Fabulous Five 007 - The Kissing Disaster (6 page)

At the football game the next afternoon, Melanie made sure
she spent the time when the squad wasn't cheering with Dekeisha, Alexis, and
Mandy. She also got in lots of flirt time with both Scott and Shane and shot
big smiles at Garrett Boldt whenever he was close by photographing the action
on the field.

She was doing it all for The Fabulous Five's benefit, of
course. Well, mostly, anyway. She couldn't tell if Jana, Katie, and Christie
had seen it all from their seats in the bleachers, but Beth, who was on the
cheerleading squad, too, couldn't possibly have missed it. It had to be getting
obvious to them that their cool treatment of her wasn't fazing her one little
bit. Who knows? she thought wryly. Maybe
I'm
starting to be the one who
doesn't have time for
them.

To make matters even better, just before halftime Derek
Travelstead called out hello to her from the stands, and she waved her pom-pons
at him. She had been noticing him more and more lately, thinking how cute he
was and trying to decide if he really did look like Kirk Cameron, after all.

After the game Melanie trudged back to the locker room
alongside Mandy and Dekeisha. They were talking about the game, but she stayed
quiet. She hadn't been able to shake the tiredness she had been feeling for
several days. Some of the acrobatics in the cheers had seemed harder than
usual, and now she was even considering skipping Bumpers. Just a teensy little
nap would make her feel so much better. But still, if she didn't go to Bumpers
after the game, she would not only miss a victory celebration, but also a perfect
chance to show off her popularity to the rest of The Fabulous Five.

At Bumpers the jukebox was playing full blast when she
picked up her Coke at the order counter and headed for the cheerleaders' table.
A quick swallow of the frosty beverage felt good on her fiery throat. The sore
throat she had awakened with yesterday had persisted, and yelling her lungs out
at the football game hadn't helped it one bit.

She sat down between Alexis and Mandy just as Laura McCall
was saying, "Did you see that terrific tackle Shane made in the second
quarter? He's such a hunk. I certainly would have hated to be the guy he
tackled. Well . . . sort of, anyway." She glanced around the table with a
grin that said clearly that she wasn't talking about a football tackle this time.

Girls were laughing and mentioning other cute boys on the
Wakeman team and commenting on what hunks they were, but Melanie sat fuming and
gulping her Coke. How dare Laura talk about Shane like that, she thought. She
acts as if he's her personal property.

"Does anybody have a date for the dance yet?"
asked Tammy Lucero before Melanie could think of a good reply for Laura. Tammy
was the world's biggest gossip, and she was always digging for information.

"I do," piped up Dekeisha. "Dan Bankston took
me to the movie last night, and on the way home he asked me to go with him."
She looked around proudly as a couple of cheerleaders hammed it up, swooning
over the mention of Dan Bankston, who was the center on the Wakeman Warriors
and known sometimes as The Hulk.

"Scott asked me after the publicity committee meeting
Thursday night," bragged Melanie. "And when I said yes, he kissed me."
She had put that last part in for Laura's benefit, and she could see by Laura's
expression that her words had hit their mark.

"Big deal!" spat Laura. She tossed a superior look
toward Melanie. "I think Shane is going to ask me. He certainly acts like
it, and he's been hanging around a lot."

Melanie was so angry that she wouldn't have been surprised
if smoke had billowed out of her ears and flames had shot out of her mouth when
she opened it to speak.

"Well, he certainly wasn't hanging around you last
night. He was at my house." She paused, gleefully watching Laura try to
regain her composure. "We were picking out the music for the dance since
we're both on the music committee. He didn't act as if he was interested in
asking you or anyone else to the dance . . . especially when he kissed me good
night."

In the moment of silence that followed this announcement,
Melanie stood, picked up her Coke, and marched triumphantly out the door. She
would have loved to stick around and see Laura's face when the words sunk in
and hear how jealous everyone was of her popularity, but it was much more
dramatic to make an exit now. It's the same sort of theatrical thing Beth would
do, she mused. Of course Beth had been sitting at the table, too, and she would
run and tell The Fabulous Five that Melanie was so popular that she had been
kissed by two boys in one week. Things couldn't be working out better, she
thought.

She went to bed early that evening, remembering fleetingly
that this was the night she had asked her friends to sleep over. They had all
turned her down, saying they were busy with other things. The memory still
hurt, but so did her throat, and her head was throbbing again, too. In some
ways she was almost relieved to be able to slip between the covers and drift
off to sleep whenever she felt like it.

She tried to do her homework Sunday afternoon, but she kept
dozing off every time she started to read. Late in the afternoon Shane called
to check on an album that he thought he might accidentally have left at her
house Friday night. When she told him it wasn't there, she thought about
inviting him over for a while, but she was too tired to make conversation, even
with Shane.

She managed to drag herself to school Monday morning. Her
mother had tried to get her to stay home, saying that she looked like death
warmed over, but there was going to be a quiz in English and it was the final
day of dissecting in biology. There was no way she could afford to miss it.

That night she even made it to the refreshments committee
meeting, again over her parents' protests. She was a little surprised when
Christie motioned her to an empty chair on her left and chatted during the
meeting as if everything were the same in The Fabulous Five. Christie even
suggested that Melanie volunteer some of her mother's famous brownies for the
dance.

Melanie was the last one to reach the pay phone after the
meeting broke up at a little after ten o'clock. Randy was just hanging up.

"I'll give you a ride home," he offered.

"Great," she said. "I know my dad will
appreciate not having to come out after me at this hour."

She wondered briefly if he would offer Christie a ride, too,
but she was nowhere around. She must have already gone, Melanie thought. Steve
Hernandez was also gone, and only Curtis and Melissa McConnell were standing by
the door when she left with Randy.

When Melanie awoke the next morning, she could scarcely lift
her head off the pillow. Her head no longer throbbed. It pounded. Her throat
was on fire, and one look in the bathroom mirror showed that her glands were so
swollen that her neck was twice its normal size.

"Oh, no," she moaned as she staggered back to her
room and fell into bed. "I'm
sick.
"

When her mother took her temperature a little while later,
it was 103 degrees. "I'll call the doctor and see if I can get you in to
see him right away," she said, patting Melanie reassuringly. Then she
added, "I knew I shouldn't have let you go out so much lately."

"Did you call the attendance office to tell them I'll
be absent?" Melanie asked, and then both of them laughed at the way her swollen
throat made her voice sound more like a croak.

"Yes," said her mother. "Now you just rest,
and everything will be okay."

Dr. Garroway checked her over carefully as he had done so
many times since she was small. Finally he smiled sympathetically and said, "I
think we'd better take a little blood out of your finger and run a couple of
tests on it. I have a sneaking suspicion from the looks of things and from what
your mother tells me about your schedule lately that you just may have come
down with mononucleosis. It isn't fun," he said with a wink, "but it
isn't fatal, either."

Melanie stared at the end of her finger and flinched as Dr.
Garroway made a tiny prick and drew a few drops of blood up into a small glass
tube. Mononucleosis? she thought, feeling instantly panicky. Wasn't that the
same as mono?
The kissing disease?

The phone was ringing when Melanie and her mother got home
from the doctor's office. It was 4:15 in the afternoon, so Melanie knew the
call was for her, but her mother shooed her away from the phone.

"You get on up to bed, young lady," she said with
mock seriousness. "I'll answer it, and if it's for you, I'll tell them you'll
call back after you've rested for a while."

For once in her life Melanie was too tired to care about the
phone. She nodded gratefully and trudged up the stairs, barely hearing what her
mother was saying.

"Hi, Alexis. Yes, she's here, but she can't come to the
phone right now. We've just come from seeing Dr. Garroway, and he said she has
mononucleosis. Yes, that's right. Mono. She has to rest now, but she'll call
you back later."

Tumbling into bed, Melanie fell into a deep sleep. She slept
through dinner, and sometime after dark her mother awakened her and offered her
a bowl of soup.

"No, thanks," she said drowsily, and then turned
over and slept through the night.

She was still groggy when she awoke the next morning, and
her tongue felt dry and tasted as if an entire army of ants had marched across
it. Dr. Garroway had given her some medication and told her to get plenty of
rest and liquids. For once, his advice wouldn't be hard to follow.

She started to get out of bed when she remembered his
diagnosis. Mononucleosis. The kissing disease. She sank back against her
pillows. She had heard a lot about mono. Kids made jokes about it all the time,
and everyone always said that kissing was the way you caught it.

"But I couldn't have gotten it from Scott or Shane,"
she insisted, saying the words half aloud. "I was already starting to feel
sick before I kissed either one of them."

Melanie moped around her bedroom all day long, napping now
and then, but mostly staring at the ceiling and thinking about the kissing
disease.

"Where
did
I get it?" she asked herself
over and over. She thought about Scott and Shane again. Friday night had been
the first time Shane had ever kissed her, but Scott had kissed her twice before.
The last time had been when he took her home after Laura McCall's party, but
that had been weeks ago. The first time had been before that, in sixth grade
when they went to a movie together. Those two kisses had been too long ago to
make her sick now, and the kiss after the publicity committee meeting had been
too close.

Next she thought about her parents. She kissed them lots of
times and they kissed her back. They gave each other kisses good-bye and
sometimes kisses hello. But who ever heard of getting the kissing disease from
your parents?

I dream about kissing cute boys, she mused. Boys like
Garrett and Derek and, of course, Scott and Shane. In fact, sometimes I spend
practically all day long having daydreams about dates and kissing. "No,
silly," she scolded herself out loud. "You can't get real diseases
from daydreams."

She racked her brain for another idea. What about the parent
project and Scott's walrus? She considered that for a while. She and Scott had
been mother and father to Scott's stuffed walrus as part of the Family Living
class project. It was supposed to teach them responsibility, and either she or
Scott had to be with the "baby" at all times. Melanie remembered how
she had cuddled the walrus when it was her turn to take care of it. Could she
have come into contact with some germs then? Of course not, she assured
herself. Nothing of Scott's would have
germs
on it.

But germs . . . , she thought. There was another place she
could have gotten germs: in the biology lab. She sat up in bed at the idea. Why
hadn't she thought of it before? Wasn't Mr. Dracovitch always talking about the
importance of washing their hands before and after working on the specimens?
Maybe she had forgotten once and had gotten the kissing disease from touching
Shane's and her cow's eyeball! The idea was so absurd that she burst out
laughing.

It must be a mistake, she concluded. There was no way she
could possibly have mono. Maybe she should ask Dr. Garroway to take another
test, even if it meant getting her finger stuck a second time.

After school the phone rang again. A couple of minutes later
her mother popped her head in the door and said, "It's for you, honey. Do
you feel like talking to Beth?"

Melanie's heart leapt. One of her friends from The Fabulous
Five was calling? Maybe Beth had heard that Melanie was sick, and she really
did care, after all.

"Sure," she said. "I'll be right down."

"How are you feeling?" Beth asked eagerly when
Melanie said hello.

"A little loopy right now," she answered, and
chuckled. "I'm so weak that coming down the stairs just now was a real
adventure. I should be okay in a few days, though."

"That's good," said Beth. Then, in a cautious
voice, she asked, "Is what I heard at school today true?"

Melanie frowned. "What did you hear?"

"That you have mono."

There was silence on both ends of the line for a moment.
Then Beth went on, "Alexis said she called your house yesterday, and your
mom said you couldn't come to the phone because you had mononucleosis. Is it
true?"

Melanie's thoughts were churning. She had heard her mother
talking to Alexis, but she had been so tired that she had forgotten. How could
my own mother do such a thing to me? she wondered. Now everybody will know.

Melanie sighed. "It's true," she admitted. "But
I'll die if
everybody
finds out. Has Alexis told very many kids?"

Now it was Beth's turn to sigh. "Well, I don't know
exactly whom she's told, but she was talking about it in the cafeteria today.
You know what kind of scene that is. Almost anybody could have heard her. How
did you catch mono, anyway?"

"I don't know," Melanie admitted with a catch in
her voice. "I honestly don't know."

They talked for a few minutes longer, and just before they
hung up, Beth told her that Sirloin Snake had finally been found. "The
custodian spotted him behind the furnace," she said. "He was all
curled up sleeping just like Mr. Dracovitch said he would be."

"Great," Melanie said halfheartedly. "Now
everybody can put their feet on the floor again."

Even the good news about Mr. Dracovitch's snake didn't cheer
Melanie up. All she could think about for the rest of the day was
mononucleosis—the kissing disease—and what everyone at school was probably
saying about her. Especially Laura McCall. There was no way that Laura and the
rest of The Fantastic Foursome would miss making the most out of her
predicament.

The phone rang again just before bedtime. Melanie's stomach
was churning as her mother called her to the phone. She dreaded talking with
someone else from Wakeman about her illness.

It was Dekeisha. "Hi, Melanie," she began. "Are
you feeling well enough to talk? Everyone is saying that you have mono."

For a second Melanie considered denying it, and saying
instead that she only had a cold. If only her mother hadn't told Alexis the
truth, she thought for the umpteenth time that day.

"I do have mono," she finally answered, adding
quickly, "but the doctor said it's a
very
mild case. What's new at
school?"

"That's partly why I called," Dekeisha said. "Laura
McCall and her friends were saying all kinds of things about you today. Laura
says that you've started an epidemic at school."

"What!" shrieked Melanie.

"Well," continued Dekeisha cautiously, "at
cheerleading practice Laura told everyone that you were bragging at Bumpers on
Saturday about kissing Scott and Shane. And Melissa McConnell said she saw you
get a ride home with Randy Kirwan from the refreshments committee meeting
Monday night. Chandra Sharp saw you flirting with Derek Travelstead at the
decorations committee meeting and told Tammy Lucero all about it in biology
class today. So The Fantastic Foursome says that there's no telling how many other
boys you've infected with the kissing disease."

Melanie was speechless. Somehow she managed to thank
Dekeisha for calling and got back to her room. There she stood in the middle of
the floor, shaking with anger and humiliation. The nerve of Laura McCall,
accusing her of infecting boys with mono, of starting an epidemic!

A new wave of tiredness swept over her, and she sank onto
her bed again. She had been so busy trying to figure out how she had caught the
kissing disease herself that she hadn't even thought about the possibility of
passing it on to someone else. What if she
had
given it to Scott? What
would he do?

"He'll hate me the rest of his life, that's what!"
she muttered aloud.

And what about Shane? She closed her eyes and imagined his
coming to her house to pick up his albums wearing a doctor's breathing mask and
rubber gloves. "I must disinfect these before I play them again," he
said as he carried them out in a cardboard box marked CONTAMINATED in big red
letters.

Maybe they would have to disinfect the whole school. She
thought back to the time a few years ago when she had found an abandoned litter
of kittens, put them into a box next to the dryer, and one had died of
distemper. The vet had told them to make a mixture of bleach and water and
disinfect the laundry room. Would Mr. Bell, the principal, hand out buckets of
bleach water and sponges to every seventh-grader with instructions to disinfect
Wacko Junior High just as if she were a stray kitten with distemper?

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She brushed them away, but
more followed. What if Laura was right and the boys she had kissed really
did
get sick? All the other boys would run when she got near them. Nobody would
want to sit beside her in class or stand near her in the cafeteria line. She'd
be so embarrassed that she'd die. How could she possibly go back to school?

Melanie felt more alone and friendless than she ever had in
her life. Where were her best friends in The Fabulous Five now that she needed
them desperately? Busy! she thought angrily. Busy going their own separate
ways.