74 pages • 2 hours read
The Face on the Milk Carton
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Chapters 4-6
Chapter 4 Summary
Janie awakens and thinks about how she loves pajamas. She undresses and admires her figure in the mirror. In a dictionary, she looks up “nightmare” and reads about daymares, too. She imagines that a demon is giving her unsettling visions. Janie goes to school, where her friends consider pranking other students with an enormous roll of tape. Janie “adored mischief, if she could watch rather than participate” (38).
Janie quizzes her friend Adair with questions from the driver’s license test. When Janie hears that she must present a birth certificate for the license, she grows upset and wonders whether she has a certificate. Janie takes the bus home from school. She notes the fallen leaves along her neighborhood’s sidewalk. At home, Janie asks her mother to show her Janie’s birth certificate. Miranda stiffens and says the certificate is at the bank. She resists Janie’s requests to retrieve it.
Janie goes to the kitchen for ice cream and experiences another vision. She sees another kitchen full of “laughter…noise…mess…commotion” and two babies (45). Upset, Janie leaves the ice cream and runs outside. She sees Reeve raking leaves and accepts his invitation to help. Janie rakes with surprising intensity. She sits in the leaf pile with Reeve and asks him whether calls to 800 numbers can be traced. Instead of telling Reeve that she may call the 800 number on the milk carton to obtain information about Jennie Spring, she lies and says that she wants to call the Milk Council to ask about lactose intolerance. Reeve teases her and pulls her into the leaves.
Chapter 5 Summary
Reeve kisses Janie. She kisses him back until Reeve’s mother calls for him. Reeve awkwardly runs inside. Janie waits for him to return, but he does not. Back home, Janie expresses admiration for a cake her mother decorated. She thinks about how the cake is for a college football game that her family will attend with Reeve and Sarah-Charlotte’s families. Janie feels excited to spend more time with Reeve. She goes upstairs to continue thinking about their kiss. Though she considers calling her friends to discuss Reeve, she decides to keep their encounter to herself.
Janie examines the milk carton. She begins to dial the 800 number on the carton in hopes of learning about Jennie Spring, but she worries that making the call will have negative consequences for her parents. She grows anxious and hangs up the phone. Janie tries to think about Reeve but cannot stop wondering about her possible kidnapping and the family she might have. Next, she unsuccessfully tries to call her friends. Janie feels anxiety about her preoccupation with the milk carton.
Chapter 6 Summary
Janie asks her parents to drive their car to the college football game. They reluctantly allow her to do it. As Janie pulls out of the driveway, she sees Reeve and his serious sister, Lizzie, outside Reeve’s house. She relishes the drive. When the Johnsons arrive at the football stadium, they enjoy a picnic with Reeve and Sarah-Charlotte’s families. The adults suggest that Janie and her friends walk around the college campus. Janie worries about living on her own to attend college. Reeve admits that he may need to retake some high school classes before going to college, which Sarah-Charlotte finds “humiliating” (58). Janie wants to take Reeve’s hand but worries about how he will respond.
Janie’s mother serves cake during a break in the football game, and Janie feeds bites of it to Reeve. Sarah-Charlotte notices that Reeve and Janie like one another. She spends the night at Janie’s house, and the girls analyze Reeve’s behavior. Sarah-Charlotte believes that Reeve loves Janie.
At school on Monday, Janie learns about a class trip to Spain. She realizes that she would need a birth certificate to apply for a passport and remembers how her mother claimed Janie’s birth certificate was at the bank. Janie sees Reeve at lunch and wonders if they will acknowledge their interest in one another at school. She notices a boy on a friend’s milk carton and thinks about how no one has mentioned her prior comments about being on Sarah-Charlotte’s milk carton. Adair has obtained her driver’s license and invites her friends to the mall, but Janie declines. She wants to go to the bank with her mother, instead.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
These chapters deepen characterizations of the novel’s main characters. Readers learn that Janie dislikes confrontation and tension. She “adored mischief” only if “she ran no risk of getting punished” (38) and hesitates to press Miranda for a copy of Janie’s birth certificate. When Janie does ask, she feels “like an executioner, escorting her own mother to the guillotine” (43). Miranda’s tense response to Janie’s request reveals fear beneath her upbeat, energetic demeanor. “Her mother’s knuckles tightened and whitened” when Janie mentions the certificate (42).
Chapters 4-6 also trace the uneven evolution of Janie and Reeve’s relationship from friendship to romance. Janie briefly believes that Reeve likes her when they kiss, but she immediately doubts his feelings once he goes home. She feels close to Reeve at the football game, but his aloof behavior at school makes her doubt their connection. This insecurity underscores how little Janie knows for sure in the days after she sees her photo on the milk carton. Her past, her family, and her relationships destabilize, creating a mood of uncertainty in the novel.
This section foreshadows conflicts that gain momentum as the novel progresses. Janie’s inability to focus on conversations with Reeve, for instance, foreshadows a major obstacle in Janie and Reeve’s relationship. As Janie grows increasingly obsessed with theories about her kidnapping, she leaves Reeve feeling undervalued. Likewise, when Janie pressures Miranda to produce Janie’s birth certificate, she takes the first step toward questioning her parents’ legitimacy. Janie’s questions eventually create tension and provoke fear in Miranda and Frank.
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