by Betsy Haynes
"Sure," Funny replied happily. "It's Friday. You know, TGIF. You're going, too, aren't you?"
Melanie nodded. "Look for me when you get there. I need to talk to you."
Funny said she would and headed for her locker since it was time for the bell dismissing classes for the day. Melanie watched her go, hoping she could pull things off the way she had planned.
When she and the rest of The Fabulous Five got to Bumpers, they had to squeeze their way through the crowd of wall-to-wall kids.
"How are we ever going to find a table?" wailed Beth over music blaring from the jukebox. "This place is a zoo."
"I know," said Katie. "I've had my foot stepped on three times already, and we're barely in the door."
"Yeah, but look at all the cute boys who are here," Melanie reminded them. She was bouncing on her toes, trying to look every direction at once. "I see Shane and Randy over there, and Tony is talking to Scott by the order counter. And isn't that Keith in the yellow bumper car?"
The girls pressed their way through the crowd, stopping every few steps to talk to friends. Finally a group of eighth-graders vacated a table near the door, and Melanie and her friends dove for it before anyone else could claim it.
"Hey, is there room for us?" shouted Shane. He was waving in their direction, but Melanie could see that he was looking straight at her.
"Sure!" she shouted back, not caring that there weren't enough chairs to go around. She would gladly give up hers if it meant that Shane was paying attention to her again. Maybe she would even sit on his lap.
Shane and Randy made their way through the crowd, holding sodas and fries high above their heads. When they reached the table, Shane plunked his food down beside Melanie and said, grinning, "Help yourself to this stuff. I'll go get something else for myself."
When he and Randy went back to the order counter, Melanie grabbed a french fry and breathed a huge sigh. "I can't believe it!" she screeched. "It's been ages since he's so much as looked in my direction. I had even decided that he didn't like me anymore." Then, thinking of her great-great-grandmother Cordia, she added, "It must be fate!" and giggled.
"Don't be silly," said Katie. "Guys get interested in boy-type things, and they need breathing room sometimes, just the way girls do."
Melanie gave her a puzzled look. "Who needs breathing room?"
Katie rolled her eyes to the ceiling and started to answer when Funny called from across the room.
"Hi, Melanie. What did you want to talk to me about?"
Melanie scrambled to her feet. "Shane can sit in my chair, and tell him I'll be right back," she instructed her friends. Then she hurried to Funny, who was trying to squeeze her way through one of the aisles.
"Let's go to the girls' bathroom," said Melanie. "It's more private."
When the door closed behind them, Melanie crossed her fingers behind her back. She hated to lie to anyone, but this was important. Taking a deep breath, she said, "I feel a little strange asking, but I was wondering if I could spend the night at your house tonight. My parents are going to be away overnight, and all of my other friends are busy. I know it's a lot to ask, and if you think The Fantastic Foursome would get mad, just say so, and I'll understand."
"Don't be silly," said Funny. "Of course they won't get mad. Besides," she said, raising an eyebrow, "who's going to tell them?"
Both girls laughed at the thought of The Fabulous Five's archrivals, The Fantastic Foursome, not knowing that the two of them were spending the night together.
"Well, do you think your parents would mind?" Melanie pressed.
"I don't know why they would," said Funny. "Of course, I'll have to ask them before I can be sure, but it sounds like fun to me. Is it okay if I talk to them as soon as I get home and then call you?"
"Great," said Melanie. "You may have just saved my life. Otherwise I'd have to go with my parents and Jeffy, and that would be totally boring." Melanie uncrossed her fingers as she left the girls' bathroom and headed back to the table. Now if Funny's parents said yes to her spending the night, she could do her second bit of spying. She could find out how a chosen child was treated, and then she'd know for sure just how unwanted she really was.
She noticed that the crowd at Bumpers was beginning to thin, but thankfully her friends and most of the cute boys were still there. She could see that Shane and Randy had gotten back to the table with their orders, and that Keith, Tony, and Jon had pulled up chairs and joined the group. Her friends seemed to have forgotten about the rotten mood she had been in lately, and her heart skipped a beat at the thought of all five of The Fabulous Five together with boyfriends. Rushing back to her friends, she was aware that everyone at the table was laughing.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Didn't you hear?" cried Jana. "Tony found out that he isn't related to Sylvester Stallone after all. You know, the Italian Stallion."
"So, what's so funny about that?" asked Melanie.
"It's who he is related to that makes it funny," Katie insisted. "Madonna!"
"I still don't get it," said Melanie.
Finally Tony spoke up. "It's because she's a skinny girl and a singer instead of a macho-type guy," he said good-naturedly. "But she is Italian," he added, grinning broadly. "Her real name is Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone, and we're umpteenth cousins twice removed on my mother's side."
"Well, at least she's famous," offered Melanie, and this time she joined in the laughter.
"Has anyone else found any famous relatives?" asked Christie. "Jana, what about Trevor Morgan?"
Jana shrugged. "I'm not sure. My Morgan relatives came from Manchester in England, which is where Trevor is from, but that's as much as I've been able to find out."
"Hey, you have to be related," shouted Keith. "How big a place can Manchester be?"
Jana shook her head. "It's a major city. It would be like saying we have to be related because both of our families came from Chicago or Boston."
"Well, keep digging," said Keith, giving her a grin.
"Let me tell you about my great-great-grandmother," Katie said proudly. "She worked for the passage of the Constitutional amendment in 1920 giving women the right to vote."
"Aaaarrrrgghh," groaned Tony, slapping his forehead. "We should have known."
Katie puffed out her chest and started to respond, but Melanie jumped into the conversation ahead of her. This was the moment she had been waiting for.
"I had a very interesting great-great-grandmother, too," she said, giving Shane a flirty smile. "Her name was Cordia Mae Lee, and I've been reading her love letters, which she kept tied with a pink ribbon. My grandmother keeps them in an old trunk at her house. All the boys were crazy about Cordia, and one even threatened to jump off the church steeple if she wouldn't go for a buggy ride with him."
Melanie looked at Shane again, hoping he would say something romantic, but instead it was Katie who spoke up again.
"Did you know that in the early 1800s only one letter in a hundred was addressed to a woman? Isn't that terrible? I read that in my genealogy research." Leave it to Katie, Melanie thought, shaking her head.
After she and her friends left Bumpers, Melanie rushed home to wait for Funny's call. She had only been home a few minutes when the phone rang. It was Funny, saying that her parents had agreed to let Melanie spend the night.
"Actually they're awfully pleased," said Funny. "They said that they were glad I was expanding my circle of friends."
Melanie chewed her lower lip nervously when her parents dropped her off at Funny's house after dinner. They, too, had expressed approval that she was spending time with a new friend. If they only knew, she thought.
Mrs. Hawthorne answered the door. She was a tall woman with short, graying hair, and she was smiling so broadly that her face crinkled around her eyes. "Come on in, Melanie. We're so glad you'll be spending the night with us."
Just then Funny came bounding up, and her mother slipped an arm around her waist and went on talking. "
Funny told us how you helped her overcome her shyness about talking to us about the genealogy project. We can't thank you enough."
Melanie nodded self-consciously and set her sleeping bag down on the floor. She could hardly stand to watch Funny and her mother hugging each other and smiling. It was happening just the way she had thought it would.
CHAPTER 12
"Come on up to my room," suggested Funny. She grabbed Melanie's sleeping bag and hoisted it onto her shoulder as she led the way up the stairs. Her bedroom was as cheerful as her disposition, with wallpaper made of happy faces of every color in the rainbow against a white background.
"Did you know I have a clown collection?" asked Funny, leading Melanie to a large glass-fronted cabinet containing clown dolls of every size and shape. "I've even thought about going to clown college myself one of these days," she admitted.
Melanie admired the clowns, and for the next hour or so the two girls got settled and chatted about school and about boys.
"I get so embarrassed around boys that sometimes I'm even tongue-tied," said Funny. "I wish I could talk to them as easily as you can."
"What are you talking about?" Melanie asked, feeling a blush wash over her.
"It just seems to come so natural to you," Funny offered, and shrugged. "I couldn't help noticing you talking to Scott at the cemetery today, and then at Bumpers, Shane was hanging on every word you said."
"Oh, that," she said, feeling a tingling sense of pleasure. "Maybe I inherited it from one of my long-lost relatives," she joked.
"Maybe," Funny said, sounding doubtful. "Or maybe you just like to flirt." At that, both girls broke up laughing.
A little while later, they went down to the kitchen for a snack. Mrs. Hawthorne hummed softly as she tore lettuce leaves for a salad. She wore the same smile that had been on her face when Melanie arrived, and Melanie couldn't help thinking that Mrs. Hawthorne smiled as much as Funny did. Or was it the other way around? she wondered. Could Funny have gotten her smile from being around her adopted mother all the time? Mrs. Clark had said that everyone inherited traits from genes, but maybe Funny learned to be so smiley from being around Mrs. Hawthorne.
"This is usually Funny's job," Mrs. Hawthorne was saying. "But because she has company, I've given her the night off."
"Thanks, Mom," said Funny, giving her mother a look of genuine affection. Then laughing, she said, "I'll make two salads tomorrow night."
Melanie squirmed uncomfortably, trying to imagine her own mother taking over some of her chores just because she had company, but she couldn't. Of course, her company usually consisted of The Fabulous Five, whom her mother had known for years. But still, she thought, even if I brought home someone new, it probably wouldn't make any difference. I'm not a chosen child, like Funny. I'm an accident.
Later, when they went down to dinner, Funny ran squealing to her father, who had come home from work while they were upstairs, and he planted a kiss squarely on her forehead. "Hi, princess," he said, beaming down at her. "How was your day?"
Melanie thought about her own father the night before. Even though she had been home from school sick all day, he hadn't greeted her this way. All he had done was gripe about her table manners.
"Great," said Funny. "Today was our Family Living class's field trip to the cemetery to make gravestone rubbings." She went on telling her parents about the trip, and Melanie watched closely as they listened to every word she said, just the way her own parents had listened to Jeffy's story about the Godzilla movie the night before. But did my parents listen to me when I tried to tell them something? she thought with a heavy heart. Of course not.
The rest of the evening went the same. Whenever she and Funny were around Funny's parents, they treated her as if she were some kind of royalty, and Melanie felt herself growing quieter and quieter.
"Is something wrong?" Funny asked later when they were snuggled in their sleeping bags and the lights were turned out.
Melanie didn't say anything for a moment. How could she tell Funny what was really bothering her? She couldn't admit that the reason she had wanted to spend the night was to spy on Funny and her family.
"There's nothing wrong," Melanie said at last. "It's just that I can't help noticing how cheerful your parents are."
"Yeah, I know what you mean." Funny giggled softly in the dark. "My mom, especially. She can always find something to smile about."
"Not my mom," grumbled Melanie. "Especially where I'm concerned. All she ever does is yell at me."
Now it was Funny's turn to be silent, and Melanie wished she could say more, but she could never tell Funny the truth about what was bothering her.
A little while later, tiny, gurgly snores told Melanie that Funny was asleep, but it was much later before she was able to close her own eyes.
CHAPTER 13
Funny and her mother dropped Melanie off at home on their way to the library the next morning. Breakfast with the Hawthornes had been as cheerful as dinnertime had been the night before. Melanie moped around the house all morning, thinking about how Funny's parents treated their chosen child and wondering why she had spied on the Hawthornes in the first place. Because now that she had the proof she had been looking for, she felt worse instead of better.
She wished that she could talk to someone about her problem. She had tried to talk to The Fabulous Five at school the day before, but they had thought she was jumping to conclusions. "But they don't know how it feels," she whispered to herself.
She sat down at her desk and began to make a list of all the ways she could think of that her parents had proven over the last few days that they didn't love her. One, her mother hadn't been at home when she got sick and needed to come home. Of course, she had come straight to school and insisted that Melanie go home and then to bed once she had found out. But what else could a mother do?
"Melanie! Will you come down here right now and put your sleeping bag away!"
Melanie stiffened at her mother's angry voice. Big deal, she thought. Can't she ever give me a chance to do things on my own? I was going to put it away in a few minutes.
Putting down her ballpoint pen, she scuffed down to the foyer and scooped up the sleeping bag. Then she hauled it down to the basement and stuffed it into the closet.
The puppies were asleep in a furry pile. Rainbow was lying outside her box this time, and Melanie couldn't resist stopping to pet her.
"I'll bet you don't yell at your puppies the way my mom yells at me," she said, and chuckled.
Rainbow wagged her tail and gazed at Melanie lovingly. Giving her dog one last pat, she went back up to her room to work on her list again.
Two, her parents paid a lot more attention to Jeffy than they did to her. Of course she was older and needed some independence sometimes, but still . . .
"Melanie! You left the basement door open! Get down here this instant!"
Exasperated, Melanie sighed loudly. "Why doesn't she just close it herself?" she muttered out loud.
When she got to the kitchen, her mother was standing in the middle of the floor with her hands on her hips and an angry expression on her face.
Melanie opened her mouth to protest, but something caught her attention on the floor. Puddles. She gulped hard and began to count them. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Eight little puddles scattered all around the kitchen floor.
"Thanks to you," her mother went on, "the puppies got upstairs. I want this all cleaned up immediately."
Melanie nodded and went to get a bucket and a mop. There was no way she could argue this time. She was just finishing mopping the floor when the doorbell rang.
"I'll get it! I'll get it!" Jeffy screamed.
The next thing Melanie heard was Gran Pennington's cheerful voice. "Is Melanie here? I've brought something that I'm sure she'll want to see."
"In here, Gran," Melanie called. She put the mop in the bucket and turned to greet her grandmother.
"Oh, there you are," said Gran. She set
her purse on the counter and began rummaging through it. "I was thinking about your interest in your great-great-grandmother Cordia, and I remembered a newspaper clipping about her that I know you'll be interested in. I don't know why I forgot about it before, but luckily I found it in the trunk."
Beaming, she spread the old, yellowed newspaper clipping in front of Melanie. "My, my. You two are so much alike."
Melanie sucked in her breath. The headline read, "Courageous Girl Saves Doomed Dog From Certain Death." And there in the picture was Cordia Mae Lee, smiling and cuddling a brown and white dog.
"Read the story out loud," urged Gran Pennington.
Melanie cleared her throat and began, "'Thirteen-year-old Cordia Mae Lee, who lives on Brighton Street, was passing Thistle Creek yesterday when she heard a dog yelping. Upon investigation, she discovered that the dog had been thrown into the creek with a rock tied to its feet.' Oh, my gosh!" Melanie shrieked, and then read on quickly, "'Cordia jumped in and pulled the half-drowned dog out of the swift current, saving its life.'" Melanie glanced quickly from her grandmother to her mother and back to her grandmother again. "Why would anyone do something like that to a poor little dog?"
"That's one of the ways people used to get rid of animals they didn't want in the days before there were animal shelters," her grandmother said gently. "But the important thing is that Cordia saved the little dog just as you and your friends saved all those animals at Christmastime. And she took it home to her family just as you brought Rainbow home. I guess you come by your love of animals naturally, don't you?"
Melanie swallowed back tears and nodded. It was too perfect to be true. She had really inherited a lot of things from this relative who had lived so long ago. If only she were alive today, she thought, we could be such good friends.
