"Cooney, Caroline B - Janie Johnson 03 - Voice on the Radio" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cooney Caroline B)

Brian wanted a room just like the dining room at Mr. and Mrs. Johnson's house in Connecticut. The house in which Janie lived was dramatic and intense. Big strips of window alternated with vivid indigo walls or smash-you-in-the-face blood red
Well, see, from The New York Times, Janie found out the address of her real family, down in New Jersey. And one day, I'm driv
walls. Mrs. Johnson knew how to decorate, and Brian had never previously considered such a thing as decoration. Now he saw that his own house was not decorated, merely full of furniture and very lived-in.
He could not say to his mother, "The colors I like are Janie's mom's colors. Drive up to Connecticut, will you, check them out, match them perfectly."
Connecticut meant The Enemy.
And yet, from the first visit, they weren't the enemy anymore. And after that first visit, for Brian, although it was not right for Janie to prefer her kidnap family to her real family, it was okay.
So he said, "I like red, Mom," and to prevent her from choosing wallpaper with sailboats or ducks, he said, "Just red paint. Like a barn." He hoped his twin would not recognize where he got his color choice from.
"It's after eleven," said their father. "How come nobody's in bed yet?"
Brian grinned up at his father. Brian remained a child in height and weight, the only Spring who was still little: The rest, including his very own twin, were tall. Brian wanted to talk about history, not bedtime or red paint or soccer. Nobody in this household cared.
It was his first taste of being alone inside his family.
S S S
ing us to school, because we lived next door, and I had my own Jeep, and Janie says, "Let's cut school."
And I'm thinking of reasons that 1 would cut school, and things I would do with Janie ~f we were alone all day long, and Janie says, "Let's drive to New Jersey and find them."
So we drove to New Jersey. And we found them.
Remember I told you about Janie's hair? Serious hair. As much hair as any two or three regular people. Auburn-copper hair that she wore long. Once the physics teacher defined chaos as Jartie's hair. And there, on the right street, across from the right house, a school bus stops. And kids with the very same red hair get off The hair-and pre-'sumably, therefore, the genes-are a perfect match. Janie really is the sister.
I'm hanging on to the steering wheel with white knuckles, I'm so surprised. 1 hadn't believed it till then. I'm almost sick. Because I like Janie's parents as much as I like my own. How could they steal Janie and still be nice? There couldn't be a nice answer to that. There could only be a terrible answer. And Janie, my poor Janie, is practically on the floor of the Jeep, hiding from them, so they can't see her hair and know who she has to be, whispering, "Drive on, keep driving, get out of here, Reeve."
So we got out of there. We didn't tell. We didn't
tell our families in Connecticut, or the authorities, or the family in New Jersey. But we knew. We knew it was true. Janie Johnson had been kidnapped. So there was the same question. Always the same question. Now what?
S Х S
Mrs. Spring watched her family heading for bed. Her husband went down the hall to shut off the computer. Her big, hulking thirteen-year-old, Brendan, took the stairs two at a time. Already his immense sneakers had left black scuff marks on the freshly painted risers. Her small, thin thirteen-year-old, Brian, followed slowly, dragging.
She had to be a better mother and not go out at these ridiculous hours on a school night; this was way too late for Brian.
Upstairs, doors closed, shoes dropped, faucets ran. She loved having everybody upstairs and safe.
She looked happily around her living room.
New furniture would arrive tomorrow. She was excited. All this space in which to put lovely, comfy furniture. Big, fat easy chairs to flop on and -curl up on with a book. Big, roomy couches to nap on or watch television on. A dining table to fit everybody comfortably, including aunts, uncles and neighbors.
Everybody except Jennie. . '
Jennie, who had happily gone back to being Janie.
Every time Mrs. Spring got too busy to remem
ber, there it was again, creeping like a vine, twisting itself around the good things and strangling them.
The loss of Jennie.
In some terrible way, deep and black as an abandoned coal mine, Mrs. Spring was still waiting.
Waiting for Jennie to come home.
CHAPTER
FOUR.
It was Lipstick Day. You had to do something to kick off a dud month like November.
Everybody-boys and girls-slathered on bright red or Halloween orange or hot-pink lipstick. The goal was to acquire as many lip prints on your face as possible.
Janie was fully printed, her face covered with neatly outlined lips. Some people smeared on their kisses, but Janie made them do it neatly or not at all.
Ordinary kids became barbarians getting ready for battle. They were live theater art: a stage event for face patterns.
Nobody kissed on the lips. That wasn't the point. You were writing on people.
Of course, there were the skanky kids, that you didn't even want to be in the same room with, or share a calculator with, and you were supposed to purse your lips together and plant a serious kiss on their cheek. In these situations, you fell to the floor in your death throes rather than kiss them.
Sarah-Charlotte had some really evil lipstick colors. "My mother didn't get the color gene," explained Sarah-Charlotte, "so the house is full of disgusting purple-bruise lipsticks." During lunch,
Sarah-Charlotte passed these out to people who had come unarmed.
Janie felt light.
Not low-fat light; not a substitute. Janie's light was whipped cream or the scent of lilacs. Today she was the right person for her hair: She was an armload of red. I'm back, thought Janie. You do get past the bad parts. I'm here, I'm me, I know what I'm doing.
"Janie," said Van, who had shaved his head and consequently had much more lip print space than people with hair, "I covet your print."
"My print is pretty special," agreed Janie. She had always liked Van. When you were steadily dating a boy, as she was Reeve, and this was known to everybody, it freed you up to be friends with boys. You could skip the worry factor, the impress-him factor. "Where do you want your print, Van?"
"I've given skull space to ordinary lips," said Van, "but for you, Jane Elizabeth Johnson, I have reserved an entire jawbone."
There was a round of applause and whistles.
Sarah-Charlotte repainted Janie's lips a revolting magenta, so much lipstick that it felt like pancake batter. Janie held Van's head between her hands to steady it and aimed carefully for the wide part of his jaw. She planted her kiss firmly and long. Then she stepped back to admire her handiwork.
Sarah-Charlotte, who thought of details nobody else remembered until it was too late, had brought a large hand mirror, in which Van admired his jaw.
One year ago, in this cafeteria, a little girl on the back of a milk carton had stared out at Janie