"It doesn't matter, Mom. I'll be at college. Paint it anything."

His mother had been crushed. As always, this had crushed Stephen right back. "Actually, I like blue," he said at last. "Cobalt blue."

This was the blue of Mrs. Johnson's magnificent living room. Stephen hoped his mother would not realize this. How stunned Stephen and his brothers and sister were that first strange weekend when they went to Connecticut to visit Janie with her kidnap family. Planning to crash the visit, hoping to crash the Johnsons, they were bewildered to find they liked the Johnsons.

And Stephen liked Reeve, who lived next door to the Johnsons.

Stephen and Reeve were the same age, but Reeve was so much more independent and sophisticated. Reeve at eighteen was just plain older than Stephen at eighteen. Stephen held the kidnapping responsible. How was a guy supposed to grow up in a household where they held your hand every minute of your existence?

Reeve was Stephen's model. Stephen couldn't match Reeve for muscles; he wasn't built that way. He gave up hoping for Reeve's inches, too, because you didn't grow after eighteen. But last spring and this summer, miraculously, Stephen had shot up to six-three. His body finally matched the enormous freaky feet attached to his ankles.

It was difficult for Stephen to care about JennieJanie or paint chips when the mirror had to be moved higher up on the wall or else his face wouldn't show.

Reeve had driven Janie down for her last visit before Stephen left for college.

What a moment, when Reeve had first seen Stephen's new inches. Reeve's grin had covered his entire face, reminding Stephen of a panting golden retriever. "Wow, Stephen," Reeve had shouted, "like tall! Like basketball hoop! Like extra-long mattresses!" Reeve had shaken hands with Stephen.

Then came the countdown: four weeks, three weeks, two, one-gone. Takeoff. Airplane wheels leaving the ground, putting behind his family history.

Sure enough, out here in Colorado, Stephen was too long for the regular mattress in the dorm. They had ordered an extra-long bed for him, but it hadn't come, so Stephen slept with his feet hanging off the end of the bed. He had gotten used to the odd posture of not enough mattress, and he was pretty sure he had grown yet another inch, because doorways threatened his forehead.

Out here in Colorado, n.o.body had ever heard of the Spring family. n.o.body remembered the media attention. Stephen Spring was n.o.body but another (very tall) freshman on another (very large) campus.

n.o.body was holding his hand. ' - n.o.body was terrified if he was five minutes late.

He had no mother's anguish to worry about, no father's pain.

Stephen loved to leave his dorm late at night, stand on the parched earth, and look up at the huge, starry sky. He would think: I'll never go home. I'm done. They'll make it without me.

I'm free.

S * S.

"Have you decided what colors you want in your bedroom, Brendan?" asked their mother. She was happily putting away her Price Club booty. She loved stashing a year's supply of tuna fish.

"Mom," said Brendan, in his new how-canI - possibly-be -patient-with - this - dumb -woman? mode, "only girls care about colors."

"How about you, Bri?" said Mom.

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 n.o.body'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. n.o.body in this household cared.

It was his first taste of being alone inside his family.

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 * 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 s.p.a.ce 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.

n.o.body kissed on the lips. That wasn't the point. You were writing on people.

Of course, there were the s.k.a.n.ky 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 pa.s.sed these out to people who had come unarmed.

Janie felt light.

Not low-fat light; not a subst.i.tute. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce 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 n.o.body 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 Johnson. The photo had shown an ordinary toddler: hair in tight pigtails, one against each thin cheek. A dress with a narrow collar and tiny, dark polka dots. Janie had clung to that cardboard while her mind slipped and her brain turned to gla.s.s. She remembered that dress.

Janie had shouted Sarah-Charlotte's name, trying to tell her best friend that good had just changed to evil, but her lips had not moved. She ,had made no sound.

It seemed to Janie now that for months she had made no sound. But today the past was past. This was just school, full of friends and cheeks and jaws.

Janie heard herself laugh, and she recognized the laugh: pre-milk carton laughter. She could hardly wait to telephone Reeve: I'm here, I'm laughing!

After school, Sarah-Charlotte wanted to go show off their lip prints. The only real choice was the volleyball game. Janie had never cared for volleyball. She had never figured out how to serve without hurting her wrist, and although she was less afraid of a volleyball than of a baseball, still she hated a ball coming at her. She was awestruck by athletes who loved b.a.l.l.s coming at them, who leaped forward and flung themselves into the path of the ball.

She and Sarah-Charlotte sat on bleachers in the midst of a crowd of printed cheeks.

Yearbook photographers converged on the pack. Tyler, who was in charge of candids, closed in on Janie.

Janie shook her head and turned her face away. "Come on, look at the camera, Janie, give me a full-face shot!" Tyler leaped up the bleachers, missing innocent people's hair and gla.s.ses by microns. He took three shots with Janie's hand in the way. Janie glared at him and he snapped that, too.

"Stop it! I'm not a senior."

"We need it for the yearbook, Janie. We're going to do a milk carton page."

"What are you talking about?"

"Come on, Janie. You're famous. The face on the milk carton. We lived through you. People have sc.r.a.pbooks about you. We're going to have the whole thing in the yearbook."

This terrible part of her life she wanted forgotten? And they were going to make a separate section in the yearbook?

How could she touch a yearbook ruined like that? What if people signed her yearbook and n.o.body wrote I'll miss you, what great times we had, good luck! but instead they wrote Your kidnapping story was so exciting, I'll always remember the time network TV came to the school.

TV, which had tried to slice her up, ruin her family, chase them down, make her parents admit that this tragedy was their fault-this would get a yearbook page?

Janie wanted to rip the camera out of Tyler's hands. She wanted to yank out the film, tear it into pieces with her bare hands.

So she did.

She had had only Tyler's attention. Now she had the entire gym gaping at her. Parents and teachers rushed to referee. Janie was freaked, and looked like a freak. Face coated with flaming lip prints, hands trying to kill a camera.

I've got to get out of here, thought Janie, and she started to plunge down the bleachers, to run for the girls' room, scrub the lipstick off her face, hide out. Janie had spent plenty of time hiding out: under the covers, in girls' rooms in New Jersey and Connecticut high schools, behind her hair, behind her silence.

"Don't run," said Sarah-Charlotte quietly, forcing her back down on the bleacher. "Just smile and wait. They'll go." Sarah-Charlotte handed the empty camera back to Tyler. "Beat it, Ty."

"I have to get out of here," whispered Janie, "they're staring at me."

"Stare back. But don't you run."

Janie felt as exposed and unraveled as the film hanging from her hand. But Sarah-Charlotte was right. In a minute or two, people had moved on, watching the game, leaving Janie alone.

"Primitive response," explained Sarah-Charlotte, "is fight or flight. But you can't do both. You~re always doing both at once, Janie. You're the one tearing yourself apart. Next time you start a fight, stay in the fight."

How come Sarah-Charlotte, who never had problems, was the one with wisdom? How come she, Janie, was the one who had not learned anything? This hardly seemed fair.

"I believe," said Sarah-Charlotte, "that last year, your response was flight, the whole flight, and nothing but the flight. And look where it got you. One nightmare after another." Sarah-Charlotte made it sound as if there were no nightmare, merely Janie's failure to sit still. "This year, choose fight," instructed Sarah-Charlotte. "That way, it ends fast."

Ends.

Reeve's older sister, Lizzie, had been a lawyer for Janie. When will it end? When will it be over? Janie had asked Lizzie. When will I be an ordinary girl with an ordinary family?

It will never be over, Lizzie said.

Oh, Reeve! thought Janie. She didn't want her girlfriend. She wanted her boyfriend. Reeve, when you're here, it is over. I don't have to choose between fight or flight.

If only the chronology of being a teenager were not so rigid. After high school came college, period, and so Reeve had gone into a college world. Period.

She closed her eyes and brought him home in her heart.

. S *.