"Cooney, Caroline B - Janie Johnson 02 - Whatever Happened to Janie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cooney Caroline B)

But there had been none.
The weird thing was that Stephen's parents were nevertheless very happy people. They adored their four kids. Their lives revolved around family. They were busy and full of laughter. It was just that Jennie was always there~
Or rather, not there.
Her loss lay beneath everything, measuring it.
Sometimes Stephen would see his mother pause at the kitchen sink as she rinsed a dish to go in the dishwasher; see her eyes glaze as she stared out the little window into the backyard. 'What are you thinking about. Mom?" he would say, although he knew: she was thinking about Jennie, and whether Jennie was cold, or scared, or hurt.
'Wondering if it's going to rain," his mother would say, turning to smile at him. Her trembling smile, her coverup smile.
Sometimes Stephen would go along with her. "I don't think it's that cloudy," he'd say.
Sometimes Stephen had to open the wound. "She's dead, Mom. And that means she's okay. She's not cold or scared or hurt."
Sometimes, when he was older, and especially after he became taller than his mother, he would put his arms around her and silently hold her, and feel her pain right through the fold of his embrace.
* * *
One week before Christmas, Stephen was nuking himself a hot dog. The twins had a basketball game at sixthirty and nobody had time for a real supper. Jodie was eating ravioli straight from the can, an act so disgusting that Stephen had to turn his back. "You look like a possum eating from the
garbage pail."
Dad, holding his own hot dog into his mouth while chewing at the tip, ran to the bedroom to yank off his suit and get into his favorite cords and his bright red, teamcolor sweater. Mom had toasted bagels for herself and was spreading cream cheese, muttering about whether she would have time to brush her teeth before they had to pile In the car and head for the middle school. Brendan and Brian were both starters, so it was important to arrive for the first minute of play.
In the living room behind them, the star on the Christmas tree scraped the ceiling. Presents were stacked five deep under the lowest branches. Stephen had outgrown the need to squeeze and pinch but the twins had been ducking under the tree for days, feeling up the gifts. A silver bowl filled with glittering glass Christmas balls sat In the middle of the dining table, but like all the Springs' decorating choices, it was largely hidden by mail, homework, receipts, and unread newspapers. The refrigerator was completely covered with Christmas cards, which they would open and reread while on the
phone.
Stephen bit off half the hot dog and concentrated on not choking to death.
The phone rang. He would have answered, but
his mouth was pretty full, so Mom shifted her bagel to the other hand, grabbed the phone off the wall, and said, "Hello?"
They were a faircomplexioned family, redheads with translucent skin that tanned poorly. But they were not actually white, of course, like sheets of pa
per. Mom turned white. The color left her face so dramatically that Stephen actually looked at the floor to see if blood had puddled at her feet. Her eyes opened extremely wide, then fluttered closed. He got up to catch her, thinking that she was fainting, that
something terrible must have happened. Somebody had died-somebody- "It's Jenrtie," whispered his mother. "She saw
her picture on the milk carton."
A month ago.
A month ifiled with his parents' hope and his own anger. Resentment that Stephen could taste
backwashed in his mouth. It ruined every meal. rm going to adjust, he told himself. I'm the oldest. I have to set an example.
All he could think of was cramming yet another person into this tiny house.
CHAPTER
5.
The first few days were such a blur, Janie wondered if she needed glasses. Or a tranquilizer. Maybe a guidebook. Maybe a guide dog.
She was physically afraid.
It was absurd. For the first time in twelve years, she was with her real family, in her real house. And for the first time in twelve years, she was truly frightened. She was not the bright, sophisticated daughter of Frank and Miranda Johnson; she had weirdly, terrifyingly, turned into the threeyearold daughter of Jonathan and Donna Spring. Her vocabulary fell away; she could speak only in monosyllables. Her view of the world was so limited she might have been three feet tall, while the strangers around her were towering monsters.
They are not monsters, she told herself. They are your real parents. Your real brothers. Your real sister. You started this. Now you have to leap in. Come on in, Janie, the water's fine.
But she hovered on the edge of the pool, so to speak, unable to dip a toe into the water, let alone start swimming.
It was so strange to be sitting among people who looked like her. Thick masses of red curly hair went all the way around the table.
Her new sister Jodle's red hair was very short, a circle of fine silky curls that she never brushed. Jodle was pretty, In a plxieish way. She was also very noisy in sleep. Jodie turned and thrashed and moaned. She flung the covers off during the night. She went to sleep with a rock station on and left the radio playing.
Except for spending the night at SarahCharlotte's, or Adair's, which were special occasions and hardly ever involved sleep, Janie had never shared a bedroom. It turned out that sharing a bedroom with Jodie Spring hardly ever involved sleep either. And even if she could get used to Jodie's breathing and thrashing, every sound In the house was wrong and threatening.
Her new twin brothers, Brian and Brendan, the sixthgraders, had hair so red and gold it glittered. She could not tell them apart. They were not identical; it was the names that did her in. If one had had a B name and the other something completely different, she would have done better. But she kept
calling Brian Brendan and Brendan Brian. They did not like it. She did not blame them;"You want we should wear name tags?" said
Brendan at last. Or else Brian.
Janie swallowed and tried to keep smiling. "Maybe a clue. What's my guideline?"
"I'm handsomer," said Brendan. "I have more freckles, browner eyes, and more girlfriends." He grinned. He also had teeth more in need of braces.
Brendan-braces, thought Janie. Remember that. Now as long as he keeps his mouth open. you'll know who he is.
Her oldest brother was Stephen. His hair was a darker red, and lay smoothly. He combed it frequently. Stephen was tall and skinny, with immense feet. It was difficult to believe that a human being could have feet that large. You had to assume that his body would grow to match, in which case Stephen would become a man of splendid proportions.
Stephen's eyes settled on Janie with a sort of vengeful dislike. Perhaps he wished that Janie had just been killed back when she was three. It would have been so much easier, emotionally, to have found a grave marker instead of a living stranger.
Even being afraid of Stephen, Janie found it easier to look at him, or at Jodie, or Brendan, or Brian, than to look at her new parents. She felt no connection whatsoever with this inan and woman. She might as well have gone into some bank or grocery and been told to call the managers Mom and Dad.
She could not hug them. The imprint of her mother's last hug clung to her like a beloved perfume. The brush of her father's last kiss was still on her forehead.
So she called them Mr. and Mrs. Spring. It was ridiculous, and yet what else was she supposed to do?
Mostly she managed not to call anybody anything. She pasted on a quivering facsimile of a
smile, her lips as dead as If the dentist had given her Novocain.
They called her Jennie, of course. That's who she was. The girl they had spent twelve long years searching for. It made Janie feel as if she had an invisible twin; as if, like Brendan, she had a Brian close by. When they said "Jennie" it never felt that they were talking to her, Janie.