Fabulous Five 001 - Seventh-Grade Rumors

by Betsy Haynes

  She had felt a little better when she got to the corner by Nugent's and found that Melanie, too, was wearing a denim skirt. At least if she was laughed at, she wouldn't be alone. Now, as she scanned the crowd of kids streaming onto the school ground, her confidence plunged again. Hardly anyone was wearing a denim skirt.

  Students were milling around in front of the school and standing in groups talking, but nobody seemed to notice The Fabulous Five or pay any attention to them. It was as if they were invisible.

  Christie must have felt it, too. "Maybe we ought to walk around and see if we can find some other kids from Mark Twain Elementary," she suggested. "I don't know about you guys, but I feel sort of out of it standing way over here."

  "Me, too," said Jana. "Creepy, as a matter of fact. I just saw Alexis Duvall and Lisa Snow heading toward the other side of the school ground. Maybe we should go over and talk to them."

  "I've got a better idea," said Katie. "Let's go in and find our homerooms before the bell rings. That way, hopefully, we won't get lost and have to ask a ninth-grader for directions."

  "And maybe we'll see some cute boys," offered Melanie. "I haven't seen Scott yet, and I'm dying to get a look at Shane Arrington. Come on, guys. What are we waiting for?"

  Everybody liked that idea, especially Jana. She had been watching for Randy Kirwan ever since she got to school. What if they didn't have any classes together this year? She would absolutely die.

  The girls walked in the front door and stopped beside the office, checking their schedule cards. The corridors were almost empty. It would be easy to locate their homerooms before the bell rang.

  "My homeroom is one oh seven," said Jana.

  "So is mine," said Christie, "and according to the sign, it should be down the hall to the left."

  Jana and her friends studied the sign that was taped to the outside of the office window. It had an arrow pointing left beside Rooms 100-115 and another arrow pointing right beside Rooms 116-130.

  Melanie, Katie, and Beth all had homerooms in the opposite direction. "We'll see you at lunch," called Melanie.

  "If we last that long," joked Jana, relieved that seventh-graders had the first of the three lunch periods.

  Turning into the left corridor, Jana and Christie hurried along, scanning the first few room numbers. Suddenly Christie stopped short and reached out a hand to halt Jana.

  Looking up, Jana saw that five or six boys, probably ninth-graders, were lined up in the hall. They were watching the two approach with amused smiles on their faces.

  "Hey, guys, look what we have here," one of them said. "Seventh-grade girls. What do you think?"

  "Ignore them and just keep walking," Christie whispered hoarsely. "Act natural."

  Jana tried, but her legs felt instantly stiff. Her knees didn't want to bend and her feet shuffled noisily across the floor.

  "I'd say they're threes," called a boy from the far end of the line. "Three and a half, tops."

  "Naw, three is too generous."

  Jana cringed. Suddenly she knew what was going on. The boys were ninth-graders looking over the new crop of seventh-grade girls, and they were stationed along the hallway to rate—probably on a scale of one to ten—any seventh-grade girls unlucky enough to come by.

  Three is too generous! she thought angrily. Of all the nerve. But then, who cared what a few ninth-grade boys thought, anyway? The important thing was to get out of there and find the right room before the bell rang.

  Suddenly the boys started hooting and clapping. "Ten! Ten!" someone shouted.

  Surprised, Jana turned around to see Laura McCall sauntering up the hall with her long blond braid bouncing over her shoulder and a triumphant gleam in her eye.

  CHAPTER 3

  Jana and Christie ducked into room 107 and sank into seats near the door. They were the first ones to arrive for homeroom, and they exchanged looks of relief at being out of sight of the ninth-grade boys.

  "That was disgusting!" said Christie. "How dare those boys rate us, anyway?"

  "And can you imagine rating Laura McCall a ten?" Jana huffed.

  Gradually other kids drifted into the room and found seats. Most of them looked a little bewildered at the newness of Wakeman and the difference in the school routine. Jana could sympathize. She felt that way herself. She dreaded changing rooms every hour and being stuck in classes without any of her friends.

  The first familiar face to come through the door belonged to Curtis Trowbridge. Naturally he would be early for class, thought Jana. Curtis was not only the nerd of the world, he was Mr. Enthusiasm, always raising his hand and always the first one to volunteer—no matter what. He had been the sixth-grade editor for the Mark Twain Sentinel, but the worst thing about him, Jana thought, was his lifelong crush on her.

  Curtis came tearing into the room as if nothing could start until he got there. Just then the first bell rang, and more kids started pouring into the room and scrambling to find seats.

  Jana watched the door for anyone else she knew. Clarence Marshall came in with Matt Zeboski. They had been in her class at Mark Twain Elementary, and Clarence had almost been held back. The only other girls from her school were Taffy Sinclair and Mona Vaughn, who entered the room together. As usual, Taffy looked gorgeous. Her blond hair had grown longer over the summer and deep streaks of eye shadow accented her big blue eyes. Makeup! Jana suppressed the urge to frown. Taffy had been her enemy for ages, but she had also been getting a little bit nicer lately, especially since she lost her diary at the end of school last year and thought for a while that everyone knew her secrets.

  Jana was so busy watching Taffy that she almost missed seeing someone else come into her homeroom. A sharp jab in the ribs from Christie brought her to attention.

  "Look," Christie whispered. "There's Laura McCall."

  Tall, blond Laura flipped her long braid over her shoulder as she stood by the door surveying the room. Beside her were two of the friends who had been standing with her at the fence. One was the small girl with the short, dark hair, and the other was the second blonde.

  "Oh, no," groaned Jana as they headed for three seats together on the other side of the room. "Not that bunch."

  "That's all we need," whispered Christie. "I have a feeling that they are going to show up just about everywhere we don't want them to be."

  Just then the last bell rang, and kids who weren't in seats scrambled to find them, running into each other and creating lots of confusion. While everyone was getting settled, Jana opened her notebook and dug around in her purse for a pencil. Suddenly she was aware that the room had gotten totally silent. Glancing up toward the teacher's desk to see what was going on, she discovered that she was looking straight into the face of her former fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Neal. Dreamy Mr. Neal, she had always called him because he was the youngest and most handsome teacher she had ever seen. Standing behind his desk and gazing out at the class, he looked as dreamy as ever in his dark, tweed jacket with the leather patches on the elbows. Her heart began to pound and she could feel her ears getting hot.

  Jana chanced a quick look at Christie, who was looking back sympathetically. Christie knew that Jana had had a terrible crush on Mr. Neal in fifth grade, just as she knew about Christie's crush last year on Mr. Scott, the new assistant principal at Mark Twain Elementary. But what is Mr. Neal doing here at Wakeman Junior High? she wanted to shout.

  "Good morning, students, and welcome to Wakeman," he said in a husky voice. "This will be your homeroom every morning for the first thirty minutes of the school day, and I'll be your homeroom teacher. We'll use this time to conduct business, such as attendance and announcements, so that your other class periods will be free for study."

  Someone in the back of the room groaned, causing a few others to giggle. .Mr. Neal ignored them and went on.

  "My name is Mr. Neal, and we'll begin this morning as every morning by taking attendance."

  Jana slowly let out a breath that she wasn't even aware she was holding
and sank back in her seat to listen for her name. Mr. Neal, Mr. Neal, Mr. Neal, she repeated over and over again to herself. Dreamy Mr. Neal!

  "Shane Arrington," she heard Mr. Neal call, and she bolted up in her seat.

  "Here," answered an incredibly handsome blond boy near the front. So that's Shane Arrington, Jana mused. The kid with the iguana. Just wait until I tell Melanie that he's in my homeroom.

  Now that Shane had caught her attention, Jana listened closely to the names Mr. Neal called. Laura's short, dark-haired friend answered to "Tammy Lucero," and the blonde to "Melissa McConnell." Jana wrote both names in her notebook. But that was not the end of surprises.

  "Randy Kirwan," called Mr. Neal.

  When Randy answered, Jana followed the sound of his voice and discovered that he had come into the room without her seeing him and was sitting two rows over and one seat back. When she looked at him, he looked at her, too, flashing one of the 1,000-watt smiles that he always saved for her.

  Jana returned his smile, feeling a warm glow. Randy Kirwan had dark, wavy hair and blue eyes and was the handsomest and most wonderful boy in the world, and fortunately he was also her boyfriend. He had taken her to Mama Mia's for pizza and to a movie, and he had already kissed her twice. But all of that happened last year when they were sixth-graders at Mark Twain, and she had wondered a hundred times during the summer if things would be different between them in junior high. Now, to her immense relief, she knew that they would not.

  Since he was in her homeroom, she couldn't help wondering if he was in any of her other classes, too. She was reaching for her notebook to write him a note when she was jarred back to reality by the sound of her name.

  "Jana Morgan! Is Jana Morgan present?"

  Jana jumped to attention. From the tone of Mr. Neal's voice, she knew that wasn't the first time he had called her name.

  "Yes, sir. Right here," she answered quickly. She could see out of the corner of her eye that Laura McCall and her two friends were snickering.

  Jana looked at her watch, wishing with all her might that homeroom would be over. It was 9:10. Twenty more minutes to go.

  Next Mr. Neal passed out Student Handbooks, instructing the class to put their names on the covers, not to lose them, and to pay particular attention to the school dress code on page 4.

  "These are the rules you'll all live by for the next three years," he said with a faint smile.

  Jana skimmed the list of dress code rules. 1. Boys' and girls' hair should be kept clean, neat, and well-groomed—blah, blah, blah, not cause a health or safety hazard, blah, blah, blah. 2. Girls are expected to wear clothing in keeping with their gender—blah, blah, blah. 3. Boys are expected to wear clothing in keeping with their gender. Jana paused and giggled to herself at the vision of Randy showing up for school dressed like a girl. 4. Students are not to wear T-shirts with logos, pictures, phrases, letters, or words on them that are obscene or disruptive. . . .

  "Now that you've absorbed the rules, turn to page twenty-eight," Mr. Neal said, interrupting Jana's reading. He was smiling, and Jana started smiling, too, when she saw that on page 28 was what she had been waiting for, the list of student activities.

  She felt a shiver of excitement as she ran her finger down the names of the clubs and activities, many of them available for the very first time in junior high. Cheerleading. Yearbook. School newspaper. Drama club. Band. Football. Basketball. Soccer. The list was practically endless. And beside each activity was the date next week of the sign-up meeting or tryouts.

  All over the room kids were talking eagerly to each other, and Christie leaned across the aisle and said, "Gosh, Jana. There are so many. I don't know what to sign up for. What about you?"

  "I don't know either," Jana confessed. "I want to do almost everything. Yearbook. School newspaper. Maybe even cheerleading."

  "I'm thinking about going out for girls' basketball," said Christie. "And maybe yearbook."

  "Will you try out for cheerleader if I do?" Jana asked. "I'm dying to do it, but I don't want to do it alone."

  Before Christie could answer, Jana jerked her head around. She had the crazy feeling that someone was looking at her. She was right. Laura McCall and her two friends were whispering together and looking straight at Jana and Christie. "Get a load of those three," Jana said, nudging Christie and nodding in their direction. "What do you think they're talking about?"

  "Us, of course," said Christie. "They're probably reading our lips to try to find out which activities we're going out for so that they can go out for them, too. I have the feeling that they're going to be our biggest competition."

  "Me, too," Jana growled. "The Fantastic Foursome!" she added, spitting out the words. "We've got to show them that they can't run over The Fabulous Five!"

  CHAPTER 4

  Beth and Katie were already sitting at a table in the crowded cafeteria when Jana sank down beside them. This lunchroom was almost twice the size of the one at Mark Twain, and she had felt a moment of panic until she spotted her friends.

  "Whew! I made it," she said with a sigh.

  "So how did it go?" asked Katie. "It looks as if you survived your first morning in junior high."

  "Barely," said Jana, shaking her head. "This place is wild." She went on to tell Beth and Katie about the lineup of ninth-grade boys in the hallway before class who were rating seventh-grade girls on a scale of one to ten. "It was disgusting. But that was just the beginning. Christie and I got to our homeroom okay, and there were even some kids in there that we knew. Randy Kirwan. Curtis Trowbridge. Even Taffy Sinclair," Jana said. "But Laura McCall and two of her friends were in there, too. THEN, when the bell rang for first period, I couldn't find my schedule card. I thought I'd die! I knew I had English next, but where? I was still flipping through my notebook as I ran out into the hall and almost barreled into a group of ninth-grade girls. You should have seen the looks I got."

  "That's awful. What did you do?" asked Katie.

  "I just happened to reach into my skirt pocket, and my schedule card was there. And fortunately, I was heading in the right direction."

  "You think you had troubles," said Katie. "I needed to use the restroom between classes."

  "Yipes!" said Jana.

  "I was lucky, though," said Katie. "I found one right outside the cafeteria."

  Jana and Katie laughed together, but when Jana looked down the table at Beth, her best friend was gazing off into the distance as if her thoughts were a million miles away.

  Jana tried to think of something to say to Beth, something that would get her to open up and tell them what was wrong or at the very least to join in the conversation. Before she could think of anything, Melanie came running up to the table.

  "Guess who's in my biology class?" she gushed. "Shane Arrington, and is he cute! In fact, he's gorgeous. He looks just like River Phoenix."

  "The Shane Arrington of pet iguana fame?" Katie asked sarcastically.

  "Oh, yes," said Melanie, melting down into her seat. "And he's darling. I mean, killer darling."

  "I thought you were madly in love with Scott Daly," Jana reminded her.

  "Oh, I am," Melanie insisted. "But you should see Shane. I don't care if his parents are hippies and he has a pet iguana. He is un-real!"

  "I know," said Jana. "Christie and I are in his homeroom."

  "You rats!" cried Melanie. Then she tried to fake sobbing but started giggling instead.

  By this time Christie had joined the group. She sat down beside Beth and pulled a sandwich out of her lunch bag with little more than a shy hello in her friends' direction.

  Christie was always quiet, but with Beth so unusually silent, Jana had the distinct feeling that the table was weighted like a teeter-totter. All of the talkative ones were holding down one end and the quiet ones were floating somewhere in space at the other.

  "Has anyone decided which activities they're going to join?" asked Jana. "Christie and I are thinking about yearbook, school newspaper, and cheerleading
."

  "And girls' basketball," added Christie.

  "You'd never catch me being a cheerleader," said Katie. "Cheerleading is degrading to women."

  "Oh, come on, Katie," said Melanie. "You've said that about beauty contests and modeling. Besides, lots of boys are cheerleaders nowadays."

  Katie looked huffy. "Well, you won't catch me being one, anyway. I want to do something worthwhile. I'm thinking of running for student council."

  Jana groaned and turned to Beth. "Are you going out for the drama club?" she asked.

  Beth looked at Jana for a moment. Jana had the feeling from her blank expression that this was the first time she had even considered it. Then she shrugged and picked up her milk carton, draining it as if to say that the subject was closed.

  "Well, I heard some more rumors about Laura McCall and her obnoxious friends," said Katie. "The girl sitting next to me in history is from their school. She said that Laura McCall is definitely the leader, just as you heard, Melanie. She also told me something about the other three."

  Katie paused, then seeing that she had everyone's attention, she went on. "The little one with the short dark hair is Tammy Lucero. Tammy is cute and bubbly, according to my informant, but she's a terrible gossip. Not only that, but she broadcasts everything she knows to the entire world. Most kids at her other school would have liked her a lot better if she had ever just shut up once in a while."

  "Uh-oh," said Jana. "I thought she looked like trouble."