Fabulous Five 019 - The Boys-Only Club (6 page)

The sky was still light when Katie reached the address on
Lincoln Street. It was a one-story house with gray siding. Thick pillars
supported the roof of the big screened-in porch. The house was definitely old
enough for Gwyneth Plum to have lived in.

Katie walked her bike up the sidewalk and leaned it on its
kickstand. She punched the doorbell and waited. No one answered, and she rang
it again. Still no answer. She decided to walk around the side of the house.

At the back gate, she saw a woman kneeling in the yard
working. "Hello!" she called.

The older woman got up and shielded her eyes to see Katie. "Hello,
young lady."

The woman doesn't look as if she's in her eighties, thought
Katie.

Katie gave her a big smile. "My name is Katie Shannon,
and I'm looking for someone named Gwyneth Plum. Does she live here?"

The lady opened the gate so Katie could come in. "I'm
Mrs. Oliver. No one with that name lives here now, but some Plums lived here a
while back." She walked back toward her gardening.

Katie followed. "Gwyneth moved here in 1918. My mom
checked it out. I thought she just might still be living here."

"Is this a school project?" Mrs. Oliver asked,
sinking to her knees and picking up her trowel.

"No, ma'am," answered Katie. "I'm just trying
to find her."

"Well, my parents bought this house from the Plums. The
Depression was just ending so it must have been around 1935. I shouldn't tell you
this," Mrs. Oliver said with a twinkle in her eye, "because you'll
figure out how old I am, but I was eight when we moved in. The Plums had a
grown daughter whose name I can't recall."

"Did she look like this? asked Katie, pulling the
picture of Gwyneth out of her shirt pocket and handing it to Mrs. Oliver.

She looked at it for a moment, squinting. "I couldn't
say. I only saw her a couple of times, and she was quite a bit older than that.
There is some likeness, though."

"Do you know if she was married?"

Mrs. Oliver cupped her chin in her hand. "Hmm. No, I
don't think so. There was just the daughter and her mother. These are pretty
flowers, don't you think?" she said, picking up a pot she had been working
on for Katie to see.

"They're very pretty," said Katie. "Wasn't
there a father?"

"No, just the two ladies. I believe the mother was
widowed. Things were pretty tight for them. They had to sell the house to make
do."

Katie's shoulders sagged with disappointment. Gwyneth
had
lived here with her mother, but she'd moved out a long time ago. Katie still
had a million questions whirling through her brain. Had Gwyneth's father been
killed in the war, after all? Had Gwyneth ever gotten married? What had
happened to Gwyneth Plum after she and her mother moved from here?

"You can't imagine how beautiful this yard will be
soon," Mrs. Oliver was saying. "Those dogwood trees will be glorious
with blooms, and the azaleas over there will be bursting with color."

Katie looked where she was pointing. There were green buds
pushing out on the branches of the trees and shrubbery. Between two of the
dogwoods stood a tall tree. Katie looked up into its branches.

"Was there ever a rope swing in that tree?" Katie
asked.

Mrs. Oliver squinted at it. "Yes, there was. It was
there when we bought the place. My sister and I used to swing in it, but it was
kind of old and my parents made us stop. They were afraid the ropes would
break."

Katie felt a rush of excitement. "Mrs. Oliver, was
there ever anything planted under that tree? Like flowers, I mean."

"I don't remember, dear. Why?" Katie repeated the
story about Gwyneth Plum's time capsule as the older woman listened intently.

When Katie was finished, Mrs. Oliver struggled to her feet
and went to a small tool shed in the corner of the yard. She returned with a
garden spade and handed it to Katie. "Here. You're welcome to dig under
that tree to see what you can find. You might want to try between those two
roots. Now that you mention it, I vaguely recall that something might have been
planted there. My sister and I probably trampled whatever it was."

"Thanks!" Katie said excitedly.

Each time Katie dipped the tip of the shovel into the soil,
her anticipation grew along with the size of the hole. Soon she had dug a small
pit two feet wide and two and a half feet deep, but she still hadn't found
anything. Finally, when it grew too dark to work any longer, and Katie felt
exhausted from her efforts, she stood up.

Mrs. Oliver patted her on the shoulder. "Gwyneth Plum
must be very important to you. You can dig somewhere else, if you'd like."

Katie shook her head and started refilling the hole.

When Katie arrived home, her mother was sitting on the
corner of the couch, her feet curled under her, reading a copy of
Publishers
Weekly.

"Hi, Mom."

"Oh, hi, Katie. Did you have any luck on Lincoln
Street?"

Katie told her about her visit with Mrs. Oliver.

"She sounds like a nice person, Katie. I'm sorry you
didn't find Gwyneth, though."

"Me, too," Katie said. "I didn't even learn
that much more about her life." Katie's face clouded. "Although I
think Mr. Plum
did
die in the war." She paused for a minute, then asked,
"Mom, what was it like living with Dad?"

Willie smiled. "It was wonderful. He was a very nice
man," She reached for Katie's hand and pulled her down to a seat on the
couch next to her. "We had a lot of fun together."

Katie leaned her head on her mother's shoulder. "What
kind of a man was he, though? I mean, did he want you to stay home and have
babies? Did he play cards with other men?"

Willie looked at her for a moment. "No, to both your
questions. He did like to do some things by himself, though. It used to bother
me a little when we were first married, because I wanted to be around him all
the time. He liked to go fishing at four or five o'clock in the morning, and
sometimes he wouldn't get back until the afternoon. I'd be pacing the floor
like the Wicked Witch of the West when he got home." Willie made an ugly
face and pretended she had claws. "Then I'd hear the car door slam and
your father would come walking to the door with this little half-smile on his
face, like he had a special secret. That bothered me, too, until I realized
that he needed those fishing trips.

"Finally, I was able to talk to him about it, and he
said he loved me very much, but we were still two separate people. He had
fallen in love with me because I
was
a separate person, and he wanted me
to stay that way. That way when we were together, the two of us added up to
more than one, and we were better because of it.

"I thought about it, and I knew he was right. That's
when I went back to journalism school. He was proud of me when I did. That had
a great deal to do with my feelings about women being able to pursue a career,
if they wanted to."

Katie saw tears in her mother's eyes, but she didn't look
sad. She hugged her around the waist. Willie hugged back.

"Would you have minded if he belonged to a men-only
club?" Katie asked.

"Not if it was just some men who were friends getting
together. That's different from some exclusive men's clubs where they get
together and make business deals. Sometimes men need to be alone, too, just like
you and I do or you and your Fabulous Five friends do."

"I hadn't thought about it that way," Katie said
slowly.

Just then the telephone rang. "I'll get it." Katie
jumped up and ran to the kitchen.

"Hello."

"Katie?"

"Yes."

"This is Christie. We've got a problem."

"A problem? What's wrong?"

"My mother says we can't have our club meeting at our
house on Saturday. There are too many girls. They won't fit."

Katie was stunned. Why hadn't she thought of that? No one's
house would hold the number of girls that had signed up. What on earth were
they going to do?

The next morning when The Fabulous Five gathered at their
meeting spot by the school fence, they all looked crestfallen. "We're
sunk!" wailed Melanie. "We're the ones who got everyone to join."

"Hey, I know the perfect spot," said Beth, putting
her hand over her mouth to suppress a giggle. "Why don't we have our girls'
club meeting at the YMCA? You know, the Young
Men's
Christian
Association."

"Ha, ha," said Katie sarcastically. "Come on,
let's hear some real ideas."

"What about Mark Twain Elementary?" suggested
Jana. "Would your mother let us use the gym, Christie?"

"I'm sure she would, but Mark Twain might be too far
for the kids from Riverfield and Copper Beach."

"Maybe we should talk to Laura and see if she has any
ideas," said Christie.

"There's only one place that I can think of," said
Katie. "Wacko. I'll talk to Laura about it, but I don't know what else she
could suggest. Why don't we ask Mr. Bell if we can use the gym on Saturday
evening."

"Someone would have to be there to open and close it,"
said Christie.

Beth zipped up her jacket, which was covered with Indian
designs and rawhide strings. "We can ask. He can only say no. Let's meet
at the office before lunch again and talk to Miss Simone." They all
agreed.

Just then Clarence Marshall, Joel Murphy, and Richie
Corrierro came wandering across the school grounds toward The Fabulous Five.

"Hi, team!" said Richie. The three boys were
grinning from ear to ear. The Fabulous Five eyed them suspiciously.

"Well, what are we going to talk about?" asked
Clarence.

"Talk about?" asked Katie. "What do you mean 'talk
about'?"

"We decided we want to join The Fabulous Five club,"
said Joel. "What are we going to talk about?"

"Yeah," Clarence said. "Are there any
initiation ceremonies?"

"Initiation ceremonies?" asked Jana incredulously.
"What do you mean?"

Richie Corrierro chuckled. "Well, since you five don't
think it's right for boys to have clubs that exclude girls, we're sure you
wouldn't exclude boys from The Fabulous Five. When's our next meeting?"

The girls looked at each other in amazement. "We're not
a club," said Katie.

"You've got a name, haven't you?" said Joel.

"And you have meetings, don't you?" said Richie.

"And I remember that you did all kinds of things for self-improvement
back in Mark Twain Elementary," said Clarence. "There might be one or
two ways I can improve myself."

"Yes, but—" Beth interjected.

"Then
you're
a club," said Joel. "Look
it up in the dictionary."

"We want to join, and if there aren't any initiation
ceremonies, I guess we're in. Right, fellow Fab Fiver?" Richie put his arm
around Melanie, and she shrugged it off.

"Yeah," Clarence said. "We'll be eating lunch
with you guys from now on, and we'll meet you right here by the fence every
morning. Hey, it's really great to be fabulous. I always wondered how it would
feel."

The boys turned and put their arms around each other and
went off singing,
"Oh, it's great to be a Fab Five! And it's great to
be alive! Hi
,
ho, a merry oh
,
it's great to be a Fab Five."
The girls stared after them.

"I don't believe this," said Christie.

Melanie shook her head. "Me either. Am I really in the
same club as Clarence Marshall? I'll
kill
myself."

"Clarence thinks there might be one or two ways he can
improve. I think there are a
zillion
ways," said Jana.

"
Katie!
Look what
you've
done to us!"
squealed Beth.

"What
I've
done to us?" Katie's mouth
dropped open.

"Yes," said Melanie. "You got us to tell
everyone that it's not right to have exclusive clubs. And now we
are
one."

"Don't get excited," said Jana, coming to Katie's
defense. "Those boys are just acting dumb. They don't
really
want
to be in The Fabulous Five." The others stared at her as if they weren't
so sure. Katie gulped and crossed her fingers behind her back.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Bell hasn't made a decision yet,"
said Miss Simone when The Fabulous Five marched into the school administration
office a few minutes later. "You just brought the extra names in
yesterday. You need to give him a
little
time to consider it."

"We're not here about the petition, Miss Simone,"
said Katie. "We were wondering if it would be possible for our girls' club
to meet in the gym on Saturday night."

"Saturday night? The gym is normally locked up on
Saturday night. What kind of a girls' club is this?"

After they explained, she was sympathetic. "But it
costs twenty-five dollars to have the head custodian, Mr. Bartosik, or one of
his people, to be here to let people in and lock up after functions and make
sure it's cleaned up. Can you pay that?" She could tell by the looks on
their faces they couldn't.

She sighed. "Let me think about it, girls. For a good
cause such as this, there just might be a way."

Richie, Joel, and Clarence were true to their word. After
The Fabulous Five had gone through the cafeteria line and taken seats at their
usual table, the boys picked up their trays and came over to sit down with
them.

"Bug off!"
said Melanie when Clarence sat
down beside her.

"Hey, is that any way to talk to a fellow Fabulous
Fiver?" Clarence asked.

"How come Fabulous Five sounds so bad when you say it?"
asked Beth.

"I don't know," said Clarence, looking as if he
was genuinely wondering himself.

"Want an apple?" Richie asked Jana, offering her
one that was half-eaten.

"Eeeyew!"
said Jana, shrinking away from
him. "Get that thing out of here."

Richie acted hurt. "I was just trying to be friendly to
a fellow club member."

"We are
not
fellow club members," said
Katie. "Now, like Melanie said,
bug off
!
" Everyone in
the cafeteria was watching them and beginning to laugh at the game the boys
were playing with them.

"Since we belong to the same club, I forgive you for
talking that way to me," Richie said.

"You don't have to," responded Katie. "I'd
just as soon you got mad at me and stayed that way."

Katie had never had such a miserable time at a meal in her
life. The Fabulous Five tried to talk but couldn't because of the constant
babble of dumb jokes from the boys. Finally, Christie, Melanie, Beth, and Jana
quit trying to hold a conversation. Katie saw her friends glaring at her as if
the whole thing were her fault. But the only idea she could come up with to
make Richie, Joel, and Clarence go away was to hit them with her tray, and she
didn't want to end up in front of Teen Court.

The public address system announcement came just as Katie's
fifth-period algebra class was ending.

"Katie Shannon
, please report to the office."

Katie quickly gathered up her books and headed for the
office. Miss Simone was waiting for her there.

"Since you seem to be the organizer, I thought I'd let
you know about using the gym on Saturday night," said Miss Simone. "You
can tell the others it's available."

"What about the twenty-five dollars, Miss Simone? We
don't have that much money."

"It's all right. Instead of Mr. Bartosik's being there
to take care of things, I'll do it. It will be up to you girls, however, to see
that the place is put back in order."

"You?" asked Katie incredulously.

"Yes. You don't have to pay me," said the
secretary, smiling. "I'm cheap labor."

"Gosh, Miss Simone. Thanks!"

"That's quite all right, dear. It's for a good cause.
What time do you want me to open up the gym?"

"We thought we'd meet from seven to nine o'clock. Is
that all right?"

"Fine. And Katie . . ."

"Yes, Miss Simone."

"I don't have an answer for you on the women's history
class, yet. Mr. Bell hasn't, uh . . . how should I say it? He hasn't quite seen
the light yet. But I'm working on it."

"Oh, thank you." Katie gave her the biggest smile
she could come up with. Miss Simone really did seem to care.