Janie Johnson appears to have a pleasant, pampered, and protected life with her parents, Frank and Miranda. They live in a modernized older home where Janie has the largest bedroom since each of her parents has a separate home office. They opt to take the smaller remaining bedroom which demonstrates how loving and giving they are when it comes to their daughter. Janie is pretty and petite and relatively popular.

Her glorious and abundant red hair makes her a stand out, although she prefers to be a viewer of the action rather than a participant. Her parents provide her with abundant cultural opportunities such as playing the flute and taking horseback-riding lessons. Nearly all these opportunities are abandoned, although she does well enough academically and seems to have good friendships with school chums like Sarah-Charlotte and Adair.

Cooney uses foreshadowing and irony to delineate her central...