Fabulous Five 015 - Melanie's Identity Crisis (8 page)

Melanie's heart was throbbing in her ears when she went down
to dinner that night. She had changed her mind about talking to her parents at
least a hundred times during the day. One moment she would be determined to
find out the truth from them, even if it meant hearing proof that they didn't
love her. The next moment she would chicken out, deciding that she couldn't
really face it. Finally she made up her mind to do it, but she planned to wait
until dinner so that she could speak to both of them at once. She knew Jeffy
would be there, too, and would overhear everything, but it was just a chance she
would have to take.

Melanie waited until the food had been passed around the
table to bring up what was on her mind.

"Mom. Dad," she began. "Remember when I told
you about going to Gran Pennington's and reading a stack of love letters
written to Great-great-grandmother Cordia?"

Her father chuckled. "See, what did I tell you? She was
a real corker, wasn't she? Had young men falling all over themselves for her
attention."

Melanie nodded. "Well, that's not the only letter I
read. I read the one you wrote to Gran to tell her you were going to have me."

She waited a moment to see if either of them would react
with horror at the possibility that their secret was out, but nothing like that
happened. Instead, her mother smiled happily and said, "Boy, that was a long
time ago."

Suddenly all the anxiety Melanie had felt before engulfed
her and she choked back tears to blurt out, "It said that . . . that I
wrecked your chances for a career, Mom, and that I was just an
accident
!
"

All action at the table stopped, except for Jeffy, who was
picking pieces of rice off his plate with his fingers, and both her mother and
her father stared at her in astonishment.

"What are you talking about?" whispered her
mother.

"That you didn't want me then and you don't now. That's
the truth, isn't it?"

Mr. and Mrs. Edwards exchanged glances. "Tell us what
the letter said," her father asked gently.

Melanie closed her eyes. She could see the words as clearly
as if they were written on the insides of her eyelids. "It said, 'Larry
and I had planned to wait awhile to have a baby,'" she recited. "'You
know how I've worked for years to become a concert pianist and have given up a
lot to achieve my dream. But accidents happen, I guess, and now I'll have to
forget that dream . . .'" Her words trailed off, and she felt as if she
were collapsing from the weight of her heart.

"Go on," her mother urged.

Melanie looked at her blankly.

"That's not all it said," Mrs. Edwards prompted. "I
remember that letter as if I wrote it yesterday."

"But I didn't read any more," Melanie admitted
bitterly. "I didn't need to. I already knew the truth."

"Oh, sweetheart!" cried her mother. She got up
from her place at the table and rushed to Melanie, gathering her in her arms. "There's
so much more. Come on. Get your coat. We'd better go to Gran Pennington's right
now so that you can read the rest."

To Melanie's astonishment her parents got up from the table
even though their meal was barely touched. They dressed Jeffy in his snowsuit,
handed him a cookie, and then got their own coats. Melanie followed them like a
sleepwalker. Nothing seemed real, and even though her mother had said that
there was more to the letter, she couldn't forget the words she had already
seen.

Gran Pennington was surprised to see them when she opened the
door, but Melanie's mother said something to her in low tones, and Gran nodded
and led them upstairs to the room where the trunk stood. Melanie stared at the
trunk and the old feelings of indecision came back. She wanted to see the
letter, especially if she had missed something important. But at the same time,
she was afraid.

"Would you like for me to get the letter out for you?"
Gran Pennington asked gently.

Melanie shook her head. "That's okay," she said. "I'll
get it."

She knelt beside the trunk and slowly lifted the lid. The
same musty smell floated toward her as before, and the stack of letters tied
neatly with a pink ribbon were exactly where she had left them. Taking a deep
breath, she carefully extracted the letter from under them and held it up.

"Go ahead," her mother urged. "Read
all
of it."

Slowly Melanie pulled the sheets of paper out of the
envelope. She swallowed hard and began to read.

Dear Mom,

I know you've been wondering why I haven't written in
such a long time and that you always say that no news is good news, but the
truth is, I haven't been sure if the news I'm going to tell you is good news or
not.

Larry and I had planned to wait awhile to have a baby.
You know how I've worked for years to become a concert pianist and have given
up a lot to achieve my dream. But accidents happen, I guess, and now I'll have
to forget that dream.

The first page ended there, and Melanie took a deep breath
and began reading page two.

And yet
,
Larry and I have begun looking at it
another way. Even though the old dreams may be lost, at least for now, we have
a new and more wonderful dream to take its place. A baby to care for and to
love. Who knows how long it might have been before we would have known this
happiness if things had gone the way we'd planned. So I guess I have to say
that this accident was really a blessing in disguise.

Love,
Kathy

Slowly Melanie raised her eyes and looked first at her
mother and then her father. "A blessing?" she whispered around the
lump in her throat.

"That's right," said her mother. "We've
always loved you and we always will."

Dropping the letter, Melanie rushed to them for the best hug
of her life.

In bed that night, Melanie waited until the house was quiet.
Then she got up and tiptoed to her desk, getting Great-great-grandmother Cordia's
photograph album off her desk and bringing it back to bed. She got the
flashlight out of the drawer in her bedside table and pulled the covers over
her head the way she used to do when she was small. She wasn't hiding from her
parents this time. She just felt more private this way.

For the next few minutes she looked at the pictures of her
great-great-grandmother, tingling with pleasure when she thought about all they
had in common. She was glad that the Family Living classes had started the
genealogy project because she had learned some valuable things. She knew now
that even though Funny was adopted, her cheerful personality came from the Hawthorne
family, and that she had gotten her sunny smile from Mrs. Hawthorne even though
they weren't related by blood.

I've learned that my parents really do love me, she thought,
no matter how grouchy they get sometimes or how much Mom yells at me. My
friends in The Fabulous Five were right when they thought I was jumping to
conclusions.

She smiled down at Cordia's face in the picture, feeling for
the hundredth time that she was looking into a mirror. And I've learned that
some things can be passed down through the generations. Snapping off the
flashlight, she lay back on her pillow and began to make plans. First, she
would look at every single thing in the trunk to find out as much as she could
about Cordia. Surely there would be something in there telling whom she
married. Maybe then I'll know whom I'll marry someday, too.

But for now, there were other things to do. Romantic things
that she had never thought of before. The next time Scott came over, she would
invite him into the backyard and ask him to push her on Jeffy's swing. Then,
when it snowed again, she'd coax Shane into making a snowman with her.

"Oooooh," she whispered as she drifted off to
sleep, "I guess I just can't help being a flirt."

Curtis Trowbridge walked into Christie Winchell's homeroom
class with his usual air of importance. Besides being class president, he was
also seventh-grade editor for the school newspaper,
The Smoke Signal.
He
obviously felt it was an honor to deliver personally the latest edition to the
homerooms.

"Thank you, Curtis," said Mr. Neal. "Heather,
would you and Bill Soliday pass out
The Smoke Signal,
please?"

Christie looked at her watch. There were still ten minutes
before the bell, and she had all her homework done, so she could spend the rest
of the period reading the paper. It was fun to search through it to see if any
of The Fabulous Five's names or the names of the boys they hung out with were
in it. She scanned the pages, finding several boys she knew in articles on the
sports pages and Beth Barry's name in a story about the drama club.

As she turned the newspaper back over to the front page, an
article there caught her eye.

Homework Hot-Line
to Be Established

It was announced
today by Mr. Bell that Wakeman Junior High is going to establish a Hot-Line
Center so that students may call in at night and get help with their homework.
The center will have special telephone numbers and operate from seven to nine
each evening
,
Monday through Thursday. Several students from the seventh
,
eighth
,
and ninth grades who have nothing lower than a B in any class
will be asked to man the center.

I'll probably get asked, thought Christie. After all, I made
all A's in my first semester at Wacko. It sounds like fun, and who knows, while
I'm helping other kids I might even meet a cute boy.

But Christie encounters more than she expects when she joins
the Hot-Line Center and tries to track down a mysterious caller before he does
something terrible. Join Christie as she uses all her brains and courage in her
search for clues to the caller's identity in
The Fabulous Five
#16:
The Hot-Line Emergency.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Betsy Haynes, the daughter of a former newswoman, began
scribbling poetry and short stories as soon as she learned to write. A serious
writing career, however, had to wait until after her marriage and the arrival
of her two children. But that early practice must have paid off, for within
three months Mrs. Haynes had sold her first story. In addition to a number of
magazine short stories and the Taffy Sinclair series, Mrs. Haynes is also the
author of
The Great Mom Swap
and its sequel,
The Great Boyfriend
Trap.
She lives in Colleyville, Texas, with her husband, who is also an
author.