She didn't say anything to Richard because her throat was tight as a fist. Richard didn't say anything to her because he didn't like her. He didn't like anyone but Hannah.

As Jane went out the butler's door into the dining room, she didn't want to run into her younger sister and prayed Hannah was in bed. She'd been sick this morning. Probably because she'd had a book report due.

On the way to the staircase, Jane saw her mother in the living room.

The couch cushions. Again.

Her mother was still in her pale blue wool coat with her silk scarf in her hand, and no doubt she was going to stay dressed like that until she was satisfied with the way the cushions looked. Which might be a while. The standard against which the things were measured was the same as the hair standard: total smoothness.

Jane headed up to her room. Her only hope at this point was that her father would arrive after dinner. That way, although he would still find out she was grounded, at least he wouldn't have to look at her empty seat. Like her mother, he hated anything out of order, and Jane not at the table was big-time out of order.

The length of the lecture she'd get from him would be longer that way, because it would have to include both how she'd let the family down with her absence at the meal as well as the fact that she'd been rude to her mother.

Upstairs, Jane's buttercup yellow bedroom was like everything else in the house: smooth as hair and couch cushions and the way people talked. Nothing out of place. Everything in the kind of frozen perfection you saw in house magazines.

The only thing that didn't fit was Hannah.

The rogue backpack went into the closet, on top of the rows of penny loafers and Mary Janes; then Jane changed out of her school uniform into a Lanz flannel nightgown. There was no reason to put real clothes on. She was going nowhere.

She took her stack of books to her white desk. She had English homework to do. Algebra. French.