Fabulous Five 022 - Melanie's Valentine (4 page)

"Oh, Dee! There's someone I'd like for you to meet,"
Jana shouted before Melanie's grandmother could call to Scott. Jana quickly
turned and flagged down Funny Hawthorne, who was crossing the cafeteria toward
the tray return.

Melanie nearly collapsed with relief. "Thank you, Jana,"
she murmured under her breath.

"Oh, hi, Jana," said Funny. "What's up?"
Funny was in her usual sunny mood, and her smile lit up the table.

"This is Melanie's grandmother," said Jana.

"Just call me Dee," Grandma Dee interjected. "I'm
glad to meet you. Put your tray down for a minute and tell me how you got the
name Funny."

Funny giggled. "Oh, it's just a nickname. My name's
really Karen Janelle, but I was a pretty happy baby, so my parents started
calling me Funny. I guess it just stuck."

Grandma Dee clasped her hands in delight. "That's
wonderful," she said. "Sit down and tell me more about yourself."

"I'd love to," said Funny, "but I have to go.
Laura and the others are waiting for me by the door. It was nice meeting you,
Dee. Bye."

Melanie glanced toward the swinging doors leading out of the
cafeteria. Laura McCall's face was a storm cloud as she and Tammy Lucero and
Melissa McConnell watched Funny leave The Fabulous Five's table.

"Uh-oh. Funny's in trouble now," Melanie mumbled.

"Gosh. I hope not," said Jana. "But you're
probably right. I didn't mean to get Funny in trouble."

Grandma Dee's ears perked up at the word
trouble.

"What's going on?" she asked. "I saw that
girl with the long braid giving all of us dirty looks. Who is she, anyway?"

"That's Laura McCall," said Melanie. "She's
the leader of a clique called The Fantastic Foursome. They hate The Fabulous
Five. I think they're probably just jealous," she added with a toss of her
reddish-brown hair.

"To make matters worse, Funny is a member of The
Fantastic Foursome, and she and I got to be friends at the beginning of school,"
Jana explained. "Laura's never gotten over it."

"Poor Funny," added Christie. "The rumor is
that Laura makes the girls do what she tells them, or else they can't stay in
her club."

"That's right," said Katie. "She can make
their lives miserable."

"What!" exclaimed Grandma Dee, raising her
eyebrows in alarm. "That's terrible. She'd better not do anything to
Funny, or she'll have me to answer to."

"It's okay, Grandma," Melanie insisted. "Funny
can handle it. She's been friends with Laura for a long time."

"What in the world for?" Grandma Dee asked
indignantly. "I can't see any reason why she would want to stay friends
with someone like that when there are nice girls like you five to be friends
with. Where did she go? I'm going to have a talk with her."

Grandma Dee rose dramatically from the table, standing up so
quickly that the sunglasses on top of her head bounced. She frowned toward the
door, but Funny, Laura, and the rest of The Fantastic Foursome were already
gone.

"It's okay, Grandma," Melanie said again. "Honest.
Funny likes Laura, or she wouldn't stay friends with her. After all, nobody's
perfect."

"Humph," said Grandma Dee. She sat back down, but
she kept her eye on the door, and Melanie had a feeling that she had better
keep her grandmother from bumping into either Funny Hawthorne or Laura McCall
in the halls this afternoon, or there really would be trouble.

When the bell rang ending lunch period, Melanie and her
grandmother headed for biology class. Usually Melanie couldn't wait to get to
biology. Shane not only was in her class, he was her lab partner, and they
always had lots of fun.

But today, with Grandma Dee beside her, Melanie felt her
palms sweating as she climbed the stairs to the second floor. What if Grandma
Dee said something horribly embarrassing to him about his bringing Igor to
Bumpers? And what if Shane got really mad about it and never asked Melanie out
again?

Shane saw Melanie and her grandmother come into the room,
and he gave them a friendly wave and headed in their direction.

"Hi," he said, directing his greeting to Grandma
Dee. "Welcome to Dracula's castle."

Grandma Dee's eyebrows shot up in alarm.

"There's Dracula over there," he said, pointing to
Mr. Dracovitch. As usual, the tall, pale science teacher was wearing the shiny
black toupee that inspired his nickname.

Grandma Dee glanced his way, and her look of concern
deepened.

Melanie bit her lower lip. What was Shane up to, anyway? She
didn't like the way this was going. Her grandmother obviously wasn't the least
bit impressed with his calling Mr. Dracovitch "Dracula." In fact, she
was quieter than she had been ever since she arrived for the visit. Melanie was
sorry now that she had made such a big deal to Shane about Grandma Dee's being
cool.

But Shane was on a roll. He glanced around as if to be sure
no one was listening and then went on, "You should have been here when we
dissected cows' eyeballs."

Grandma Dee gasped, but Shane didn't give her time to speak.

"That's right. Cows' eyeballs." Shane rubbed his
hands together, completely ignoring Melanie, who was making frantic signs
behind her grandmother's back for him to stop.

"You see, I think old Dracula sneaked into a farmer's
pasture by the full moon. Then he sucked all the blood out of the cows and
popped out their eyeballs."

Shane made a popping sound with his mouth, and Grandma Dee
jumped three inches off the floor.

"Young man!" she roared. "I don't know what
is wrong with you, but I'm certainly not impressed. First you bring that
disgusting lizard into Bumpers, and now you try to scare the daylights out of
me with some grisly story about a vampire teacher and cows' eyeballs!"

Shane seemed to shrink under Grandma Dee's angry words.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said in a soft voice. "I
was just making jokes. Melanie said you were really cool, and I thought . .
."

His voice trailed off, and he gave Melanie a helpless shrug.
It was the first time in her life that she had seen Shane at a loss for words.

"It's okay, Grandma. Honest," she said hastily. "Everybody
calls Mr. Dracovitch 'Dracula,' and we really did dissect cows' eyeballs. Shane
thought you'd think it was funny, didn't you, Shane?"

"Yeah," he mumbled, still looking totally
embarrassed. "I guess I was wrong, though."

Grandma Dee took a deep breath and looked sternly around the
biology lab. Most of the kids were in the room now, and some had even stopped
to see what was going on.

"Well, I think I've seen enough of
Wacko
Junior
High for one day," she grumped. "I think I'll go on home now,
Melanie. Good-bye, dear."

"Bye, Grandma Dee," Melanie whispered.

As her grandmother left the room, Shane touched Melanie on
the shoulder. "Gosh, Melanie. I'm really sorry," he said. "I
wanted to make a good impression on her, but I guess I got carried away with my
jokes. I don't suppose she'll ever like me now."

Melanie smiled sympathetically, but in the back of her mind
she was thinking exactly the same thing.

"But everybody likes Shane," argued Beth.

"Not my grandmother," Melanie assured her. The
Fabulous Five were in Bumpers after school, and Melanie had just finished
telling her friends about the disaster in the biology classroom when Shane's
jokes had backfired.

"But your grandmother seems so with it," said
Katie.

Melanie shrugged. "Sometimes she is, and sometimes she
definitely
is not. I mean, you've seen how sometimes she's practically one of us, joking
and laughing and talking about her big adventures. Then, all of a sudden, some
teensie little thing happens, and she turns completely around and acts like a
normal
grandmother."

Jana nodded. "Yeah. My grandmother wouldn't be
impressed with the cows' eyeballs story, either. She hates anything gory or
gruesome."

"Right," agreed Christie. "
My
grandmother would probably think Shane was another Freddie Krueger."

"So what am I supposed to do?" wailed Melanie. "I'll
just die if Shane's too chicken to ask me to the Valentine party because of my
grandmother."

"I still think you ought to have a talk with her,"
said Christie. "Explain that things look different than they are. I'll bet
she'd understand."

"But what if she didn't?" asked Melanie, poking
her straw into the ice in her glass. "What if it only made things worse? I
can't take that chance."

"Well, you're going to have to do something," said
Jana. "It's less than two weeks until the Valentine party."

"Speaking of the party," said Beth. "Has
anybody seen Dekeisha? She wants to get together with us and talk about the
decorations."

"There she is," said Katie, pointing toward a
green bumper car, where Dekeisha sat talking to Sara Sawyer. Katie caught
Dekeisha's eye, and the two girls hurried over to join The Fabulous Five.

"Does anyone have any ideas for decorations?"
Dekeisha asked as she scooted into the booth beside Beth. "I hate to do
the same old hearts and Cupids routine."

"What's wrong with that?" Melanie asked
indignantly. "We want it to be romantic."

Sara made a face at Melanie. "I agree with Dekeisha,"
she said. "It's okay to be romantic, but let's be original at the same
time."

"Maybe we could make it a costume party," offered
Melanie. "Couples could come as famous lovers, like Romeo and Juliet or
Kermit and Miss Piggy."

"Get real," said Katie. "Do you know how hard
it is to get boys to dress up for a costume party? It would end up with nobody
here but girls."

Melanie gave Katie a hurt look. "It was just a
suggestion."

"And I've got a suggestion for you," whispered
Jana. "You'd better become invisible if you don't want to talk to Scott. I
think he's headed this way."

Melanie's mind was whirling. What was she going to do? She
couldn't talk to Scott. She just
couldn't.
If he asked her to the
Valentine party, she would probably end up saying yes just to keep from hurting
his feelings. But then what would Shane think? Besides, Shane was the boy she
liked. She wanted to go to the party with
him.

"Hi, Mel. Can I talk to you a minute?"

Melanie looked up into Scott's smiling face. "Oh, hi,
Scott," she said weakly. "Gosh, I . . ."

"She can't right now," Jana piped up. "We're
having a meeting."

Scott made a face. "A meeting? Here in Bumpers? What
kind of meeting?"

"Of course," Jana said, sounding as if it were the
most normal thing in the world. "We're the decorations committee for the
Valentine party, and we have to have this meeting—
today.
"

"Oh," said Scott, and then he shrugged. "Well,
I'll talk to you later, Mel. Okay?"

Melanie could only nod because of the lump in her throat,
and as soon as he had gone, she clutched Jana's hand and said, "Wow! You've
rescued me again! That's the second time today. You're the best friend in the
world."

"Yeah, well, I can't keep doing it forever," Jana
chided gently. "You're going to have to tell Scott the truth, you know,
and the sooner the better."

"I know. I know," Melanie insisted. "I'll
think of something."

Scott had gone by the time The Fabulous Five left Bumpers.
So had Dekeisha and Sara, and the girls still hadn't agreed on decorations for
the Valentine party.

But that was the last thing on Melanie's mind when she
reached home. She tiptoed in through the back door, hoping to sneak up to her
room without having to see her grandmother.

"Hi, Melanie! Hey, Grandma! Melanie's home!"
shouted Jeffy at the top of his lungs. Her little brother was lying on his
stomach on the floor, propped up on one elbow over a coloring book. Rainbow was
stretched out beside him.

"You little fink," Melanie muttered under her
breath.

"Melanie? Is that you?" her mother called. "We're
in the family room. Come in and join us."

Melanie groaned and scuffed into the room. "Hi, Mom.
Hi, Grandma Dee."

"Hello, sweetheart," said her grandmother. "I
was just telling your mother about that dreadful boy and his stories about
vampires and cows' eyeballs. I can't help wondering what kind of home he comes
from."

"Who was that, dear?" her mother asked. "It
doesn't sound like any of your friends."

Melanie gritted her teeth. She couldn't lie.

"It was Shane," she said. "He was just trying
to be funny. Actually, it was my fault," she added hastily. "I told
him how with it Grandma Dee is, and he just thought . . ." Melanie
shrugged helplessly as her voice trailed off.

"Oh," said Mrs. Edwards, nodding her head as if
she understood. "I should have thought of Shane." Then chuckling, she
said to Melanie's grandmother. "Shane Arrington's parents used to be
hippies, and they have a little different view of life. I'm sure Shane got his
offbeat sense of humor from them."

"Mom, that's not fair," Melanie protested. "Shane's
not a hippie, and he isn't offbeat. He's perfectly normal. Grandma Dee just
didn't understand that he was joking, that's all."

"Well, I'm sure everything's going to be just fine,
dear," Grandma Dee said soothingly.

Melanie excused herself and stormed off to her room. How
could everything be just fine as long as her grandmother disliked Shane and her
own parents were prejudiced against him because his parents used to be hippies?
It was just one big fat lost cause!

A little while later there was a tap at her bedroom door. "It's
me, honey," her mother called. "May I come in?"

"I guess so," Melanie grumped. She was still angry
about her mother's attitude toward Shane.

"I want to talk to you about your grandmother,"
Mrs. Edwards said, sitting down on the edge of Melanie's bed. "I know you're
angry with her."

"That's the understatement of the
eon,
" mumbled
Melanie. "She's absolutely ruining my social life." She went on to
tell her mother how Grandma Dee had embarrassed her in Mr. Bell's office and
then again in the cafeteria at noon, wanting to talk Funny out of being friends
with Laura McCall. Next she explained how Shane had been trying so hard to make
her grandmother like him that he had tried
too
hard, and Grandma Dee had
practically caused a scene in biology class. "I just don't know what she's
going to do next," Melanie confessed.

Mrs. Edwards was quiet for a moment. "I think I
understand the problem," she said.

"Well, I wish I did," said Melanie.

"It's because she loves you so much," her mother
said quietly. "You see, all her children were boys, and you're her first
granddaughter. She wants to be with you as much as she can while she's here and
be involved in the things you're doing."

When Melanie didn't respond, her mother patted her hand and
moved toward the door. "Remember, dear, she doesn't mean any harm. She
just wants to be involved."

Watching the door close behind her mother, Melanie thought,
Grandma Dee's not just involved. She's interfering!