by Betsy Haynes
Beth said good-bye to her friends and headed home, knowing that she should be thinking about Steve Melchior and his crowd, but Keith was on her mind instead. He had barely spoken to her since Thursday morning on the school ground when he had tried to tell her that he had forgotten their date the night before and she had refused to believe him. She had so hoped that he would come to the meeting at Bumpers. As angry as she got at him sometimes, he was still the only boy she had ever kissed and the one she liked best in the whole world.
"I'll call him the minute I get home," she promised herself. "I will if Brittany isn't on the phone," she grumbled.
When she reached home, she was relieved to find that Brittany had gone out with her friends and the telephone was all hers.
"Hi, this is Beth. Is Keith there, please?" she asked when Mr. Masterson answered the phone.
"Sure. Just a minute, Beth. I'll call him."
Beth stood in the upstairs hallway, nervously bouncing on her toes as she waited.
"Hello?" Keith said a minute later.
"Hi," she said shyly.
There was a moment of silence and then he said, "Who is this?"
Beth's heart stopped. "It's me. Beth. Didn't you recognize my voice?"
"Oh, well, all you said was 'hi.' How was I supposed to know it was you from only one syllable? Right?"
She frowned to herself. This call certainly wasn't going the way she had wanted it to.
"So what have you been doing all day?" asked Keith, his voice softening. Beth had the distinct feeling that he was trying to tell her he was sorry for not recognizing her voice.
"I've been working on the celebrity auction all day long," Beth said. "Wait until I tell you the plans we've made." She spent the next five minutes telling him about the addresses they had collected so far and about how Mr. Bell was going to let them use school stationery and postage for the letters and the school gymnasium for the auction itself. By the time she finished talking, she was almost breathless. "Isn't it exciting?"
"Sure," said Keith with a definite lack of enthusiasm. "It should keep you busy for the next few weeks."
Beth winced. She was remembering how they had actually broken up for a while when she got the lead in the school play. Keith had been upset that the play took so much of her time. She thought that they had worked that problem out and that by now he understood that even when she was busy with other things, she still liked him. But maybe she had been wrong.
Thinking fast, she said, "I'm not busy now. Why don't you bring the Brain Damage tape over and we'll listen to it? I got my allowance today so we could even order in a pizza."
There was another silence on the line. Finally Keith said, "Sorry. I can't come over right now."
"Why not?" Beth knew her voice sounded exasperated, but she couldn't help it. That was exactly how she felt. "What are you doing at four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon that's so important?"
"I have company," Keith said.
Beth rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Well, just tell them they have to leave because you're going somewhere," she insisted. "Who is it? Tony Sanchez? Randy Kirwan? Scott Daly? They won't care. They're your friends."
Keith didn't answer.
"Are you still there?" Beth asked after a minute.
"It's a girl," he said. His voice sounded unbelievably cheerful.
Beth swallowed hard, but she couldn't utter a sound so she silently hung up the phone.
CHAPTER 14
Fifteen minutes later Beth was sprawled across her bed crying into her pillow when she heard the telephone ringing. I hope it's not for me, she thought angrily.
From the instant Keith's words had sunk in, she had been trying to figure out why. Why had he invited another girl over to his house? Had Beth been right before when she suspected that he didn't like her anymore? Maybe that was why he had laughed so hard when he squirted green slime in her hair. But why did he have to hurt her like this? Why couldn't he just break up the regular way?
"Beth! It's for you!" Todd shouted through her bedroom door.
"I don't want to talk to anyone," she yelled back.
"It's a boy," he called, and pounded on her door.
Beth slowly raised her head. A boy? Who would that be? she wondered. Surely not Keith.
"Come on!" Todd boomed. "I need to use the phone."
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and then blew her nose. Maybe I'd better answer it, she reasoned. It might be someone calling with a great new idea for the celebrity auction.
"Hello," she said a moment later.
"Hi, Beth." It was Keith. "I just wanted to tell you that what I said before—about not being able to come over because there was a girl here—well, it was just a joke."
"A joke?" Beth asked incredulously.
"Yeah. I guess it wasn't very funny, was it?"
Beth puffed out her cheeks and let out a big breath, trying to figure out what to say.
"I still can't come over, though," he added quickly. "But maybe I can come over one night next week and bring the tape. Okay?"
"Sure," Beth murmured.
"I'll see you at school Monday. Bye." Then he hung up.
Beth listened to the dull buzz of the dial tone and stared at the phone. She had been terribly hurt when Keith told her that a girl was at his house. She was still hurt, even though he said now that it wasn't true. But she was also confused. Totally confused.
"What is his problem anyway?" she asked herself as she hung up the phone and stomped back to her room.
She had no sooner closed the door than she heard the phone again. If it was Keith, she wasn't going to talk to him this time, she vowed.
"Hey, Beth," yelled Todd. "It's for you again. When am I ever going to get to use this phone?"
Beth stuck her head out the door. "If it's Keith, I don't want to talk to him," she said.
Todd dangled the receiver by the cord and gave her a disgusted look. "It's a girl. Someone named Kaci, and she says it's important."
Beth raced to the phone. "I'll hurry," she promised Todd. "Hi, Kaci. This is Beth. What's up?"
She heard Kaci sigh on the other end of the line. "Jeez," Kaci said. "We can't copy all these names, and the copy machine charges a quarter per sheet. I mean, there are thousands in this book, and kids are only going to want to write to their favorites anyway. Who's going to write to the President or the governor? Nobody I know! I say we just get a few and quit."
"But, Kaci, we have to get donations that adults will buy if we're going to raise enough money."
"Well, Jennifer and Pam and I think it's a drag. We've copied a bunch, and we have the ones we want to write to, so we're going to quit now. Maybe you can find someone else to do the rest. Bye."
Beth broke the connection and handed the phone to Todd, who had been leaning against the wall and drumming his fingers impatiently the whole time she talked to Kaci.
"Here," she said. "Believe me, you can have this. If I get any more calls, tell them I've gone to the moon."
Back in her room, she pulled the list of names and addresses The Fabulous Five had gotten at the library Thursday night out of her notebook and scanned it, thinking that there were at least a few who would appeal to adults, thanks to Katie's mother. Maybe she could get her friends to go with her to the library again tomorrow afternoon and copy more. If they were going to begin giving them out at school Monday morning, they needed more addresses than they had now.
As she looked at the list, one name sprang out at her as if it were a flashing neon sign. Brain Damage. Trevor Morgan had been so kind to her before. And patient. And understanding. He had seemed like a real human being. She giggled. Of course he was a real human being. It was just that everyone always thought of humongous stars as somehow being different from everyone else.
"What if I write to him myself? Today?" she said out loud. "What if I explain about the vandalism and what adults are saying about us kids and that we've got this idea for a celebrity auction"—her voice was growing louder with
excitement—"but what if I also tell him about what a hard time I'm having with the other students? Would he understand and try to help me? Would he even care?"
She would have to wait until Monday if she used school stationery, so she pulled out a piece of her own. It had been a birthday present from her grandmother and had her name at the top and the theatrical masks of comedy and tragedy in the lower left-hand corner. She took a deep breath and began to write, pouring out her heart and soul to Trevor Morgan.
Beth had made quick calls to Christie, Melanie, Katie, and Jana, asking them to meet her at the library at two o'clock Sunday afternoon. They had all agreed, and as she stood in front of the ornate stone building with the four pillars across the front, she wasn't sure if she was shivering more from being nervous or from the cold. Copying names and addresses for the celebrity auction was only part of the reason she had asked them to meet her. The other was Keith. She wanted to tell them about the decision she had made.
"You're going to what?" shrieked Melanie as the five friends sat down at a table in the reference section to copy addresses.
"I'm going to break up with Keith," Beth repeated firmly. "I think he wants to. That's why he's doing so many immature things. He just doesn't know how. Or else he doesn't want to be the one to do it." She went on to tell them about the latest incident—Keith's saying that he couldn't come to her house because he was entertaining a girl.
"Some joke," muttered Katie. "I think I'd dump him, too, if he pulled something like that on me."
Beth winced at the word dump. It was the last thing in the world she wanted to do. Keith had been her boyfriend since sixth grade, but his behavior was making it impossible to do anything else.
"It's going to be tough," said Christie, looking at Beth sympathetically. "At least it was for me when I broke up with Jon last fall."
"So when are you going to tell him?" asked Jana.
"He said he would bring the Brain Damage tape over some night this coming week. I guess that would be the best time. Unless, of course, he was just saying that he would bring it over to get himself off the hook today. If he doesn't come over by Tuesday or Wednesday, I guess I'll have to call him myself."
An atmosphere of gloom settled over the table as the girls began gathering addresses from The New Address Book. Every once in a while Beth could feel one of her friends giving her a sympathetic look.
She sighed and tried to concentrate, but she couldn't help thinking about how her problems were piling up. Not only was the celebrity auction off to a slow start, it was up to her to come up with a way to get Steve Melchior and his friends to turn themselves in. The police couldn't seem to catch them, so what was she going to do? Walk up to them and say, "Hey, Steve, I think you ought to turn yourself in"? Fat chance. And now she had to break up with Keith. If she ever needed help, it was now.
Beth spent a restless night thinking about her problems. Of all of them, coming up with a way to expose the vandals seemed the hardest. She had talked it over with The Fabulous Five at the library, and no one had any ideas. Still, they all agreed that it was just as important to catch the ones responsible for the damage as it was to raise the money to pay for it.
But on the way to school Monday morning, she had an idea. Strangely enough, it occurred to her while she was thinking about Keith. She was remembering some of their conversations over the past few days, and she recalled Keith's mentioning that Mr. Dracovitch was one of the few teachers who really seemed to appreciate how hard the Wacko students had worked to clean up the mess. And, Keith had added, his science lab had been especially hard hit. Science lab, Beth thought. Why hadn't she made the connection before? If there was anyone who could help them trap the culprits, the science teacher could. The more she thought about it, the more a plan to trap Steve Melchior and his bunch unrolled in her mind. It was so simple it was beautiful, and it just might work, with Mr. Dracovitch's help.
"Hey, guys," Beth called out to the rest of The Fabulous Five as she raced toward the spot by the school fence where they waited. "Let's give out names and addresses of celebrities later. We need to see Mr. Dracovitch before the bell rings."
"Dracula?" shouted Melanie. "What for?"
As the others gathered around her, Beth explained her plan to them. The more she told them the more excited they got. They were all nodding their approval of her plan by the time she was finished explaining it.
Mr. Dracovitch was writing a formula on the board when the girls got to his room. As usual, he was wearing his shiny black toupee and looking as much like Dracula as ever.
Beth cleared her throat loudly when they stepped inside. "Mr. Dracovitch? Could we speak to you for a moment?" she asked hopefully.
Turning around slowly, Mr. Dracovitch gave them a big smile. Beth blinked and looked at his mouth. Even though she knew he was just a regular person in a black toupee and not really a vampire, she always half-expected to see fangs when he smiled.
"Certainly, girls. What can I do for you?" he asked kindly.
"We need your help," she began, "as a scientist."
Interest flashed in Mr. Dracovitch's eyes. "Why, certainly. How can I help?"
The girls took turns relating the story of the celebrity auction and how difficult it was to get other students to participate because the vandals had not been caught, and the boys and girls of Wakeman thought adults were blaming them all.
"You see," Beth finished, "everyone's convinced they know who did it, but nobody wants to fink. Besides, without proof, it wouldn't do any good anyway. That's why we thought of you. We had this idea and wondered if you'd help us with it."
"Hmmmm," said the teacher as they explained the plan to him. His eyebrows arched, and he gazed off into the distance for a moment and then turned back to the board. Hurriedly he erased the formula he had been writing there and began scribbling new ones.
Beth squinted and tried to read them, but the symbols were strange to her.
After a few moments he faced them again. He was shaking his head and rubbing his chin. Then a smile crept over his pale face and laugh wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes. "Yes," he said. "I think this plan of yours will work very well. Very well."
Beth grinned back and stopped herself, just in time, from jumping forward and hugging the teacher.
CHAPTER 15
For the next few days, Beth waited for the right opportunity to tell Keith she wanted to break up, but whenever she saw him at school or at Bumpers, he always seemed to be surrounded by friends. Sometimes it was Tony Sanchez, Bill Soliday, and Joel Murphy, the three who had been with him the morning he squirted green slime in her hair. At other times he was with Richie Corrierro and Derek Travelstead, the boys who had acted so immature in the lunchroom by pretending to be Beth and Keith smooching. She almost had the feeling that Keith didn't want her to catch him alone, and although she waited for him to call and say he wanted to come over with his Brain Damage tape, that didn't happen either.
The Fabulous Five were also busy handing out addresses to kids who were willing to write letters. They told them to stop by the office to get school stationery and then to give the finished letters to Beth, who would take them to Miss Simone for postage and then mail them. Gradually more and more students were getting interested in contacting celebrities, but not nearly as many as were needed. They also set a date for the auction and contacted Curtis Trowbridge's uncle, who was a professional auctioneer and who had agreed to do the auction for them free.
At the same time, the girls kept their eyes on Steve Melchior, Tucker Cobler, John Mauhl, and Jay Romberg.
"Have you noticed how they never seem to touch anything but their own property?" Beth asked one day while they were finishing their lunches in the cafeteria.
"Or the walls," grumbled Katie. "They don't touch anything that's movable. They may think they're safe, but they're still not taking any chances."
"And time's running out," said Beth. "If we don't get our plan working pretty soon, we can forget about
catching the vandals in time for it to make a difference for the auction."
"Right," said Jana. "Kids are still refusing to help because they think we're all still getting blamed." While they were talking, Beth had been gazing across the room, absently watching the kids who had finished eating, taking their trays to the conveyor belt that carried dirty dishes back into the kitchen. Suddenly her eyes focused on the two boys who had just put their trays on the belt. Tucker Cobler and John Mauhl. Tucker had slid his on first, followed by John, and then the two boys had sauntered out of the lunchroom.
"It's perfect," she mumbled. "Why didn't I think of it before?"
"What did you say?" asked Christie, who was sitting beside her. "Were you talking to me?"
Beth didn't reply. Instead she jumped up from the table and raced toward the tray return. She had to keep sight of the boys' trays as they rode slowly toward the kitchen. Beth dodged through the maze of crowded tables, and careened around kids carrying hot food away from the steam tables. Once she almost collided with Mr. Naset, the teacher on lunchroom duty, and he frowned at her and yelled, "Stop this instant, Beth Barry! Don't you know that there is no running in the cafeteria?"
Beth skidded to a stop and looked frantically from the conveyor belt to Mr. Naset and back to the conveyor belt again. The two trays were almost to the opening. Another few seconds and they would be beyond her reach, dumped into the hands of the waiting kitchen help and then scrubbed clean of fingerprints!
"I'm sorry, Mr. Naset," she fumbled, looking at the conveyor belt as she talked and bouncing on the balls of her feet. "It's just that I . . . I . . . I left something on my tray, and I have to get it before it goes into the kitchen."
"Very well then," Mr. Naset said sternly. "But walk, don't run."
Beth zipped away, walking like someone in a videotape film that was being fast-forwarded. She was only a few feet away when the trays headed into the kitchen, and she made a sprawling dive across the conveyor belt, grabbing a plate from John's tray an instant before it disappeared from sight.