by Betsy Haynes
THE FABULOUS FIVE #16
THE HOT-LINE EMERGENCY
BETSY HAYNES
A BANTAM SKYLARK BOOK®
NEW YORK • TORONTO • LONDON • SYDNEY • AUCKLAND
RL 5, IL age 009-012
THE HOT-LINE EMERGENCY
A Bantam Skylark Book / March 1990
Skylark Books is a registered trademark of Bantam Hooks, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and elsewhere.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1990 by Betsy Haynes and James Haynes.
Cover art copyright © 1990 by Andrew Bacha.
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ISBN 0-553-15781-7
Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words Bantam Books® and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CW 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CHAPTER 1
Christie Winchell sat at the desk in her tiny cubicle in room 206 of Wakeman Junior High, staring nervously at the phone. She didn't know whether she wanted it to ring or stay silent. She blew out a deep breath and glanced anxiously at her watch. Two minutes until seven, when the calls should start.
Christie wished she didn't feel so nervous. She had had several days to get over her jitters. Mr. Snider, her math teacher, had asked her, Curtis Trowbridge, Whitney Larkin, Kevin Walker-Noles, Melissa McConnell, and Liza Vernon, who were all seventh-graders, to meet with him in his classroom after school last Friday.
"I'm the faculty adviser for the homework hot line Wakeman Junior High is setting up," he had said. "We're asking teams of students to man a hot-line center in the evenings at Wakeman to help other students who call in with questions about their homework. There will be separate teams for the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, and the center will be open from seven to nine P.M., Mondays through Thursdays. We need at least four students from each grade, and hopefully a couple of backups in case someone has to miss one night. The six of you are excellent students in every subject, and I've been asked by Mr. Bell to see if you'd be interested in being on the seventh-grade team."
Christie had glanced around at the others. Having brains was definitely what they all had in common.
"I'm not sure I'll be able to do it," said Curtis. "Being class president takes up a lot of time."
"I know I can't," said Kevin. "My parents work, and I have to watch my little brother until they get home. Sometimes they work pretty late." Christie thought he looked truly disappointed.
"Is there anyone else who has a problem?" asked Mr. Snider.
"I'll have to check with my parents," said Liza.
"Me, too," agreed Whitney.
"Since you'll be out late on a school night, you'll all have to talk to your parents. If any of them have any questions, have them call me. Except for Kevin, who already knows he can't be on the team, I'd appreciate it if the rest of you could give me your answers on Monday."
Christie had asked her parents and they had quickly given their approval, saying that they were proud of her for the honor. Whitney and Melissa both said they would be on the team, and when Curtis saw that Whitney was going to do it, he decided to, also. Liza Vernon couldn't be on the team full-time, but she said she would substitute if they needed help. That meant Mr. Snider had to find one more person for backup.
Tim Riggs was talking to Mr. Snider when Christie entered the hot-line center, and Pam Wolthoff was sitting at one of the cubicles, thumbing through schoolbooks. Tim was in the eighth grade, and Pam, the ninth. Both had been on the Super Quiz team with Christie.
A big grin blossomed on Tim's face when he saw her. "Hi, Christie." Pam looked up and smiled, too.
"Welcome to your first evening on the job, Christie," said Mr. Snider. "Everything should be ready for you."
Christie went to the cubicle she had been assigned to and checked the books on the shelf to make sure there was one for each of the seventh-grade subjects. Then she took the pencils from their box and went to sharpen them one more time just to make sure they were perfect. She didn't want to interrupt a conversation about homework with a caller because she didn't have a decent pencil. Finally, she sat down and picked up the phone to see if it was working. The soft hum told her it was.
As she sat waiting for her first call, she began to worry. What if she couldn't help someone, or even worse, what if she gave someone a wrong answer? She wouldn't be able to face them in school. She shook her head to get rid of the terrible thoughts. She liked the idea of helping other kids, and she would just make sure she did it right.
She looked at her watch again. Now it was five after seven. The phone should ring any moment. Five more minutes passed and then ten. She looked at the phone that sat silently like a fat toad on the corner of her desk. She almost expected it to go ribbit.
Christie took one of the pencils and started doodling on the pad in front of her. What if no one called? What if everyone thought it was weird to call another kid to ask for help with homework? Well, she sighed, I might as well do some of my own homework. She took down the algebra book from the shelf and opened it to the chapter they were working on and looked at the odd-numbered problems, which Mr. Snider had assigned as usual. She started writing down problem number one.
"RINNGG!"
Christie broke the point of her pencil as she grabbed for the phone.
"Hello!" She lowered her voice and added quickly, "Homework hot-line center. This is Christie. How may I help you?"
"Do you have a hot line to tell to girls?" a boy's voice asked.
"What?" Christie snapped. "Is this Clarence Marshall?" She could hear muffled talking as if someone had a hand over the phone. "Clarence, why don't you just grow up," she hissed. "And I can hear Joel Murphy, too."
The phone line clicked silent.
"Is everything okay, Christie?" asked Mr. Snider.
"Fine," she answered quickly. "Just a wrong number." Clarence Marshall was such a dork. He was always playing stupid tricks on people. She hoped he wouldn't call back.
Christie stood on her tiptoes and peeked over the top of her cubicle. Pam was talking to someone on the telephone and had a book open. At least she had gotten a real call. Christie was wondering how many prank calls she would get when the phone rang a second time.
"Homework hot-line center. This is Christie. How may I help you?"
"Hello. I'm having trouble with my homework." It was another boy's voice, and she listened carefully to detect laughter in the background. His voice was a little muffled, but he sounded pretty serious.
"Are you in the seventh grade?"
"Yes."
"What subject do you need help with?"
"Algebra. I'm having trouble with problems three, five, and nine."
Christie checked the problems in her book. They were pretty simple, and a feeling of pride welled in her as she realized she would be able to help her first real caller.
As she worked through the problems with the boy, he caught on easily. In ten minutes they had done all three.
"Thanks," the boy said, but instead of han
ging up he asked, "How do you like working in the hot-line center?"
"I just started, and you're my first real caller. You actually helped me, too, you know. I was nervous, and now I feel better."
"Does it make you feel good?"
Christie hesitated. What a strange question, she thought. "I guess so," she answered finally.
"It's like being a teacher, isn't it? You're the boss, I mean."
"Well, no. I'm not the boss of anything. I'm more like a helper." She really didn't feel as if she were the boss, and what he was saying was confusing.
"I'm the boss sometimes," he said.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I make things happen that are really important, and nobody can do anything about it unless I tell them."
"I don't understand," said Christie. "What do you do?"
"Oh . . ."
He seemed to want to tease her. Was this going to turn into another crank call after all?
"Sometimes I set fires."
Christie almost dropped the phone. "You what?" she whispered.
The caller sounded pleased at her reaction. "I set fires," he repeated, as if it were something that people did every day.
Christie was at a loss of words. Was he kidding or did he mean what he was saying? He probably just thought it was fun to tease a girl. She looked back to see where Mr. Snider was. He was helping Tim with a call. "It's not funny to say things like that," she said.
"Oh, you think I'm kidding, do you?" Now he sounded irritated with her. "Well, you know the fire in the empty lot on Catherine Street and the one on Pleasant Hill? I did those."
Christie's mind raced. She remembered seeing an article in the paper a few days ago about a fire in a lot on Catherine Street. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she had read about one on Pleasant Hill, too. From what she remembered, both had been small fires that were put out quickly. Still, he had to be kidding.
"I said that's not funny," Christie retorted angrily. "People can get hurt when there are fires."
"I call the fire department so no one gets hurt."
"Look, I'm supposed to be helping kids with their homework, and you're tying up the telephone with your dumb story. I've got to go," she said irritably.
"You don't believe me, huh? Well, would you believe me if I set another fire and told you where it was going to be?"
Fear grabbed at Christie's insides. What if he was telling the truth? "Wait a minute!" She scrambled for time to think. "Don't do anything silly."
"Now you're not so sure of yourself, right? I'll tell you what. I'm going to do something, and it won't hurt anyone. But I can't tell you exactly what it will be because you'd tell." He seemed to stop and think for a moment. "What I'm going to do will be the opposite of playing with fire, and it will be funny, and I'll do it tonight. It will be big and important enough that you'll know about it."
"What are you talking about? What are you going to do?" Christie demanded.
"Never mind," he said, laughing. "You'll see. This one will be really funny."
"Wait a minute," Christie said frantically. "I . . ."
He hung up. She stared at the dead phone in disbelief.
CHAPTER 2
Christie slowly put the phone back in its cradle, her hands were shaking. She couldn't believe what had just happened. She wanted to think the caller was just some kid who was using the homework hot line to play dumb tricks, but she couldn't help wondering if he had been telling the truth about setting fires. Was this what working on the hot-line team was going to be like, dumb phone calls from Clarence and scary ones from kooks?
But yet the last caller had seemed serious. He hadn't laughed, and she hadn't heard anyone in the background talking. Kids almost never pulled pranks by themselves. They always wanted other kids around when they were showing off. She shivered a little. Should she tell Mr. Snider?
As she was debating whether or not to talk to the teacher, the phone rang again. She jumped. Was it him calling again? Rut to her immense relief, this time it was a girl, and it was obvious that she badly needed help with her social studies. Christie was busy answering calls for the rest of the evening. They were all from kids who truly needed help, and she didn't have time to say anything to Mr. Snider about the caller who said he set fires. By the time the evening was over, she had relaxed and decided that the boy was just being mean and wanted to scare her because she was a girl. When nine o'clock came, she put her things together and got ready to leave.
"Well," said Mr. Snider, beaming at Christie, Pam, and Tim. "I'd say we had a pretty successful evening. All three of you were busy most of the time. You can be proud that you're providing a valuable service to your fellow students. Did you have any problems? Did you have everything you needed?"
Christie hesitated. She was tempted to tell Mr. Snider about the caller, and then she changed her mind. She would probably never hear from that boy again, and besides, she would just sound like a baby anyway.
"Everything was fine," she mumbled.
As Christie walked onto the school grounds the next morning, everything looked normal despite the caller's threats. She spotted Katie, Jana, and Melanie at The Fabulous Five's regular spot by the fence, and Beth was nearby talking to Dekeisha Adams. Maybe the caller hadn't been serious about doing something big and funny that she would know about.
As Christie called hello to her friends, she couldn't help thinking about how glad she was to see them. The five of them had been best friends for as long as she could remember, even though they were all very different. Katie Shannon, who had red hair and freckles, was The Fabulous Five's feminist. Jana Morgan always seemed to have things under control and was accepted as their leader. Melanie Edwards was boy crazy, and Beth Barry was the dramatic one who wanted to be an actress. Christie noticed that today Beth was wearing a bright purple jacket that came down to the middle of her thighs and matching headband and earrings. As usual, she really stood out among the crowd of junior high students.
Clarence Marshall gave Christie a sheepish grin as she passed him and then returned to his conversation with Geena McNatt.
"How did the hot-line center go last night?" asked Katie. "Did you get any goofy calls?"
"One from our friend Clarence Marshall wanting to know if I had any hot lines to tell to girls," said Christie.
Melanie rolled her eyes. "Just what you'd expect. At least he got it over with right away. Now you can talk to all the normal people."
"Actually I had one call after Clarence's that was really weird," Christie said, frowning.
"What happened?" asked Jana. "You look so serious."
Christie shrugged. "The caller could have been just another show-off, but when it happened, it scared me a little bit." She told them word for word what the boy had said, including his claim to have set the fires in the vacant lots on Catherine Street and Pleasant Hill.
"Oh, come on," scoffed Katie. "That doesn't make sense. Catherine Street and Pleasant Hill are on opposite sides of town."
"Yeah," said Jana. "How would he get to both places? Even if he lived near one of them, it would take an eternity to get to the other one on a bike, and I'm sure his parents wouldn't drive him."
"I can hear it all now," said Melanie. "Dad, would you drive me across town for a few minutes? I want to set a fire."
Everyone burst out laughing, and Christie found herself giggling along with her friends.
"You're right," she admitted. "Besides, if I read about the fires in the newspaper, he could have, too. What a jerk! He only wanted to scare me."
Just then Beth walked over to the group, and she was laughing, too. "Did you hear what Dekeisha was telling me?" She was barely able to talk she was giggling so hard. "She . . ." Beth broke into another fit of giggles. "Her school bus goes by City Hall, and she said you wouldn't believe what someone had done to the big fountain in front of it. It was filled with so many soap bubbles that they were running onto the sidewalk and out into the street. According to Dekeisha, they must have been
ten feet high, and they were blowing everywhere. All you could see of the fountain was a little teeny squirt of water coming out the top of the bubbles. People were standing around trying to figure what to do with it. She said someone must have put a dozen boxes of detergent in it."
By the time Beth had finished telling the story, Katie, Melanie, and Jana were laughing along with her. In spite of herself, Christie laughed, too. At the same time she was thinking, Is this what that boy meant when he said he was going to do something funny? If it was, he had certainly succeeded.
All morning long Christie found herself looking at each seventh-grade boy and wondering if he might be the anonymous caller. Certain boys, such as Jon Smith, Randy Kirwan, Keith Masterson, Tony Calcaterra, Shane Arrington, and Scott Daly, who hung out with The Fabulous Five, could be easily eliminated. She knew their voices too well. Even if one of them had been trying to disguise his, she thought she would know. Besides, they definitely were not the type to set fires or fill the City Hall fountain with soap bubbles. She could also eliminate Curtis Trowbridge, Clarence Marshall, and a few others she had known in Mark Twain Elementary.
She still couldn't believe that the caller had really set the fires. He may have put the soap bubbles in the fountain, but he had probably lied about the fires to get her attention. That had to be it, because why would a seventh-grade boy want to set fires anyway? And was he even in the seventh grade? He might be an eighth- or ninth-grader who was trying to hide his identity. He had caught on to the algebra problems pretty easily.
Christie shook her head. She was making too big a deal out of some dumb boy's having what he thought was fun at her expense, and she was falling for it. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got at herself for walking into his trap.
CHAPTER 3
After school Liza Vernon stopped at The Fabulous Five's table at Bumpers, the fast-food restaurant where everyone from Wakeman Junior High hung out. "Hi, Christie," she said shyly. "How did things go last night?"
"Terrific," Christie answered, making an instant decision not to tell anyone outside The Fabulous Five about her strange caller. "I'm sorry that your parents wouldn't let you be on the hot-line team."
