Fabulous Five 009 - The Boyfriend Dilemma (7 page)

"Quiet, please, everyone," Mr. Neal said loudly. "It's
time for roll call.

"Daphne?"

"Here."

"Brad?"

"Here."

Mr. Neal continued calling the names, and when he called out
Christie's, several heads turned toward her. Melissa McConnell looked first
shocked and then angry.

When Mr. Neal finished, he closed his notebook and placed it
on top of the infamous blue folder. "Before we get started, I'm going to
turn the floor over to Christie for a few moments. She has something very
interesting to show you." He smiled and took a seat in the front row.

Without saying anything, Christie got up and marched to the
front of the media center where the television stood on a tall stand that made
it easy to see. She turned it on, punched the play button on the VCR, and
stepped aside.

The same images flashed on the screen as she had seen when
Jon first showed her the tape. The band was setting up. Kids from the Super
Quiz team were milling around. Then Jon stepped forward and speeded up the
tape. The custodian came charging across the room with his broom and Mr. Neal
moved in herky-jerky motions that made all the kids laugh. Christie looked at
Mr. Neal, and even he was smiling at the way he looked.

As the videotape reached the point where the custodian was
cleaning the table, Jon slowed it again, and when the custodian put the blue folder
on her books, it stopped. Christie looked at the faces of the Super Quiz team,
and their eyes were fixed on the television screen.

Then the custodian started cleaning again, and when he moved
half of her books, the video stopped so no one could miss what was happening.
The frame froze once more when he placed the books on top of the blue folder,
sandwiching it in between. The room was deathly quiet as everyone stared
transfixed at the television set.

"
That's how
Mr. Neal's folder got in with my
books," said Christie loudly so everyone could hear.

The kids in the room started applauding and Tim began
shouting and punching his fist into the air. No one paid any attention to the
rest of the video.

Shivers of joy ran through Christie, and the tears she had held
back so long ran down her cheeks as she stood in front of the Super Quiz team
and listened to their cheers. She smiled at Jon, who stood in the back. He
returned her smile, gave her a thumbs-up, and walked out of the room.

"Wait!" Christie cried as she raced after him. He
was more important than all the Super Quiz teams in the world, and she had to
tell him so.

"Jon?" she called shyly when she reached the
hallway and saw that he had stopped to wait for her. "Can I talk to you a
minute?"

"Sure," he said.

"I just want you to know that you're the best friend
anyone could ever have. No matter what happens, I'll never forget this."

Jon chuckled softly. "Want to know a secret?"

Christie nodded.

"I'm not the one who spotted the blue folder in the
tape. In fact, I was so busy thinking about all the technical stuff that I wasn't
really paying much attention to what anyone in the film was doing."

Christie frowned. "What do you mean?" she
sputtered. "Of course you did. Otherwise . . ." She shook her head
and raised both arms in a helpless shrug. "Otherwise how . . ."

Jon held up his hand. "Kimm was the one who noticed it.
Like everybody else in school, she had heard about the mess you were in over
the folder and the questions, and when she looked at the tape, it was the first
thing she saw."

"Kimm?" Christie whispered in astonishment.

"That's right," said Jon. "I tried to get her
to come along and take the credit, but she wouldn't. She even made me promise
that I wouldn't tell you. She knows that things have been a little rocky
between us lately, and she not only wanted to make sure you got out of trouble,
but that you and I patched things up with each other."

Christie swallowed hard. "She sounds terrific to do a
thing like that."

Jon nodded. "I have a feeling the two of you are going
to be friends, too."

Christie smiled to herself as she watched him walk away a
few minutes later. Their special friendship would probably last forever, and
now she knew there was no way that she would ever be jealous of Kimm again
either. Kimm was a special person, just as Jon was, and everything was truly
going to be all right from now on.

The score was tied at one hundred eighty each, and the
moderator was taking a few minutes to confer with the judges. It was the third
and last match between the Wakeman and Trumbull Super Quiz teams, and they had
each won one game. Christie could feel the tension among the players, and the
audience was getting noisier and noisier as the match drew near its end.

She could see The Fabulous Five sitting five rows back. Beth
had her head in her hands and was rocking back and forth dramatically in her
excitement. Melanie had her eyes covered, as if she were afraid to look, and
Jana and Katie were sitting on the edges of their seats.

Christie's mother and father sat farther back. She smiled at
them and wondered if they could see her face.

Curtis fidgeted at Christie's left, and Tim frowned and
stared hard at the blank paper in front of him on her right. The three of them,
along with Daphne, Kyle, and Pam, had started out by losing the first game, and
they had trailed in the second before surging ahead by answering the last five
questions. The last game had been a neck-and-neck battle all the way.

Christie looked across the stage at the table where the
Trumbull team sat. They're good, she thought. If we beat them, we'll be very
lucky.

Rodney Cox slouched back in his chair, frowning and running
his fingers through his red hair. He had looked arrogant during the first game
and the first half of the second, when Trumbull was beating Wakeman, but the
cocky look had disappeared when Wakeman pulled even and then won the second
game. He looked like a volcano about to erupt when Kyle took a question on the
rebound from one of Rodney's teammates to tie the score at one eighty. Christie
didn't think she would like Rodney very much.

"All right, everyone," Mr. Perdyne, the moderator,
said. "Here is the final question. And, may I say, both teams have fought
gallantly. Good luck to you both on this one." He pulled an index card from
the box in front of him.

"The category is social studies," he said, and
then paused.

Rats. Social studies, thought Christie. I wish it were math
or current events. She had done well in those categories and had helped the
Wakeman team to win the second game.

"Who," Mr. Perdyne continued, "was the person
who fought for women's right to vote, and was eventually honored by having her
likeness placed on a silver dollar?"

Christie's hand streaked to the button in front of her. At
the same time she saw a flash of movement across the room at Rodney Cox's
position. A buzzer sounded and she looked up to see the Wakeman light was lit.
She had beaten him. Thank you, Katie Shannon, she thought.

The whole Trumbull team was leaning forward staring at
Christie, and she could feel her teammates' eyes on her.

"Go get 'em, Christie," she heard Tim say in a low
voice.

"The person who fought for women's right to vote and
had her likeness put on a silver dollar was Susan B. Anthony," Christie
said as loudly and clearly as she could.

"The answer is correct," said the moderator.
"The
match goes to Wakeman Junior High
."

Cheers burst from the audience and Christie saw The Fabulous
Five jumping up and down. Curtis slapped her on the back so hard it hurt, and
Brad shook both fists.

Christie smiled so broadly she thought her face might crack.
She could see her mother and father standing and applauding. They were probably
telling everyone near them that she was their daughter, she mused. At the side
of the auditorium she saw Jon with his camcorder trained on her, and she
clasped her hands above her head victoriously the way prize fighters do and
mugged for the camera.

Behind her, she heard Tim call her name. She turned to thank
him for his encouragement, but before she could get the words out, he scooped
her up into a gigantic hug. She stiffened for an instant, remembering Jon, and
then she relaxed and hugged Tim back.

"Well, what do you think?" asked Christie. "Should
we order the red T-shirts or the gold ones?" The Fabulous Five were
sitting in Christie's family room. Two delivery boxes were on the coffee table
with the remains of one sausage pizza and one deep-dish pepperoni, mushroom,
and green-pepper pizza, which was Jana's favorite. T-shirt catalogs were spread
out all over the floor, and the girls were lying around looking at them.

"I vote for red!" yelled Beth, talking around a
string of cheese that she had stretched out from her mouth to as far as she
could reach. "With THE FABULOUS FIVE in gold letters."

"I vote for gold!" yelled Katie. "With red
lettering. The red shirt would look terrible with my red hair."

"It would not," said Beth, letting the cheese
dangle back into her mouth.

"Look," said Melanie, holding a catalog up to
Katie's face and placing a lock of her hair over the sample color. "It
goes perfectly with your hair color."

"I think so, too," said Beth.

"And red and gold are Wacko Junior High's colors,"
said Jana. "All of the Wacko teams wear red tops, so it just makes sense,
if we're going to use the school colors, that we have red with gold lettering."

"I really think it will look good on you, Katie,"
said Christie.

"Oh, all right, but are we going to put our names on
them, too?"

"I think it would be a good idea," agreed Jana,
reaching for another slice of pizza. "We could put them in different
positions, like when we write things on our notebooks."

"Great idea!" said Beth. "Boy, will Laura and
the rest of The Fantastic Foursome be green with envy."

"I bet they get T-shirts when they see ours," said
Melanie.

"But they won't be able to use the school colors, and
everyone will know they're copying us," said Christie.

"Yea, for The Fabulous Five!" yelled Beth. "First
again!"

"YEA!" they all yelled, holding slices of pizza in
the air.

"Changing the subject," said Jana, "I'm sure
glad things turned out all right for you with the Super Quiz team, Christie."

"
You're
glad?" said Christie, rolling her
eyes. "I thought I was dead. If we hadn't been able to prove how Mr. Neal's
questions got with my books, I wouldn't be able to hold my head up in school or
at home. Jon and Kimm saved me with his video recording."

"And now you're the hero of Wacko Junior High,"
said Jana. "It's super the way it worked out."

"What I think is a riot, is the way the last question
turned out to be the one that Katie kept asking you," Melanie added. "I
guess Katie's being a feminist paid off for you this time, Christie."

Christie looked at Katie and smiled. "It sure did.
Katie, I'll never, ever, get on you again about being too much of a liberated woman."

"I don't think she's as liberated as she wants us to
believe," said Beth. "Look at the Macho guy she dates."

"You just don't understand Tony," Katie responded.
"He's really a kind and sensitive person."

"Now you sound like Jana when she talks about Randy,"
interjected Melanie. "By the way, how's your nonromance going with Jon,
Christie?"

"Fine. He has a date with Kimm for Saturday."

"That's probably the last you'll see of him," said
Melanie.

"No. Not true. We're going to play tennis Saturday
morning, and he'll be over a couple of nights a week to study. Besides, I'm
really starting to like Kimm. I'm sure everything's going to work out fine."

"Now you can look at the other boys again," said
Melanie. "There are a lot of yummy ones. But stay away from Scott, Shane,
and Garrett. They're mine."

"Sheez!" said Katie. "You'd think every boy
in Wacko was her personal property."

"No, I don't," Melanie said with a pouty look on
her face. "I'd never go after guys that any of you four were dating."

"Just kidding," responded Katie.

"No. I really don't want to date right away," said
Christie. "I broke up with Jon because I wanted more space, and getting
another boyfriend right away might put me right back where I was. And it might
make Jon think I wanted to break up just so I could date someone else, and that's
not true. I'll date eventually, but not right now."

"I saw Jon's video of The Dreadful Alternatives in Mr.
Levine's acting class the other day," said Beth. "He showed it to us
as a good example of what can be done with a home video camera."

"What's Jon going to do with his movies? Anything?"
asked Katie.

"I think he might," said Christie. "He was
telling me that his mother and father like what he's doing, and his mother
asked him if she could include part of this last one as a clip in one of her
news shows. It would be a little thing about The Dreadful Alternatives.

"I think he might just be starting to feel pretty good
about himself. Who knows? He might even end up with a career in screen
photography."

After the others had left, Christie cleaned up in the family
room and threw away the empty pizza boxes. She stuck her head in the living
room and said good-night to her mother and father and went up to her room.

She hummed to herself as she brushed her hair and smiled.
The face of a happy, blond-haired girl smiled back at her from the mirror.

Everything had turned out so great. A week ago she was in
the pits, and now she was the school heroine for answering the question that
won the match for Wakeman. Of course Kyle, Pam, Tim, Daphne, and Curtis had
gotten a lot of answers right, too. It just happened that she got the last
question.

She could still hear Tim's voice telling her to "Go get
'em, Christie!" He was nice. And a good hugger, she thought with a giggle.
But she didn't want to jump in and start dating right away. The last thing she
needed was another commitment. She'd just wait to see who was available that
she might like to go out with. When the right person came along and asked her,
she'd start dating again.