Fabulous Five 019 - The Boys-Only Club (5 page)

"This is boring! Pass it on."

"Boring."

"Boring."

"Boring. Pass it on." The word went from girl to
girl along the row of theater seats. It was Friday night and most of the girls
from Wakeman Junior High were at the movie theater, watching the screen with
dull looks on their faces. Katie sank into her seat and tried to concentrate on
the movie, which just
had
to turn out to be a love story. She hated to
admit it, but it was boring without Tony, Randy, Shane, and the rest of the
guys from school.

Before the show had started, all the girls had been restless,
turning to search the theater for boys and talking to each other more than
Katie remembered their doing before. It was hard for her to believe that boys
had a settling effect on girls, but their not being there definitely caused the
opposite to happen. It was depressing to think how boy-oriented thirteen-,
fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old girls were, but she had to admit she missed
Tony's broad shoulder touching hers as they leaned together to eat popcorn out
of the same box.

"It's weird," said Beth as The Fabulous Five sat
in a booth at Mama Mia's Pizzeria after the movie. The place had briefly filled
with girls, but when no boys showed up, most of them had left. "It's like
one of those supernatural stories,
Where Have All the Boys Gone?
"
she said in a quivering, scary-sounding voice. "I wonder what Keith is
doing right this very moment."

"It does feel strange," agreed Jana, looking
depressed. "I can't remember the last time I went to a movie or came to
Mama Mia's and Randy wasn't here."

"It just shows how dependent on boys we've become,"
said Katie. "It's like having withdrawal symptoms."

"Who wants to withdraw?" asked Melanie.

"Tonight will definitely not help us get more girls
interested in adding a women's history class to the curriculum, or in a girls'
club," said Christie. "I think we just took one huge step backwards"

"I know," said Katie with a deep sigh.

Jana put her arm around her friend's shoulders. "It was
a good try."

Katie shrugged. "I'm going home. I can't stand to look
at all the sad faces in this place."

When Katie came into the kitchen the next morning, her
mother was reading the paper and having coffee. "Mom . . ." Katie
said, scooting into the chair next to her.

"Yes, dear," Willie responded absently.

"How hard is it to find someone who has moved?"

"Oh . . . it depends on where they move. If it's in the
same town, it wouldn't be too hard. They might even be in the phone book."

"I looked there but couldn't find her."

Willie looked up from her paper. "Whom are you looking
for, Katie?"

"Gwyneth Plum. I'd like to meet her."

"She might not be alive, sweetheart. Let's see . . .
she'd be over eighty years old, wouldn't she?"

"Yes, but a lot of people live to be even ninety. I
just thought if she was alive, I'd like to try to find her. I want to know what
happened to her and how some of the things she was writing about turned out."

Willie thought for a moment. "If her family moved
locally, we could probably find out at the office where they register property
deeds. And if she married and changed her name while she still lived around
here, we could find out at the marriage license bureau. Would you like for me
to check it out for you?"

"Would you?" Katie asked, sliding out of her chair
and putting her arms around her mother.

"I'll do it Monday, honey," said Willie, hugging
Katie back.

After dinner, Katie heard a horn honk out front. "Bye
Mom!" she called, grabbing her denim jacket and darting out the door. The
Edwardses' family van with the TEEN TAXI sign on the side was parked at the
curb. Melanie's mother ran a business driving kids from Wakeman back and forth
to school. Now, however, the rest of The Fabulous Five were sitting inside.

"Hi, Katie!" they yelled as she clamored aboard.

As Mrs. Edwards maneuvered the van to the mall entrance,
Katie felt a twinge of nervousness. Would Tony and the other guys who hung out
with The Fabulous Five be there tonight, or were they off playing computer
games again?

The Fabulous Five said good-bye to Mrs. Edwards and piled
out of the van. Inside the mall they strolled the long corridors looking in the
shop windows and oohing and aahing over clothes. Katie knew her friends were
watching out of the corners of their eyes for the boys just as she was.

When the girls got on line for sodas at Taco Plenty, Katie
spotted Shane, Keith, Randy, and Tony sitting at a large table with some other
kids from Wacko. Tony looked as if he was deep in conversation with Scott Daly,
Jon Smith, and Matt Zeboski, who had Mona Vaughn hanging on his arm. But when
Katie passed his table with her soda, and Tony didn't look up, she wondered if
he was intentionally ignoring her.

As Katie dropped into the booth The Fabulous Five had
grabbed, Randy, Keith, and Shane came over to talk.

"How was the movie last night?" asked Keith.

"Bor—" Melanie began.

Katie bumped her with her elbow. "It was all right,"
she answered quickly. "Not great, but okay."

"How were the video games?" asked Jana.

"Fantastic! I was the all-around champion," said
Keith. He stuck his arms in the air and pranced around like Sylvester Stallone
at the top of the steps in the movie
Rocky.

"No way," challenged Shane. "I beat you two
out of three games in M1 TANK PLATOON."

"But I won more games than anyone else," responded
Keith.

Bill Soliday and Richie Corrierro heard them arguing and
came over. "Both of you guys are lying," Bill said, laughing. "I
beat you both more than you beat me, so
I
was the champion."

"I was champ of Dungeons and Dragons," chimed in
Richie. "
No one
beat me at that all night long."

Within minutes a crowd of boys had gathered around The
Fabulous Five's booth to argue loudly over who had done the best the night
before.

"I ate two whole pizzas!"
shouted Clarence
Marshall above the noise.

"
Nobody's
gonna disagree that you're a pig,
Marshall," said Matt Zeboski.

"Oink! Oink!" squealed Joel Murphy.

"If Igor had been there, he would have whipped
everybody," said Shane, referring to his pet iguana. "Did I ever tell
you about the time he beat me at Space Ball ten times in a row?"

Everyone laughed.

"It sounds as if you guys had fun," said Laura
McCall who had come up with several other girls to listen to the boys talk.

"It was a ball!" said Keith. "We're going to
do it again next Friday. Only this time I'm going to wipe out
everybody
so there won't be any arguments."

"And I'm going to eat
three
whole pizzas,"
said Clarence. Everyone ignored him.

"How long are you going to play games on Friday?"
asked Mona.

"Hey, it's a blast," answered Kevin Walker-Noles. "My
parents said it was okay to do it at our house as long as we don't break
anything." The girls who were listening made faces as if they had all
tasted something bad.

"What about us?" asked Daphne Alexandrou. "What
are we going to do while you guys are all playing games?"

"Whatever you want to do," answered Richie.

"Katie's starting a girls-only club on Saturday nights,"
Lisa Snow said. "She says, if
you
can have a boys-only club,
we
can have a girls-only club."

Katie felt her face turn bright red. Why did Lisa have to
say that in front of all these boys? She saw Tony at the edge of the crowd
listening. He was looking at her.

"A girls-only club?" asked Joel Murphy. "What
are you going to do, your knitting?"

"Yeah," joined in Clarence, "are you planning
to make quilts?"

"We're going to do things that are good for girls,"
Katie said defensively.

Before she could explain further, Richie said, "How can
you do that when there won't be any boys?" The other boys went into fits
of laughter.

"The only thing girls can do without boys is talk about
each other," said Clarence. The boys' laughter grew louder.

"That's not true!" said Daphne. "We can do
just as many things as you can."

"I know, they're going to make brownies," said
Keith Masterson.

"You guys are terrible," said Lisa Snow. "Richie
Corrierro, I never want to speak to you again!"

"Oh, poor Richie," said Joel, hugging himself. "No,
more kissy, kissy." Lisa's face turned a flaming red.

Katie wanted to join in the argument, but the look on the
other girls' faces told her she shouldn't. They were getting angry at the boys
for the first time. They were finally starting to wake up to the fact that the
boys thought they couldn't live without them.

"See if I ever speak to you again, Bill Soliday,"
said Alexis angrily. "Katie, I want to sign up for your club, and I'll
sign your petition for a class on women's history, too!"

"A class on women's history?" said Bill. "That's
historical!" He doubled over with laughter at his own joke.

"That's not funny, Soliday, snapped Dekeisha. "I'll
sign both, too, Katie."

"Me, too!" called Mandy McDermott from the crowd.

"So will I," said Melinda Thaler.

Soon the girls were swarming around The Fabulous Five's
table and Katie and the rest of The Fabulous Five were taking names on napkins
and pieces of paper as fast as they could write. All the while, the boys were
hooting at them and teasing the girls about what they would be doing in the
club.

That's fine, thought Katie, tease on. Keep it up until we
get the signature of every girl who goes to Wacko.

In the midst of the turmoil that was swirling around her
booth, Katie glanced up at Tony. He was still hanging back, not joining in the
boys' fun. Katie's gaze suddenly locked with his. Before she could look away
she noticed the questioning look in his eyes.

The Fabulous Five marched into the school administration
office on Monday morning.

"Good morning, girls," said Miss Simone. "You're
bright and early. If you're here to ask about your petition, I've got some bad
news for you. I talked to Mr. Bell and he feels there aren't enough names to
justify starting a new class. I'm sorry." She gave them a sympathetic
smile. Then she whispered, "I argued as hard as I could for you, but there
really weren't very many signatures."

"Would eighty-three more help?" asked Katie,
putting the stack of napkins and pieces of paper caught together with a rubber
band on the counter. Miss Simone's eyes opened wide at the sight of the stack
of paper. "Is it okay that they're on these things?" Katie asked. "We
didn't have our petitions with us when everybody decided to sign."

The secretary pulled the rubber band off the package and
thumbed through it.

"It's all we had at the time," Christie explained.

"And
we
know that some of the napkins have
mustard and relish on them," said Beth. Then she added quickly, "But
you can still read the names."

Miss Simone smiled at them. "I'm impressed that you got
so many. I'll have to check them for duplications, then I'll give them to Mr.
Bell. Maybe he'll reconsider."

"Great!" shouted Katie. Then remembering where she
was, she added in a whisper, "I mean, that's nice."

Katie knew that something strange was going on the moment
she stepped into the cafeteria. The rest of The Fabulous Five noticed it at the
same time. They all stopped in their tracks together like a precision drill
team.

"Look at that," said Melanie. "The girls are
all sitting at one end of the room and the boys are all at the other."

"Yeah," said Jana. "It's just like the
parties we used to have at Mark Twain Elementary."

It was true, thought Katie. Except for Kaci Davis, a
ninth-grader, who thought she was queen of the school, and Taffy Sinclair, who
had gone to Mark Twain with The Fabulous Five, the girls were all sitting with
girls and ignoring the boys. It was unbelievable.

"Oh, well," said Jana. "I was going to sit
with Randy today. I guess I'd better not, the way things look in here."

"Not if you don't want to be called a traitor,"
agreed Christie.

"Darn!" complained Melanie. "A whole lunch
period without talking to a boy. I'll die."

"You'll survive," Katie retorted.

As the girls got on the line to buy food and drinks Katie
saw Tony sitting with Richie Corrierro and Bill Soliday. Richie had poked the
most fun at the girls on Saturday for starting their own club. Did that mean
that Tony also thought they were silly for doing it? It was like a blow to the
pit of Katie's stomach to think he did. She had always thought he was fair.
Hadn't he even stood up against Max McNatt, Geena's older brother, when he was
picking on Clarence Marshall? Why wasn't Tony standing up for
her
?

The tension between the girls and the boys lasted for the
rest of the day. Usually, couples such as Matt Zeboski and Mona Vaughn, or
Curtis Trowbridge and Whitney Larkin, walked in the halls holding hands, but
today it was as if the boys and girls didn't even know each other.

Katie felt relieved when the last bell of the day rang and
she didn't have to watch the tension any longer. She decided to go straight
home rather than go to Bumpers and see more of the same thing.

On the way, she thought about how tough it must have been
when Gwyneth Plum was young. Women couldn't vote, and girls weren't expected to
do anything but get married and have babies. They couldn't even take the
classes they wanted without fighting for them and being thought of as oddballs.
Katie felt a growing admiration for women like Gwyneth. They had had to face
worse conditions every day.

When she reached her house, Katie noticed Mr. Dracovitch's
car parked outside. Willie and the science teacher were sitting in the kitchen
with the time capsule in front of them on the table. It was always a shock for
Katie to see Mr. Dracovitch's naturally blond hair after seeing him at school,
where he always wore his black wig.

"Hi, sweetheart," said Willie. "I was just
showing Mark the things that were in your time capsule. "He's very
interested in them, aren't you, Mark?"

It was also hard for Katie to get used to her mother calling
Mr. Dracovitch Mark. It seemed
too
familiar, even though they had had
several dates to museums and other cultural stuff.

"Yes, very interested," confirmed Mr. Dracovitch. "As
a scientist I deal with a lot of facts, and it's great to find some information
that actually tells you in a very personal way about someone who lived years
ago. You're able to get into their lives more deeply than by just looking at a
few artifacts."

Katie nodded, but deep down, something about what Mr.
Dracovitch had said bothered her. She wasn't sure that she wanted him to know
everything Gwyneth had written in her notebook. It felt like betraying a friend's
secret.

Suddenly Willie brightened. "Guess what, honey? I
stopped by the office that registers property deeds, and I found out where the
Plums moved after they left here. It was to Lincoln Street." She dug
through the pockets of her jacket. "Here's the address—nine zero zero
four. Unless they moved out of town, her family may still be there, because I
couldn't find any record of them moving again."

Katie felt a thrill of excitement when she took the address.
Maybe this would lead her to Gwyneth.

"If you'd like, Mark and I can drive you over there
after dinner," her mother volunteered.

Mr. Dracovitch was turning the porcelain doll over in his
hand.

"That's okay," said Katie. "I'll ride my
bike." The truth was, she didn't want Mr. Dracovitch to come along. It
seemed as if he was becoming more and more involved in her and her mother's
lives, and Katie didn't have much to say about it.