by Betsy Haynes
"Oh, my gosh," murmured Beth. "Look!" She was pointing toward the mirrors above the sinks where girls usually crowded to brush their hair and fix their makeup. "They're smashed. Every single mirror is broken." She said the words slowly, trying to convince herself that what she was looking at was real.
She turned the water on in a sink and tried to rinse out the last of the slime from her hair. Looking in a large piece of broken mirror, she used a paper towel to dry it.
"Why would anybody do a dumb thing like this?" asked Katie in a totally exasperated voice.
Just then the sound of Melanie's throwing up filled the room, followed by the flush of a toilet. "Mel, are you okay?" Beth called.
A white-faced Melanie came out of the stall. "I just want to go home," she said. Her chin was trembling and she looked embarrassed. "I can't explain it, but it's just too scary. I feel almost as if someone beat me up."
Jana put an arm around Melanie's shoulder. "It's okay. Mr. Bell said anyone who wanted to could go home. We'll walk you to the front door."
"Thanks," said Melanie. "I knew you guys would understand."
After Melanie left, the others made their way through the mess of broken glass and papers to their homerooms. Jana and Christie went into room 107, and Beth called good-bye to Katie and headed into hers, room 109, which was just across the hall. Beth was glad to see that just about everyone in her homeroom class had stayed at school to help clean up.
Miss Dickinson hurried to the front of the room, her old-fashioned full skirt swishing as she walked. She had a spot of high color on each cheek and she was frowning as she spoke. "Class, this is a sad day for Wakeman Junior High. Thank you for helping. Our assignment is to do what we can with the mess in the cafeteria."
Several kids groaned, and someone in the back of the room yelled, "All right! Food fight!"
Oh, grr-oss! thought Beth as she entered the cafeteria with the rest of her class a few minutes later. First green slime in my hair, and now this.
"Hey, Barry, this place looks like your sweatshirt!" called Richie Corrierro as he went sliding past her through what looked like applesauce.
Beth scanned the room and decided that he was right. A streak of yellow by her left foot was cream-style corn. A chunky splash of dark red directly in front of her was sliced beets. Peas, green beans, and broccoli had been tossed into the air and had landed in a variety of green, free-form designs. Spaghetti sauce dripped down the walls, and sliced peaches and fruit cocktail were splattered across some of the tables. Over all of it lay a snowfall of potato chips.
It's crazy, but it does look like my sweatshirt, she thought, shaking her head. Maybe painting my shirt last night was some sort of premonition.
Just as she was adjusting to the sight of the mess, a new sensation hit her. "E-e-e-y-e-w!" she squealed, wrinkling her nose. "It smells!"
"Yeah," said Dekeisha Adams, who was standing beside her. "Like a garbage dump. But what can you expect? It's been sitting here most of the weekend, and the heat was on in the building."
Miss Dickinson clapped her hands for attention. "Okay, class. Listen up. The cooks will give you buckets and mops to clean the floor and pans and rags to clean the tables."
"You mean, touch that stuff with our hands?" shrieked Shawnie Pendergast. She was making a face as if she had just eaten a lemon and pointing to a table covered with a disgusting mixture of chocolate pudding and sliced pickles.
"No, push it into the floor with your nose," cried Joel Murphy, cracking up at his own joke.
Miss Dickinson threw him a stern look and went on with her instructions. Beth was given a pan and a sponge and told to wash down the walls and get as much of the spaghetti sauce off as possible. She noticed that Shawnie, who was still making a face, was holding a rag by two fingers and dipping it into a puddle of gravy at a nearby table.
Beth turned back to her own job, thinking about all of the food that had been wasted. And the money, she added with a frown. Food was expensive. Not only that, it was going to cost even more to replace it and all the other things in the school that had been broken or defaced. But who was going to pay for it?
In her mind, she could hear her father's voice. "The taxpayers are going to pay for it, that's who. And it's all because kids have no respect for other people's property." She shivered and went back to work cleaning the wall.
CHAPTER 4
Beth skipped going to Bumpers, the fast-food restaurant where all the kids from Wakeman hung out after school, and hurried home to do a better job of washing the green slime out of her hair. She hadn't been able to get all of it out in the girls' room, and now her short, dark hair was stiff and disgusting. Besides, she knew that all everyone would be talking about at Bumpers would be the vandalism at school, and she had had enough of that for one day.
The students had spent the entire day cleaning up the mess as best they could, and Mr. Bell had come around to each group expressing thanks to everyone who had stayed to help. He had said that there would be classes tomorrow as usual and that the major cleanup and repair of damages would take a long time. He had also added that he hoped anyone who had information about who had broken into the school would please come forward.
Beth thought about this while she showered and washed her hair. People had been whispering all day that it must have been Steve Melchior and his friends, Tucker Cobler, John Mauhl, and Jay Romberg. Only last week Mr. Bell had suspected them for two days for starting fights on the school ground. They were the only ones in Wakeman who had a reason, or thought they did anyway. But she knew that no one would tell on them. It was just something you didn't do. Especially without proof. And even with proof it would be hard because after that you would have a reputation as a fink, and nobody would ever trust you again. What would be the point, anyway? Surely Mr. Bell suspected them, too.
She had just plugged in her blow dryer when she heard the upstairs phone ringing in the hall.
"Beth! It's for you!" shouted Brittany. When Beth reached for the receiver, her older sister added with a frown, "Don't talk long. I'm expecting a very important call."
Beth shrugged and crossed her eyes at her sister, thinking that she was always expecting a very important call. "Hi," she said. "This is Beth."
"Hi. It's Jana. Why didn't you come to Bumpers after school?"
"I wanted to wash the rest of the green slime out of my hair. Did I miss anything?"
"Not really," said Jana. "Everybody was talking about the mess at school. I just can't believe it really happened."
Beth sighed. "Me either. And what's worse, it feels so . . . so personal."
"Right," said Jana. "You'd think we'd at least get some sympathy from the teachers. After all, it was our school that was trashed, and we were the ones who worked hard all day cleaning it up."
"What do you mean?" asked Beth.
"Well, several kids said they heard teachers really putting down teenagers," said Jana. "They were complaining about 'this younger generation' and saying things like 'kids want everything handed to them, and when they can't have it, they do something like this.' Isn't that terrible? Our own teachers saying things like that."
"Especially after we worked so hard to clean it up," Beth added. "That really makes me mad. Which teachers were saying that?"
"Lots," said Jana. "Mr. Naset, for one, and Mrs. Lemane and Mr. Waldrop. I don't know who else. Kim Baxter overheard all of them talking together, but you can bet that if they feel that way, so do a lot of the others."
As soon as they hung up, Beth called Katie and Christie to see if they had heard any teachers talking about Wacko students that way. Neither had actually heard any teachers saying things like that, but they both knew of other kids who had.
Beth was staring at the telephone, trying to decide if she should call anyone else, when Brittany came up behind her.
"Beth Barry. Are you going to spend the rest of your life on that telephone? I told you that I have an important call coming any minute."
Beth didn't say anything for a few seconds. Finally she looked up at Brittany and said, "Did you hear about what happened at Wacko last night? Vandals broke in and really trashed the place."
Brittany's angry look turned to one of surprise, but before she could say anything, the phone rang again. Grabbing the receiver before Beth had a chance, she said in a voice dripping with sweetness, "Barry residence. This is Brittany." An instant later her face fell, and she thrust the phone toward Beth. "It's for you again, and you'd better hurry up," she grumbled, and stomped off down the hall.
This time it was Keith.
"What do you want?" Beth asked angrily. "I know. You're probably calling to see if I'm home so that you can come over and put some more green slime in my hair. I can't believe you did that."
Keith sighed loudly. "Hey, it was only a joke."
"Some joke," said Beth. "Do you know how it feels to go around all day with gross, disgusting stuff making your hair stiff?"
"I'm sorry," he said. "I guess I just got carried away. You aren't really mad, are you?"
He sounded so genuinely sorry that Beth's anger melted a little bit. "I guess not," she said. "But sometimes I have a hard time understanding why you do things like that. It makes me wonder if you really do like me."
"I like you," he assured her. "I like you more than any other girl. You believe me, don't you?"
Beth sighed softly. His voice sounded worried, and she tried to imagine the expression on his face as he waited for her answer. He would be chewing on his lower lip and frowning. He always did that when he was worried. "Sure," she said quickly. "Of course I believe you."
They talked about the vandalism, and Beth asked him if he'd heard any rumors about anyone other than Steve Melchior and his friends being responsible.
"No," said Keith. "Everyone's pretty convinced that it was them."
"Is anybody going to tell?"
"Are you kidding?" Keith scoffed. "Nobody would do a thing like that."
Beth relinquished the telephone to Brittany a few minutes later and went downstairs to catch the early news on the small television set on the kitchen counter while she helped her mother get supper.
"Why the sudden interest in the news?" her mother asked as Beth leaned across the counter to turn up the volume.
Before Beth could explain, Marge Whitworth, the local news anchor, came on the screen.
"Vandals did an estimated five thousand dollars' worth of damage to Wakeman Junior High overnight, and school officials believe it was the work of students. Police have launched a full investigation . . ."
Beth gulped a breath and let it out again in a loud sigh as she punched the remote control unit, shutting off the set. She didn't want to hear any more. Not if everybody was lumping the kids of Wakeman Junior High together and saying that they were all responsible.
"Turn that back on, sweetheart. I want to hear it," her mother said. "Did Marge Whitworth say that students vandalized Wakeman Junior High?"
Beth nodded and reluctantly turned the television back on, but much to her relief, Ms. Whitworth had finished her report on Wacko and had gone on to another story.
Her mother was shaking her head. "For goodness' sake," she said to Beth, "tell me what happened."
Beth related the story. "Everybody is pretty sure who did it," she added. "There is a group of boys who are nothing but troublemakers. It's just the sort of thing they would do."
"Humph," grumbled Mrs. Barry. "It just goes to prove what your father said this morning. Now, when we were growing up, we tried to handle things peacefully, with demonstrations, sit-ins, things like that. But kids today . . ." She shook her head again as her words trailed off.
Beth glared at her. She knew something about the sixties and seventies, and not all kids who grew up then solved their problems peacefully, she thought. And besides, what was so peaceful about sitting down in front of traffic?
CHAPTER 5
The first person Beth spotted when she got to school the next morning was Melanie.
"Hi, Mel," she called out. "How do you feel?"
Melanie looked embarrassed. "Fine. I'm sorry I got sick yesterday. I just have a weak stomach, especially when something scares me."
"It's okay," Beth assured her. "Honest."
As they headed for The Fabulous Five's meeting spot by the fence, Beth filled her in on what had taken place the day before.
"Yuk!" said Melanie when she heard about Beth's homeroom's cleaning up the cafeteria. "How could you stand to do a thing like that?"
Beth laughed. "It was pretty gross."
When they reached the rest of The Fabulous Five at the fence, a crowd of seventh-graders was beginning to gather. Richie Corrierro, Tony Calcaterra, and Randy Kirwan were in one small group talking to Jana and Katie, and Dekeisha Adams and Alexis Duvall were in conversation with Christie. They moved together when Beth and Melanie walked up, and everyone seemed to want to talk at once.
"I think it's awful that everybody is blaming us for what happened," Dekeisha complained.
"Yeah! Did you read what it said in the paper last night?" Richie exploded. "Talk about bad-mouthing kids!"
"What did it say?" asked Beth. She had been too upset over the television coverage to even look at the newspaper.
"Just that today's kids have . . ." Richie frowned. "What was that word they used?"
"'Deteriorating,'" said Christie. "'Deteriorating moral standards,' to be exact. Can you believe that? They act as if we're all a bunch of criminals."
"Here. Read it for yourself," said Alexis, whipping a folded newspaper page from her notebook and thrusting it toward Beth. "I just have to keep reading it to believe it myself. Talk about overreacting," she grumbled.
Beth grabbed the paper, Unfolding it, she did a double take at the editorial's headline, which blared, "VANDALISM SYMPTOM OF GROWING MORAL DECAY."
She narrowed her eyes angrily and read on.
Once again, with this weekend's vandalism at Wakeman Junior High, the public is appalled at the deteriorating moral standards of today's youth. It is a sad commentary on the state of our society when our young people, who have been pampered more than any generation in history, can find no better way to express themselves than by destroying public property.
What has happened to old-fashioned decency in this day of drugs, street gangs, and vandalism? What has happened to responsibility?
Gulping hard, Beth read the editorial a second time and then a third. "'Drugs, street gangs, and vandalism'?" she whispered incredulously. "That's me they're talking about. Me and my friends. Is that what they really think of us?"
"It's just plain not fair," interjected Katie. "They're forgetting about all of us well-behaved, law-abiding, innocent students who are just as upset over what happened as the adults are. Why is everyone so prejudiced against kids?"
"What makes me angry," said Dekeisha, "is that Mr. Bell and most of the teachers have to know that only a few kids did it, and yet they act as if all of us were involved."
"Well, maybe we could do something to prove to the grown-ups that we aren't all like the ones who vandalized the school," offered Beth.
"Like what!" challenged Tony.
"Yeah," mumbled most of the others.
"Fat chance," scoffed Dekeisha.
Beth shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "The idea just came to me this minute. It just seems to me that if we Wakeman students could find a way to raise enough money to pay for the damage ourselves, adults would have to change their minds about us." As the idea blossomed, her excitement grew. "In fact, I say we have to do something for our own good."
"Get real," said Richie. He leaned against the fence and crossed his arms defiantly. "Adults wouldn't listen, no matter what we did."
"Right," said Alexis. "Did Marge Whitworth say anything on TV about how Wacko students spent all day cleaning up the mess? No! And her own son goes to this school. Did the newspaper report anything about how we cleaned up? No! Nobody gives us credit for anything."
"And that means we don't have to prove anything to anybody," said Tony, sticking out his chest and strutting around looking tough.
"Well, I personally think it's a pretty good idea," said Katie, glaring at Tony.
"Me, too," Jana said quickly. "What about you, Randy? You haven't said anything yet."
Randy shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know," he said. "It might work, but how in the world would we raise that kind of money? Five thousand dollars is a lot. Remember the trouble we had raising just over three hundred dollars to get the cats and dogs out of the animal shelter?"
Beth sighed. She didn't have the faintest idea how a bunch of junior high students could raise so much money. She didn't know why she had even suggested it in the first place. Alexis had been right about Marge Whitworth's being Jon Smith's mother and still saying students were responsible, making it sound as if all students were to blame. Anyone would think that she would be more sympathetic. And hadn't Beth's own parents taken one look at her painted hair the day before and started ranting and raving about today's kids? It was crazy to think that she and her friends could change anybody's mind, much less raise five thousand dollars to do it. But still, what other choice did they have?
CHAPTER 6
"I'm almost afraid to go in," Melanie said in a small voice when the first bell rang and The Fabulous Five were heading for the building.
"You're not feeling sick again, are you?" asked Beth, looking at her friend in alarm.
"Oh, no," Melanie assured her, but Beth suspected that she was trying to assure herself more than anyone else. "I'm completely over the shock now."
"Uh-oh," said Katie. "I hate to change the subject, but look who's by the front door."
Beth glanced up and stopped cold when she saw Steve Melchior and his friends leaning against the building with amused smiles on their faces as they watched the rest of the students troop in. Tall and thin, Steve wore his light brown hair cropped so closely that from a distance he almost looked bald. With him were Tucker Cobler, John Mauhl, and Jay Romberg. Tucker had a medium build and blond, curly hair. John, short and roly-poly, had straight brown hair that brushed his shoulders. Jay was athletic looking with dark hair cut in the latest style. But as different as they looked from each other, they had one thing in common. All four were troublemakers. They also stuck together.