by Betsy Haynes
She made a beeline for the phone as soon as she got home and dialed Shawnie Pendergast's number. Shawnie answered.
"Hi, this is Melanie Edwards," she began. Then she looked around the kitchen to be sure her mother was out of hearing range. "Do you remember the other day when we were talking about the teen taxi, and I said that my mother was a rotten driver?"
"Sure," Shawnie replied. "That made me nervous, and when I told my parents, they said I shouldn't ride with her."
"That's what I thought," said Melanie. "Well, I have a confession to make. I was only joking. My mom's really a great driver, and maybe your parents should reconsider letting you ride with her."
Shawnie sounded a little surprised, but she promised to talk to her parents as soon as they got home, and Melanie scanned the phone book looking for Kevin Walker-Noles's and Michelle Troyer's numbers, thinking that if she could get a few more kids to ride in her mother's teen taxi, then even if Brian Olsen continued to have a crush on her, he wouldn't be able to say that anything romantic was going on between them in the backseat. She would have witnesses!
When she talked to Kevin, he said that he had noticed how the taxi had been on time to school every day so far and that he definitely wanted to ride. Before they hung up, he said that he would ask his parents to talk to Mrs. Edwards.
As usual, Michelle didn't have much to say when Melanie confessed that the taxi wasn't as crowded as she had said it would be, so Melanie didn't really know if she would sign up again or not.
Melanie was feeling a hundred times better when she finished the calls. She would talk to some other kids at school tomorrow and she would get the flyers off the van floor and tape them on bulletin boards and even on the mirror in the girls' bathroom. With any luck at all, she would have the van filled in no time. She chuckled as she remembered how she had done everything she could think of to keep her mother from starting the teen taxi in the first place, and now, here she was trying her best to get riders so that she wouldn't have to be alone with Brian Olsen.
She picked up her books and was heading for her room when she passed the front door. At that instant the doorbell rang. Melanie set her books on the bottom stair and opened the door. A tall man wearing a suit and tie stood there, holding the hand of a little boy about Jeffy's age. Maybe he's come to play with Jeffy, Melanie thought.
"Hi," she said to the man. "Can I help you?"
"Yes, I think you can," he said pleasantly. "I'm Mr. Dotson and this is my son, Jeremy. We've come about the puppies."
Puppies! Melanie stared first at the man and then at the little boy. She had forgotten all about the ad to give away the puppies.
"This is the right house, isn't it?" the man asked apprehensively.
Melanie's first impulse was to say no and slam the door, but she heard her mother in the foyer behind her.
"Who is it, dear? Is it someone about the puppies?"
Nodding silently, Melanie opened the door wider, and the man and the little boy stepped inside.
CHAPTER 14
"Garrett!" Melanie shrieked. "You let them take Garrett!"
She had stayed in her room while Mr. Dotson and his son had been there and had only come back downstairs when she heard the front door slam and a car start up at the front curb. Now she stood at the bottom of the basement steps staring into the box where Rainbow sat, calmly licking one of only seven remaining puppies. She had been so happy to see that little Katie was still there and Jana and Scott and each of the others until she realized that one puppy was missing. Multicolored like his mother, Garrett was a precious, roly-poly little dog, and now he was gone.
"What do you mean, I let them take Garrett?" her mother asked. "Did you name the puppies after we told you specifically that you weren't to do that? Oh, Melanie," her mother said with a sigh. She looked suddenly sympathetic and put an arm around Melanie's shoulder. "We tried to explain that if you gave the puppies names, then they would take on personalities, too, and it would be twice as difficult to say good-bye to them when the time came to give them away."
Melanie dropped to her knees beside the box. "Well, I couldn't help it," she sobbed. "I couldn't just call them Dog One or Dog Two. Besides, they already had personalities. And they were all my super good friends, just like the friends they were named after."
Her mother sighed. "Maybe you'd better tell me the rest of their names," she said.
Reaching into the box, Melanie pulled out a curly brown pup. "This is Beth," she said, putting the dog down again beside Rainbow. "And this is Jana." This time she held up a brown and white baby. Setting her back in the box, she raised the little red puppy for her mother to see.
"Don't tell me. Let me guess," said Mrs. Edwards. "That's Katie."
"Right," said Melanie. Then she pointed out Christie, Shane, Scott, and Jason.
"Jason?" her mother asked with a frown.
"He's somebody new," Melanie added hastily. She didn't dare admit that he was the television star on the life-size poster in her room. Not now, just when her mother was starting to act a little bit sympathetic. "And what about Rainbow?" she went on. "She'll be brokenhearted if we give away all of her children."
Mrs. Edwards knelt beside the box and slowly stroked Rainbow on the head. The mother dog raised her eyes and seemed to smile. "You know, honey," her mother began in a soft voice. "Someday you and Jeffy are going to grow up and leave home. You'll go off to college or get a job or get married or maybe all three. And your father and I will be sad in some ways, and we'll definitely miss you, but we'll know that it's how things are supposed to be."
She paused, and Melanie felt tears well up in her eyes. She knew what her mother was getting at, but she didn't want to hear it.
"It's the same for Rainbow and her puppies," Mrs. Edwards went on. "They're going to go off into the world and make a lot of other families happy just the same way Rainbow has made us happy. Now we can be sad about that, but we have to let it happen, don't we?"
Melanie couldn't answer. The tears were flowing too hard. She couldn't stand to think of all eight puppies being taken away.
"But what if the people who take them are mean to them?" she blubbered. "Oh, Mom. What if they beat them or starve them or something?"
"Things like that do happen," her mother admitted. "So we'll just have to be very careful and look over each person who wants a puppy. I don't think that Mr. Dotson and his little boy, Jeremy, looked as if they would be mean to Garrett, do you?"
Melanie sniffed loudly and shook her head.
"In fact," said her mother, "I'll bet that right this very minute he's the center of attention in their house."
"I'll bet he even gets to sleep with Jeremy!" shouted Jeffy.
Startled, Melanie turned to see that Jeffy had come down the stairs and was standing behind her with a big grin on his face. Then his face clouded and he added, "I hope he doesn't pee in Jeremy's bed."
"Oh, Jeffy. You just don't understand," Melanie blurted as she pushed past him and hurried to her room, where she planned to stay for the rest of the evening. As she flung herself onto her bed, she thought, It's so unfair. Why are so many bad things happening to me?
Mrs. Edwards was euphoric when Melanie went downstairs the next morning, which only made her own mood blacker.
"We had four more calls on the puppies last night," her mother chirped, "and two of the riders who canceled out on the teen taxi earlier have decided to give us a try after all. Isn't that great?"
Melanie nodded as she gulped down her orange juice. It was great. It meant that her scheme had worked and she wouldn't have to worry about Brian's spreading those ridiculous rumors anymore. Now if she could just get him to stop having a crush on her, and then if she could convince Garrett that he had been wrong about her, her life might get back to normal.
The teen taxi picked up Shawnie Pendergast first. She came bounding out of her house before the van could come to a complete stop, and when she hopped in, she practically sang out, "Hi, Mrs. Edwards. Hi,
Mel. Hi, Jeffy. Gosh, this is going to be fun. I love the idea of riding to school in a teen taxi."
You've got to be kidding, Melanie thought when Shawnie sat down on the opposite side of the van and gave her a big smile. "Do you really like the idea of a teen taxi?" Melanie asked in disbelief.
"Of course," Shawnie insisted. "It's better than a grungy old school bus and much nicer than a city bus that anybody can ride. It's just for teens, and that's what makes it so cool."
Cool? The word echoed in Melanie's mind. Cool was the last word she would have used to describe her mother's new business.
"But wouldn't you feel weird if your mother was a taxi driver for school kids?" she asked.
"What's so weird about that?" asked Shawnie in surprise.
Melanie didn't answer because the van was pulling into Kevin's driveway. Kevin raced out of his house and hurried toward the taxi with a smile on his face.
"It's great to have my own personal limo service," he said as he clambered aboard.
Good grief, thought Melanie. Kevin thinks the teen taxi is cool, too.
When they stopped at Brian's house, Melanie smiled to herself. Things were working out better than she had hoped. She had been trying to figure out how to talk about other great boys to Brian, but how did you talk to one boy about other guys without letting your embarrassment show? But now she knew. The idea had just come to her, and it was going to work like a charm.
Brian lumbered into the van with his head down, but his eyes lit up and a smile spread across his face when he saw the two new riders. "Hey, Kev! Hey, Shawnie! All right!" he said, slapping hands with Kevin. "When did you guys sign on?"
Kevin and Shawnie began talking at once, explaining to Brian that their parents had decided to let them ride the taxi and had called Mrs. Edwards the night before. Melanie listened patiently, waiting for a break in the conversation and the familiar adoring look from Brian to begin her plan.
But Brian didn't look at her. Instead, he lifted Jeffy onto his lap and kept right on talking to Kevin and Shawnie as if she weren't there.
The van moved out of the residential neighborhood and into the heavier traffic on the route to Wakeman Junior High. Melanie bit her lower lip and looked out the window, wondering what had come over Brian. He hadn't even said hello to her, much less acted like a lovesick moose, the way he usually did. Finally she couldn't stand it any longer.
Turning toward the others, she said, "Shawnie. Don't you think that Scott Daly is one of the best-looking hunks in Wacko? I mean, he is a living doll. Don't you agree?"
Shawnie darted quick glances at both Kevin and Brian before she answered. "Sure. He's really cute. What made you ask?"
Melanie could see out of the corner of her eye that she had Brian's attention. That was exactly what she wanted. Curtis Trowbridge had said it really made him mad for girls to talk about how great other guys were. With Shawnie's help, maybe it would have the same effect on Brian.
"What made me ask?" Melanie echoed Shawnie's question. "Oh, I don't know. I guess I was just thinking about great guys, and naturally Scott popped into my mind. At least he's not like some guys I know," she went on, unable to stop now that she had gotten started talking. "You know, the show-offs. The ones who are always demonstrating how strong they are and things like that."
"Brian is not a show-off!" cried Jeffy. He wriggled out of Brian's lap and stumbled toward Melanie, grabbing the arm of her chair for support. "He's my friend!"
Melanie was stunned. Everyone was looking at her. "I . . . I wasn't talking about Brian," she murmured, but she knew they could all tell that she was lying. She wanted to tell Brian that she hadn't meant to hurt his feelings, but she couldn't even turn her head toward him, much less look him in the eye.
Finally the van stopped in front of the school. Brian got out without a word. Kevin followed. Shawnie seemed to want to say something to Melanie, but after a minute she shrugged and got out, too. Finally Melanie stepped out and trudged across the grass, shaking her head. What have I done? she asked herself.
CHAPTER 15
"Flash! Big news!" called out Beth, who came sliding across the cafeteria floor toward the table where the rest of The Fabulous Five were sitting. She had a lunch bag in one hand and was balancing a carton of chocolate milk on her head.
"What kind of big news?" Melanie asked anxiously. Her mood had improved since the van ride earlier in the morning, but she was still a little jumpy.
"Brian is telling stories about you again, but this time they're not about making out in the back of the van," said Beth.
"What!" cried Melanie. "What's he saying?"
"Are you ready for this?" insisted Beth. Then she tipped her head sideways and let the carton of milk drop into her hand.
Melanie nodded.
"Okay. Here goes. He's saying that you aren't the kind of girl that he thought you were, that you're snotty and conceited and a big gossip, and that he doesn't like you anymore."
Melanie sucked in her breath. "Oh, my gosh. Who told you that?"
"Keith," Beth answered. "He heard him say it in English class. Keith also said that it really surprised him because Brian usually talks nonstop about how great you are. He asked me if I knew why Brian changed his mind about you, and of course, I said no."
"Why the long face, Mel?" cried Katie. "That's exactly what you wanted Brian to think, isn't it?"
Melanie felt a lump forming in her throat. "I thought it was," she said slowly. "But now I'm not so sure. I mean, you should have been there yesterday on the way home and again this morning. Especially this morning. I really said some terrible things, and Brian knew some of them were about him. Even Jeffy knew. I feel like a total jerk. I didn't mean to hurt him. I just wanted him to leave me alone."
"Do you really think you hurt him?" asked Jana. "Maybe he's just mad."
"No, he's hurt," said Melanie. "He wouldn't even look at me when he got out of the van. I don't blame him for thinking I'm a terrible person. I deserve it. I just wish he wasn't spreading it around the entire school."
"But people who really know you understand that you're not that way," Christie reassured her.
"Right," said Jana. "You're one of the nicest people in the world. That's why we're best friends."
"Tell that to Brian Olsen," Melanie said sourly. "Besides, you know how kids love gossip. Lots of them will believe it, no matter what they thought of me before. I just hope Laura McCall and her Fantastic Foursome friends don't hear about it. If they do, they'll make posters and tape them all over school."
Melanie picked up her sandwich crusts and apple core and stuffed them back in her lunch bag. "That reminds me," she said. "I promised my mom that I'd put up some flyers about the teen taxi, and I was too upset to do it this morning. I'll see you guys later."
"If you want to wait a couple of minutes until the rest of us are finished, we'll go with you," offered Christie.
"That's okay," said Melanie. "I'll go ahead and meet you outside in a few minutes."
She tossed her lunch trash into the garbage can by the cafeteria door and headed toward the girls' bathroom where she planned to tape one of the flyers to the mirror. Every girl in school would be sure to see it there, she thought, and chuckled to herself in spite of her problems. When she had finished, she stood back and took a good look at the flyer for the first time.
Stuck Without a Ride to School?
Catch Edwards's Teen Taxi and Join Your Friends
Private Van Service Door-to-door
Call 555-4009
Melanie sighed, thinking how hard her mother was trying to make her new business work. Not only that, but the only ones at school who had teased her about the taxi or made fun of her mother for being a taxi driver were Laura McCall and her friends from The Fantastic Foursome. That was to be expected since they never passed up an opportunity to start trouble between the rival cliques. Actually, the teen taxi hadn't been an embarrassment at all. Shawnie and Kevin had both been glad to ride, and of course Br
ian . . .
Her thought trailed off as she tried to put Brian out of her mind and concentrate on helping her mother. She knew down deep that she ought to do more than just put up flyers and hope for the best. Turning to leave, she stopped and went back to the mirror and pulled a ballpoint pen out of her purse. Underneath the phone number she added:
Or See Melanie Edwards at School
Leaving the girls' room, she hurried down the hall toward the big bulletin board beside the office. Most kids checked it every day or so because any new events going on at school were posted there.
Just about everybody was still in the cafeteria eating lunch, and Melanie's footsteps echoed in the deserted hallway. She scanned the crowded bulletin board, looking for a place to put the flyer among notices about school club events, swim team tryouts at the YMCA, and a variety of other things. There's so much junk up there, she thought, that nobody will see mine unless I rearrange things. She began clearing a space in the lower left-hand corner, which was the spot nearest the drinking fountain and where a lot of students would be likely to see it. She was so intent on her task that she was barely aware of someone else's footsteps coming closer and closer until they were almost there. Then they stopped.
Startled, she looked up into Brian Olsen's face and felt her own face turn red. He looked equally startled, and then he looked down and coughed a fake-sounding cough.
Oh, no, she thought. He's embarrassed, too. Now what am I going to do? Words filled her mind. Sorry. Didn't mean it the way it sounded. Don't think I'm awful. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. But her tongue was frozen and nothing came out.
What was probably only seconds seemed like an hour as they stood there facing each other. Finally, Brian murmured, "Hi, Mel," and walked on by, leaving her staring at a spot on the floor and feeling as if her heart would burst.
