Fabulous Five 001 - Seventh-Grade Rumors (2 page)

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!"

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."

Katie nodded. "The other blonde is Melissa McConnell.
Supposedly she's a perfectionist with a capital
P.
You know, straight A's
and all that. It seems she looks down her nose at anyone who isn't a
perfectionist, too."

"Big deal!" said Melanie, making a face.

"The fourth one is Funny Hawthorne," said Katie.

"FUNNY Hawthorne?" shrieked Jana. "What kind
of name is that?"

"It's one of those nicknames that stuck," said
Katie. "Her real name is Karen, but everybody calls her Funny, including
teachers. Anyway, apparently she's a real bubblehead. She laughs at everything,
no matter what happens or what anyone says to her, and she never takes anything
seriously. She sounds weird to me."

Jana pulled out her notebook and began writing down the
information Katie had just given them. Tammy Lucero, gossip. Melissa McConnell,
perfectionist. Funny Hawthorne, bubblehead. She glanced at the list for a
moment and then added, Laura McCall, wicked witch.

"Did she say what kinds of things Laura makes them do
to stay in the club?" asked Melanie. "I'm dying to find out."

Katie shook her head. "She didn't know. She said they
keep it a big secret."

It didn't take long for Jana and her friends to finish their
lunches and leave the cafeteria. As they headed down the hall toward the door
to the school ground, Jana stopped beside the door marked Girls.

"You guys go on," she called. "I'll be there
in a minute."

The others nodded, and Jana pushed through the door into the
almost deserted restroom. The door had scarcely closed behind her when she
heard it open again and someone come in.

"Thank goodness I caught up with you. I think this is
your schedule card. I saw it fall out of your notebook when you left the
cafeteria."

Jana spun around. The girl standing there had long, wavy
hair and wide blue eyes and such a warm smile that Jana couldn't help returning
it.

"Wow. Thanks," said Jana. "That makes twice I've
lost it so far today."

"You, too?" said the smiling girl. "I lost
mine on the school ground before I even got into the building and a second time
in the hall. All I could think about was what if I had to ask a ninth-grader
for directions." The girl was laughing now. It was soft, tinkling
laughter, and Jana liked the friendly way it sounded.

"That's exactly what happened to me." Jana couldn't
believe how much they had in common. "Except instead of before school, I
lost my card after homeroom. And now this.
Eeek!
I wonder if I'll survive
the day."

"That's the same thing I worried about, so I decided I'd
better do something," said the girl. "I taped it inside the cover of
my notebook."

"Why didn't I think of that?" said Jana, slapping
her forehead with the heel of her hand. "I should have done it before I
even left home this morning."

"Here, use my tape," the girl offered cheerfully.
As she opened a zipper pocket in her notebook and rummaged through it, Jana
studied her face. She was the friendliest person Jana had met all day, and definitely
someone she would like to get to know better. At the same time Jana was sure
she had seen her before. But before she could make a connection, the girl
thrust a roll of tape toward her.

"I always carry this for emergencies," she said,
laughing again. "In fact, I carry a lot of things for emergencies. I seem
to have a talent for getting into crazy situations."

"Me,
too,
" said Jana, rolling her eyes for
emphasis. "I'm the world's biggest klutz."

"Oh, yeah? You think that's bad? I'm a walking disaster.
Have you seen the old
I Love Lucy
reruns on TV?"

Jana nodded.

"Well"—the girl moved closer and lowered her voice
to confidential tones—"don't tell anybody, but Lucy used to hide out in my
bedroom closet. Where do you think she got all her material? From watching me!"

The two girls erupted into giggles. In fact, Jana was
laughing so hard that she had trouble taping the schedule inside her notebook.
The girl reached out, steadying the notebook for her, and their eyes met for an
instant.

"It's super of you to let me use this," Jana said.
"I mean that. I'm really grateful." Then, as the girl flashed one
last smile and turned to leave, Jana called, "By the way, my name is Jana
Morgan. What's yours?"

The girl looked at her questioningly for an instant, and
Jana had the feeling that she recognized her, too. Did they know each other
from somewhere?

"On my birth certificate it says Karen Janelle
Hawthorne," the girl answered almost shyly. "But everybody calls me
Funny."