Jennifer chan is not alo.., p.1
Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone, page 1
Also by Tae Keller
The Science of Breakable Things
When You Trap a Tiger
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2022 by Tae Keller
Cover art copyright © 2022 by Dion MBD
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-593-31052-6 (trade)—ISBN 978-0-593-31053-3 (lib. bdg.)—ISBN 978-0-593-31054-0 (ebook)—ISBN 978-0-593-56744-9 (int’l)
Ebook ISBN 9780593310540
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Contents
Cover
Also by Tae Keller
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1: Now
Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Then
Chapter 4
Chapter 5: Now
Chapter 6: Then
Chapter 7: Now
Chapter 8: Now
Chapter 9: Then
Chapter 10: Now
Chapter 11: Then
Chapter 12: Now
Chapter 13: Now
Chapter 14
Chapter 15: Then
Chapter 16: Now
Chapter 17
Chapter 18: Then
Chapter 19: Now
Chapter 20: Now
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23: Then
Chapter 24: Now
Chapter 25
Chapter 26: Now
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29: Then
Chapter 30
Chapter 31: Now
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For the girl I was at twelve—
a book fifteen years in the making
The end of everything starts with a buzz. You know the one—the insecty buzz that makes your heart beat faster, that tells you somebody wants your attention.
So maybe I should say: the end of everything starts with a text.
But we’ll get to that in a minute. Because right now I’m here, sitting between Tess and Reagan in our school’s chapel, my thighs sweat-slipping against the wooden seat, shirt sticking to my back. The overhead fans are spinning, but they’re not nearly enough for the small-town Florida heat, even in October.
Reagan fans herself with the concert program and mimes falling asleep. She even lets out a quiet fake snore.
Tess muffles her laugh, and I make wide eyes at them—eyes that say Pay attention or we’ll get in trouble! but also You are so right. I’m bored out of my mind.
I can say a lot without saying a word, which comes in handy during these evening orchestra concerts.
And let’s be honest: Reagan can be a bit dramatic, but she’s not entirely wrong. We come to these concerts because Tess’s sister is in the orchestra, and we can’t make Tess attend alone. But the problem with the Gibbons Academy middle school orchestra is that instead of learning new music, they play the same Christmas carols all year, every year. By the millionth rendition of “Silent Night,” it’s kind of…a lot.
Secretly, though, I think there’s something comforting about the strings and the familiarity. And today, especially, I welcome the sameness.
Today I’m locked in a battle with my brain, thinking about the Incident from Friday while also reallynotthinkingaboutit. My mind keeps drifting, floating to that feeling of my whole self coming apart. And then I have to drag my thoughts right back to this very normal, very boring evening. See, “Silent Night.” Just like it always is.
And that’s when Reagan’s phone buzzes.
The text that ends everything.
But I don’t know yet that it’s an end-everything text. The orchestra begins “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” and I watch Reagan pull her phone out of her pocket.
For a split second, she frowns at the name on the screen. Then she rearranges her face, like she realized her reaction was wrong. She smiles and raises her brows until they disappear beneath her dark brown bangs. Her blue eyes spark. These are the kind of eyes that say I have a secret.
“It’s Pete,” she mouths.
With a rush of relief, I send a thank-you up to the universe. This is the perfect distraction. Unlike the Incident, Reagan’s drama with Pete is predictable and constant. It’s as familiar as a Christmas carol.
“Seriously?” Tess whispers too loudly.
From the pew in front of us, a random dad shushes her, and Reagan rolls her eyes before dropping her gaze to Pete’s text.
As she reads, her shoulders stiffen. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t move. But her eyes flick back and forth over the screen, like she’s reading the text again and again. I try to look over her shoulder, but she tilts the screen away from me.
Too late, I realize my mistake. That tiny movement, that flick of a hidden screen, signals to Tess that this might be a particularly interesting flavor of gossip—and now she’ll never let it go.
“What’s it say?” she asks. “Like, you have to tell us?”
Something to know about Tess: every sentence that leaves her mouth is a question. Even when she’s making a statement, she ends it with a question mark.
She leans over me to get closer to Reagan, and I try to nudge her away. Tess is all long legs, long arms, tall and thin and sharp. Right now her elbow digs into my stomach, and her red-orange curls stick to my lip gloss. “Tess,” I say. “Stop.”
I’m distracted, so it takes me a moment to notice Reagan’s reaction. She sucks on her lips, and her skin goes so pale that the freckles sprinkled across her cheeks look like bright, bold specks of paint. This is an expression I’ve seen only once before. Only one time, in over a year of best friendship.
Reagan is scared.
My heartbeat leaps into my ears, and I tell it to stop being so dramatic. “Maybe you should put the phone away,” I tell Reagan. I can’t deny that I’m curious, but after last week, I’m not in the mood for anything intense.
“Um, maybe don’t put your phone away?” Tess says. “Because you have to tell us what’s going on?”
The dad turns to shush us for a second time, but Reagan ignores everyone.
She taps back and forth and back and forth with Pete, until finally she looks up. “There are police cars outside Jennifer’s house,” she whispers.
Definitely not normal.
“No,” I say. At least, I think I say it. Because I hear myself speak, but I don’t actually register saying the word. I grasp for reasonable explanations. “Do you think the police were just…stopping by? Or maybe…do you think—”
“Jennifer told the police what we did?” Tess interrupts. “Like, are they coming for us?”
I wish Tess would give this a minute. I wish she would wait one second before jumping to conclusions. I can’t process.
My right leg starts shaking, and my heart beats so loud I can’t even—
But no, no. This doesn’t make sense. We can’t go to jail for the Incident. I mean, it wasn’t great. It’s not my favorite thing to think about. But it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t illegal.
“Don’t be stupid,” Reagan says, and I can’t help but flinch at the way she says the word, her consonants hard and harsh. Stu-pid. “The police aren’t there for us.”
“So, what’s—?” Tess starts, but Reagan’s phone buzzes again.
She stares at the screen as she whispers to us, “Pete’s not supposed to know this, but he heard it from his dad.” Pete’s dad is the county sheriff, so Pete’s always finding out more than he should know.
Reagan swallows. “Jennifer’s missing.”
I let the words settle over me, thick and icy. The heat and humidity can’t touch me anymore. “She’s missing
I try to make sense of this, but it’s all so weird. Nothing ever happens in this town. Nothing ever happens in Nowhereville.
Reagan looks at me, and beneath the stone in her expression, there’s a desperation only I can see. Her eyes say, I need you. “Jennifer left a note that said she’s, like, running away.”
“She ran away.” I’m only capable of repeating Reagan’s words, apparently.
Leaning over, Tess asks, “Did she say why?”
Reagan blinks, like she forgot Tess was there, but I have to admit, I’m glad Tess asked the question. I need to know, too.
Reagan shakes her head. “Not sure. Pete’s dad wouldn’t show him the note.”
Maybe it’s not fair, but suddenly I am red-hot mad at Pete. I hate him, seriously. Why would he tell Reagan something like this if he didn’t know the whole story? Why would he tell her without that crucial bit of information?
“Oh my gosh,” Tess says. “Do you think this is, like, Jennifer’s revenge?”
The thought makes me woozy.
“Like, do you think Jennifer’s trying to get back at us?” Tess pushes. “Trying to get us in trouble?”
Her questions bulldoze any last shred of calm, any scrap of normalcy. I feel like my intestines are disintegrating.
The energy in the chapel shifts, and I notice the whispers. It’s almost like Jennifer’s news is a physical thing. I can see it moving through the chapel: We find out first. Then Kyle—Pete’s best friend—checks his phone and whispers to one of his friends.
Kyle texts someone, and then his girlfriend-of-two-days gets a ping and gasps, and then all the sports girls are whispering.
I watch the news ripple through the students. Not all of us are here this evening, but enough. Before the end of the night, nearly everyone will know.
The news moves in waves of popularity through the pews, with some kids turning back to Reagan and me, almost like they want to know how to act. Under their gaze, I feel itchy, shaky, like I have no control of my body.
Too quickly, the news reaches the parents, and they murmur among themselves.
News spreads fast in Nowhereville. That is something to know.
I hear her name, whispered softly at first, then loudly. Jennifer, Jennifer, Jen-ni-FER. She’s impossible to escape. She’s everywhere.
She’s not here.
A parent runs up and says something to the conductor, who cuts the music. Phones ring. People talk.
The whole world is too loud.
And I hear it, over and over: “Jennifer Chan ran away. Jennifer Chan is missing.”
The end of everything starts quietly, with a buzz you can barely hear. But it doesn’t end that way—not even close.
The orchestra concert falls apart pretty darn fast after that.
Everybody starts moving at once, and Tess’s mom hurries over to us. “Oh, what awful news,” she says, placing a hand on Tess’s shoulder. Tess’s mom is the kind of person who seems to have a loud opinion and a big reaction to everything, but tonight her reaction doesn’t seem quite big enough. “Let’s get you and your sister home.”
“But my friends need me,” Tess protests, eyes lit with fear, confusion, and also, a terrible kind of excitement.
Honestly, it’s a relief when Tess’s mom tugs her away and they disappear into a mass of people—a jumble of panic, questions, suggestions, hands clasped to mouths, and palms pressed against hearts.
I turn to Reagan. “What are we going to do?”
Reagan shakes her head. Checks her phone again. But there’s nothing from Pete—no text that magically explains everything.
“You’re still sleeping over, right?” I can hear the twinge of desperation in my voice, but for once, I don’t bother to stifle it. Violins scream in my head. The world blurs at the edges.
Reagan’s brows pinch. “Mal. It’s all right. It’s gonna be okay.”
Right. It’s gonna be okay. Just a silent night. Just like any other night.
Mom appears from out of nowhere.
No. That’s not true. Not out of nowhere.
Mom appears from her seat in the back of the chapel and wraps her arm around my waist, guiding me away from my friend. “You need fresh air,” she says into my ear.
“Wait,” I say. “I need Reagan.”
Because I’m looking around and suddenly: Reagan is missing!
But no. That’s not right, either. She’s standing right where I left her, frowning at her phone.
My brain isn’t working very well in this moment.
Mom leads me through the chaotic crowd and into a quiet corner. Then she kneels in front of me and holds my face in her hands. “How are you doing? Are you feeling faint?”
I close my eyes until the spots stop dancing behind my lids. “I only fainted that one time,” I tell her. “It’s not, like, a thing.”
Mom frowns. There’s clearly something she wants to say, but the parent who shushed us earlier walks over and touches Mom’s arm.
“Some of us are putting together a search party,” he says. “And we need as many people as possible.”
I see stars.
“Give us a minute,” Mom responds. When he leaves, she repeats her Worried About Mal mantra: “Deep breaths. Deep breaths, Mallory.”
“I can’t…,” I start to say. I can’t get my thoughts together. Questions pop into my head and then disappear before I can gather them: Why did Jennifer run away? Where did she go? Did she tell anybody what we did?
Mom holds my wrist so tightly that I can feel my pulse beating against her thumb. “Oh, honey. I know how scary this is. I know, I know.”
“Where’s Reagan?” I lost sight of her in the chapel, and she didn’t follow us through the crowd.
Mom pulls back. “You don’t need to worry about Reagan. She’s fine. Tess’s parents are taking her home. I know—I know you’re worried about Jennifer, but you don’t need to worry about Reagan right now.”
“They’re taking her home? But she was supposed to sleep over.”
I know I sound ridiculous, but Reagan has that best-friend way of reaching into my brain and knowing what I’m thinking—even before I do. All I want is to stay up late with her, talking and talking and re-talking about what just happened.
Mom’s patience slips. “Mallory, Reagan is fine.” She takes a breath. Deep breaths. Deep breaths, Mom. “I know this is scary. I know you’re worried about your friend.”
At first, I think she means Reagan, but no. Of course she means Jennifer. My friend.
Those words make the world spin. For a second, I’m back in that bathroom again, the one just beneath my feet, in the basement of this chapel, and I’m reliving the Incident. Reagan’s words echo in my memory: Who do you think you are?
Then I shake my head, snap back, and I’m in the chapel again.
Jennifer Chan ran away.
What kind of person runs away?
“I’m right here, honey,” Mom says, squeezing my arm. Mom is philosophically opposed to lying to me, so she does not say: Everything is gonna be okay.
I glance over her shoulder at the group of my neighbors and teachers—the search party. A search party in Nowhereville, where it’s impossible to hide.
And I realize that I’m afraid of what they might find. I’m afraid for Jennifer, for Reagan, for myself. Afraid up to Jupiter and back.
I want to bury myself in Mom’s arms, feel her squeeze me tight and hold me. But I’m still at school and I’m surrounded by my classmates, so I just close my eyes and focus on her hand against my arm.
When I speak, my voice doesn’t sound like my own. It sounds a little like Reagan’s did—halfway between a whisper and a sob. “Is she going to come back?”
