Fabulous Five 014 - The Seventh-Grade Menace (4 page)

"She
deliberately
knocked Mona's books off her
desk," Jana said angrily. She, Katie, and Beth were on their way to
Bumpers together after school.

"Not to mention her knocking you down once in the
school yard and almost running over you in the hall," said Beth.

"And then she spilled the chocolate milk all over me
and the petitions," Katie added.

"I know," said Jana. "But I really think the
two times she ran into me were accidents. She's just rough and careless. I don't
know if she spilled the milk on purpose or not, but what she did to Mona and
Whitney was
definitely
on purpose."

"And don't forget the catsup that got squirted on the
stuff in your locker," said Katie, brushing her windblown hair out of her
face.

"I didn't
actually
see her do that,"
responded Jana. "And why would she want to pick on me, anyway? If you can
give me a good reason, I might understand it."

"Because she thinks you saw her take Whitney's
homework, and she wants to intimidate you," said Katie. "Besides, who
else is there to suspect?"

Jana shrugged. "I can't believe that's the reason. It
has to be
more
than that."

"Being just plain mean must be in the McNatts' blood,"
said Beth. "Max and Joe are both rough, and most of the other guys stay
out of their way. I don't know their older brother, George, but I'll bet he's
just like them."

Melanie and Christie were drinking colas and sitting in one
of the brightly painted carnival bumper cars that had given Bumpers its name
when Jana, Katie, and Beth arrived. Melanie quickly undraped her legs from over
the front of the car as she and Christie hopped out to join them in a booth.

"Well, how's the future Miss Seventh Grade of Wacko
Junior High?" asked Melanie.

"I haven't won yet," answered Jana. "Have you
heard yet whether anyone else is running?"

"I haven't," said Christie. "But I can't
believe that Laura McCall won't sign up."

"Me either," said Katie. "She'll run just
because Jana's running. She won't be able to stand it if Jana gets elected Miss
Seventh Grade."

"I haven't heard of any other seventh-grade boys
running either," said Melanie.

"All the most popular ones are friends of Randy's and won't
run against him," said Beth. "I know Keith wouldn't, and I don't
think Shane, Tony, Scott, or Jon would either." The others nodded
agreement.

"I've been talking to everybody I see about voting for
you," said Christie. "They all say they will."

"Me, too," said Melanie, and the others said they
had been also.

"Oh, look!" cried Christie. "There are
Dekeisha and Marcie Bee, and they're wearing yellow ribbons."

Jana turned to see the two girls coming through the door and
waved. Each one had a bright-yellow bow pinned to her jacket. "That's
neat. I hope more kids wear them."

Just then Jana saw Geena McNatt slip through the door and
stroll casually over to the Wurlitzer jukebox and stand by herself. Jana couldn't
help wondering why Geena came to Bumpers anyway. She was always alone because
she didn't have any friends. She never sat with anyone. Mostly she just hung
around looking totally out of place.

"Look at that, will you," said Christie, giggling.

Jana did a double take and broke out in laughter. Coming through
the door were Clarence Marshall and Joel Murphy, and they were both wearing
yellow bows, only theirs were made from wrinkled ribbon that was at least four
inches wide and covered half of their chests. Clarence and Joel had big grins
on their faces and strutted in among the bumper cars and tables showing off
their ribbons as if they had just won first place in some big contest.

"Well, what do you think?" asked Clarence when
they got to The Fabulous Five's booth. He pushed his messy hair out of his eyes.
"We found this ribbon in a garbage can outside the art room."

"I'd say you've got the spirit," said Melanie. "No
matter how wrinkled your bows are, you can't miss them."

"It's the thought that counts," said Joel. "Igor
is one of our favorite people, and we thought we'd show that we care about him,
too." He made a halfhearted attempt to stuff his dangling shirttail into
his jeans but failed, and the two of them continued their promenade around the
room.

As The Fabulous Five sat and talked, Jana noticed several
other yellow bows around the room. There were a lot of people who cared about
good old Igor, she thought.

"Now, look at
that,
" gasped Katie, pointing
toward the door again.

Jana turned again, expecting to see another yellow ribbon
since there had been a regular parade of kids coming through the door with them
on. Instead she saw Mona Vaughn come in and head directly for the girls' room.
It looked as if she was crying.

Jana heard Melanie say, "What in the world!"
behind her as she slipped out of the booth and hurried after Mona.

Jana found her washing her face. "What's wrong, Mona?
Can I help?"

"Nothing," Mona said, trying to suppress a
sniffle.

"It doesn't look as if it's nothing to me," Jana
said, digging into Mona's purse to find a tissue.

"Yeeek!" cried Jana, jerking her hand back out and
holding it up as sticky stuff dripped off the ends of her fingers. "What's
that!
"

"Bubble mix," answered Mona, wiping at her eyes
with the back of her hand.

Jana wiped her hand on a paper towel and cautiously opened the
purse wide. Inside, the gooey liquid covered Mona's wallet, papers, pencils,
and all the other things she kept in her purse. It looked as if it were some
strange stew and it smelled like soap. "Is that the bubble mix you take to
the animal shelter?" Jana asked as she touched the tip of one finger in
the fluid again to test it.

Mona nodded.

"Did the lid come off?"

Mona shook her head solemnly.

"What
did
happen?" Jana asked.

Mona looked at her. "Geena McNatt grabbed my purse, and
I tried to get it back, but she wouldn't let me have it. Then she took the
bubble mix out and dumped it inside."

Jana stared at Mona openmouthed. She felt hot anger rise up
inside her, and the hair stood up on the back of her neck. She was madder than
she had ever been. Spinning on her heel, she burst out of the girls' room and
looked for Geena. She was going out the door.

Jana dodged through the tables and bumper cars and ran after
her, catching her as she was starting down the street.

"Geena McNatt
,
that was the most despicable thing
you've ever done!"'
Jana shouted. "Mona Yaughn saved her lunch
money to buy that bubble mix so she could play with the animals at the shelter,
and you had to
waste it
and ruin the things in her purse on top of that!
Don't you have any sense?"

Geena first looked surprised, and then fire came into her
eyes. "It's none of your business!
I didn't do anything to you, did
I?
"

Jana heard someone come out of Bumpers behind her. "I'm
not sure about that!" she said. "I think you squirted that catsup in
my locker, for one thing. And you may have squirted it in Whitney's and Mona's
lockers, too, and you spilled chocolate milk on Katie and on Randy's and my
petitions on purpose!"

"What are you saying to our sister?" a boy's voice
asked.

Jana turned and was facing Max and Joe McNatt. She looked
back at Geena, and Geena was grinning.

Even though Jana was surrounded by McNatts, she stood her
ground. "Your sister is a menace! She stole Whitney Larkin's social
studies homework, knocked Mona Vaughn's books off her desk, squirted catsup in
a bunch of lockers, and now she's dumped bubble mix into Mona's purse!"

Joe McNatt looked at her contemptuously. "I don't want
you to say things like that about our sister," he drawled. "She doesn't
do things like that."

"Yes she does!" insisted Jana.

Geena pushed her way in between her brothers. "Just
because you think you're some
big deal
, running for Miss Seventh Grade,
doesn't mean you can go around accusing people of things. You and your friends
don't run Wakeman!"

"Run Wakeman?" That was the second time Geena had
said that. "We don't run Wakeman," Jana insisted. "We've never
said we did."

"Well, you act as if you think you do!" Geena
retorted, her eyes shooting fire.

"Hey, Max! What's going on, friend?" Shane
strolled into the middle of the argument with a sideways smile on his face.

Max reached out and grabbed Shane by the front of his shirt
and shoved him against the wall. "Don't get funny with me, Arrington! You're
one of the baby seventh-graders who thinks he's a big deal."

"Whoa!" said Shane, spreading his hands to show he
didn't want to fight. "You've got it. I'm no big deal. I'm just a lowly
Wacko seventh-grader."

"Remember that!" said Max, giving Shane one last
push before letting go of his shirt.

"I don't think you ought to do that." Tony Calcaterra's
voice was so soft and low Jana barely heard him. He, Randy, Keith, and Jon had
come out of Bumpers, and the rest of The Fabulous Five were right behind them.
Tony was almost as tall as the ninth-grader, and the intensity of the
expression on his face surprised Jana.

Max and Joe stared at Tony and then looked at the other boys
who had encircled them.

"Come on!" Max snarled, shoving Joe and grabbing
Geena by the arm and pulling her after him.

Jana hadn't realized she had been holding her breath until
she let out a "Shooo!" and felt herself shaking.

Randy put his arm around her. "You didn't have to take
on the whole McNatt clan by yourself, you know," he said teasingly.

"I know," she said. "But I was so mad that I
couldn't think."

"What did she do to Mona?" asked Katie.

After Jana explained what had happened and the boys had gone
back inside, she looked at her friends and asked, "Could we have an
old-fashioned Fabulous Five meeting at my house?"

They all nodded.

Soon Christie and Melanie were sprawled on Jana's bed, Katie
sat in the chair at her desk, and Beth sat cross-legged on the floor of Jana's
room. They each had a soda and were munching on potato chips. Seeing them in
her room this way made Jana feel as if they were back at Mark Twain Elementary
at one of their weekly Against Taffy Sinclair Club meetings.

"This is how I feel about it," said Jana, standing
in the middle of the room. "Geena McNatt is
truly
a menace. I didn't
mind so much when it seemed as if she might be mad at me, but when she picks on
people like Mona Vaughn, and spills the bubble mix Mona takes to the animal
shelter in her purse, Geena has gone
too far.
Mona has to save every
penny she gets to buy that bubble mix."

The others solemnly agreed.

"I've got a proposal," Jana continued. "We
need to get evidence to prove that Geena is doing nasty things to people so we
can take her to the Teen Court. Then she can be punished, and everyone will
know what kind of person she is. I think we should come up with a plan for one
of us to be watching her as much as possible."

"What can the Court do to her?" asked Melanie.

"It depends on the seriousness of what she's done,"
answered Katie. "If we could prove that she stole Whitney's homework and
squirted catsup in the lockers, that's pretty serious. The Court might make her
do work around the school, or they might even put her on probation. If she did
something worse after that, they could recommend that she be suspended from
school for a few days."

"Wow," said Jana. "We'd better be pretty
careful. That's serious stuff. I wouldn't want her to get into that kind of
trouble unless she really deserves it."

"What kind of evidence do we need?" Christie
asked.

"Well," Katie said, raising her eyebrows as she
thought. "It has to be something besides our word against hers. That would
just seem as if we were picking on her. I heard what she said about you, Jana,
thinking you were a big deal because you're running for Miss Seventh Grade and
us believing we run Wakeman. It's not true, but she might try to get other
people to believe it. They won't know how we had to twist Jana's arm to get her
to run for Miss Seventh Grade."

"And
I
sure don't want to run Wakeman,"
said Christie. "I've got enough trouble running my own life."

"Everybody knows you talked Curtis Trowbridge into
running for class president so you wouldn't have to," Beth said to
Christie, laughing. "That shows how badly
you
want to be a big
deal."

"That's not the way Geena sees it, though," said
Jana. "And what she says might sound logical to someone else. If we don't
handle it right,
we
could turn out to be the bad guys instead of her."

"We have to have
hard
evidence that she has done
something wrong," said Katie. "And I'll have to disqualify myself
from the Teen Court if we accuse her of something. I'm one of The Fabulous
Five, so she'll claim I'm prejudiced, and she'll be right."

"The first thing we have to do is figure out her class
schedule so one of us can be where she is at all times," said Jana. "Is
Geena in anyone's homeroom?"

"Mine," answered Melanie. "Why don't I follow
Geena to
her
first class, then I'll tell
Christie
, who's in
my
first class, what room Geena's in, and she can tail
Geena
to
her
second class. Whew!" Melanie flopped back on the bed as if she were
exhausted.

"Oh, good," said Beth, jumping to her feet. "Can
I wear a mustache and a trench coat when I follow her? I'll even wear my
sunglasses so she doesn't recognize me."

Katie slapped the heel of her hand against her forehead. "It
would be just like you to do something like that."

"Beth," said Jana, smiling at her dramatic friend,
"I think your everyday school clothes will do just fine."

"Remember the notebooks we had when we went to Mark
Twain Elementary, and we were keeping notes on Taffy Sinclair because she was
so snotty?" asked Christie. "Why don't we each keep a notebook again,
and then we can get together and compare notes?"

"Great idea," said Jana.

At dinner that evening, Jana poked at her food while her
mother and Pink talked.

"You're not eating your dinner, Jana," her mother
said. "Aren't you feeling well?"

Jana looked up and smiled reassuringly at her. "I'm
fine. I was just thinking."

"A deep-dish, pepperoni, green pepper, and mushroom
pizza for your thoughts," teased Pink. He knew that was her favorite kind
of pizza.

"I was just thinking about how some people see other
people differently from the way they see themselves."

"Deep thought," said Pink.

"Yes, it is, honey," said her mother. "Do you
have a problem?"

Jana looked at the two adults who were the most important
people in her life. Even though Pink, which was short for Wallace Pinkerton,
had only been her stepfather for a few months, he had dated her mother for a
long time before that and had seemed like part of the family. The two of them
were always there when she needed them, and they knew her better than anyone
else, even better than The Fabulous Five. "Do you think I act as if I'm a
big deal?" she asked.

"Oh, no, honey," said her mother, putting her hand
on Jana's. "I think you're just about the most levelheaded young lady I
know."

It's nice to hear her say it, but she
is
my mother,
thought Jana. But what if she
was
acting like a big deal the way Geena
had said? Was it possible? Wouldn't Randy Kirwan, who was the nicest, most
sincere person in the world, notice it if she were? He wouldn't like her
anymore if it were true. The thought made Jana shudder.

Why did Geena have to pick on people? And why was she so
angry at Jana? Most people didn't act that way. Was it something Jana had done
without realizing it, or was it true that bad blood ran through some people as
Beth had said? And then there was that terrible confrontation outside Bumpers.
Jana had been in a fight, and yet she didn't completely understand why. It was
like a bad dream with things happening that didn't make sense. Would she wake
up soon and everything would be okay?