He’s the one she held hostage: his terrible knowing, when he didn’t want to know. It really is a Trojan horse. We really do get into the enemy camp.’”

  Brian was worried about loose ends. “But what if Mr. Johnson gets well, Reeve? Then what?’”

  “Janie writes him a letter too. If Frank gets well, he’ll go to his folder in his Paid Bills and find her explanation, that we really did, once and for all, pay the bills. I bet he’ll be the gladdest of all that it’s over. The only good moment in a war is when the treaty is signed. He couldn’t sign it,’” said Reeve. “You can, Janie.’”

  She had never thought of it as war, but of course it was. The longest saddest soldier in this terrible war had been Stephen, and she had almost thrown him back in the trenches.

  And Brian! Janie had actually used him to enter the battle.

  I’ve been fighting for months, she thought. War with one family, war with another, war with Reeve, war with myself. I even flew out here to wage war with Hannah Javensen.

  It’s time to sign the peace treaty.

  Time to unkidnap.

  The fierce Western sun relaxed around her, turning soft and gold, warming her shoulders and face and heart.

  I had a thousand questions. But there aren’t a thousand answers. There’s only one.

  You do have to keep being the good guy.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  Very early Tuesday morning, Janie and Reeve and Brian got on the airport bus. Stephen had little to say, and everybody was awkward. They hugged or shook hands and then they waved or blew kisses, but it was the kind of departure that left everybody feeling shaky and worse.

  At the Denver airport, there was a delay. Reeve and Brian decided to forage for food. Janie sat at the gate with their carry-ons.

  The three of them had composed the letter to Hannah, Janie had written the check and together they had mailed it. Janie had thrown the evidence of Frank’s account into the trash. She’d even thrown away the disposable camera, which had never been used and yet somehow had been witness to what Janie had almost done.

  She was annoyed to find herself feeling around in the big purse yet again to make sure everything she needed was there and everything she didn’t want to remember had been tossed out.

  The purse contained something new.

  A single sheet of paper folded in thirds, neither taped nor stapled.

  Oh, no, thought Janie, stricken. A letter from Stephen. Did he realize why we came? Did he find out that we didn’t come for him? That it wasn’t a family visit?

  Oh, please, no, thought Janie. Because it was a family visit in the end; the most family visit I’ve ever had.

  She opened the note timidly. She did not want to find out that she was the bad guy after all.

  Dear Janie,

  Thanks for coming. It meant a lot. Kathleen kept saying I had to let go of you and the nightmare you represent. But she’s wrong. The whole thing is about holding on.

  I’m glad I bought you the boots. When you danced in the store, I felt like a million dollars.

  Kathleen gave me a chance to step away from my family, and that helped. But now I have to step back to my family, and that will help even more. I think I can come home for a few weeks in August, and really visit, and really talk, and even be really glad I’m there.

  Maybe you’ll come down to New Jersey when I’m there and we’ll be a real family.

  Love,

  Stephen

  On the plane Brian took the window, spreading his map of the United States open on his lap so that he’d know when they crossed the Missouri and the Mississippi. Janie sat in the middle and Reeve on the aisle, sprawling his long legs out into it.

  “Friday night, after we get home,’” said Reeve to Janie, “will you go to a movie with me?’”

  “Friday night,’” said Janie, “you and I are going to Lizzie and William’s wedding rehearsal.’” She bent down awkwardly to yank her purse out from under the seat in front of her.

  “I thought Lizzie said grown-ups didn’t need rehearsals,’” moaned Reeve. “I thought we didn’t have to do that.’
”

  Janie set the purse on her lap. It was as big as a baby. She’d be glad to get rid of the thing. She unzipped the large cavity in the middle and reached inside. “William wants a rehearsal. William told your mother he will never be enough of a grown-up to go through his own wedding without practice.’”

  Janie was a person who kept things.

  Paper bracelets.

  Parents.

  From the depths of her purse she drew out a dusty, gritty, sticky root beer bottle. She lowered Reeve’s tray, put the bottle down on its side and gave it a spin. Reeve tried to get ready for a kiss but he was grinning too widely.

  Brian was staring out the window, looking for landmarks. “Have we met William yet?’” he asked.

  “No,’” said Reeve. “What do you think he’s like?’”

  “I bet he’s perfect,’” said Brian. “I bet anybody Lizzie picks out would have passed every test under the sun.’”

  Like me, thought Janie. I passed every test. Not by much. The people with the high scores would be Stephen and Brian and Reeve.

  But I found my family.

  I found the right thing to do.

  I found the way home.

  Don’t miss Caroline B. Cooney’s riveting Time Travel Quartet

  Time has kept them apart––love will bring them together.

  * * *

  Brit can’t believe her grandmother expects her to drive the “getaway” van—she’s only had a driver’s license for 10 days! But Nanny is determined to pick up her college roommates and hit the road for her 65th college reunion. With only her cellphone, and no one but her crush on the other end, Brit has to do whatever it takes to get the roommates to their destination.

  Log on to www.randomhouse.com/teens to find more books by Caroline B. Cooney!

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