Whatever Happened to Janie?

by Caroline B. Cooney

  She did have to laugh.

  “Pretend it’s overnight camp,” said Jodie. Jodie had the same large brown eyes as the twins. She tossed her head in the same teasing stance as her mother. “So you’re a little homesick the first week. Pretty soon it’s the best time you’ve ever had.”

  The best time she had ever had? Janie choked. She had been there only one weekend, and it felt like a hundred abandoned years. Her thoughts were so chaotic they did not even feel like thoughts, but a jumble of nightmare that meant nothing and went nowhere.

  This time it was Mr. Spring who tried to hug her. He was so big and his red beard so foreign and intrusive. She backed away from him as if he were a grizzly bear. Behind the curling mustache, his face collapsed. She had hurt him. Stephen and Jodie exchanged looks that Janie could not read. Only the twins seemed disinterested. As for Mrs. Spring—Janie could not look at her. How could your mother—the most important person in your childhood—turn out to be somebody else? She could never, never, never use the word “mother” on Mrs. Spring.

  Be our good girl. Make us proud. Show them we were good parents to you.

  “I’m sorry,” Janie said. “I’m trying. I really am. But it’s—it’s hard. I’ve been taken away from my real family twice.” She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want them to see how scared she was.

  “Except the Johnsons weren’t your real family,” said Mr. Spring carefully. “They were wonderful people, and we will always be in debt to them, because they took care of our daughter for us. But you’re back with your real family, sweetie.”

  She didn’t want strangers calling her sweetie.

  “Anyway,” said Jodie, getting mad, “we didn’t take you from the Johnsons. You called us. You’re the one who recognized yourself on the milk carton. You wanted to come here.”

  “I didn’t want to come,” Janie mumbled. “I just wanted you to know that I was all right. I wanted you to stop worrying.” Now it was her parents in Connecticut doing the worrying. They too had lost a daughter twice. Oh, Mommy! she thought, her lungs flaring up like bonfires. I can’t even breathe here, Mommy. I want to go home!

  “We love you, Jennie,” said Mrs. Spring. She ran her fingers through Janie’s hair as if she owned Janie. As if she were Janie’s mother. “And we’re very, very glad to have you home.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  “The first day of school,” said Mrs. Spring, “will probably be difficult for you, Jennie. There’s been a lot of publicity.”

  Janie had always loved Mondays, because she had always loved school. School was where your friends waited for you, where your boyfriend waved to you, and where your teachers thought you were terrific.

  A new family on Friday and a new school on Monday. It was too much!

  What is it like to be a foster child? thought Janie. And have new families all the time?

  She could not find a safe place to look. There were so many staring eyes in this big family. She refused to let herself start at a new school with tears running down her cheeks. She hung on to her thoughts and was painfully grateful to be handed a notebook to hold also. JENNIE, it said in big white letters embossed on the slick blue front.

  These people were in love with their own names. So far they had given her not only a mug emblazoned JENNIE, but also a juice glass, a spoon, and a dozen pencils. Even her pale blue pillowcase was embroidered in lacy, loopy white script, JENNIE.

  I’m Janie. Janie, Janie, Janie.

  She held the notebook upside down so she would not have to look at the lettering. She forced herself to look at Mrs. Spring. Chunky and going gray, Mrs. Spring was not interested in clothing. She had yanked on a skirt and blouse that didn’t quite match and a sweater that didn’t quite hang right. She wore a utility watch with a plain black strap.

  Janie and her mother both had Swatch collections, and liked to choose a watch for the day that matched earrings and other accessories.

  Jodie had helped pick out clothes for the first day of school that would be just like what the rest of the New Jersey kids wore. She was amazed at the size of Janie’s wardrobe. “There’s nothing you don’t have,” Jodie said, fingering the thirty Swatches and the growing tower of sweaters. Jodie had graciously cleared drawers and hangers, but the space did not hold a fraction of Janie’s possessions. The girls looked at each other uneasily and Janie was embarrassed by the collection that only a few weeks ago she had thought was skimpy and needed replenishing. “I guess we’ll just shove the rest of this under the beds or something.”

  “They’re rich, aren’t they?” said Jodie.

  Jodie meant her parents. Should Janie say—Yes, my parents are rich—in which case she would be told—They aren’t your parents? Should she say—Well, not rich in comparison to Reeve’s family; Reeve’s family is really rich. Then she’d have to explain Reeve.

  Reeve.

  There would be no boy next door to give her rides to school. No boy to swagger down the hall with his arm around her, boasting with his walk that he dated this girl. There would be no grin across the cafeteria, no snack sharing at Janie’s after school, no phone call at night.

  Three months before I can talk to Reeve again, thought Janie. I can’t believe we agreed to three months of silence!

  She forgot to answer Jodie’s question about the Johnsons’ money.

  “Time to go,” said Jodie in a funny voice.

  Janie took a quick look in the long mirror fastened to the back of Jodie’s bedroom door. First-day-of-school horrors hit the pit of her stomach. She could never tell, on the first day of school, whether she was attractive and likable, or geeky and pathetic, doomed to be ignored and taunted.

  “You look great,” said Jodie eagerly. “You look just like a Spring.”

  Janie did not want to look like a Spring. She wanted to look like a Johnson. Reflected in the truth of the mirror, with Jodie’s pixie face behind her, Janie knew once and for all there had been no error. She was a Spring.

  “I’ll stay with you as long as I can,” said Jodie, “but you’re in a different grade. You’ll have different classes. But each teacher has assigned you a buddy. You won’t ever have to go anywhere alone.”

  Janie nodded.

  Mrs. Spring drove them, so Janie didn’t have to face the bus yet. When the girls got out of the car, she said, like a mother, “Be brave, honey. It’ll be a long day, but each day will be easier.” Jodie gave her mother a good-bye kiss, but Janie got out of the car quickly and faced the next torture.

  It was a generic high school. Vanilla-painted cement block. Black-and-gray-speckled vinyl floors. Fluorescent strip lighting. Art projects trying to lighten the place up.

  She tried to blend in. She tried to be anonymous, the way new kids were supposed to be. But they knew her. It was equal parts romantic and hideous. The other students were fascinated and yet repelled, as if her kidnapped state might be infectious. I don’t have to worry about being ignored, she thought ruefully.

  A sort of home video played in Janie’s mind. She saw not the new faces around her, but the old ones she should have been with on a Monday. Her real parents, friends, teachers, and neighbors surrounded her in a cloud of loss.

  Miranda Johnson would be getting ready for her day at the hospital. Although volunteers wore repulsive salmon-pink jackets, Janie’s mother nevertheless dressed beautifully. She had an entire wardrobe that would look terrific with that ugly half-red. Janie imagined her mother, going through her silent routines, in her silent house, heading for the hospital.

  But what if her mother could not pick up the routines? What if she just sat home, frozen in an empty house? Oh Mommy! Please be all right!

  General Chorus was on Janie’s new schedule. They’d been able to duplicate all her Connecticut subjects except one: silversmithing. Janie was not artistic and had never succeeded at any craft from cross-stitch to cake decorating, but she had always wanted to make her own jewelry.

  General Chorus instead. Wonderful.

>   Janie could not sing. She had roughly a four-note range, considerably lower than female voices ought to be. The choir director back home used to yell at the altos, “Somebody get out of the basement!” The somebody was Janie, and she could not get her voice out of the basement. Although she loved music and wished passionately for a voice, she had dropped chorus years ago.

  Knowing what her voice would do to the harmony, Janie did not even attempt to sing. It was nice to have a black music folder though. It was nice to be in a room of eighty kids whose attention was on somebody else—the conductor.

  Miss P was very funny. She picked on everybody, all the time, but it was not cruel and nobody’s feelings were hurt. Even Janie, who knew nobody and shared no in-jokes, found herself laughing. It was such a treat to laugh out loud. At her Connecticut school, boys rarely joined the choir, because they were so afraid of becoming Chorus Geeks. This had a different atmosphere: the best boys were here—jocks, studs, and scholars. All of them in love with Miss P.

  Miss P dragged a very nervous young man to the front of the room. He wore a suit, but it looked like somebody else’s, or as if somebody else had dressed him for the day. Janie knew the feeling.

  “Hey, guys!” shouted Miss P.

  “Miss P!” they shouted back.

  “I brought you a new victim,” said Miss P. “A student teacher.”

  “All right!” shouted the boys. “Fair game!”

  The young man struggled to look brave and competent. He lost.

  “Mr. Clarke,” said Miss P, swinging her arms in the direction of the chorus, “welcome to the land that normalcy forgot.”

  The bass section sprang into wrestling poses, proud of living in the land that normalcy forgot.

  Janie could breathe a little better. The boys in the bass section reminded her of Reeve. You could fall in love with one of them. She smiled at Miss P. She smiled at Mr. Clarke, who was so afraid he could hardly lift his arms to direct. I can’t lift my arms to hug, she thought. I’ve got to learn in public, too. Good luck, Mr. Clarke!

  Janie’s seatmate was an alto named Chrissy, who had been assigned to her. Chrissy was long and lean and reminded Janie of Reeve’s annoying older sister Lizzie. Even though Janie had detested Lizzie all her life, she found herself homesick for her.

  “You need to check yourself off on the attendance sheet,” said Chrissy softly. She pointed toward four large oaktag posters—Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass—one name to a line.

  “I’m not on it,” Janie whispered back. “I looked when I came in.”

  Chrissy looked at her oddly. “Yes, you are. We redid the entire alto section to put you in. Miss P said you were going to feel weird enough and she wanted your name in alphabetical order.”

  After chorus Chrissy dragged her right up to the alto poster. “See?” she said, pointing.

  Spring, it said. Jennie.

  I was looking under J for Johnson, thought Janie. I never thought of looking under S for Spring.

  Eighty General Chorus members drifted past, slowing the usual rampage to get to the next class, fascinated by the presence of the kidnap victim and pretending not to be. Janie could feel Miss Fs eyes on her, and a question forming on Mr. Clarke’s lips.

  “They had an assembly about you,” said Chrissy.

  Janie froze.

  “The whole school,” said Chrissy. “All seven hundred of us. The principal told us the whole story so there would be no questions. He said you were going through a lot and we were not to poke into things that weren’t our business, or make trouble. He said every adolescent asks who he is, and why he drew the parents he did, but you must be asking yourself more than any teenager in America.”

  Janie could have thrown up on Chrissy. The whole school had attended an assembly to discuss Janie Johnson’s personal problems? The invasion of it! The trespass!

  “Did my—um—”she could not quite say the nouns out loud. She took a shuddery breath and started up again. “Did my brother and sister go?” There. She had called Stephen and Jodie her brother and sister. Out loud. Wipe the sweat off my brow, she thought, remembering Brian. Or Brendan.

  “Of course they went. Everybody went.”

  “Did they talk?”

  “No. They’re very closemouthed about the whole thing.” Chrissy waited, wide-eyed and hopeful. She wanted Janie to talk. She wanted gossip and detail.

  I want gossip and detail, too, thought Janie. I want to talk so much I can hardly bear it. I want to be on the phone with Sarah-Charlotte. I want to be in the backseat with Reeve. I want—

  Janie was afraid she was going to bawl right in the chorus room. She moved quickly on, before Miss P could get any closer. Music teachers were always understanding. Janie was not ready.

  “Give me your schedule,” ordered Chrissy. She took it out of Janie’s hands before Janie could react. “Okay. You go to English next. Mrs. Fann. I liked Mrs. Fann, but your sister hated her! They fought all last year. Your parents were in here all the time, arguing about Mrs. Fann’s assignments and standards and grading.”

  It was so surprising, somehow, that the Springs had been having a life when Janie had not even known they existed. Parents arguing and sisters fighting. She was dizzy with understanding that this family was real “All last year” meant the last school year. Before the milk carton. Before Reeve. Back when Janie Johnson had truly been a little girl, knowing nothing, wondering about nothing.

  The good old days, thought Janie. “Thanks, Chrissy,” she said, when Chrissy turned her over to Mrs. Fann.

  I have to be polite, she thought. I’m going to live here. With the Springs. I’m going to graduate from high school here. With Chrissy. With Miss P. With Mrs. Fann.

  I’m not going to move home, or get transferred, or leave for college.

  This is it.

  “So what’s she like?” demanded Nicole.

  Jodie shrugged.

  “She’s so pretty!” said Caitlin. “I love her hair. It’s like yours, only about a yard more of it.”

  Yes, Jennie was Dad’s daughter all right. All the way down the long school corridors, Jodie could see the resemblance. Jennie had a wild, chaotic mane of red curls, just like Dad’s, except in Dad it was the beard that crinkled and curled. They stood alike and lifted their chins alike. Jodie could not get over it. It made her heart turn over.

  Jennie must have been as distinctive when she was three, the angry middle child who never felt she got enough attention—who was happy to let a strange woman buy her a sundae and take her for a joyride.

  “So?” pressed Caitlin. “Tell us about her.”

  Jodie had thought talking about the new sister would be the most fun thing. But it wasn’t. Jennie was no wonderful roommate. She was a stranger who wanted to be called by her kidnapped name, Janie, and who didn’t want to cooperate in anything. She’d been back exactly three days and Jodie was already completely exhausted living with her.

  Jennie didn’t eat what was set in front of her. She didn’t meet their eyes, or laugh, or tell stories. She was just there. Trembling.

  Nicole leaned closer to Jodie and lowered her voice, as if they were telling secrets. Nicole and Caitlin were thrilled to be best friends with the girl whose kidnapped sister had been returned home. They were hoping for some really gory details. So far nobody had any details, even boring ones. “Have you talked about any of the good stuff yet? Like what really happened?”

  Jodie shook her head. Her throat closed up.

  The thing is, thought Jodie, that my feelings are hurt. I love my family. I think we are absolutely terrific. I have this handsome, bear-hug Dad with a beard and a head full of jokes who’s crazy about us, and always wants everybody on a sports team so he can cheer and stomp his feet and take videos that nobody ever looks at afterwards. I have this exhausted mother going gray who works too hard but loves it, because she’s so crazy about her kids and her husband. She sells hot dogs and soda at half-time at the twins’ games because she and Dad chair the Athletic
Boosters. She never lets anybody miss Mass. She loves buying me clothes, because I’m the only girl. No matter how tired she is after work, she makes a real dinner, because she loves it when we hold hands and say grace, and it’s hard to say much in the way of grace over a pizza delivered to the door.

  I love our town. I love our school. I love my friends.

  Jodie had been excited about showing off all those things. She had expected the new sister to be thrilled with the Springs. Awestruck that she belonged to such neat people. She had expected Jennie to clap her hands, maybe. Burst into song. Instead Jennie kept her back to the wall and her elbows sticking out to fend off hugs.

  Not only that, Jodie was battling jealousy. This girl had everything. There was not one watch, one scarf, one jacket, one necklace that the Johnsons had not given her. It was as if a department store had moved into Jodie’s bedroom.

  Caitlin said, “It’s bad?”

  Jodie shrugged. “Jennie gets into bed at night as if it’s a hiding place.”

  “Gulp,” said Nicole. “What are you guys doing to her?”

  “We’re not doing anything to her! We’re trying really hard. She’s the one who’s not trying.” Jodie could not bear it that her sister dream was not coming true. And even more she could not bear it that the parent dream was not coming true for Mom and Dad. Jennie wouldn’t let them near her.

  “Jennie’s the one who’s scared,” Nicole pointed out. “I’d be scared too if I had lost my mother and father.”

  “Jennie did not lose her parents,” said Jodie fiercely. “She got them back.”

  Nicole shrugged eyebrows, shoulders, and hands all at the same time. “Maybe she only wants the other set.”

  Caitlin swatted Nicole with a math workbook. “Try a little tact, will you?” She tried to console Jodie. “It’ll take time, that’s all, Jo,” she said.

  “Time!” said Jodie, furious. The temper on which she had so little grip erupted. “We’ve spent twelve years missing Jennie! Now we’re supposed to spend—what—another twelve years helping her work back into the family?”