She was eight when her mother broke her leg in a drunken fall. If Jenna had known what was going to happen, she might have left her to recover at home instead of calling an ambulance. Social services came for her while she waited in the emergency room. She was placed in a house owned by a woman who took in children for the money that the state paid her to keep them. The woman wasn't exactly cruel--she didn't whip her or anything like that--but she basically ignored Jenna and the two other little girls who were there. It really wasn't so bad compared with the second home she went to, when she was 11 and her mother was arrested for drunk driving.
She wasn't whipped there either. She was stuck in a family of do-gooders who were constantly asking her how she -was feeling and encouraging her to express her true emotions. She supposed they were trying to be kind, but Jenna could read their pity, and she would have preferred to have been beaten.
Who knew what she would be stuck with this time? Glumly, she contemplated worst-case scenarios, like religious fanatics or vegetarians. Which would be worse--going to church twice a day or being deprived of Big Macs for two weeks? As she dragged her suitcase into the living room, she decided to take a quick scan of the social worker's mind, on the off chance that she might be thinking about the place where she was about to take her. Jenna wasn't hopeful--the poor woman was probably brooding over the crummy job she had, dragging miserable kids off to foster homes.
But she was in luck--Jenna read her destination loud and clear. And when she realized where she'd be spending the next two weeks, her mood improved considerably.
"Wait a second," she told the social worker. She ran back into her room and grabbed the old stuffed animal off her bed. She hadn't packed him because she was afraid that the people at the foster home would mock her for still sleeping with a teddy bear.
Or worse, there could be some little kids at the home who would put their grubby hands all over him. Now that she knew where she was going, she could stuff him in the outside pocket of the suitcase, because he'd be safe. And so would she.
Outside the building, as they got into the car, the woman looked at her suspiciously, and Jenna didn't have to read her mind to know why. She probably expected Jenna to be whining and complaining. Her sudden passive acceptance of her fate was making the social worker nervous. Maybe she thought Jenna planned to jump out of the car at the first red light and make an escape. As they approached a stop sign, Jenna couldn't resist edging toward the car door, just to see the look of alarm on the woman's face. But she stayed put until the social worker turned onto a familiar street and pulled into a driveway.
"You've been here before, haven't you?" the woman asked, but Jenna didn't bother to respond. She hopped out of the car and waved to the girl who was standing on the front steps of the house.
Tracey Devon ran toward her. Jenna took a step backward, but to her relief, Tracey stopped short and didn't envelop Jenna in a hug. Clearly, she knew jenna well enough to realize she wasn't the huggy type.
"Surprise!" Tracey yelled. "No, I take that back; you're not surprised at all, are you? I'll bet you read that woman's mind."
"Of course I did. Hey, how did you pull this off?"
"I just informed my parents that you needed a place to stay and I wanted you to stay here. So they called social services and made the arrangements." She took Jenna's suitcase and headed back toward the house.
Amazing, Jenna thought as she followed her classmate. Just a month ago, Tracey wouldn't have dreamed of asking her parents to let her have a friend stay for two weeks. And even if she'd worked up the nerve, her parents wouldn't have heard her. Nobody listened to Tracey Devon back then. Most people didn't even see her. Because when Tracey felt invisible, she actually became invisible, fading away whenever her emotions took over. That was Tracey's "gift"--the ability to physically disappear. Even Madame, the teacher of their gifted class, was never sure if Tracey was there or not.
The Devon parents greeted Jenna warmly.
"It's so nice to have you back with us," Tracey's father said, and Tracey's mother gave her a little hug, which Jenna managed to bear without flinching. It was hard to believe that these two friendly, welcoming parents were the same people who had been the cause of Tracey's old misery. It hadn't been on purpose--they were really sorry now, and Jenna could see that they were trying to make up for it.
"It's great to be here," Jenna replied. "I mean, compared with where I could have ended up."
And then the seven other reasons for Tracey's frequent disappearances came bounding into the room. "Jenna!"
"Hi, Jenna!"
"Jenna, can you read us a story?"
Jenna stepped back in alarm. The septuplets were covered with spots.
"Have you ever had the measles?" Tracey asked Jenna.
"I don't know," Jenna replied honestly. She didn't remember, and if she'd had the measles when she was very young, her mother had never told her. The chances were that her mother had been so out of it that she wouldn't have noticed if Jenna had been covered with spots, and Jenna would have recovered on her own.
"It's okay--they're not contagious anymore," Tracey assured her.
Jenna tried to acknowledge their enthusiastic greetings. "Hi, Sandie, Randie, Mandie . . ." She couldn't remember the rest of the names. What was the point? The girls looked alike, and there was no way she could match each with her own name. Even the rash from their measles seemed to be in exactly the same places.
It was the birth of the septuplets five years earlier that had taken Tracey's parents' attention away from their oldest daughter. It wasn't the kids' fault--not really--but Jenna couldn't blame Tracey for having feelings toward them that weren't entirely sisterly. It was only in the past month that Tracey had begun bonding with the little girls.
"Don't bother Jenna now," Mrs. Devon reprimanded them. "She's probably tired."
"And hungry," Tracey added. "Go on up to my room, Jenna, and I'll hunt down some munchies."
Jenna knew where Traceys bedroom was because she'd spent a few nights there before, less than a month ago, but she wasn't sure if Tracey actually remembered that. Because Tracey hadn't really been Tracey the last time Jenna was there. Their "gifted" classmate Amanda Beeson had been in complete possession of Tracey's body at the time.
Plunking herself down on one of the twin beds in Tracey's room, Jenna thought about Amanda's so-called gift. She was a body snatcher, which sounded a whole lot cooler than it really was. Unfortunately for Amanda, she couldn't just snap her fingers and become an astronaut or a rock star. She could take over someone's body only if she felt sorry for that person. If she felt an abundance of sympathy for an individual, she could find herself trapped inside the wretched person's body.
Tracey had certainly been deserving of pity back then, and not just because she was fading away. She was even more pitiful when she was visible. She was scrawny--so underdeveloped that she didn't even wear a bra. Her hair was limp and stringy, her babyish clothes didn't fit properly, and she had terrible posture. She was nervous and timid, and she always looked frightened. In the eyes of someone like Amanda Beeson, who was one of the most popular girls at Meadowbrook Middle School, Tracey Devon was seriously pathetic.
Jenna knew that Amanda had been miserable stuck inside the body of a major nerd, and she doubted that Tracey had been happy about being possessed by Amanda. Strangely enough, though, it had all worked out for the best. Whether she had meant to or not, Amanda had actually helped the girl whose body she had snatched.
Tracey certainly wasn't pathetic anymore. The girl who came into the room bearing a bag of chips and a jar of guacamole bore little resemblance to the pre-Amanda Tracey. Her hair was shiny and had been cut and styled in a cute layered bob. Her eyes were bright, her shoulders were back, and her newly pierced ears held trendy gold hoops. She was still skinny, but now she took advantage of it, wearing super-slim jeans and a tight halter-top.