Chapter 3
“Stella! Where’s your homework?” Janie called out as she strode through the kitchen.
She heard a door open and close and then footsteps pounding down the stairs. Stella sprinted off the bottom of the stairs and past Janie. “I’m doing it now!” she declared as she skidded to a stop by her backpack sitting on a bench by the kitchen door.
Janie continued past the stairs to the laundry room. Her home was a cozy Cape style home. She purchased it before she adopted Stella, but she’d always had an extra bedroom because she’d been a foster parent for several years before Stella landed with her. She liked her house because the downstairs was more open than most Cape homes. The staircase was centered in the middle of the downstairs with the kitchen and dining room on one side and a livin
