Fabulous Five 017 - Celebrity Auction (2 page)

Alexis had been right. Beth looked around in amazement as
she entered the front door of the school. The glass trophy case at the top of
the stairs was shattered, and most of the trophies lay on their sides. Obscene
graffiti had been spray-painted all over the halls, and large stacks of paper
had been tossed around like giants' confetti.

"Poor Wacko," she whispered. "It looks like
somebody bombed it."

As The Fabulous Five walked through the halls, heading for
their homerooms, Beth noticed an uneasy stillness in the school. The shock of
what had happened was sinking in, and kids were marching along like zombies,
hardly talking, just looking around and shaking their heads in disbelief. She
shuddered, trying to shake away her own uneasy feeling. It was scary, she
thought, almost as if someone had broken into her house and turned everything
her family owned upside down.

"This is making me sick," whispered Melanie as
they passed the media center and could see inside to where books were scattered
all across the floor. "I mean really sick. I think I'm going to throw up."

"Come on, Mel. Here's the girls' bathroom," said
Jana in a soothing voice. "I'll go in with you."

"We'll all go," said Katie. "The Fabulous
Five sticks together."

Cautiously they pushed open the door and tiptoed inside,
Jana in the lead and Melanie right behind her. Melanie dashed for one of the
stalls as the others looked around in alarm.

"Oh, my gosh," murmured Beth. "Look!"
She was pointing toward the mirrors above the sinks where girls usually crowded
to brush their hair and fix their makeup. "They're smashed. Every single
mirror is broken." She said the words slowly, trying to convince herself
that what she was looking at was real.

She turned the water on in a sink and tried to rinse out the
last of the slime from her hair. Looking in a large piece of broken mirror, she
used a paper towel to dry it.

"Why would anybody do a dumb thing like this?"
asked Katie in a totally exasperated voice.

Just then the sound of Melanie's throwing up filled the
room, followed by the flush of a toilet. "Mel, are you okay?" Beth
called.

A white-faced Melanie came out of the stall. "I just
want to go home," she said. Her chin was trembling and she looked
embarrassed. "I can't explain it, but it's just too scary. I feel almost
as if someone beat me up."

Jana put an arm around Melanie's shoulder. "It's okay.
Mr. Bell said anyone who wanted to could go home. We'll walk you to the front
door."

"Thanks," said Melanie. "I knew you guys
would understand."

After Melanie left, the others made their way through the
mess of broken glass and papers to their homerooms. Jana and Christie went into
room 107, and Beth called good-bye to Katie and headed into hers, room 109,
which was just across the hall. Beth was glad to see that just about everyone
in her homeroom class had stayed at school to help clean up.

Miss Dickinson hurried to the front of the room, her
old-fashioned full skirt swishing as she walked. She had a spot of high color
on each cheek and she was frowning as she spoke. "Class, this is a sad day
for Wakeman Junior High. Thank you for helping. Our assignment is to do what we
can with the mess in the cafeteria."

Several kids groaned, and someone in the back of the room
yelled, "All right! Food fight!"

Oh, grr-
oss!
thought Beth as she entered the
cafeteria with the rest of her class a few minutes later. First green slime in
my hair, and now this.

"Hey, Barry, this place looks like your sweatshirt!"
called Richie Corrierro as he went sliding past her through what looked like
applesauce.

Beth scanned the room and decided that he was right. A
streak of yellow by her left foot was cream-style corn. A chunky splash of dark
red directly in front of her was sliced beets. Peas, green beans, and broccoli
had been tossed into the air and had landed in a variety of green, free-form
designs. Spaghetti sauce dripped down the walls, and sliced peaches and fruit
cocktail were splattered across some of the tables. Over all of it lay a
snowfall of potato chips.

It's crazy, but it does look like my sweatshirt, she
thought, shaking her head. Maybe painting my shirt last night was some sort of
premonition.

Just as she was adjusting to the sight of the mess, a new
sensation hit her. "E-e-e-
y-e-w!
" she squealed, wrinkling her
nose. "It
smells!
"

"Yeah," said Dekeisha Adams, who was standing
beside her. "Like a garbage dump. But what can you expect? It's been
sitting here most of the weekend, and the heat was on in the building."

Miss Dickinson clapped her hands for attention. "Okay,
class. Listen up. The cooks will give you buckets and mops to clean the floor
and pans and rags to clean the tables."

"You mean, touch that stuff with our hands?"
shrieked Shawnie Pendergast. She was making a face as if she had just eaten a
lemon and pointing to a table covered with a disgusting mixture of chocolate
pudding and sliced pickles.

"No, push it into the floor with your nose," cried
Joel Murphy, cracking up at his own joke.

Miss Dickinson threw him a stern look and went on with her
instructions. Beth was given a pan and a sponge and told to wash down the walls
and get as much of the spaghetti sauce off as possible. She noticed that
Shawnie, who was still making a face, was holding a rag by two fingers and
dipping it into a puddle of gravy at a nearby table.

Beth turned back to her own job, thinking about all of the
food that had been wasted. And the money, she added with a frown. Food was
expensive. Not only that, it was going to cost even more to replace it and all
the other things in the school that had been broken or defaced. But who was
going to pay for it?

In her mind, she could hear her father's voice. "The
taxpayers are going to pay for it, that's who. And it's all because kids have
no respect for other people's property." She shivered and went back to
work cleaning the wall.

Beth skipped going to Bumpers, the fast-food restaurant
where all the kids from Wakeman hung out after school, and hurried home to do a
better job of washing the green slime out of her hair. She hadn't been able to
get all of it out in the girls' room, and now her short, dark hair was stiff
and disgusting. Besides, she knew that all everyone would be talking about at
Bumpers would be the vandalism at school, and she had had enough of that for
one day.

The students had spent the entire day cleaning up the mess
as best they could, and Mr. Bell had come around to each group expressing
thanks to everyone who had stayed to help. He had said that there would be
classes tomorrow as usual and that the major cleanup and repair of damages
would take a long time. He had also added that he hoped anyone who had
information about who had broken into the school would please come forward.

Beth thought about this while she showered and washed her
hair. People had been whispering all day that it must have been Steve Melchior
and his friends, Tucker Cobler, John Mauhl, and Jay Romberg. Only last week Mr.
Bell had suspected them for two days for starting fights on the school ground.
They were the only ones in Wakeman who had a reason, or thought they did
anyway. But she knew that no one would tell on them. It was just something you
didn't do. Especially without proof. And even with proof it would be hard
because after that you would have a reputation as a fink, and nobody would ever
trust you again. What would be the point, anyway? Surely Mr. Bell suspected
them, too.

She had just plugged in her blow dryer when she heard the
upstairs phone ringing in the hall.

"Beth! It's for you!" shouted Brittany. When Beth
reached for the receiver, her older sister added with a frown, "Don't talk
long. I'm expecting a very important call."

Beth shrugged and crossed her eyes at her sister, thinking
that she was
always
expecting a very important call. "Hi," she
said. "This is Beth."

"Hi. It's Jana. Why didn't you come to Bumpers after
school?"

"I wanted to wash the rest of the green slime out of my
hair. Did I miss anything?"

"Not really," said Jana. "Everybody was
talking about the mess at school. I just can't believe it really happened."

Beth sighed. "Me either. And what's worse, it feels so
. . . so personal."

"Right," said Jana. "You'd think we'd at
least get some sympathy from the teachers. After all, it was our school that
was trashed, and we were the ones who worked hard all day cleaning it up."

"What do you mean?" asked Beth.

"Well, several kids said they heard teachers really
putting down teenagers," said Jana. "They were complaining about 'this
younger generation' and saying things like 'kids want everything handed to
them, and when they can't have it, they do something like this.' Isn't that
terrible? Our own teachers saying things like that."

"Especially after we worked so hard to clean it up,"
Beth added. "That really makes me mad. Which teachers were saying that?"

"Lots," said Jana. "Mr. Naset, for one, and
Mrs. Lemane and Mr. Waldrop. I don't know who else. Kim Baxter overheard all of
them talking together, but you can bet that if they feel that way, so do a lot
of the others."

As soon as they hung up, Beth called Katie and Christie to
see if they had heard any teachers talking about Wacko students that way.
Neither had actually heard any teachers saying things like that, but they both
knew of other kids who had.

Beth was staring at the telephone, trying to decide if she
should call anyone else, when Brittany came up behind her.

"Beth Barry. Are you going to spend the rest of your
life on that telephone? I told you that I have an important call coming any
minute."

Beth didn't say anything for a few seconds. Finally she
looked up at Brittany and said, "Did you hear about what happened at Wacko
last night? Vandals broke in and really trashed the place."

Brittany's angry look turned to one of surprise, but before
she could say anything, the phone rang again. Grabbing the receiver before Beth
had a chance, she said in a voice dripping with sweetness, "Barry
residence. This is Brittany." An instant later her face fell, and she
thrust the phone toward Beth. "It's for you again, and you'd better hurry
up," she grumbled, and stomped off down the hall.

This time it was Keith.

"What do you want?" Beth asked angrily. "I
know. You're probably calling to see if I'm home so that you can come over and
put some more green slime in my hair. I can't believe you did that."

Keith sighed loudly. "Hey, it was only a joke."

"Some joke," said Beth. "Do you know how it
feels to go around all day with gross, disgusting stuff making your hair stiff?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I guess I just got
carried away. You aren't really mad, are you?"

He sounded so genuinely sorry that Beth's anger melted a
little bit. "I guess not," she said. "But sometimes I have a
hard time understanding why you do things like that. It makes me wonder if you
really do like me."

"I like you," he assured her. "I like you
more than any other girl. You believe me, don't you?"

Beth sighed softly. His voice sounded worried, and she tried
to imagine the expression on his face as he waited for her answer. He would be
chewing on his lower lip and frowning. He always did that when he was worried. "Sure,"
she said quickly. "Of course I believe you."

They talked about the vandalism, and Beth asked him if he'd
heard any rumors about anyone other than Steve Melchior and his friends being
responsible.

"No," said Keith. "Everyone's pretty
convinced that it was them."

"Is anybody going to tell?"

"Are you kidding?" Keith scoffed. "Nobody
would do a thing like that."

Beth relinquished the telephone to Brittany a few minutes
later and went downstairs to catch the early news on the small television set
on the kitchen counter while she helped her mother get supper.

"Why the sudden interest in the news?" her mother
asked as Beth leaned across the counter to turn up the volume.

Before Beth could explain, Marge Whitworth, the local news
anchor, came on the screen.

"Vandals did an estimated five thousand dollars' worth
of damage to Wakeman Junior High overnight, and school officials believe it was
the work of students. Police have launched a full investigation . . ."

Beth gulped a breath and let it out again in a loud sigh as
she punched the remote control unit, shutting off the set. She didn't want to
hear any more. Not if everybody was lumping the kids of Wakeman Junior High
together and saying that they were all responsible.

"Turn that back on, sweetheart. I want to hear it,"
her mother said. "Did Marge Whitworth say that students vandalized Wakeman
Junior High?"

Beth nodded and reluctantly turned the television back on,
but much to her relief, Ms. Whitworth had finished her report on Wacko and had
gone on to another story.

Her mother was shaking her head. "For goodness' sake,"
she said to Beth, "tell me what happened."

Beth related the story. "Everybody is pretty sure who
did it," she added. "There is a group of boys who are nothing but
troublemakers. It's just the sort of thing they would do."

"Humph," grumbled Mrs. Barry. "It just goes
to prove what your father said this morning. Now, when we were growing up, we
tried to handle things peacefully, with demonstrations, sit-ins, things like
that. But kids today . . ." She shook her head again as her words trailed
off.

Beth glared at her. She knew something about the sixties and
seventies, and not all kids who grew up then solved their problems peacefully,
she thought. And besides, what was so peaceful about sitting down in front of
traffic?