by Betsy Haynes
"I'll give you a ride home," he offered.
"Great," she said. "I know my dad will appreciate not having to come out after me at this hour."
She wondered briefly if he would offer Christie a ride, too, but she was nowhere around. She must have already gone, Melanie thought. Steve Hernandez was also gone, and only Curtis and Melissa McConnell were standing by the door when she left with Randy.
When Melanie awoke the next morning, she could scarcely lift her head off the pillow. Her head no longer throbbed. It pounded. Her throat was on fire, and one look in the bathroom mirror showed that her glands were so swollen that her neck was twice its normal size.
"Oh, no," she moaned as she staggered back to her room and fell into bed. "I'm sick."
When her mother took her temperature a little while later, it was 103 degrees. "I'll call the doctor and see if I can get you in to see him right away," she said, patting Melanie reassuringly. Then she added, "I knew I shouldn't have let you go out so much lately."
"Did you call the attendance office to tell them I'll be absent?" Melanie asked, and then both of them laughed at the way her swollen throat made her voice sound more like a croak.
"Yes," said her mother. "Now you just rest, and everything will be okay."
Dr. Garroway checked her over carefully as he had done so many times since she was small. Finally he smiled sympathetically and said, "I think we'd better take a little blood out of your finger and run a couple of tests on it. I have a sneaking suspicion from the looks of things and from what your mother tells me about your schedule lately that you just may have come down with mononucleosis. It isn't fun," he said with a wink, "but it isn't fatal, either."
Melanie stared at the end of her finger and flinched as Dr. Garroway made a tiny prick and drew a few drops of blood up into a small glass tube. Mononucleosis? she thought, feeling instantly panicky. Wasn't that the same as mono? The kissing disease?
CHAPTER 14
The phone was ringing when Melanie and her mother got home from the doctor's office. It was 4:15 in the afternoon, so Melanie knew the call was for her, but her mother shooed her away from the phone.
"You get on up to bed, young lady," she said with mock seriousness. "I'll answer it, and if it's for you, I'll tell them you'll call back after you've rested for a while."
For once in her life Melanie was too tired to care about the phone. She nodded gratefully and trudged up the stairs, barely hearing what her mother was saying.
"Hi, Alexis. Yes, she's here, but she can't come to the phone right now. We've just come from seeing Dr. Garroway, and he said she has mononucleosis. Yes, that's right. Mono. She has to rest now, but she'll call you back later."
Tumbling into bed, Melanie fell into a deep sleep. She slept through dinner, and sometime after dark her mother awakened her and offered her a bowl of soup.
"No, thanks," she said drowsily, and then turned over and slept through the night.
She was still groggy when she awoke the next morning, and her tongue felt dry and tasted as if an entire army of ants had marched across it. Dr. Garroway had given her some medication and told her to get plenty of rest and liquids. For once, his advice wouldn't be hard to follow.
She started to get out of bed when she remembered his diagnosis. Mononucleosis. The kissing disease. She sank back against her pillows. She had heard a lot about mono. Kids made jokes about it all the time, and everyone always said that kissing was the way you caught it.
"But I couldn't have gotten it from Scott or Shane," she insisted, saying the words half aloud. "I was already starting to feel sick before I kissed either one of them."
Melanie moped around her bedroom all day long, napping now and then, but mostly staring at the ceiling and thinking about the kissing disease.
"Where did I get it?" she asked herself over and over. She thought about Scott and Shane again. Friday night had been the first time Shane had ever kissed her, but Scott had kissed her twice before. The last time had been when he took her home after Laura McCall's party, but that had been weeks ago. The first time had been before that, in sixth grade when they went to a movie together. Those two kisses had been too long ago to make her sick now, and the kiss after the publicity committee meeting had been too close.
Next she thought about her parents. She kissed them lots of times and they kissed her back. They gave each other kisses good-bye and sometimes kisses hello. But who ever heard of getting the kissing disease from your parents?
I dream about kissing cute boys, she mused. Boys like Garrett and Derek and, of course, Scott and Shane. In fact, sometimes I spend practically all day long having daydreams about dates and kissing. "No, silly," she scolded herself out loud. "You can't get real diseases from daydreams."
She racked her brain for another idea. What about the parent project and Scott's walrus? She considered that for a while. She and Scott had been mother and father to Scott's stuffed walrus as part of the Family Living class project. It was supposed to teach them responsibility, and either she or Scott had to be with the "baby" at all times. Melanie remembered how she had cuddled the walrus when it was her turn to take care of it. Could she have come into contact with some germs then? Of course not, she assured herself. Nothing of Scott's would have germs on it.
But germs . . . , she thought. There was another place she could have gotten germs: in the biology lab. She sat up in bed at the idea. Why hadn't she thought of it before? Wasn't Mr. Dracovitch always talking about the importance of washing their hands before and after working on the specimens? Maybe she had forgotten once and had gotten the kissing disease from touching Shane's and her cow's eyeball! The idea was so absurd that she burst out laughing.
It must be a mistake, she concluded. There was no way she could possibly have mono. Maybe she should ask Dr. Garroway to take another test, even if it meant getting her finger stuck a second time.
After school the phone rang again. A couple of minutes later her mother popped her head in the door and said, "It's for you, honey. Do you feel like talking to Beth?"
Melanie's heart leapt. One of her friends from The Fabulous Five was calling? Maybe Beth had heard that Melanie was sick, and she really did care, after all.
"Sure," she said. "I'll be right down."
"How are you feeling?" Beth asked eagerly when Melanie said hello.
"A little loopy right now," she answered, and chuckled. "I'm so weak that coming down the stairs just now was a real adventure. I should be okay in a few days, though."
"That's good," said Beth. Then, in a cautious voice, she asked, "Is what I heard at school today true?"
Melanie frowned. "What did you hear?"
"That you have mono."
There was silence on both ends of the line for a moment. Then Beth went on, "Alexis said she called your house yesterday, and your mom said you couldn't come to the phone because you had mononucleosis. Is it true?"
Melanie's thoughts were churning. She had heard her mother talking to Alexis, but she had been so tired that she had forgotten. How could my own mother do such a thing to me? she wondered. Now everybody will know.
Melanie sighed. "It's true," she admitted. "But I'll die if everybody finds out. Has Alexis told very many kids?"
Now it was Beth's turn to sigh. "Well, I don't know exactly whom she's told, but she was talking about it in the cafeteria today. You know what kind of scene that is. Almost anybody could have heard her. How did you catch mono, anyway?"
"I don't know," Melanie admitted with a catch in her voice. "I honestly don't know."
They talked for a few minutes longer, and just before they hung up, Beth told her that Sirloin Snake had finally been found. "The custodian spotted him behind the furnace," she said. "He was all curled up sleeping just like Mr. Dracovitch said he would be."
"Great," Melanie said halfheartedly. "Now everybody can put their feet on the floor again."
Even the good news about Mr. Dracovitch's snake didn't cheer Melanie up. All she could t
hink about for the rest of the day was mononucleosis—the kissing disease—and what everyone at school was probably saying about her. Especially Laura McCall. There was no way that Laura and the rest of The Fantastic Foursome would miss making the most out of her predicament.
The phone rang again just before bedtime. Melanie's stomach was churning as her mother called her to the phone. She dreaded talking with someone else from Wakeman about her illness.
It was Dekeisha. "Hi, Melanie," she began. "Are you feeling well enough to talk? Everyone is saying that you have mono."
For a second Melanie considered denying it, and saying instead that she only had a cold. If only her mother hadn't told Alexis the truth, she thought for the umpteenth time that day.
"I do have mono," she finally answered, adding quickly, "but the doctor said it's a very mild case. What's new at school?"
"That's partly why I called," Dekeisha said. "Laura McCall and her friends were saying all kinds of things about you today. Laura says that you've started an epidemic at school."
"What!" shrieked Melanie.
"Well," continued Dekeisha cautiously, "at cheerleading practice Laura told everyone that you were bragging at Bumpers on Saturday about kissing Scott and Shane. And Melissa McConnell said she saw you get a ride home with Randy Kirwan from the refreshments committee meeting Monday night. Chandra Sharp saw you flirting with Derek Travelstead at the decorations committee meeting and told Tammy Lucero all about it in biology class today. So The Fantastic Foursome says that there's no telling how many other boys you've infected with the kissing disease."
Melanie was speechless. Somehow she managed to thank Dekeisha for calling and got back to her room. There she stood in the middle of the floor, shaking with anger and humiliation. The nerve of Laura McCall, accusing her of infecting boys with mono, of starting an epidemic!
A new wave of tiredness swept over her, and she sank onto her bed again. She had been so busy trying to figure out how she had caught the kissing disease herself that she hadn't even thought about the possibility of passing it on to someone else. What if she had given it to Scott? What would he do?
"He'll hate me the rest of his life, that's what!" she muttered aloud.
And what about Shane? She closed her eyes and imagined his coming to her house to pick up his albums wearing a doctor's breathing mask and rubber gloves. "I must disinfect these before I play them again," he said as he carried them out in a cardboard box marked CONTAMINATED in big red letters.
Maybe they would have to disinfect the whole school. She thought back to the time a few years ago when she had found an abandoned litter of kittens, put them into a box next to the dryer, and one had died of distemper. The vet had told them to make a mixture of bleach and water and disinfect the laundry room. Would Mr. Bell, the principal, hand out buckets of bleach water and sponges to every seventh-grader with instructions to disinfect Wacko Junior High just as if she were a stray kitten with distemper?
Tears rolled down her cheeks. She brushed them away, but more followed. What if Laura was right and the boys she had kissed really did get sick? All the other boys would run when she got near them. Nobody would want to sit beside her in class or stand near her in the cafeteria line. She'd be so embarrassed that she'd die. How could she possibly go back to school?
Melanie felt more alone and friendless than she ever had in her life. Where were her best friends in The Fabulous Five now that she needed them desperately? Busy! she thought angrily. Busy going their own separate ways.
CHAPTER 15
For the rest of the week Melanie stayed home from school resting and taking her medication. And worrying. Especially after she finally heard from the rest of The Fabulous Five. Jana was first. She called the day after Beth had.
"Hi, Mel. How are you feeling?" she began in a nervous voice.
"A lot better," Melanie assured her. She had made up her mind that no matter what people thought, she was going to act as if hardly anything were wrong.
"Great. I was really sorry to hear that you're sick," said Jana. "Beth said . . ." Jana hesitated, sounding more nervous than ever. "Beth said that you really do have mono."
Melanie frowned. "I think Dr. Garroway made a mistake on the test. I'm not nearly so tired, and my throat isn't quite as sore or swollen as it was."
"That's good. When do you think you'll be back to school?"
"I don't know vet," Melanie said with a sigh. "But I can't wait. This house is beginning to feel like a prison. Let's change the subject. What's going on at school? Do you know any juicy gossip?"
"Not really," said Jana. She hesitated again. "There is one thing I wanted to ask you though. . . ."
"Sure," said Melanie.
"Is it true that Randy gave you a ride home from the refreshments committee meeting Monday night?"
What! thought Melanie. Little explosions went off in her brain, sending red fireworks blazing before her eyes.
"Yes, he did give me a ride home. But for your information, we sat on opposite sides of the backseat, and I did not kiss him and give him mononucleosis!"
"Melanie! I didn't mean . . ."
Melanie didn't give Jana a chance to finish saying what she meant. It was pretty obvious. Jana was worried that Melanie had given Randy the kissing disease, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Hanging up the receiver, Melanie trudged back to her room feeling worse than ever.
The phone rang again a little later. When her mother called up to her, saying it was Katie, she braced to hear for the zillionth time that she was boy crazy. Katie was like an absolute broken record, always making a big thing out of the fact that Melanie was interested in a lot of boys. This business about mono has probably really set her off, thought Melanie. But Katie surprised her.
"I thought you ought to know that Laura McCall and the rest of The Fantastic Foursome are wagging their tongues all over school making sure that everybody knows you've started an epidemic of the kissing disease," she said. Melanie even thought she sounded a little sympathetic.
"I know how it feels to be gossiped about," Katie went on. "It happened to me when I first joined Teen Court. Remember?"
Melanie did remember. Lots of kids had said that Katie played favorites, getting her friends off with light punishments and really sticking it to kids she didn't like. That wasn't true, of course. Katie was the fairest person she knew.
"I remember," she said softly. "Thanks for telling me."
"Well . . . anyway . . ." Katie fumbled, and Melanie knew her friend didn't quite know what to say next. Finally she cleared her throat and added, "I also wondered if you need for me to drop off your assignments after school tomorrow?"
"Thanks," said Melanie. "But Mom stopped by the school today and got them." She started to add that Katie could come over anyway if she wanted to, then changed her mind. She wasn't ready to face anybody yet.
Christie was the only one of The Fabulous Five who hadn't called, Melanie mused before she went to sleep that night. But it didn't matter. What could Christie add to what the other three had said, that everybody in Wacko was talking about her and how she had the kissing disease.
The weekend was dreadfully long. In fact it was the longest one she could ever remember. She knew that everyone else was at the football game on the beautiful, fall Saturday afternoon, having fun without her while she had been sent to her room to take a nap. The cheerleaders would be cheering. The fans would be yelling. And then everybody would head for Bumpers after the game. Not only that, probably no one would miss her one little bit or think about her staying at home with her face and neck puffed out like a toad.
She tried to ignore the clock beside her bed. She didn't want to know when it was time for everybody to be at Bumpers. And she certainly didn't want to think about Laura flirting with Shane. Would Scott be looking around for someone different to ask to the dance? She didn't want to think about that either. But she couldn't help it, any more than she could help looking at the clock and picturing everything else t
hat was going on at Bumpers. As the afternoon shadows grew long, she lay back against the pillows in her darkening bedroom and cried.
By Monday morning Melanie's temperature was back to 98.6 degrees for the second day in a row, and the swelling in her neck was gone.
"I think you can go back to school today if you're feeling well enough," her mother announced at breakfast.
First the good news, thought Melanie. I do feel well enough to go back. But now for the bad news. I'm scared to death of what everyone will say.
She gave her mother a noncommittal shrug and stared at her toast.
"What is that supposed to mean?" her mother asked gently. "Cold feet?"
Melanie kept her eyes downward. "Well, I feel okay now," she said, emphasizing the word now. "But what if I start feeling sick again in the middle of class?"
"Call me, and I'll come and get you," said Mrs. Edwards. "I really do think you should try, though, even if it's just for half a day."
"I don't know . . ." she said, but a little while later she climbed into the front seat of the car beside her mother and sat in silence as they drove to school.
When they reached Wakeman Junior High, Mrs. Edwards pulled up in front and stopped in the unloading zone. Melanie looked across the school ground. Kids she knew were milling around everywhere. She could see the rest of The Fabulous Five at their corner of the fence. Scott Daly was sliding his ten-speed into the bicycle rack. Alexis and Kim were sitting on the front step talking. It looked like any ordinary day.
A car honked impatiently behind them.
"You'd better get going, honey," her mother said softly.
Melanie nodded and opened the door. Just then she spotted The Fantastic Foursome standing near the gum tree. They were all looking in her direction. She stiffened, thinking that she would give almost anything to become instantly invisible, and climbed out of the car.
CHAPTER 16
No one seemed to notice her at first. Melanie walked stiffly across the grounds in the opposite direction of the gum tree where Laura and her friends stood watching her, desperately hoping that everyone would just leave her alone. If she could get to the fence where The Fabulous Five were, everything would probably be okay. Surely they wouldn't desert her now. Even if the clique was starting to break up, hadn't they been friends practically forever?