Fabulous Five 008 - The Runaway Crisis (7 page)

Katie and her mother stared at the television in silent
disbelief as Marge Whitworth introduced Shawnie's parents for a second appeal.

"We are offering one thousand dollars to anyone who has
any information on our daughter's whereabouts," Mr. Pendergast said. There
were dark circles under his eyes, and Katie guessed that he still hadn't had
any rest. Mrs. Pendergast looked equally tired.

They really are worried, thought Katie, no matter what
Shawnie says.

A telephone number flashed on the screen, and Willie
scribbled it onto the lid of the pizza box. "We'll call as soon as they've
had time to get home. We have to tell them what we know," she said,
sighing deeply. Then, as if she were talking to herself, she shook her head and
murmured, "I should never have trusted Shawnie to go home on her own. I
should have known that she was too upset. I should have
insisted
on
driving her home."

Katie felt a sudden sympathy for her mother. Willie had
believed she was doing the best thing for Shawnie by sending her home. And she
had trusted Shawnie, too, Katie thought, just the same as I did.

At that instant the phone rang. Katie jumped as if she had
been stuck with a pin. Willie was sitting closer, so she answered.

"It's for you," she said, handing the receiver to
Katie. "It's Tony."

"Did you see the news on TV?" he asked as soon as
she said hello. "They still haven't found Shawnie. It doesn't surprise me
a bit, though."

"Why not?" asked Katie. "Why are you always
putting her down?"

"Oh, you'd have to know her to understand."

"I do know her," Katie insisted. "And I think
she's nice. She has a lot of trouble at home and she needs somebody to help
her."

"And Her Honor, Katie Shannon, is coming to the rescue,"
said Tony.

"Well, somebody has to. I even let her stay in my room
last night, but she's gone now, and I don't know where she is."

"What!" shouted Tony. "You let her hide at
your house? Wow, Katie. Can't you tell when you're being taken?"

Katie sucked in her breath in anger. "And I suppose
getting petitions to allow boys to wear earrings to school was different? Was I
being taken then, too?"

She slammed down the phone and spun around so that her
mother would not see the tears jetting into her eyes.
Boys!
she thought.
I should have known better than to trust Tony. He's just like all the others.

A little while later Willie called the Pendergasts and told
them what she knew about Shawnie. Katie cringed as her mother described how
Katie had hidden Shawnie in her room overnight, but Willie took all the
responsibility herself for allowing Shawnie to leave for home on her own.

"What did they say?" asked Katie when Willie hung
up.

Willie smiled sympathetically. "They said to thank you
for letting her stay here last night. They said they understood why you did it.
They also said that they understood why we let her leave this morning with just
a promise to go home. They were very nice about the whole thing, and they said
they were relieved to know that she didn't spend the night alone on the
streets."

Katie felt a little bit better, but she was still worried
about Shawnie. "Have they heard from anyone who knows where she is
now?"

Willie shook her head. "Ours was the first call they
had gotten."

The phone rang again a little while later. It was Jana this
time. She had seen the telecast about Shawnie, too, and had called because she
knew Katie had been so concerned about Shawnie earlier.

"I just don't know what to do," said Katie after
she told Jana the whole story. "I don't know where else she would go."

"Maybe you should call some of her old friends from Copper
Beach. She might have gone to one of their houses," offered Jana.

"That's a good idea, but . . ."

"But what?" asked Jana.

Katie sighed. "I don't know who her old friends are. I
don't remember seeing her with anyone around school. Do you?"

"Now that you mention it, no," said Jana. "But
Tony ought to know. He went to Copper Beach."

Katie bit her lower lip. She didn't want to admit that she
and Tony had had a fight over Shawnie and that she had hung up on him. "I
think I'll call Dekeisha instead," she said.

When she hung up from talking to Jana, she dialed Dekeisha's
number, but the line was busy. She tried again a few minutes later, but it was
still busy. She sat down on one of the kitchen stools and drummed her
fingertips on the counter top, waiting to try Dekeisha's number again and
thinking about Shawnie.

She had never paid much attention to Shawnie's other friends
before, but now that she thought about it, she couldn't remember ever seeing
Shawnie with anyone else. Didn't the other girls from Copper Beach like her?
Were they jealous of her beautiful clothes? Or did it have something to do with
the reason Tony didn't like her?

Katie jumped, startled by a sound she couldn't identify. She
glanced toward the living room where Willie sat on the sofa watching
television. Her mother couldn't have made the noise. And besides, Katie
thought, it sounded as if it came from the basement.

Maybe it was Libber, she thought, looking around for the
yellow cat. I haven't seen her all day. Maybe she went downstairs with Mom
sometime and got stuck down there when the door closed.

Katie opened the door to the basement and flipped on the
light switch. "Libber?" she called softly as she crept down the
stairs. The basement was dark and musty, and she hated going down there after
dark. It made her shiver, reminding her of the spooky stories The Fabulous Five
used to tell at slumber parties when they were younger.

"Here, kitty, kitty," she called. "Come on,
Libber. I'll take you back upstairs."

That's funny, she thought when Libber did not appear. Where
is that cat?

She was growing accustomed to the dimness and she scanned
the dark shapes of storage boxes sitting around the room for a pair of golden
eyes and a long, flicking tail.

Suddenly one of the shapes moved. Katie felt a scream
gathering in her throat, but before she could utter a sound, she heard someone
call her name, and Shawnie stepped out of the shadows.

Rushing forward, Shawnie whispered, "Shhh! Don't make
any noise.
Please!
"

"How did you get in here?" Katie whispered back
over the pounding of her heart. "You scared me to death. And what are you
doing here, anyway? You promised you'd go home."

"I know I did," said Shawnie. Her eyes were big
and pleading. "And I was going, too. But when I got around the corner, I
knew I couldn't. I thought about coming back here and talking to your mom, but
I knew she'd just send me home again and that this time she would see to it
that I got there. I was sitting in the grass behind your house trying to decide
where to go when I heard your car pull out of the driveway. I peeked around a
bush and saw that you were both in it, so I tried the door on the side of the
garage, and it was open. You can figure out the rest."

"You mean you've been here all day?" asked Katie.

Shawnie nodded.

"And I'll bet you haven't eaten anything either. You
must be starved."

Shawnie nodded again. "I almost died when I smelled
pizza a little while ago. But don't worry about me. I'll be okay. The main
thing is not to let your mother know I'm down here."

Katie's mind was racing. How could she
not
tell
Willie that Shawnie was hiding in their basement? But Shawnie was right about
one thing. If Willie knew, she would take Shawnie straight home to her parents.
I have to stall while I figure out how to handle this, she thought.

"There are a couple of slices of pizza left," she
said. "I'll sneak up and get them out of the fridge." Seeing panic in
Shawnie's eyes, she added, "Mom will just think I ate them."

Katie managed to get the pizza slices and a can of soda out
of the refrigerator without attracting Willie's attention and slipped back down
to the basement. She watched Shawnie gulp down the food and thought about her
predicament. Most of all she wanted to be fair. Fair to Shawnie. Fair to her
mother. Even fair to Shawnie's parents since she knew they were genuinely
worried. But how could she be fair to everyone? She was caught in the middle.

"Did you know that your parents are offering a one-thousand-dollar
reward for information on where you are?" she asked.

Shawnie's face lit up. "They are? Cool! Maybe you can
call them when I'm ready to go home, and they'll give it to you."

"Moms already called them and told them that you were
here last night," said Katie, regretting it the instant the words were
out. Now Shawnie would never trust Willie again. That only made her own
predicament worse.

Shawnie must have sensed Katie's helpless feeling because
she moved closer and said, "I know you're trying to do the right thing.
That's the kind of person you are. You're fair and you always try to help
people when they need it. That's why you've got to promise that you won't give
me away. I
can't
go home. All I can tell you is that I'll be in terrible
danger if I do. You're the only one I could turn to who would listen or care."

Katie didn't know what to say. How could she possibly not do
what Shawnie was asking when she needed help so badly? At least her parents
knew she hadn't been kidnapped or anything like that. But still . . .

"Katie? Where are you, sweetheart? You have a phone
call."

Katie shot to attention at the sound of Willie's voice. "I'm
in the basement . . . looking for Libber," she shouted. "I'll be up
in a minute."

Turning to Shawnie, she whispered, "I have to go now. I'll
try to get back down later and bring you some blankets and stuff. We'll figure
out what to do in the morning."

Racing up the stairs, she shut the basement door behind her
and grabbed the phone.

"Hi. It's me again," said Jana. "I was just
wondering if you found out anything about Shawnie from Dekeisha."

"Not yet," said Katie. "I called twice, but
her line was busy both times." She briefly considered confiding in Jana
that Shawnie was in her basement but decided against it. Willie might overhear,
and Katie wasn't prepared for that. "I'll try again now," she added, "and
I'll let you know if I find out anything."

Katie hung up the phone a moment later and started to turn
away when she changed her mind. Maybe she ought to call Dekeisha after all. It
wouldn't hurt to check out a few things about Shawnie while she had the chance.
This time the phone rang, and Dekeisha answered.

"Hey, I saw you at the movie with Tony Calcaterra last
night," said Dekeisha after the two girls had exchanged hellos. "I
thought you two would start dating sooner or later."

"Right," said Katie. "Tony and I did go out
last night, but it's Shawnie Pendergast that I'm calling about."

"Oh, so you finally found out about that, huh?"

Katie frowned at the receiver. "What are you talking
about? What did I finally find out about?"

"That Tony used to be Shawnie's boyfriend in Copper
Beach, but she dumped him. Hey, wait a minute. Did I spill something?"

Katie was flabbergasted. "Oh, no. I knew all about
that," she lied. "I've got to go now. My mom's calling. Bye."

She felt like a zombie as she headed for her room. Tony had
been the boyfriend Shawnie had mentioned the day she went to Bumpers with The
Fabulous Five, and
she
had dumped
him.
So that was it. No wonder
Tony didn't like her anymore, and it was also no wonder that he always put her
down. He was still mad, and he was trying to turn everyone against her.

"And I almost believed him," Katie whispered under
her breath. "I almost let him convince me that I couldn't trust Shawnie
when he was the one with the problem."

Katie gathered up the blankets and the pillow that Shawnie
had used the night before and put them in the chair beside her bedroom door.
She would wait until her mother went to bed, and then she would take them down
to the basement for Shawnie to use tonight and any other night she needed them.
She would take some food down, too, and a flashlight and maybe her portable
radio if Shawnie would promise to keep the volume turned down low.

Poor Shawnie, she thought. Everyone is against her. I really
am
the only one she has to turn to. No matter what, I won't let her down.

The next day, Sunday, was one of the most frantic days of
Katie's entire life. Whenever Willie's back was turned, she raced to the
basement loaded down with whatever supplies she could find to make Shawnie more
comfortable. She took down peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, a package
of Oreo cookies, and once she spotted the picnic cooler stored on a shelf at
the back of the basement, she sneaked down trays of ice. Then, when the ice was
in the cooler, she hauled soda and a half carton of chocolate chip ice cream
from the kitchen.

Shawnie had been busy, too. She had rearranged the storage
boxes in one corner of the basement into the shape of a small room, using a low
box as a table beside her bedding. On the table were the flashlight and radio.
She had even set up two folding lawn chairs that had been stored in the
basement for the winter.

"When you were younger, did you ever read the books
about The Borrowers?" she asked Katie as the two sat in the lawn chairs
pulling apart cookies and licking the frosting from the middle after Willie had
gone out to an afternoon bridge game.

"Do you mean those tiny little people who lived in some
regular-size people's house and borrowed things to furnish their own teeny tiny
rooms?"

Shawnie nodded and laughed. "That's exactly how I feel,
like one of The Borrowers. The only difference is that I'm regular size, too."

Katie tried to laugh with her, but she couldn't. "Are
you okay down here?" she asked. "I mean, it can't be very
comfortable."

"It's just perfect. You know, there are lots of ways to
be comfortable, and this is definitely more comfortable than being at home."

As Katie's sympathy for Shawnie grew, so did her admiration,
and she was determined to make life in the basement as painless as she possibly
could. While Willie was gone, she let Shawnie come upstairs to take a shower
and wash her hair. Shawnie read the comics and the front-page story about her
disappearance in the Sunday paper and was playing with Libber in the middle of
the living room floor when Katie heard her mother's car pull into the driveway.

"You'd better get downstairs," she cautioned
Shawnie. "Mom's back."

Shawnie scurried down the stairs, and Katie made a quick
check to be sure everything was back to normal in the house before her mother
came in. She wasn't able to go down to the basement again before bedtime, and
she lay awake for a long time wondering if Shawnie was really as comfortable
down there as she had said.

She wasn't able to see Shawnie before she left for school
the next morning either, and although Shawnie had been on her mind constantly
all weekend, she was amazed at how many students were talking about her on the
school ground.

Alexis Duvall and Lisa Snow were the first to stop her. "Katie,
did you hear about Shawnie Pendergast?" asked Alexis. "She ran away
from home. Isn't that awful?"

Katie nodded and kept on walking toward The Fabulous Five,
who stood by the fence. She had wanted to mention to Alexis that maybe staying
home would have been even worse for Shawnie than running away, but she hadn't.
It wouldn't do any good. Nobody else really cared about Shawnie but her.

"Did you ever talk to Dekeisha?" asked Jana as
soon as Katie reached the group of friends.

"Not really," said Katie. She didn't want to
mention her conversation with Dekeisha about Tony.

"What was that all about?" asked Melanie. "Does
Dekeisha know where Shawnie is?"

"No," said Jana. "At least we don't think so.
Katie was going to ask her about Shawnie's friends from Copper Beach. Neither
of us can remember ever seeing her going around with anyone."

"Gee, me either," said Beth. "Whenever I
noticed her, she was by herself until she got to be friends with Katie."

"That doesn't mean she doesn't have friends," snapped
Katie.

"But if we knew who they were, we might know where she
is," insisted Jana. "Especially since she went to Katie first."

Christie, Melanie, and Beth all looked at Katie in surprise,
so she told them about Shawnie's hiding in her room on Friday night and then
promising to go home Saturday morning. As badly as she wanted to ask her best
friends' help, she knew she had to keep it a secret where Shawnie was hiding
now.

"Maybe Mandy McDermott would know," said Christie.
"She's in my social studies class and she went to Copper Beach. I'll ask
her."

When Katie went to her locker just before the bell, Tony was
waiting for her. Even with all the excitement over Shawnie, he had been in her
mind. At first she had simply been angry at him for deceiving her about Shawnie
and making her think that there was something wrong with her new friend. But
now she felt terribly sad because she had liked him so much and had been so
convinced that he was special. Well, he isn't, she told herself firmly. He's
nothing but a macho show-off.

"Good morning, Your Honor," Tony said
sarcastically.

"Morning," she muttered.

"Don't forget that march for hunger is this Saturday
and that we still have a lot of work to do on it," he went on. "We
need to have sign-up sheets in the cafeteria again, and a few posters around
town wouldn't hurt either."

The sarcasm was gone from his voice, but so was the twinkle
that usually showed in his eyes when he talked to her. It was obvious to Katie
that he was as upset with her as she was with him.

"Okay," she said tersely. "I'll see you at
lunch." Jerking open her locker, she got out her books, slammed it shut,
and left him standing there.

She had taken only a few steps down the hall when she
stopped and glanced back over her shoulder. Tony was still standing beside her
locker solemnly watching her walk away. She bit her lower lip and tried to
decide what to do. A small worry was beginning to burrow into her mind the way
Libber sometimes burrowed into her lap. Libber would poke and nudge until she
fit the contours perfectly, and then she would settle down, taking complete
possession of Katie's lap so that she was almost impossible to dislodge. Katie
knew she would have trouble dislodging this troublesome thought, too, unless
she faced it head-on. After all, she reasoned, there was a strong possibility
that she was the one being unfair this time. Maybe she was jumping to
conclusions. Even if it was true that Shawnie had dumped Tony back in Copper
Beach Elementary, that didn't automatically mean that it was all his fault.

She turned around slowly, meaning to return to her locker
and to Tony, but she had waited too long. He was gone.

The morning did not get better. Christie stopped her in the
hall way while classes were passing between first and second period.

"I talked to Mandy," said Christie, "and you
won't believe what she said."

"What?" asked Katie.

"She said that Shawnie doesn't have many friends at
all. She said it was because Shawnie is a spoiled brat and she uses people to
get what she wants."

Anger flashed in Katie's brain. "What did Shawnie ever
do to Mandy?" she snapped. Then, seeing that her outburst had caused
students to stop in the hall and stare at her, she thanked Christie and went on
to her class. Still, she couldn't help wondering why everybody was picking on
Shawnie.

At lunchtime Katie shared the sign-up table in the cafeteria
with Tony. She wanted so badly to talk to him, to ask him what had really
happened between him and Shawnie, but she didn't know how. He practically
ignored her, busily shuffling the sign-up sheets whenever she looked at him.

I don't care, she told herself stubbornly. I don't want to
talk to a macho, show-off
jerk
anyway.

The instant that thought had formed in her mind, she knew it
wasn't true. He was macho, and he did like to show off. But he wasn't a jerk.
She was the jerk for hanging up on him. She couldn't blame him for being angry.
Over and over she practiced mentally what to say to him, but every time she
thought she had the speech just right, more students came up to sign the lists.
Finally lunch period was over, and Tony left the cafeteria without a word.

Katie avoided Bumpers after school and went straight home.
Willie was hard at work at her computer, so after a fast hello to her mother,
Katie slipped downstairs to check on Shawnie.

"Hi," Shawnie said brightly. "Did I miss
anything major at school today?"

"No," Katie assured her. "Just the same old
stuff."

"I got lucky," Shawnie bragged. "I heard your
mom make a phone call to set up an interview and then go out, so I got to go
upstairs and watch soap operas for almost two hours."

"That's good," Katie said halfheartedly. She knew
that she should be glad that Shawnie hadn't been stuck in the dark basement all
day without even a bathroom, but she felt depressed instead. Shawnie seemed
incredibly happy, living in a dark basement and laughing over each report of
her parents' misery. Nothing else was going right for Katie, either, and as
badly as she hated to admit it even to herself, it was all because of Shawnie.
No matter how hard she tried not to doubt Shawnie's word, things were beginning
to stack up against her. Who really was telling the truth, anyway? Shawnie? Or
Tony and Mandy and even Mr. and Mrs. Pendergast?

"I stopped by the Burger Barn and got you a hamburger
and fries," said Katie after a while, pulling the bag of food out of her
backpack. "I'll try to come back down before I go to bed, but I can't
promise."

"Sure," said Shawnie. "I understand."

Katie dreaded hearing the evening news broadcast. She even
considered asking her mother if they could skip watching it just this once.
Still, she couldn't help wondering if the Pendergasts would be on again
tonight. Surely they would be since Shawnie still hadn't gone home. She
frowned, thinking about how unfair it was to Shawnie's parents not to know that
she was okay.

When Marge Whitworth's grim face appeared on the screen a
little while later, Katie knew her prediction had been right.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the parents of missing
thirteen-year-old Shawnie Pendergast are here with me again to appeal once more
to their missing daughter to come home."

Katie squirmed in her chair as the now-familiar pair came
into focus.

"Shawnie," Mr. Pendergast began, "if you can
hear my voice, please believe me when I say that your mother and I continue to
worry about your safety. Further, we have decided to permit you to join the
march for hunger this Saturday instead of keeping the other plans we had made,
and we will donate the one-thousand-dollar reward money to the march if you will
only come home."

"The
march
?
" Katie whispered to
herself. It was too incredible to be true. Had Shawnie really run away from
home just because her parents had made other plans and wouldn't let her join
the march for hunger? She had to find out right now. She jumped up from the
kitchen table, and raced for the basement door.