Fabulous Five 015 - Melanie's Identity Crisis (2 page)

Bumpers was packed by the time Melanie and her friends got
there after school. They made their way through the maze of booths, tables, and
bumper cars that were relics from an old amusement park and gave the place its
name, looking for some place to sit. Finally Katie spotted an empty table near
the back and led them to it. All around them kids were talking about the
genealogy project and tracing their family trees.

"Well, at least I understand Brittany now," said
Beth emphatically.

"Your older sister?" asked Christie. "What
does she have to do with tracing your family tree?"

"She's so weird that I always felt sure we weren't
related," Beth said with a grin. "You know, that when Mom brought
Brittany home from the hospital, she had the wrong baby. Now I know that we
just inherited genes from different ancestors. What a relief!"

Everyone giggled.

"I was thinking about Mr. Dracovitch," admitted
Katie. "Talk about scrambled genes. Can you imagine what kind of relatives
it took to produce him? Maybe he really is a descendant of Count Dracula.
Otherwise, why would a grown man wear a shiny black toupee that makes him look
like Dracula and cook garbage on a Bunsen burner in his classroom?"

"If you ask me, he's pretty neat," said Christie. "I
think it's his way of saying that it's okay to be different."

The next morning Melanie joined the group of boys and girls
standing in The Fabulous Five's regular spot by the school fence just in time
to hear Tony Calcaterra say, "I hope I find out that I'm related to
Sylvester Stallone. You know, the Italian Stallion." He flexed his muscles
and strutted around imitating the actor. "You guys will have to admit that
there's a definite family resemblance."

"Yeah, two eyes, two ears, two feet. There's a family
resemblance, all right," Katie scoffed good-naturedly. "Don't get big
ideas just because you are Italian and have black hair."

"The way I see it, I'm bound to find the answer to all
the questions about UFOs," bragged Shane, waving his arms toward the
heavens.

"Unidentified flying objects?" asked Christie,
making a face. "Why?"

"Hey, my parents had to come from another planet.
Right? They're so far out that there's no other explanation."

"Man, that's cosmic," teased Beth, making a peace
sign. Then she turned to Jana and said, "And maybe you'll discover that
you really are related to Trevor Morgan after all and that you can get all of
us front-row tickets for Brain Damage's concerts."

Jana raised an eyebrow at her friend. "Dream on,"
she said. "Imagine me and a rock star related."

Melanie listened to them talk, but she didn't join in the
conversation. How could she when Shane was ignoring her again? She didn't even
feel like asking him about Igor.

What's wrong with me? she wondered. Have I suddenly become
invisible?

Melanie looked over her genealogy chart while she waited for
Family Living class to start later that day. She had shown the family tree to
her parents after dinner the night before and had asked them to tell her
everything they knew about her ancestors so she could fill in all the spaces.

"Well, you got your brains from your mother's side and
your good looks from my side," joked her father.

"Come on, Larry," her mother chided. "This is
serious." Then her eyes twinkled and she added, "Besides, she got
both
her brains and her good looks from my side."

Melanie loved it when her parents joked like that. It made
her feel so warm and specially loved. She smiled at both of them and then said,
"I know Grandma and Grandpa Pennington and Grandma and Grandpa Edwards,
but I don't know when they were born or married or any of that other stuff, and
I don't even remember the names of their parents." For the next hour and a
half the three of them sat around the kitchen table, filling in spaces on the
family tree until Mrs. Edwards had traced her mother's family all the way back
to Melanie's great-great-grandmother Cordia Mae Lee, who had been born in 1896.

"Wow," said Melanie. "That was almost one
hundred years ago."

"And from what I've heard, she was really a character,"
her mother said, and chuckled.

"In your family, everyone's a character," said Mr.
Edwards, teasing again. "Now in
my
family everybody has always been
serious, and hardworking, and the sort of people who stayed out of mischief."
They had laughed hard over that, and the warm feeling had washed over Melanie
again. Still, she wanted to know more.

"Tell me about Great-great-grandmother Cordia,"
Melanie insisted. "What do you mean, she was a character?"

Her mother was thoughtful for a moment. "Well, I don't
really know very much about her. I've just always heard stories from my mother
and grandmother about how she was always getting into mischief when she was
young, especially where boys were concerned."

"Boys?" Melanie whispered as little tingles
traveled up her spine.

"That's right," said her mother. "According
to the stories, she had so many boyfriends that her girlfriends were jealous."

But that was all her mother had been able to tell her about
Great-great-grandmother Cordia, and now, sitting in class and looking at the
chart with over half of the blanks filled in, Melanie was curious again about
the ancestor who had gotten into mischief because of boys. She couldn't help
remembering Mrs. Clark's words: "What you are is partly because of your
ancestors, who each contributed a little bit of themselves in the form of the
genes they passed on to you. You are all of them, and you are like no one else.
You are
yourself
." What had her great-great-grandmother really been
like? she wondered. And had some of Cordia Mae Lee's personality been passed on
down to her?

Just then Mrs. Clark came bustling into the room. "Good
afternoon, class," she called. "How many of you filled in at least
part of your family trees? Let me see hands."

Hands shot up all over the room. In fact, as she glanced
around, Melanie could only see two kids who had not raised theirs, Funny
Hawthorne and Joel Murphy. Joel was late handing in his homework half the time,
she mused, so it wasn't strange that he hadn't filled in his family tree. But
why hadn't Funny?

Melanie looked closely at her. Funny's usually smiling face
was serious now and her eyes were downcast. That's strange, thought Melanie.
Jana had told her that Funny's real name was Karen Janelle Hawthorne, but her
family had nicknamed her Funny because of her sunny disposition. She had liked
to laugh so much when she was a baby that they had started calling her Funny,
and the name had stuck. Melanie couldn't remember ever seeing her before
without a smile on her face.

"Good," said Mrs. Clark. "I'm glad so many of
you have gotten started because the next thing you're going to do is get to
know the relatives on your charts."

Melanie blinked in surprise. Had her teacher been reading
her mind about her great-great-grandmother? But how could she possibly get to
know someone who had been born and died years ago?

Across the room Clarence Marshall asked almost the same
question. "How can we get to know someone who's dead?"

"That's a very good question, Clarence," said Mrs.
Clark. "We're going to do what other good detectives do, ask questions."

A few kids giggled, and someone whispered loudly, "But
if they're dead, how are they going to answer?"

"I heard that," Mrs. Clark called out good-naturedly.
"The answer is, you're going to talk to the people in your family who are
still alive and ask them to tell you any stories they know about the ancestors
on your chart. You can ask your parents or your aunts and uncles or even your
grandparents or great-grandparents, if they're still alive. In fact, sometimes
it's more fun to talk to older relatives because they can remember people and
things that no one else in the family even knows about."

For the next few minutes Mrs. Clark gave them suggestions
for ways to talk to their relatives about the ancestors who especially
interested them, and Melanie began to make plans to find out about Great-great-grandmother
Cordia. Had her girlfriends accused her of being boy crazy? Melanie wondered,
feeling instant sympathy for this relative who had lived so long ago. If they
did, I certainly know how she felt, Melanie thought. It was going to be fun to
find out about her. Maybe she would even be able to find out something about
the boys Cordia had liked. Wouldn't it be weird if any of them were named Scott
or Shane or Garrett? she thought, and almost giggled out loud.

But who should she talk to first about
Great-great-grandmother Cordia? Her mother had told her all that she knew about
her illustrious ancestor. Maybe she should ask her own grandmother if she knew
any stories.

When the bell rang ending classes for the day, Melanie
headed for her locker. Seeing Funny Hawthorne ahead of her, she called, "Hey,
Funny. Wait up."

Funny glanced over her shoulder and slowed up when she saw
Melanie, but she didn't stop to wait. And she still wasn't smiling.

Melanie surged forward to catch her, wondering what had
Funny so upset. They were friends, but not best friends because Funny belonged
to a rival clique called The Fantastic Foursome, so she couldn't just ask Funny
what was wrong. Maybe she should just talk about school and give Funny a chance
to tell her what was troubling her on her own, if she felt like it.

"Isn't the genealogy project fun?" Melanie began,
remembering too late that Funny hadn't filled out any of her family tree.

"I don't see anything fun about it," grumbled
Funny. "If you ask me, it's dumb."

"Oh, you won't think so once you get started,"
Melanie assured her. "I found out that I had this great-great-grandmother
who was always getting into trouble with her friends because she was boy crazy.
Isn't that wild? I can hardly wait to find out more about her and some of the
others, too. Maybe then I'll understand myself better."

"Big deal," muttered Funny.

"But Funny," Melanie insisted, surprised at Funny's
reaction. "You've probably got some pretty interesting relatives, too. You
ought to at least find out who they are."

Funny stopped beside the table where the hall monitor sat
during classtime and slammed her notebook down on it. Glaring at Melanie, she
opened the notebook and pulled out a sheet of paper that she held up for
Melanie to see.

"It's your genealogy chart, and it's blank," said
Melanie. "So why are you showing it to me?"

Without answering, Funny began tearing the paper in half.
After she ripped it down the middle, she put the two pieces together and tore
them in half, too. Next, she tore those pieces into dozens of tiny pieces and
threw them into the air like confetti. Then she stomped off down the hall,
leaving Melanie staring after her.

Melanie stood helpless for a moment, watching the bits of
paper drift downward like snowflakes and wondering what to do. Obviously Funny
was upset over the genealogy project, and it was just as obvious that she didn't
want to talk about why. But still, Melanie reasoned, at a time like this, Funny
needed a friend, and none of her Fantastic Foursome friends were anywhere to be
seen.

Melanie gave one last glance around as Funny ducked into the
girls' room at the far end of the hallway. The crowd was already thinning as
kids went to their lockers and then headed for home. Or for Bumpers, she
thought. She had told her friends she would meet them there. I'll still make it
to Bumpers right after I talk to Funny, she assured herself as she hurried down
the hall and pushed open the bathroom door.

Funny was standing by one of the sinks, staring at the water
faucet, but no water was coming out. Melanie let the door close behind her and
stood there without saying anything for a moment, hoping Funny would look up
and start the conversation herself. She didn't.

Finally Melanie took a deep breath and said, "I'm sorry
if I said something that upset you. I didn't mean to. Honest."

Funny shook her head and then raised her eyes to look at
Melanie in the mirror. "It wasn't your fault." She shrugged
apologetically. "It's the genealogy project. I just don't want to do it, that's
all."

Now it was Melanie's turn to look down. She didn't know how
to respond to Funny. She had already mentioned how much fun it was going to be
to learn about their ancestors and find out more about themselves, and that had
made Funny angry. What more was there to say?

"It's because . . ." Funny's voice trailed off so
that Melanie couldn't hear the reason she gave.

"What did you say?"

Funny fidgeted from one foot to the other and chewed her
lower lip. "I
said
"—she paused, sighing deeply—"it's
because I'm adopted. I don't know much about my birth family, and what good
will it do to find out about the Hawthorne ancestors? I'm not like any of them
anyway. Some family tree, huh?" she grumbled.

Melanie looked away from Funny, trying to hide her
embarrassment and fumbling for something to say.

"Oh, it's okay," said Funny. "I've just never
told anybody. The Hawthornes adopted me when I was a tiny baby, and I forget
about it myself most of the time. But now that Mrs. Clark has started this
stupid project, I don't know what to do."

"Have you talked to your parents about it?" asked
Melanie. Then she winced, wondering if the word "parents" had been
the right choice.

"No," said Funny. "I was afraid that if I
brought up the subject, they'd think I wanted to know about all that other
stuff, and it might hurt their feelings. We're pretty close, and I'd die if
they got the wrong idea. They might think I didn't love them."

Melanie nodded. She could appreciate Funny's feeling that
way. She remembered the warm glow she had gotten the night before when she had
been joking with her mother and father about which one of them had given her
good looks and which one brains. It would be awful if they ever thought she
cared about someone else.

"I know I could just go ahead and fill out the family
tree with my Hawthorne family just to get a good grade in Family Living,"
Funny went on. "But this genealogy project is making my life just too
confusing. Instead of finding out who I am, the way Mrs. Clark said we would, I'm
starting to feel like a nobody. I don't really belong to anyone."

Melanie's eyes widened and she rushed to Funny. "Oh,
no. You can't feel that way! You're a super person. Everybody likes you because
you smile all the time and cheer people up. Don't say you feel like a nobody."

Funny looked startled for an instant, then seemed to smile
in spite of herself. "Thanks," she said, giving Melanie's hand a warm
squeeze. Glancing quickly at her watch, she added, "Eeek! I'd better get
out of here. My friends will be wondering what happened to me."

"Mine, too," agreed Melanie.

The girls said good-bye and went to their lockers, and as
they turned in different directions in the hall, Melanie called out to Funny
that she would see her at Bumpers. But when Melanie arrived a little while
later and spotted Laura McCall, Tammy Lucero, and Melissa McConnell sitting on
stools at the counter, Funny wasn't with them. She's feeling better so she'll
be here, Melanie told herself, but even though she kept an eye on the door,
Funny never arrived. I guess she wasn't feeling that much better after all,
Melanie told herself.

As she walked home a little while later, Melanie thought
about Funny's predicament and sympathized with her all over again. Funny had
said that she felt like a nobody. It must be
awful
to feel that way, she
mused.