Fabulous Five 007 - The Kissing Disaster (8 page)

Melanie's scalp tingled as if a thousand daddy longlegs
spiders were dancing in her hair. "What
about
the kissing disease?"
she whispered.

"Well," Christie began importantly, "my
brother Mike called a little while ago to say that he's coming home this
weekend. He's in medical school, you know."

"I know! I know!" insisted Melanie, slapping the
wall behind her impatiently. "What about the kissing disease?"

"I'm getting to that. Anyway, I answered the phone, and
after he told me he would be home for the weekend, I asked him if he had
studied anything about mononucleosis in medical school yet. At first he thought
I had it, and he laughed, calling it the kissing disease and asking me where I
got it."

Christie paused, and Melanie's heart sank. This didn't sound
like anything she wanted to hear. She was about to say so when Christie started
talking again.

"So I said, no, I don't have it, but do you really get
it from kissing? And he laughed again and said, no, that's just a myth. It's
really a virus that makes kids sick when they get too tired and run-down and
don't eat right or take care of themselves. He said it's really hard to catch
from someone else, and that the odds are about a billion to one against getting
it from kissing. Isn't that terrific!"

Melanie was too weak-kneed to answer right away, and she
slid slowly down the wall and sank to the floor as a giddy smile spread across
her face. If you couldn't get it from kissing, then she hadn't passed it on to
Scott or Shane, either.

"Are you there?" demanded Christie. "Answer
me!"

"I'm here," said Melanie.

"You didn't faint, did you?" Christie asked
anxiously. "Maybe you'd better get back to bed."

"I didn't faint. In fact I've never felt so great in my
life. And what's more, no matter what that witch Laura McCall and her friends
are trying to spread, I
couldn't
have started an epidemic of the kissing
disease!"

"Right," said Christie. "The trouble is that
she has practically everybody convinced that you did and that you're a walking
disaster."

Melanie's happy mood fizzled away like a balloon with a slow
leak. "Is it that bad?"

"Worse," said Christie. "Don't tell anyone I
told you this, but at noon I overheard Elizabeth Harvey telling some girls that
she had accidentally touched your locker with her left hand and that she was
heading straight to the girls' room to wash it off."

"What!" shrieked Melanie. "I thought mono was
supposed to be a
kissing
disease, not a
touching
disease."

"That was before Laura and her gossipy friends started
talking about it," conceded Christie.

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then Melanie
asked in a small voice, "What am I going to do?"

"I don't know yet, but I'm thinking," Christie
assured her. "And so are the rest of The Fabulous Five. I've already
talked to them. Meet us at the fence in the morning. Maybe by then one of us
will have thought of a way to stop the lies that Laura and her friends are
telling."

Melanie tumbled into bed as soon as they hung up, but she
had too much on her mind to go to sleep. She wanted to hug herself with joy now
because Christie had found out that mono wasn't really a kissing disease, and
because Christie and the others wanted to help fight the rumors Laura had
started. But at the same time, she felt confused. The real reason she had
gotten mono was because she had been going to all those dance committee
meetings so she could make new friends and had been going out with cute boys
and trying to be popular. And the reason she had worked herself silly trying to
be popular was because she had thought that her old friends in The Fabulous
Five didn't want to be friends with her anymore, and she wanted to show them
that she didn't need them either.

No, she corrected herself. I didn't just work myself
silly.
I worked myself into a big, fat case of mononucleosis. And for what? Just so
that The Fabulous Five can help me get out of all the trouble that I created
for myself! The thought was so funny that she rolled over onto her back and
giggled in the dark.

When Melanie got to the fence the next morning, the rest of
The Fabulous Five were already there. For the first time in weeks they acted
genuinely glad to see her, gathering around her and asking how she felt.

"Lots better," she said, "but I still don't
know what to do about Laura's lies. Does anyone have any ideas?"

"No," confessed Christie. "I thought and
thought and thought last night, but I couldn't come up with anything."

"Me, either," said Beth.

"I guess all we can do is talk to as many kids as
possible and tell them that mono isn't really a kissing disease," said
Melanie.

"But who's going to believe us?" argued Katie. "They
all know Melanie is one of our best friends. They'll think we're just saying it
to make her look better. What we need is someone with authority to tell them."

Everyone sighed and lapsed into silence again. Melanie knew
that Katie was right. There was no use in going around saying one thing when
Laura and her friends would be saying the opposite. Just as many kids would
believe Laura as would believe them. What good would that do? What they needed
was someone with authority. But who?

"What about the school nurse?" asked Jana.

"She visits a different school every day," Melanie
reminded her. "This is only Tuesday, and she won't get to Wacko until
Friday. I can't wait that long."

Jana shrugged apologetically and everyone went back to
thinking again.

"I know this is far out," Katie said, "but
what about Mr. Dracovitch?"

"Get real," Beth said incredulously.

"The biology teacher?" murmured Melanie.

"Sure," said Katie.

"Maybe you've got something," said Melanie. "He
knows about all kinds of medical things. You should have heard what he told our
class about eyeballs. And everybody believed him. I'll bet if he made a
scientific announcement about mono's not being a kissing disease, kids would
believe him about that, too."

"I don't know," said Jana, shaking her head.

"Wait a minute," said Katie. "It's a great
idea. Let's at least go ask him. If we hurry, we can talk to him before the
bell rings."

Melanie was still feeling weak from her illness so she
trailed the others as they raced into the school and up the stairs to the biology
lab. She kept her fingers crossed the whole way that he would be in his room by
now, and her heart was pounding from both exertion and excitement when she
peeked inside the laboratory door and saw him sitting at his desk.

"Mr. Dracovitch?" she asked softly.

He looked up and smiled at her. "Hi, Melanie. Come on
in. Oh, I see you have friends with you. They're welcome, too."

"Go on," whispered Katie, nudging her forward. "We'll
back you up."

Melanie took a deep breath and approached her teacher's desk
while the others lingered near the door. He was looking at her kindly, but she
couldn't help noticing for the zillionth time how his shiny, black toupee made
him look exactly like Dracula. Why would anybody in her right mind go to him
for help in putting a stop to untrue rumors? she wondered.

She shifted from one foot to the other, trying to find a way
to begin. It all sounded so crazy when she tried to say it out loud.

"What can I do for you?" urged Mr. Dracovitch.

"Someone in this school is spreading terrible lies
about why I've been sick, and I need scientific proof that mononucleosis
isn't
a kissing disease and that I
haven't
started an epidemic." Melanie
blurted the words out, but once she did, she began to feel better. She told him
the whole story, leaving out only the names of the guilty so that he wouldn't
think that her motive was only revenge.

Mr. Dracovitch listened quietly. When she had finished
talking, he leaned back in his chair, touched the tips of his fingers together,
and looked at her thoughtfully.

"Hmmm," he said at last. "I can see that you
do have a problem and a serious one at that. It isn't much fun to have vicious
rumors spread about you."

He paused, and Melanie swallowed hard and waited for him to
go on. "I think I can help you," he said. Smiling, he motioned for
her to come closer. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he whispered conspiratorially,
"In case I can't find mononucleosis in any of my science books, is it okay
if I check with your doctor?"

"Sure," she whispered back. "He's Dr.
Garroway."

Melanie could hardly contain her happiness after she left
Mr. Dracovitch's room. She didn't even mind that some kids stepped out of her
way in the halls and others turned away and began whispering. She wasn't sure
exactly how good old Dracula was going to help her, but she knew he would.

Homeroom period dragged on forever. Mrs. Clark, Melanie's
homeroom teacher, took attendance, collected lunch money, and read the morning
announcements just as she did every morning. "All right, students, please
work on your homework assignments or sit quietly for the rest of the period,"
she said.

Just then the door opened and Miss Simone, the school
secretary, came bustling into the room carrying a stack of papers. She took one
off the top and thrust it toward Mrs. Clark.

"This is an additional announcement," said Miss
Simone. "Please read it right away."

Mrs. Clark glanced at the announcement, looked surprised for
an instant, and then said, "This is from Mr. Dracovitch."

Melanie sprang to attention like a jack-in-the-box as Mrs.
Clark went on.

"'It has come to my attention that some incorrect
information is circulating around Wakeman Junior High about mononucleosis. As
your science teacher, I want to inform you that there is no scientific basis
for believing that mono is a kissing disease.'"

Giggles and whispers interrupted Mrs. Clark, and Melanie
could feel eyes turning to her.

"'Furthermore,'" Mrs. Clark went on reading. "'I
have consulted with a prominent local physician, and he has confirmed that
mononucleosis is a virus that attacks only the most hardworking, busy, and
popular students.'"

Pandemonium broke loose as kids stamped and whistled and
applauded. Everyone in the room was in an uproar except Melanie. She just
leaned back against her seat and smiled.

"You know, what Mr. Dracovitch said about mono's being
a virus that attacks hardworking, busy, and popular kids is true," said
Katie when The Fabulous Five met at Bumpers after school.

Melanie was only half listening. She was thinking about how much
better her life had become since homeroom this morning. Laura McCall had gone
around looking mad enough to spit hornets. Dekeisha and Chandra had both asked
Melanie if she was feeling well enough to come back to the dance committee
meetings. Scott had stopped at her table in the cafeteria to ask her if it was
okay to double with Mark Peters and Alexis Duvall for the dance, and Shane had
slipped her a note in biology class saying that if she wasn't busy Friday
night, he'd like to come over and listen to Definitely Yes and Probably Yes
records with her. And then, after school the rest of The Fabulous Five had
waited for her beside her locker so that they could all come to Bumpers
together.

"I agree," Beth was saying to Katie. "Especially
about the popular part. Mel, every time I looked at you, you were surrounded by
kids. I didn't know that you had so many friends."

Melanie shrugged and took a long drink of her soda. Here it
comes, she thought. I might as well level with them.

"You were the friends that were most important to me,
but you were all changing and acting as if you didn't want to be around me
anymore. I felt invisible. And no matter what subject I brought up, the rest of
you seemed to want to talk about something else. Finally, I decided that you
didn't want to be friends anymore, and that maybe The Fabulous Five was
starting to break up. You were all too busy to care about me anymore, and that's
why I started going around with a lot of other kids."

"To make us jealous?" asked Beth.

Melanie nodded and choked back tears. She wanted to say
more, to talk about how lonely she had been, how left out she had felt, but she
knew she would never be able to get the words out around the lump in her
throat.

"I know exactly how you felt," said Jana. Melanie
looked at her in surprise as she went on. "I felt all alone just before
Mom and Pink got married. I wanted to talk to someone about how different
things were going to be when I had to start sharing Mom with Pink all the time,
but you guys just wanted to talk about the wedding."

Melanie listened in amazement as each one of her friends
mentioned times when she had felt left out, too.

"You guys always seem to resent the time I spend with
Jon," admitted Christie. "And I'll never forget how you guys
nominated me for class president without even asking me how I felt about it."

"Not one of you ever wants to hear about Teen Court and
how important it can be to Wakeman Junior High," said Katie.

Even Beth shrugged and said, "I can't see anything
wrong with trying to help the Indians, but sometimes you guys act as if I've
lost my mind." She sighed and added, "Sometimes it just seems better
to do my own thing and go my own separate way."

Melanie rattled the ice in the bottom of her glass and
stared at it. She was thinking about all the stories she had heard about
friendships changing in junior high.
Changing
, she thought. That was the
clue. Friendships changed, but they didn't have to end.

"I guess we don't always have to like exactly the same
things to still be best friends," she said softly.

"Or spend every single waking moment together,"
offered Jana.

"You're right," said Christie. "As we get
older, it's only natural that we'll start having separate interests."

"Absolutely," said Katie. "We're
friends,
not
clones!
The important thing is that we'll always care about each
other and be there when one of us needs help."

Melanie nodded. "Just the way you came to my rescue.
The important thing is that we've got to listen to each other from now on."
She started feeling choked up again, but this time it was because she was
happy. Raising her glass in triumph, she said, "We'll
always
be The
Fabulous Five!"

Wacko Wonderland was a huge success, even though Melanie had
a terrible time deciding what kind of costume to wear. She had thought about
going as Elvira after she'd seen a costume at a discount store. Even there, the
price was too high for her allowance, and so she racked her brain to come up
with something clever that she could put together herself. Finally, she thought
of the perfect idea.

The day of the dance she put on her chocolate-brown jogging
suit. Then she glued little balls of yellow, green, blue, orange, and pink
tissue paper all over it. Next, she found an old baseball cap that belonged to
her dad. She cut a few short, bare branches off the maple tree in the back
yard, glued on green construction-paper leaves, and attached the branches to
the cap before setting it on her head.

"You're the gum tree!" shouted Scott when she
opened the door for him a little while later.

"And you're a robot," she guessed. He was standing
on the front step wrapped in aluminum foil from head to toe.

"Naw," he said. "I'm a mummy from outer
space. But you were close."

There were all sorts of far-out monsters at the dance,
milling around under ghostly pastel-colored streamers. Dozens of weird-looking
space creatures hovered around the refreshment table. "Earth food! Earth
food!" shouted one of them in a voice that sounded like Curtis Trowbridge's.

Taffy Sinclair was covered with puffy pink netting. "I'm
a pink cloud," she said proudly.

Shane's costume was one of the biggest surprises of all.

"Look!" someone shouted. "Here comes a cow's eyeball!"

Shane stepped into the center of the room grinning broadly
and wearing a huge, round papier-mâché ball that reached from his shoulders
down to his knees. The front looked exactly like an eye with a pupil and iris
inside a large white area that was surrounded by a fringe of black pipe-cleaner
lashes. The rest of the ball was bluish-black just as the real eyeball had
been. Kids were laughing and crowding around him.

"That's a terrific costume," said Melanie. "But
where's Igor? I thought he was going to help you with the music."

Shane gave her a helpless shrug. "It's his own fault.
He was supposed to dress as my teardrop, but he said he'd look silly and
refused to get into his costume."

Mr. Bell and Miss Dickinson moved around the crowd talking
to first one monster and then another, but even though Melanie had been
watching for him all evening, she couldn't spot the other chaperon, Mr.
Dracovitch.

She still felt guilty. He had been so nice to help her get
rid of the rumors that had been making her life so miserable, and yet kids were
still calling him Dracula and saying he was a vampire behind his back. Asking
him to be a chaperon at a monster dance seemed to her to make the insult worse.

Suddenly there was a commotion near the door. As she and
Scott pushed forward, she could see a puff of smoke and hear kids gasp around
the room. An instant later the smoke cleared and there he stood—
Dracula!
Melanie's
heart stopped. He looked so
real.
His shiny, black toupee was pulled
even lower than usual on his forehead, and his huge eyes were outlined in
black. He was wearing a black cape lined in blood red, which he swirled about
himself as he entered the room.

"What's going on?" whispered Scott, taking Melanie's
hand.

"I don't know," she said, "but it's scary."

The next instant Dracula stopped stone still and held up his
hand for silence. Then his face took on a sinister grin, revealing long, sharp
fangs. "I have heard . . . that you students . . . know my secret,"
he began in a raspy voice. "And so . . . I have come . . ." He
paused, raising his eyebrows and looking around the room as a second wave of
gasps filled the air.

To bite your neck.
Melanie finished his sentence in
her mind as she held Scott's hand and squeezed it tight.

". . . TO CHAPERON YOUR DANCE! SO HAVE FUN!" He
threw back his head and laughed again, but this time he didn't sound the least
bit like a monster. Melanie's mouth dropped open. She couldn't believe it. He
had known all along. And tonight he had fooled them, playing a gigantic trick
on everyone there, and best of all, they were all laughing with him because
they loved it.

A little while later when the music was going and everybody
was dancing and having fun, Melanie saw Mr. Dracovitch standing alone. She took
a deep breath and headed toward him. There was something she needed to ask.

"Excuse me," she said timidly. "But why did
you help me out with the terrible things kids were saying about me when you
knew all along what they were saying about you?"

"Do you mean that I'm a vampire?" he asked, and
raised one eyebrow.

Melanie nodded. It sounded even worse when Mr. Dracovitch
said it himself.

"Well, you see, Melanie, there are two different kinds
of rumors. The ones someone starts about you, and the ones you start about
yourself."

Melanie looked at him with shocked disbelief, but before she
could say anything, he went on, "That's right. I wanted kids to call me
Dracula all along. I think it's terrific. It gets a lot more Wakeman kids
interested in taking science classes. In fact," he said, slipping back
into his Dracula voice, "they hang . . . on every word . . . that I say."

It was the biggest joke yet, and when Melanie thought about
it the next day, she had to admit that Mr. Dracovitch was pretty cool. He had
masqueraded as a vampire to get kids interested in science. He had let them
talk about him and laugh about him without batting an eye.

"Now that's what I call being secure," she
admitted out loud.

I'm a lot more secure now, too, she thought. When I was
doubting The Fabulous Five's friendship, I was really doubting myself. It took
the kissing disease to make me see the truth.

The kissing disease, she mused, and then smiled. She had
learned the truth about that, too, and nothing could be more super—especially
since she had danced with gorgeous Derek Travelstead last night and then given
him her telephone number.