Fabulous Five 003 - The Popularity Trap (9 page)

Katie Shannon chewed on her pencil and watched Mona Vaughn
and Matt Zeboski acting up in English Lit class. They were whispering and
giggling together every time Miss Dickinson's back was turned. Didn't they know
that they would get into trouble if she caught them? Katie thought with a
frown. Maybe even get a detention?

She sighed and turned her attention back to her book and the
story the class was supposed to be reading while their teacher wrote the
homework assignment on the board. But she couldn't concentrate. This was Katie's
big week. Her excitement had been growing and growing. Tomorrow they would announce
the students who had been selected to be on the Teen Court, and her name just
might be one of them. She could hardly stand the suspense.

Ever since she had found out that Mr. Bell, the principal,
had decided to try a Teen Court instead of detentions as an experiment, she had
wanted to be on it. Teen Court would be made up of three students from each
class and two faculty members who would hear each complaint as if it were a
court case. The court would establish the punishment for the ones found guilty.
It would be an awesome responsibility, Katie thought, but it would give her a
chance to express her feelings about a lot of things, such as the way girls
were sometimes treated unfairly, and how some kids got away with things they
shouldn't.

She smiled to herself. There were several seventh-graders
running, but her record was excellent. She knew she had a super chance of being
picked. She had never been in trouble in either elementary or at Wakeman Junior
High. Not
one
detention. That had to count for a lot. And everyone knew
that she was a no-nonsense person. Just the kind of person who should be on the
Teen Court.

Katie relaxed in her seat. English Lit was one of her
favorite subjects. She liked to read stories written by women authors such as
Emily Brontë and Louisa May Alcott. It had made some of the boys in the class
furious when Miss Dickinson announced that
Frankenstein
was written by
Mary Shelley—
a woman.
She smiled to herself, remembering how they had
booed.

The chattering and giggling in the next row was irritating
her. She frowned at Mona Vaughn and Matt Zeboski again. They had been talking
ever since they came into the classroom. So what if they had a big romance
going? They should know better, and it wasn't fair to the rest of the class or
Miss Dickinson.

Katie looked at the teacher. She still had her back turned.
Teaching was hard enough without kids acting up, she thought. It miffed Katie
when they did it.

She glanced again at Mona and Matt. This time she gave them
an angry glare that she thought would stop them. Instead, they laughed at her,
and Matt whispered something to Mona. Katie's face turned as red as her hair.

"You two had better stop!" she whispered angrily. "If
Miss Dickinson catches you, you'll get a detention."

"Katie Shannon, come up to my desk!" Miss
Dickinson's command hit Katie with the force of a Wakeman Warrior football
player crashing into her. The teacher was standing by the desk with her hands
on her hips, and she was looking directly at Katie.

Katie struggled out of her seat, and the room was deathly
quiet as she walked to Miss Dickinson's desk. The aisle seemed a mile long, and
she could feel everyone staring at her.

"Katie Shannon, I'm
amazed
at you, of all
people. I didn't expect
you
to act up in class."

"But Miss Dickinson—"

"No arguments." She wrote hurriedly on a pink
detention pad and then tore off the paper and gave it to Katie. "You
deserve a detention when you cause a disturbance just the same as everyone
else. Take this to Miss Wolfe after school today."

Katie was stunned. She had always been an exemplary student,
and now she was being treated like Clarence Marshall and the other
troublemakers in school. The piece of paper in her hand might as well have been
a death sentence. Everyone would laugh at her now. But what was even worse, she
might as well forget about being on the Teen Court.

What will happen to Katie's ambitions to be on Teen Court
after she gets detention? Will she become the laughingstock of Wako Junior
High, as she predicts? And how will she face her friends? Find out in
The
Fabulous Five #4: Her Honor
, Katie Shannon.