Fabulous Five 025 - The Fabulous Five Minus One (4 page)

Mr. Dracovitch slowly stirred the water in the fish tank in
front of him with a wooden paddle. The PEAK class watched intently as the fish
darted out of his way. Spread around on the table were several pieces of lab
equipment Christie couldn't identify.

"Water is all around you and in you. We sail our ships
on it, we build our cities on its shores, we get food from it, we bathe in it,
and we drink it. Over seventy-five percent of the earth's surface is covered by
water. The same seawater makes up over sixty percent of our bodies."
Melinda Thaler and Whitney Larkin looked at their arms as if they expected to
see them turn into water.

"Before you were born, you were immersed in water. All
living things depend on water. There's life in the smallest of puddles and the
deepest of oceans. Can anyone give me an example of something that lives in
puddles?"

"Mosquitoes?" asked Melissa.

"Right."

"Microbes," said Curtis, pushing his glasses up on
his nose.

"Right again. Now, have you ever thought about what it
would be like to live on the ocean floor, the way some sea creatures do?"

"It'd be very cold and wet," said Dekeisha.

Mr. Dracovitch chuckled. "Certainly. Do you think we
ought to send tiny little wet suits down so they can keep warm?"

Christie giggled at the idea with the rest of the class. Mr.
Dracovitch was definitely funnier than any of her other teachers.

"Seriously," he continued, "the further down
in the ocean one goes, the greater the pressure and the darker it is. Have you
ever thought about what it would be like to have to find food when it was too
dark to see? What if it was night and the power was out at your house and you
were very hungry? And what if somebody moved the refrigerator on you? Could you
find it? Let's find out.

"Everyone take a paper sack," he said, pointing to
a stack of grocery bags on a table. "Then I want you to cut holes in them
where your eyes are when the sack is over your head. There are scissors in the
box."

The kids moved to the table as they were told. Christie put
a sack over her head and felt for the place where her eyes were located. Then
she pinched the paper to mark the spots.

"Why are we going to cut holes in them if there's not
supposed to be any light?" asked Curtis.

"You're jumping ahead of me," said Mr. Dracovitch.
"Wait until everyone's finished, and you'll see.

"Okay, now here's a roll of waxed paper and some tape.
Cut a piece of the paper, and tape it on over the hole to make a window."
He watched as they did what he instructed.

"Now for the important part of the experiment," Mr.
Dracovitch said dramatically. He reached under the table and pulled out a Mama
Mia's pizza box.

"Wow! Lunchtime," said Melinda.

"Voilà!" said Mr. Dracovitch, opening the box to
reveal a pepperoni and sausage pizza. "But this is
not
a pizza."

"It's not, Mr. D?" asked Curtis, straightening his
glasses again. "It looks like pizza to me."

The science teacher smiled. "No. It's fish food. If you
were a fish living deep in the ocean where there's hardly any light, you'd be
in competition with all the other fish for food, wouldn't you? Let's see how
well you'd do.

"I want each of you to put your bag over your head.
Then I'm going to put a slice of this fish food somewhere in the room, and it
will be up to you to find it."

Christie slipped the bag on as she was told. When she tried
to look through the waxed paper window, all she could see was a dim glow. Her
classmates were such vague figures, she couldn't even tell Curtis from the
girls.

"Okay,
fish,
" said Mr. Dracovitch. "There's
food somewhere in this room, and if you want some, you'd better find it. And no
peeking!"

Christie sniffed and smelled the sausage and pepperoni in
the air. Maybe I can follow the smell, she thought. But the stronger the smell,
the nearer I must be to the pizza box. He wouldn't hide it there.

She swung her sacked head back and forth trying to see
anything.
She heard feet shuffling and knew the other kids were moving around, too.
Suddenly she felt two hands on her neck.

"Oops! Excuse me," Whitney said. Whitney's shadow
figure turned and went off in another direction.

"Hey! Watch out,"
someone said to her left.
It sounded like Melissa.

A chair scraped across the floor, and Curtis exclaimed, "How'd
that
get there?"

Christie giggled and moved in the direction where she saw
the most light, hoping she wouldn't run into someone or something. This is
silly, thought Christie. I'll never find the fish food by just wandering
around. She giggled again when she realized she was thinking of the pizza as
fish food. The thought of eating the pizza made her mouth water.

Okay, she thought. It's time for me to use logic. Where
would Mr. Dracovitch have put the pizza slice? She tried remembering the
furniture in the room and where it was located. There was the big table Mr.
Dracovitch had been using and ten or twelve chairs. The chairs were lined up in
front of the table. Then she remembered a small table in the corner of the room
with an overhead projector on it. Christie looked both ways for more moving
shapes. The corner with the table, was it to her left or to her right? She took
a chance and went to her right.

Twice she had to stop to avoid a dark shadow that passed in
front of her. When the window of her sack darkened, she knew she was near a
wall.

Christie put her hands out and found it and then began
working her way to the left. Just as she was beginning to think the room had
grown, like the one in
Alice In Wonderland
, her leg hit something
metallic. She reached out and touched the table. Working her hands up its
sides, she felt the projector. When she reached the top of it, her fingers felt
something soft and gooey.

"The
Christie Winchell
fish wins!" Mr.
Dracovitch shouted.

Christie tore off her paper sack and grabbed the slice of
pizza. Laughing, she took a big bite and waved it at the other kids.

"Darn! said Curtis. "I wanted to find it. I'm
starved."

"Okay, everyone," said Mr. Dracovitch. "Back
to your seats." When everyone was settled, he said, "I guess we can't
let the rest of this pizza go to waste, can we? Here, Curtis, pass it around."

As the class munched on their snack, the teacher continued. "Now
you know what it's like for some animals that live in the twilight zone in the
ocean. Can anyone tell me why it gets darker the further down in the water you
go?"

"Because there's stuff in it?" asked Dekeisha.
Everyone laughed.

"You've got it," said the teacher. "
Stuff
like teeny-tiny little animals called zooplankton feeding on teeny-tiny little
plants called phytoplankton. And just think, there are things that live even
deeper in the ocean, where there's no light at all. Can you imagine never being
able to see a thing?

"Some fish have ways of providing their own light, just
as you can with a flashlight. Some have even evolved to the point where they
don't have eyes because eyes are useless in the deepest parts of the ocean.
Everybody over there," he commanded, pointing to the table with the fish
tank on it. "This is a saltwater tank, and it's just like the water in the
sea."

"And in our bodies?" asked Melinda.

"That's right."

"Eeeyew!" said Whitney, sniffing the water.

"Let's prove that there's
stuff
in the water and
that the deeper you go, the more light it cuts out," said Mr. Dracovitch.

For the next half hour the class ran all kinds of
experiments, shining lights through the tank at sensors on the other side,
looking at water samples under microscopes, and mixing them in test tubes with
various chemicals. Christie became so engrossed in what they were doing, she
was surprised when the bell rang, ending the period.

"Okay, everyone," said Mr. Dracovitch, pulling a
straw hat out of a paper bag that had been sitting on the table. When he put it
on, his toupee slipped down over one ear, and the class laughed. He looked
sheepish as he straightened his wig.

"Monday we're going to be farmers. Not just ordinary
ones, but farmers from the future. We'll learn how to farm the seas. If you'd
like to wear a red bandanna or straw hat like mine to class, feel free. Okay,
class dismissed."

"Neat," said Dekeisha as they all gathered their
things to leave. "That was a great class."

"Mr. D is definitely a fun teacher," said Melinda.

Curtis stuck out his lower lip in a fake pout. "I know
I'm a better fish than Christie. I should have found the pizza slice."

"I don't know if you're better than Christie,
Trowbridge," said Melissa, "but you're definitely a fish."

Whitney stared daggers at Melissa.

"That's the first class I've ever had pizza in,"
said Curtis, ignoring the whole thing.

"I wonder if we could talk Mr. Dracovitch into bringing
a pizza every time," said Christie. "I'd promise to be on time and to
hang on his every word, if he would."

"Whoops!" said Melinda, stopping as they walked
out the door. "What are those guys doing?" The rest of the class
crowded around her to see what she was talking about.

Richie Corrierro, Clarence Marshall, and Joel Murphy were
standing in the hallway with their hands behind their backs. Christie was
surprised to see Matt Zeboski with them.

"Teenage mutant ninja brains!" Richie yelled at
them.

"Yeah," said Joel, assuming a karate pose. "We
know you're really superintelligent aliens from outer space and you've come to
take over Wacko Junior High from us mere earthlings. Well, we won't let you!"

The kids in the PEAK class could only stare at them.

"We'll fight you to the death," Matt said, shaking
his fist. The corners of his mouth twitched as he tried to keep from laughing.
"Fire,
hero students of Wacko!"
he yelled.
"Protect our school!"

The boys raised plastic straws and blew a volley of spit
wads at the PEAK kids. A wet glob hit Christie on the forehead. She held up her
notebook to shield herself as the boys reloaded their straws.

Just then Mr. Dracovitch came out of the room, and the boys
ran down the hall, laughing and shouting at the tops of their voices.

Mr. Dracovitch looked after them with a questioning
expression on his face, then smiled at the PEAK students and said, "Good
afternoon, everyone."

The PEAK kids looked at each other as they picked spitballs
off their clothing.

"I can't believe this," said Dekeisha. "It's
disgusting."

"Me, either," agreed Melissa. "Let's turn
them in to the Teen Court."

"Maybe we shouldn't," said Curtis slowly. The
others looked at him questioningly.

"Why not?" asked Christie.

"We're supposed to be smart, aren't we?" Curtis
asked.

They all nodded.

"Well, if we can't handle a bunch of dummies, then we
must not be as smart as we're supposed to be. Let's put our abundant brains
together and see what we can come up with," Curtis continued, pushing his
glasses up on his nose. "I'll be in charge. I'll call you all over the weekend
to get your ideas. Agreed?"

Whitney looked up at him with stars in her eyes. "Agreed,"
they said in unison.

Christie heard herself agree with the others, but deep down
she just wished the whole problem would go away.

Christie was all ready for her date with Chase by the time
her mother called her to dinner that night. When she walked into the kitchen,
she was immediately struck by her parents' silence. A feeling of foreboding
came over her as they ate. Finally, her mother put down her fork and looked at
Christie.

"There's something you need to know, Christie."
Her mother hesitated as if searching for the right words. "Your father's
company has asked him to take the job in London, and we've agreed that he
should accept it."

Christie stared at her in disbelief and then looked at her
father, hoping he would say something that would make it sound less definite.
He gave Christie a thin little smile that seemed to be an apology.

"I feel bad that your mother has to change her career
because of it, and that we have to move you," he said, "but lots of
families move because of job changes. The timing is
never
right, but
when you look back at it, the experiences you're going to have and the new
friends that you'll meet will make it all worthwhile. There's no place quite
like London, and we won't be that far from the European continent. We'll go on
lots of holidays, as they say in England, to France and Germany and the other
countries."

Christie took a deep breath. "When will we have to
move?" she asked.

"We thought the break between semesters would be best,"
said her mother. "That way you can start school right away over there. If
we wait until summer vacation to move, it'll be three months before you have a
chance to make friends. I've already talked to the superintendent of schools
here. He thinks my assistant principal can take over as principal at Mark Twain
Elementary for the remainder of the school year."

"That's only a month and a half away," said
Christie.

"We know, sweetheart," said her mother.

"The longer we drag it out, the more painful it will
be," her father said. "The best way to handle a thing like this is to
get it over with."

Christie felt a swelling in her throat. "May I be
excused?"

There was a look of pain in her mother's eyes. "Yes,
you may."

Christie sat at her desk with her face in her hands. She had
tried to make believe that this wouldn't happen, that her father's company
would decide cither not to fill the job or choose someone else. She had known
it was foolish to believe that her friends would come up with an idea to keep
the Winchells from moving, but she had. Now she had to face the cold reality.
They
were going to move.

The name, London, England, sounded so strange. What would
the kids be like there? She knew they spoke with an accent she wasn't used to,
and she had heard that some of their accents were really thick. Would she be
able to understand them? What did they do for fun? What kinds of places did
they go to? What music did they listen to? Would they think she was weird?

A
stranger,
that's what she would be. She would be
worse than a stranger; she would be the only kid in her class who didn't even
know how to behave. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

The doorbell rang in the distance, and a minute later her
mother knocked softly on her door.

"Christie, Chase is here. Do you want me to tell him you're
not feeling well?"

Christie panicked. She had forgotten all about Chase. And
her face, it must be a mess.

"No. Tell him I'll be right down."

Christie went to her bathroom and scrubbed her face. She
patted cold water on her eyes to try and take the redness away, then gray eye
makeup to further disguise it. She put on the lightest touch of lipstick and
respritzed her wrists with perfume. This time she put a small dab behind her
ears for good measure. She couldn't have the move to England ruin her first
date with Chase.

And maybe my last one, she thought. A month and a half was
such a short time.

Chase was waiting in the living room with her parents. When
she walked in, he was in the middle of telling them about San Diego.

"You wouldn't believe the aircraft carriers the navy
has stationed there, Mr. W. And they have guided tours on some of them. I bet
you'd have a great time taking one of the tours."

"I'd like to, Chase. Oh, here's Christie."

"Wow," said Chase when he turned to look at her.
She felt he really meant it.

"Just for the record, Chase," said Mrs. Winchell, "eleven
o'clock is Christie's curfew."

"Sure, Mrs. W. No problem," he said as he ushered
Christie out the door.

"I heard what Richie, Joel, Clarence, and Matt did, and
I can't believe it," said Jana as Christie joined The Fabulous Five by the
theater entrance. Chase was in the ticket line with Randy, Tony, Keith, and
Shane. Chase's mother had driven him and Christie, but they planned to walk
home.

"I especially can't believe that Matt Zeboski was in on
it," said Beth.

"Well, he was and they did," said Christie. "And
if Mr. Dracovitch hadn't come out of the room, they would have done it again."

"Spitballs, yuck!" said Melanie. "How icky."

"You're telling me," agreed Christie. "And
the one that got me on the head was sopping wet."

"I still think you ought to report them,"
commented Katie.

"Curtis doesn't want to. He thinks we should be able to
figure out a way of stopping their teasing ourselves."

"You know Curtis," said Katie. "He wants to
be in charge of everything in the world. If we'd let him, he'd declare himself
king of the Wacko Junior High seventh-grade class."

"What does Curtis want to do?" asked Jana. "Start
the Great Spitball War?"

"I can see it now," chimed in Beth. She pointed
her fingers like guns. "The PEAKs and the—whatever you want to call them—passing
each other like intergalactic spaceships and firing salvos of laser spitballs
at each other. It may go down as the greatest battle of all time."

"How about calling them the PUKES?" asked Jana. "It
fits them."

Christie raised her eyebrows. "What does PUKES stand
for?"

"Let me think. What about . . . uh . . . People U Kan't
Even Stand?" asked Katie.

"I love it
!"
exclaimed Christie. "Even
using the letter
U
for the word you and spelling
can't
with a
k
is dumb, like something they'd do."

"The problem is they'll never figure out that the words
are misspelled," said Beth, laughing.

"That's okay," said Christie. "Everyone else
will know."

"Are you going to tell Chase about what they did?"
asked Melanie.

"There's no reason to say anything to him, and please
don't tell the other guys, either. They might say something to Chase, and he
might think he has to do something." Christie sighed. "All I know is,
I'm tired of being made fun of because I make good grades. I'm tired of being
teased, I'm tired of boring classes, and I'm tired of having to make A's all
the time."

"Gee," said Melanie. "I didn't think I'd ever
hear Christie Winchell talk like that."

Christie's throat tightened again, and she kept quiet
because she wasn't sure that she could control herself.

Chase and the others laughed all through the movie, but
Christie had a hard time concentrating on it. Her mind kept wandering to the
move to England. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't visualize herself
there. Every time she attempted to make a mental picture of herself in a London
scene, it wouldn't work. The people she tried to imagine would be shadows, and
the buildings would half form and then fade away. She was glad when the movie
was over, and she could talk to her friends instead of thinking.

"The part I liked best," said Chase, laughing, "was
where the crooks were chasing Steve Martin, and his car started falling apart."

"Yeah," said Keith. "When the rear axle came
off, I nearly split."

"You guys," said Katie. "You think only the
men are funny. I liked it when he finally got home and Bette Midler was chewing
him out for being late, and all he had was the steering wheel in his hands.
That was funny."

"I liked that part, too," said Melanie.

"What did you like best, Christie?" asked Jana,
looking closely at her. "You've been awfully quiet."

"Yeah," commented Randy. "You've hardly said
a word."

Christie shrugged and tried to smile. "I guess I
thought all of it was pretty funny," she fibbed.

"Come on," said Chase, nudging Christie's shoulder
with his. "You have been quiet. What's up? Tell old Dr. Collins what's
wrong." He looked at the others for appreciation of his humor.

Christie shrugged again.

"Do you feel okay, Christie?" asked Shane.

"You don't look like you do," Jana offered.

Christie took a deep breath and decided to tell them. "You
know I told you we might move to London," she said to the girls. "Well,
it's for sure now."

"Oh, nooo!" wailed Melanie.

Katie, Beth, and Jana stared at her with shocked looks on
their faces.

"What's this London stuff?" asked Chase, glancing
quickly at the girls. "What are you talking about, Christie?"

Christie explained about the decision to move to London
between semesters.

"Oh, wow," said Randy, shaking his head. "I
can't imagine your not being around, Chris."

"That's the understatement of the century," said
Melanie. "Is it absolutely, positively a sure thing?"

Christie nodded. The table fell silent as suddenly no one
knew what to say next.

"If you have to go someplace, it could be a lot worse,"
said Melanie brightly. "England's where all the super rock stars, like
Adam Ant and Geoffrey Williams, come from. And I just love British accents."

"And the theater," added Beth. "They've got
great
theater there. If I were going to London, I'd spend all my time going to the
theater."

"If I went to London, I'd want to visit the Old Bailey,"
said Katie.

"What's the Old Bailey?" asked Keith.

"The Old Bailey is
only
the most famous court of
law in the world," answered Katie.

"Isn't that where the lawyers and judges all wear funny
white wigs?" Tony asked. "I hate to tell you, Your Honor, but you'd
look funny in one of those."

Christie knew her friends were trying to cheer her up.

When it was time to go, Jana, Katie, Beth, and Melanie gave
Christie big hugs, and the boys looked at her sadly.

"What was it like when you moved here from San Diego?"
Christie asked Chase as they headed toward her house.

"Not too bad, but I adapt easily. Besides, I met you
guys, didn't I? Back in California I didn't have any real buddies. Most of the
guys were jealous because I was so good at sports."

"I thought you hung out at the beach and played
volleyball and wind-surfed."

"Oh, sure, but that doesn't mean you have to be friends
with the people there. A lot of the guys were losers, and I didn't want to hang
out with them, anyway. Hey," he said, brightening, "why don't we stop
at McDonald's and have a soda?"

Christie looked at her watch. "I shouldn't. I'm
supposed to be home by eleven, and it's a quarter to."

"What difference will it make if you're fifteen minutes
late? Come on. Nobody's going to hang you."

"But I'm never late."

Chase laughed. "Maybe you
ought
to be late sometimes,
so they'd appreciate you more."

"Appreciate me?"

"Sure. They expect you to make all A's, be good, and
make curfew, and then they don't even ask you if you want to move to England.
My folks quit setting curfew for me a long time ago. I never kept it, anyway."

Christie looked at him thoughtfully. In a way Chase was
right. Would it really make a difference if she was fifteen minutes late? She
was
always
trying to please her parents and teachers, but when it came
down to something really important, like the move, they hadn't even asked for
her opinion. She pushed aside the feeling of guilt that was niggling at the
back of her mind.

"A soda sounds like fun. Let's do it."