by Betsy Haynes
"The hard part is when I come back and most of my old friends are gone." She paused, her violet eyes growing misty. Then she smiled again and said, "But there are always plenty of new ones just waiting to play."
I wanted to say something to tell Mona that I thought she was special, a very caring person. I wanted to say it just right so she would know I really meant it, but when I opened my mouth only one word came out: "Wow!"
We talked a little while longer, and then Mona said she had to go home. As I watched her leave, I knew instantly that she was someone I wanted for a friend. I could tell by the quiet way they were looking down the street after her that my friends felt the same way, too. How could we possibly choose between Melanie and Mona? I wondered. It wasn't fair.
Just then I got this great idea. I slapped my forehead with the heel of my hand. Why hadn't I thought of it before? It was terrific! It would solve all our problems! I couldn't get the words out fast enough.
"I know what we can do," I said, jumping up and down. "We can be best friends with Melanie and Mona both. It's easy. We'll just change the name of our club. From now on, instead of The Fabulous Five, we'll be The Sensational Six!"
My friends stared at me for a minute and then broke into applause.
"I think it's great!" cried Christie. She threw her arms around me and gave me a hug.
"Fantastic!" said Katie, piling on and encircling both of us with her arms.
"It's just . . . just . . . just . . . SENSATIONAL!" shouted Beth, and she jumped into the air throwing her hands over her head like a cheerleader.
"But what about our shirts?" asked Katie.
"We'll just have to get new ones made that say The Sensational Six," said Christie. "Besides," she added with a grin, "I'm starting to outgrow my old shirt, anyway."
We giggled and nodded. We knew what she meant. Then we headed for home, promising to call each other later to make plans for our new club.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As soon as I got home, I called Melanie. She must have been waiting by the phone because she answered after the first ring.
"How are you feeling?" I asked.
"Fine," she said. "Boy, did Mom throw a fit when she found out about Taffy and diet trick. She said that it could have turned into bulimia and that she's going to call both Mrs. Sinclair and Laura and tell them what happened, too. Then as soon as we got home she baked a big pan of brownies and practically forced me to eat some." Then with a laugh, she added, "But I only ate one and a half."
"I'm glad that your mother is going to tell on Taffy," I said. "She deserves to get into trouble, because what she did to you was so dangerous."
"I guess she does, but it was mostly my fault. I shouldn't have gotten carried away with wanting to look like a model. Especially since I made my best friends mad at me. I'm sorry," she added softly.
"Did you go to the photographer to have your portfolio pictures made?"
"No. I don't want to be a model anymore. At least, not now. Maybe when I grown up things will be different, but right now I just want to be with my friends . . . if you guys still like me. I've been noticing how much you've been hanging around with Mona Vaughn and how different she looks."
"Boy, do we still like you! And Mona, too." Then for the next half hour I told her about how we had worked with Mona to change her from an ugly duckling into a swan and how much fun she had turned out to be. I also told her about Mona's visits to the animal shelter. Last, I told her how we had decided to ask Mona to join our club and that we were changing the name to The Sensational Six.
The next morning my friends and I waited anxiously for Mona to get to school. We couldn't wait to tell her our plan. When Christie spotted her coming onto the playground, she waved and motioned for her to come over to our special spot by the fence.
"Hi, everybody," she said shyly when she joined us.
"We've got great news," I began. I was so excited that I couldn't help hopping from foot to foot.
"That's right," said Christie. "We want you to join The Fabulous Five."
"The vote was unanimous," Melanie assured her, "and we're going to change our name to The Sensational Six."
It was plain to see that Mona was surprised, and she turned her big violet eyes on each of us. Then she looked down and began digging in the dirt with her left toe.
I swallowed hard. "What's the matter?" I whispered. "Don't you want to be friends?"
Mona's eyes were misty when she looked up again. She nodded. "Of course, I want to be friends. It's just . . ."
"Just what?" asked Beth.
Mona looked from one to another again as if she was struggling to find the right words. "Well," she began slowly. "Everything's happening so fast. I mean, until last week we hardly even talked to each other. Then you decided to fix my hair, which was great," she added quickly. "Don't get me wrong. I love it. But now you say you want me to be in your self-improvement club and to try to be one of the most gorgeous and most popular girls in Mark Twain Elementary."
Mona paused. "I guess I'm just not ready for that," she said with a sigh. "But I hope we can still be friends anyway."
Just then I remembered the day we had looked for Mona at school and had found her alone in the classroom. She had been furious at us then, accusing us of making it be-kind-to-Mona day and telling us she wasn't a charity case. Deep down I knew she was right. She didn't need for us to swoop down on her and take over her life. All she needed right now was to know that we liked her.
I rushed forward and gave her a hug. "It's okay," I said. "We can still be friends." Then my friends rushed up and hugged her, too.
During the rest of that week my friends and I went back to being The Fabulous Five, but every now and then Mona joined in. Sometimes she stood with us in our private spot by the fence or had lunch with us. On those days we laughed and called ourselves The Fabulous Five Plus One.
It was obvious that Taffy Sinclair was furious. She had not only failed to break up The Fabulous Five, but she had to share Mona, her one and only friend, as well. She shot poison-dart looks at us all the time, and she constantly tried to butter up Mona, telling her how nice her hair looked.
On Friday morning I stopped at the drinking fountain after I got my books out of my locker. When I looked up, Randy Kirwan was standing next to me.
"Hi," he said, giving me one of the best 1,000-watt smiles I had ever seen. "Can I talk to you a minute?" I was so surprised that I don't know what I said, but a minute later we had moved away from the drinking fountain to where we could have some privacy. The smile was still on his face, and he stood very close to me.
"I've been noticing how you and your friends have been going around with Mona some of the time."
A burst of panic shot through me. Did he know something about Mona that my friends and I didn't know? Something terrible? Then I remembered how super Mona really was and how much my friends and I liked her now.
"That's right," I said, looking him straight in the eye. "We've even thought about changing our club name to The Sensational Six, but Mona says she isn't ready for that right now."
"Wow!" said Randy. "And I was worried that learning to be a model would make you different, and I wasn't sure I would like you that way."
"Why not?"
"Well, you know . . . You were wearing your hair different, wearing different clothes. You even walked different. I liked it," he added quickly, "but, you know . . . I thought maybe you had changed, gotten conceited. I thought you might even feel differently . . . about me."
Tears came into my eyes, but I didn't mind if he saw that. "I haven't changed," I said. "I haven't changed at ALL!"
Just then he turned on his 1,000-watt smile again. "I know. That's what I wanted to tell you. When I saw how you and your friends were making friends with Mona, I knew you hadn't changed after all."
I walked around all day on cloud nine. My feet didn't touch the ground one single time. I knew why Randy hadn't smiled at me lately. He had been worried that I wasn't a kind and se
nsitive person anymore, but he knew the truth, and I had the feeling that he liked me more than ever now.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"Hurry up, girls. We have a lot to do today," Laura said as she motioned us into the Special Events Room for our last modeling class on Saturday. "Next week is the fashion show!"
Laura looked beautiful, as usual, but I couldn't help smiling to myself. She was wearing jeans and a chambray shirt, the same as I had last week. Of course she also had on tons of silver and turquoise jewelry and high heels covered in denim to match her jeans, but maybe, just maybe, I hadn't looked as grungy and ugly in mine as I had thought.
"I'm getting nervous," I whispered to Melanie as my friends and I found seats near the front of the room. "What if I stub my toe and go sprawling into the audience or something?"
Melanie giggled. "Just remember," she said, deepening her voice to sound like Laura, "hold your head up, your shoulders low, your tummy in. . . ."
Just then Laura started taking roll. "Mandy McDermott, Molly Colby, Jana Morgan, Kim Delehanty . . ." She went on through the list, and it wasn't until she got to Taffy's name that I looked around and discovered that she wasn't there. I didn't have time to wonder where she was or if she was just planning to make a grand entrance again, because Laura was starting our lesson.
She had been right when she said we had a lot to do. First, we learned how to walk on the runway. We started with the model's stance, which is standing with the heel of the right foot up against the instep of the left foot in sort of a T-formation. Then we learned to pivot, which means how to turn around on the runway to show off what we are wearing. We practiced that for ages, until everybody could do it pretty well, and still, Taffy Sinclair had not come to class. Finally came the best moment of all.
"We're going into Tanninger's young miss department now," Laura announced, "so that you may select the outfit you will wear."
Everyone tried to crowd through the doorway at once, and Laura had to remind us that we were learning to be young ladies. Finally, we got to the department where all the neat clothes were. I probably tried on two dozen outfits before I found the perfect one. It was a gorgeous dress made of shimmery peach satin, and it had tiny white flowers appliquéd across the skirt.
When we had all found what we wanted to wear, we took them back to the Special Events Room so that Laura could approve them. Some girls had chosen sporty clothes, some dressy things like mine, and Megan Hampson had even picked a cuddly nightgown with bears on the front and a matching robe.
We hung our outfits on a rack in the Special Events Room so that nobody could buy them before we got the chance to wear them in the show, and then Laura gave us our final instructions on what time to be there next Saturday and what to bring along with us.
"Don't forget to bring a slip, if your outfit needs one, and your own shoes," she said. "Ones that match the outfit you're going to wear. And bring two pairs of panty hose so that if you run one pair while you're putting them on, you'll have another pair." When she finished with the instructions, she got a solemn look on her face and said, "Before I dismiss you, there is one more thing I want to announce. Taffy Sinclair will not be in our fashion show next Saturday. She has decided to drop out of modeling class."
At school on Monday Taffy was telling everybody that the Runway to Beauty modeling class was too juvenile for her and that she had decided to drop out and look for real modeling jobs.
Of course my friends and I knew better, and we didn't care what she was saying. In fact, it was all I could do to keep from hugging her. By trying to steal one friend, she had caused us to make a super new one. Now Taffy was the one who was left out.
The fashion show on Saturday was terrific. Mona was sitting in the front row with Mom and her boyfriend Pink, cheering us on, and I didn't stub my toe and fall into the audience the wav I had worried that I would. In fact, I felt like a star.
Randy was there, too, standing by the back door where he could peek in without being seen. He ducked out as soon as I left the stage, but that was okay. He had been there. That was what counted.
As the final applause filled the room and we all came out to take our bows, I looked at the audience smiling up at us and I suddenly felt really good about myself. I wasn't a beauty like Taffy Sinclair or Laura MacLeod, but that was okay. I had everything I needed. My friends liked me, including my new friend Mona Vaughn. And so did Randy Kirwan. Now I understood just what Laura had meant about having an inner glow. I had one. I could feel it, and it was glowing brighter than ever before.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Betsy Haynes, the daughter of a former newswoman, began scribbling poetry and short stories as soon as she learned to write. A serious writing career, however, had to wait until after her marriage and the arrival of her two children. But that early practice must have paid off, for within three months Mrs. Haynes had sold her first story. In addition to a number of magazine short stories and the Taffy Sinclair series, Mrs. Haynes is also the author of Spies on the Devil's Belt and the highly acclaimed Cowslip. She lives in Colleyville, Texas, with her children and husband, a businessman who is the author of a young adult novel.