Fabulous Five 007 - The Kissing Disaster (2 page)

When Melanie got to the media center the next morning, it
was crowded with seventh-graders who wanted to help with the dance. She counted
eleven girls, including herself, and nine boys. That ought to be plenty of
kids, she thought with satisfaction. Enough to get the dance organized and
enough to get her plan into action.

She had decided last night that the only way to get The
Fabulous Five's attention was to become so popular and so busy with new friends
that they couldn't help noticing. Then they would realize how much they missed
her friendship, and they might even be a little bit jealous. Melanie smiled to
herself and surveyed the crowd. Working on the seventh-grade dance was the
perfect place to start.

There were several cute boys, including Derek Travelstead.
He had dark brown hair, and he had the neatest freckles she had ever seen
sprinkled across his face. When he smiled, he looked just like Kirk Cameron.

She also noticed Scott Daly and Shane Arrington standing
together. Scott had been her boyfriend in sixth grade, and she still liked him
and went out with him sometimes. In fact, she loved to daydream about the night
a few weeks ago when he had taken her home from Laura McCall's party and kissed
her good-night. But she liked Shane, too. He was one of her new crushes now
that she was at Wacko. Her heart fluttered as she wondered if Scott and Shane
could possibly be talking about her.

Jana and Randy and Christie and Jon were talking quietly
together. Jana and Christie were the only other members of The Fabulous Five
there besides herself, and she looked away quickly before they saw her and
noticed that she was looking at them. They might think she was jealous that
they were with boys and she wasn't.

She was just about to call out to Alexis Duvall and Jill
Weinberg when Curtis Trowbridge dragged a chair into the center of the room and
climbed on it. He put fingers into the corners of his mouth, whistling loudly
for attention.

"Okay, everybody. Grab a chair." He waited for
everyone to find a seat and then continued, "Listen up. We don't have much
time, so we have to get started."

"The first thing we need to do is get a dance
chairperson," said Taffy Sinclair. She looked gorgeous, as usual, with her
long blond hair falling softly over her shoulders.

"She just wants to be the one picked," grumbled
Dekeisha Adams, who was sitting right behind Melanie.

Melanie frowned at Taffy. Rats! she thought. Why didn't I
think of that? My friends couldn't help noticing if I were the chairperson and
everybody had to report to me.

Just then Laura McCall spoke up. "I think we should
elect
a chairperson."

"I vote for Laura," called out Melissa McConnell.

That made Melanie even angrier.

Curtis called for quiet again as kids started talking among
themselves about which girl should be chairperson. "As class president, I
have decided to be dance chairperson," Curtis said, "and I have
already made out a list of committees that we'll need. They are: music,
decorations, refreshments, and publicity." He waved a sheet of paper in
the air as he announced each committee. "I am going to put these sheets on
the media center bulletin board, and I'd like for you to sign up for whichever
committee you'd like to be on."

"What a hard choice," Melanie mumbled to Dekeisha.
"They all sound like fun."

Dekeisha nodded as Curtis went on talking. "Since I'm
the dance chairperson, I will attend all the committee meetings, which means
that each committee will meet on a different night. Refreshments on Monday.
Decorations on Tuesday. Music on Wednesday. And publicity on Thursday. Since
this is Tuesday, the first meeting of the decorations committee will be here in
the media center tonight at seven p.m. If anybody has any questions, see me."

Kids began talking among themselves, discussing which
committee they wanted to join, but Curtis wasn't through talking. "The
next thing we have to discuss is a theme for the dance."

"What about a fifties sock hop?" suggested Chandra
Sharp.

"Naw," said Brad Eisenhauer. "The
eighth-graders had one last year. Let's do something different."

"I know!" shouted Joel Murphy, waving his hands in
the air. "I have the
perfect
idea. Let's have a monster party."

Several girls made faces and a few boys groaned, but Joel
wasn't finished.

"Come on, guys," he insisted. "Listen to
this. Everyone could dress up as something weird. There are all kinds of
monsters. And we could use that old song 'Monster Mash' for our theme song. I
think I know somebody who has the record."

"Wow!" Scott Daly and Steve Hernandez shouted in
unison.

"We've even got the perfect person to be one of the
chaperons
,
Dracula!
" added Whitney Larkin.

"Terrific," said Jon Smith.

Even some of the girls were smiling and nodding.

Melanie thought about it. It could be fun, especially if she
could find the perfect costume. Maybe she could be Elvira or some sort of
strange creature from outer space. In fact, the more she thought about the
idea, the better she liked it, except for one part. How would Mr. Dracovitch
feel about being a chaperon at a monster dance?

When a vote was taken, the monster party passed. Someone
suggested calling it Wacko Wonderland, and everybody liked that, too. As the
meeting broke up, Melanie joined the group that was swarming around the
bulletin board to sign up for committees.

"Which one are you going to be on, Melanie?" asked
Alexis.

"I want publicity," said Dekeisha. "Sign up
for that one."

Melanie shrugged. "I haven't decided yet." She
hung back purposely. She would decide when she saw who was on each committee.
If she was going to use this dance to help her impress the rest of The Fabulous
Five, she had to plan very carefully.

When the crowd thinned enough for her to reach the sheet for
the music committee, she saw Shane's name on top of the list. I'm definitely on
that one, she thought with a smile. She added her name under the others': Joel
Murphy, Jon Smith, Laura McCall, and Brad Eisenhauer.

The next list was for decorations. Naturally, Taffy Sinclair
had signed up for that one. But so had Jill Weinberg, Chandra Sharp, and Alexis
Duvall. Even though there was only one boy on that committee, it was Derek
Travelstead. It might be fun getting to know him better as well as becoming
better friends with Alexis, Chandra, and Jill.

Melanie couldn't resist signing up for refreshments. Her own
mother made the world's best brownies. She knew she could talk her into baking
some for the dance, which would make Melanie a big hit with everyone. Christie
and Melissa had signed up for that committee, too, and so had Randy and Steve
Hernandez.

That only left publicity. Maybe I should skip that one,
Melanie thought. I'm already on three. Just then she caught sight of the list.
Jana's name was at the top, but so was Scott's. She couldn't pass up a
committee that Scott was on. Besides, it would be the only chance for Jana to
see how popular she was . . . or at least how popular she was going to be.
Whitney Larkin and Dekeisha were on that committee, too.

When Melanie finally left the media center, her mind was
whirling. She had signed up for all four committees. She couldn't believe she
had done a thing like that. It meant that in addition to going to cheerleading
practice a few days after school, she would have to go to a meeting every
single night of the week. But each committee was important in its own special
way.

"Get set, Fabulous Five," she whispered under her
breath. "Look out for your old friend, Melanie Edwards!"

Shane caught up with Melanie in the hall on the way to
biology class after lunch. "I've come . . . to bite . . . your
neck!
"
he said in his best Dracula voice.

Even though his words made her shiver, Melanie couldn't help
giving him a wide smile. "Whoever heard of a blond, blue-eyed Dracula?"
she joked. "You're a fake."

Oh, my dear, that's where you're wrong," he said with a
sinister laugh. "Vampires come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Why, for
all I know, even Igor may be a vampire."

"Now that I could believe," Melanie answered, and then
flinched as Shane slugged her playfully on the arm.

"Seriously, though, where do you suppose Mr. Dracovitch
got all the cows' eyes for our class to dissect?" Shane asked. He wasn't smiling
now, but Melanie could detect a slight twinkle in his eyes. "Do you
suppose he went out into a farmer's pasture at night when the moon was full? Do
you think he sucked all the blood out of the cows and then popped out their
eyeballs?"

"Shane!" Melanie cried. "Knock it off. That's
disgusting."

His eyes widened and his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "And
then he brought them here to Wacko and put them into the refrigerators in the
cafeteria for safekeeping until time for his classes to dissect them."

"Shane, I'm warning you," said Melanie.

"But alas! Something went wrong! The cooks found those
eyeballs and ground them up and made them into meat loaf
and
"—he
paused for dramatic effect—"served it for lunch today."

"Gross! Gross!" cried Melanie, but Shane was
doubled over laughing. She ignored him, trying to keep her stomach from turning
flip-flops. Why on earth had she gotten hot lunch today? she wondered. The meat
loaf
wasn't
ground-up cows' eyeballs, of course, but thank goodness she
had covered it with ketchup just the same.

She slipped into her seat in the biology lab, hoping that at
least one of The Fabulous Five had seen her walking in the halls with Shane.
That was part of her plan. Pretty soon they would realize that since they didn't
need her anymore, she didn't need them either. She had plenty of
friends—especially cute boys like Shane. But even if The Fabulous Five hadn't
seen them together, Tammy Lucero certainly had. She was glaring at them as they
entered the classroom, and Melanie knew she would run straight to Laura with
the news.

Mr. Dracovitch was calling the class to attention and taking
roll. Melanie tapped her pencil absently as he launched into a long list of
instructions for the dissection. She could get all that later. Right now her
thoughts were on Mr. Dracovitch and the seventh-grade dance. At the meeting
this morning she had wondered how he might feel about being the honorary
chaperon, and seeing him now, she wondered the same thing all over again. Did
he realize how weird that shiny, black toupee made him look or know that kids
called him Dracula behind his back? Would he think it was a pretty funny joke?
Or would his feelings be hurt?

"All right now, class," he was saying. "It's
time to take your places at the dissecting tables. Find your partners and
choose a table."

Forgetting about the dance, Melanie scrambled out of her
seat and made a beeline for the dissecting tables, almost stumbling over
Whitney Larkin in the process. Shane sat nearer to them and was ahead of her,
motioning back over his shoulder for her to follow him to a table at the back
of the room. Fantastic! she thought. It was so much more private back there.

"Hi, Shane," she said brightly. "Are you
ready for this?"

Shane nodded, rubbing his hands together and licking his
lips as if in anticipation of a feast. "I've come to drink your blood,"
he said, arching his eyebrows at her.

"Shane! Cut it out!" she insisted, trying not to
let it show that she loved his teasing.

It took forever for the whole class to get settled at
tables. Melanie noticed with dismay that almost no one chose tables at the
front of the room; everyone seemed to want to get as far away from Mr.
Dracovitch's desk as possible. Shane's and her table wasn't going to be as
private as she thought. Also, Tammy and Chandra's table was almost close enough
to overhear their conversation.

"You will find a pan on your table," Mr.
Dracovitch began in a tone that made the last few whisperers shut up.

Melanie glanced at the table. Sure enough, there was a small
metal pan in the center. There was also a drain, a spigot, which she guessed
was for water, and a gas jet. She shivered. This is getting serious, she
thought. I'd better pay attention.

"Each pan has a number on it."

Shane looked the pan over and pointed to the number seven on
the side. Melanie nodded, thinking that seven was always a lucky number. Being
Shane's partner was meant to be.

"Remember that number," Mr. Dracovitch went on. "When
you receive your specimen, it will go into the pan, and each day you will get
your own team's pan from the refrigerator and resume working on it. Any
questions?"

"What's that awful smell?" asked Shawnie Pendergast.

Melanie had smelled it, too, and she agreed with Shawnie
that it was pretty awful.

Bill Soliday piped up, "Cows' eyes, what else?"

Laughter broke out in the room, but Mr. Dracovitch held up
his hand for silence. "What you smell is formaldehyde," he said
patiently. "It is a preservative. Actually, I find the odor rather
pleasant, myself."

Next Mr. Dracovitch walked among the tables carrying a large
metal bowl. Stopping at each table, he used a pair of tongs to extract a large,
round object and drop it in the pan. Melanie closed her eyes. The closer he got
to her table the more she knew she didn't want to look at the awful thing, much
less touch it. If she could just get Shane to . . .

THUD!

She opened her eyes without meaning to. There in the pan was
an enormous eye. It was wet and slimy looking, and it was staring straight at
her. The room started to spin. She reached out to grab the table, but she felt
arms close around her instead. She looked up into Shane's face.

"Are you okay?" he asked, holding on to her
tightly.

"I think so," she said. "It's just so . . ."

Shane was nodding. "Gross," he said, finishing her
sentence. "I think so, too, but we'll get used to it."

Melanie smiled gratefully. The room had stopped spinning
now, and she noticed Mr. Dracovitch standing beside Shane looking awfully
worried.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked. "Maybe
you'd like to sit down or step out into the hall for some air."

"I'm fine," she insisted, and then smiled at
Shane, who had moved back to his side of the table now. She couldn't believe
how quickly he had rushed to take care of her. And what was just as super,
Tammy Lucero had seen it all.