by Betsy Haynes
"I agree," Beth was saying to Katie. "Especially about the popular part. Mel, every time I looked at you, you were surrounded by kids. I didn't know that you had so many friends."
Melanie shrugged and took a long drink of her soda. Here it comes, she thought. I might as well level with them.
"You were the friends that were most important to me, but you were all changing and acting as if you didn't want to be around me anymore. I felt invisible. And no matter what subject I brought up, the rest of you seemed to want to talk about something else. Finally, I decided that you didn't want to be friends anymore, and that maybe The Fabulous Five was starting to break up. You were all too busy to care about me anymore, and that's why I started going around with a lot of other kids."
"To make us jealous?" asked Beth.
Melanie nodded and choked back tears. She wanted to say more, to talk about how lonely she had been, how left out she had felt, but she knew she would never be able to get the words out around the lump in her throat.
"I know exactly how you felt," said Jana. Melanie looked at her in surprise as she went on. "I felt all alone just before Mom and Pink got married. I wanted to talk to someone about how different things were going to be when I had to start sharing Mom with Pink all the time, but you guys just wanted to talk about the wedding."
Melanie listened in amazement as each one of her friends mentioned times when she had felt left out, too.
"You guys always seem to resent the time I spend with Jon," admitted Christie. "And I'll never forget how you guys nominated me for class president without even asking me how I felt about it."
"Not one of you ever wants to hear about Teen Court and how important it can be to Wakeman Junior High," said Katie.
Even Beth shrugged and said, "I can't see anything wrong with trying to help the Indians, but sometimes you guys act as if I've lost my mind." She sighed and added, "Sometimes it just seems better to do my own thing and go my own separate way."
Melanie rattled the ice in the bottom of her glass and stared at it. She was thinking about all the stories she had heard about friendships changing in junior high. Changing, she thought. That was the clue. Friendships changed, but they didn't have to end.
"I guess we don't always have to like exactly the same things to still be best friends," she said softly.
"Or spend every single waking moment together," offered Jana.
"You're right," said Christie. "As we get older, it's only natural that we'll start having separate interests."
"Absolutely," said Katie. "We're friends, not clones! The important thing is that we'll always care about each other and be there when one of us needs help."
Melanie nodded. "Just the way you came to my rescue. The important thing is that we've got to listen to each other from now on." She started feeling choked up again, but this time it was because she was happy. Raising her glass in triumph, she said, "We'll always be The Fabulous Five!"
Wacko Wonderland was a huge success, even though Melanie had a terrible time deciding what kind of costume to wear. She had thought about going as Elvira after she'd seen a costume at a discount store. Even there, the price was too high for her allowance, and so she racked her brain to come up with something clever that she could put together herself. Finally, she thought of the perfect idea.
The day of the dance she put on her chocolate-brown jogging suit. Then she glued little balls of yellow, green, blue, orange, and pink tissue paper all over it. Next, she found an old baseball cap that belonged to her dad. She cut a few short, bare branches off the maple tree in the back yard, glued on green construction-paper leaves, and attached the branches to the cap before setting it on her head.
"You're the gum tree!" shouted Scott when she opened the door for him a little while later.
"And you're a robot," she guessed. He was standing on the front step wrapped in aluminum foil from head to toe.
"Naw," he said. "I'm a mummy from outer space. But you were close."
There were all sorts of far-out monsters at the dance, milling around under ghostly pastel-colored streamers. Dozens of weird-looking space creatures hovered around the refreshment table. "Earth food! Earth food!" shouted one of them in a voice that sounded like Curtis Trowbridge's.
Taffy Sinclair was covered with puffy pink netting. "I'm a pink cloud," she said proudly.
Shane's costume was one of the biggest surprises of all.
"Look!" someone shouted. "Here comes a cow's eyeball!"
Shane stepped into the center of the room grinning broadly and wearing a huge, round papier-mâché ball that reached from his shoulders down to his knees. The front looked exactly like an eye with a pupil and iris inside a large white area that was surrounded by a fringe of black pipe-cleaner lashes. The rest of the ball was bluish-black just as the real eyeball had been. Kids were laughing and crowding around him.
"That's a terrific costume," said Melanie. "But where's Igor? I thought he was going to help you with the music."
Shane gave her a helpless shrug. "It's his own fault. He was supposed to dress as my teardrop, but he said he'd look silly and refused to get into his costume."
Mr. Bell and Miss Dickinson moved around the crowd talking to first one monster and then another, but even though Melanie had been watching for him all evening, she couldn't spot the other chaperon, Mr. Dracovitch.
She still felt guilty. He had been so nice to help her get rid of the rumors that had been making her life so miserable, and yet kids were still calling him Dracula and saying he was a vampire behind his back. Asking him to be a chaperon at a monster dance seemed to her to make the insult worse.
Suddenly there was a commotion near the door. As she and Scott pushed forward, she could see a puff of smoke and hear kids gasp around the room. An instant later the smoke cleared and there he stood—Dracula! Melanie's heart stopped. He looked so real. His shiny, black toupee was pulled even lower than usual on his forehead, and his huge eyes were outlined in black. He was wearing a black cape lined in blood red, which he swirled about himself as he entered the room.
"What's going on?" whispered Scott, taking Melanie's hand.
"I don't know," she said, "but it's scary."
The next instant Dracula stopped stone still and held up his hand for silence. Then his face took on a sinister grin, revealing long, sharp fangs. "I have heard . . . that you students . . . know my secret," he began in a raspy voice. "And so . . . I have come . . ." He paused, raising his eyebrows and looking around the room as a second wave of gasps filled the air.
To bite your neck. Melanie finished his sentence in her mind as she held Scott's hand and squeezed it tight.
". . . TO CHAPERON YOUR DANCE! SO HAVE FUN!" He threw back his head and laughed again, but this time he didn't sound the least bit like a monster. Melanie's mouth dropped open. She couldn't believe it. He had known all along. And tonight he had fooled them, playing a gigantic trick on everyone there, and best of all, they were all laughing with him because they loved it.
A little while later when the music was going and everybody was dancing and having fun, Melanie saw Mr. Dracovitch standing alone. She took a deep breath and headed toward him. There was something she needed to ask.
"Excuse me," she said timidly. "But why did you help me out with the terrible things kids were saying about me when you knew all along what they were saying about you?"
"Do you mean that I'm a vampire?" he asked, and raised one eyebrow.
Melanie nodded. It sounded even worse when Mr. Dracovitch said it himself.
"Well, you see, Melanie, there are two different kinds of rumors. The ones someone starts about you, and the ones you start about yourself."
Melanie looked at him with shocked disbelief, but before she could say anything, he went on, "That's right. I wanted kids to call me Dracula all along. I think it's terrific. It gets a lot more Wakeman kids interested in taking science classes. In fact," he said, slipping back into his Dracula voice, "they hang . . . on every
word . . . that I say."
It was the biggest joke yet, and when Melanie thought about it the next day, she had to admit that Mr. Dracovitch was pretty cool. He had masqueraded as a vampire to get kids interested in science. He had let them talk about him and laugh about him without batting an eye.
"Now that's what I call being secure," she admitted out loud.
I'm a lot more secure now, too, she thought. When I was doubting The Fabulous Five's friendship, I was really doubting myself. It took the kissing disease to make me see the truth.
The kissing disease, she mused, and then smiled. She had learned the truth about that, too, and nothing could be more super—especially since she had danced with gorgeous Derek Travelstead last night and then given him her telephone number.
CHAPTER 19
When Miss Dickinson announced the homework assignment, Katie Shannon thought that she must have heard her teacher wrong. This was English Literature, she had thought, not Pop Culture 101.
"Making your own bumper stickers will help you to understand satire and how it is used in literature," Miss Dickinson had said, handing out long strips of paper. "Satire is simply sarcasm, usually cleverly written, that criticizes some aspect of the world. And of course, condensing it to fit your paper will help you say what you mean in a very few words."
Katie felt relieved when Miss Dickinson explained it that way. Actually, she could think of lots of things in the world that needed criticizing, and doing it with bumper stickers just might turn out to be a lot of fun.
Joel Murphy's hand rocketed into the air, and the rest of his body looked as if it were going to follow. "I've got one already," he cried.
Miss Dickinson shook her head. "Write it down, Joel. You'll get plenty of opportunities to read your bumper sticker wisdom to the class tomorrow."
A lot of kids snickered, and Katie rolled her eyes to the ceiling. I can just imagine what kind of macho slogan he came up with, she thought.
The bell rang before Joel could protest, and the class filed into the hall.
"Some assignment, huh?" said Shawnie Pendergast, coming up beside Katie.
Katie smiled and glanced at Shawnie, glad to see that her eyes weren't red. Almost every morning Shawnie came to school looking as if she had been crying. Katie wasn't sure why, except that she had heard rumors that Shawnie's parents were unbelievably strict and that Shawnie had even threatened to leave home.
"I think it's going to be fun," said Katie. "It's our chance to make a statement about something we really believe in."
Shawnie's face brightened. "You've got a point," she said. "There are a few things I'm dying to say out loud. Maybe this is my chance."
Katie stopped at her locker and watched Shawnie scuff on down the hall. She acts like a volcano that's about to blow, Katie thought, frowning.
Katie spent the entire evening working on her bumper sticker, and her wastebasket overflowed with ideas she had written down on pieces of scrap paper and then discarded. Finding the subject was the hardest part. There were so many things she cared about. The women's movement. Justice. Peace. Finally she settled on an idea, wrote it on her bumper sticker, and went to bed.
In English class the next day, everyone wanted to be first. Joel Murphy was his usual obnoxious self, waving his bumper sticker in the air and making grunting noises that sounded like a monkey to Katie.
"All right, Mona Vaughn, you may go first," said Miss Dickinson, ignoring Joel's antics.
Mona stood and unfurled her bumper sticker for the class to see. "It says, 'Help the hungry—keep them out of the school cafeteria!'"
The class thundered its applause and Miss Dickinson had to shout for everyone to be quiet.
"Marcie Bee, you're next."
Marcie looked nervous. "'Peace in the world or the world in pieces,'" she mumbled, holding her sticker down by her side.
"Hey! I've heard that before," shouted Steve Hernandez.
"This is supposed to be original," said Matt Zeboski.
"It's all I could think of," Marcie protested.
Katie raised her hand, and Miss Dickinson nodded.
"'Nuclear war: the choice of the last generation!'" she said proudly. No one laughed at that one, and Katie sat down, satisfied that she had made the others think about something serious for a change.
"'School is a ball . . . and a chain!'" said Derek Travelstead, and the class was laughing again.
Finally Joel got his chance. "'A spare rib is another name for a useless woman.'"
The boys laughed at that one, and the girls booed. Katie seethed with anger.
Finally it was Shawnie's turn to read her sticker. She stood by her seat, and Katie noticed that her face was blotched, as if she had been crying again. Raising her sticker over her head, Shawnie spat out the words: "'Empty the nation's prisons. Let your kid out of the house once in a while!'"
Katie watched sadly as Shawnie crumpled back into her seat. What was the matter with the Pendergasts, anyway? she wondered. Did they really keep her a prisoner? No matter what, nobody should make their child that miserable.
Will Katie be able to help Shawnie deal with her situation at home? Or will Katie's sense of justice and fair play get her into more trouble than she can handle? Find out in The Fabulous Five #8: THE RUNAWAY CRISIS.
Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19