Fabulous Five 028 - Breaking Up (6 page)

Jana Morgan and Beth Barry were the first two names on the
sign-up sheet for the library sleepover, but by the next day lots of kids were
talking about it.

"It's going to seem
weird
spending the night in
the public library," said Lisa as a group of girls stood at the mirror in
the girls' room between classes.

"Spooky, you mean," replied Jana. "That place
is always so quiet."

Beth cackled devilishly, rubbing her hands together and
rolling her eyes at the others. "And at night ghostly shadows will creep
out of the rows and rows of silent books and—"

"Stop that, Beth," cried Dekeisha. "You're
giving me goose bumps."

"Me, too," said Lisa. "Maybe I'll take my
name off the list."

"Hey, I was only joking," Beth told them. "I
haven't checked the list today. Have a lot of kids signed up?"

"Quite a few," Alexis answered. "Even some
boys."

Jana's hairbrush stopped in midair. Was Randy one of them?
She didn't want to ask Alexis because she knew that if she mentioned Randy's
name, everyone would want to talk about their breakup. She slipped her brush
into her backpack and motioned to Beth that she was leaving. "Gotta run,"
she called, and hurried into the hall. She
knew
it was silly, but she
just had to check the sign-up sheet to see for herself if Randy was one of the
boys on the list.

It was almost time for the bell to ring, and she increased
her speed to a jog as she neared the main hall, where the bulletin board was.
She jerked to a halt when she rounded the corner and saw Keith coming her way.

His face lit up when he saw her. "Hey, Jana, guess what?"
He didn't wait for her to reply. "I just signed up to be a Book Buddy at
the library. I saw your name on the list, so I decided I'd do it, too."

Jana smiled weakly, and her mind raced. "Gosh, Keith.
Are you sure you want to do something like that? It's going to be a lot like baby-sitting,
you know."

Keith gave her a surprised look, so Jana decided to lay it
on thick.

"Yeah, you know how second-graders are," she went
on. "They'll try to get away with murder. We're really going to have our
hands full. Probably half of them will eat too many cookies and throw up, and
we'll
have to clean it up."

Keith looked slightly nauseated himself for an instant. Then
he shook his head and said, "Naw, they won't make us do that. There are
going to be a bunch of parents and teachers there, too.
They'll
have to
clean it up."

Jana frowned. "You didn't really sign up because I did,
did you?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"Lots of reasons," Jana said emphatically. "For
one thing, Beth's going to be there. And second, I told you that I'm not going
to go out with my best friend's boyfriend, so you might as well give up."

"
Ex
-boyfriend," Keith corrected her. "And
besides, you can't let Beth run your life."

Jana glared at Keith. "She doesn't run my life. She—"

The ringing bell broke into the conversation. Keith gave her
a flirty grin as he turned to leave, and said, "See you Saturday night."

Jana let out an exasperated sigh and trudged to her own
class, realizing later that she hadn't looked at the list to see if Randy's
name was on it.

She was at her locker after school when Beth came running
up.

"Jana, guess what? Keith is going to the library
overnight! His name's on the sign-up sheet. Isn't that super? Maybe he saw my
name, and that's why he signed up. Do you think that's it? Maybe he wants to
get back together."

Jana could hardly stand to look into her best friend's eyes.
Poor Beth, she thought. How would she feel if she knew the truth? How would she
feel about
me?
Jana wondered, and blinked.

"Well, what do you think?" Beth insisted. "You
know how nutty Keith can be sometimes. I'll bet he wants to wait until all the
little kids are asleep and then get me in a dark corner of the library and ask
me to get back together. Don't you?"

"Gosh," fumbled Jana. Then she shrugged and added,
"You know him better than I do."

"Yeah," said Beth. She had a dreamy look on her
face. "Wouldn't that be romantic?" Then she jolted to attention and
grabbed Jana's arm. "I almost forgot. Randy's name is on the list, too,
but—get this—Sara Sawyer's name is right under his."

Jana's heart almost broke in two. They must have signed up
together. Pictures raced through her mind of Randy and Sara holding hands while
they read stories to the little kids, gazing romantically at each other as they
passed out refreshments, disappearing among the dark bookshelves after the
second-graders were asleep.

She swallowed hard. "Beth," she said seriously, "I
can't go if Randy and Sara are going to be there. I have to take my name off
the list."

Beth looked panic-stricken. "Oh, Jana, please don't,"
she begged. "You have to go. I mean, with Keith there, I'll need you. Who
will I talk to?"

"Lots of our friends will be there," Jana offered.
"Lisa's going, and Alexis and Dekeisha. You don't need me."

"Yes, I do," Beth insisted. "You're my best
friend."

"But, Beth—"

"I really do need you, Jana. You know I can't talk to
those girls about Keith. It's private. I'd die if they found out how I feel
right now. And besides, what if he acts like a jerk and ignores me all night? I'd
need you more than ever then." Beth fidgeted for a moment, then added, "And
I'd be there for you, too, if Randy and Sara are together."

Jana looked into Beth's pleading face, knowing that Beth
would be crushed if she made good on her threat to remove her name from the
list. But still, how could she possibly go if Randy and Sara were going to be
there together? "I'll think about it, okay?" she said softly.

Beth nodded, but Jana knew that no matter how much she
thought about it, she couldn't let her best friend down. She was trapped.

Jana lugged her sleeping bag up the steps of the public
library on Saturday evening at six-thirty sharp and dumped it onto the floor
inside the double glass doors. Then she went back to the car for her backpack
with her overnight things in it and a plate of brownies covered with aluminum
foil, which was her contribution to the evening's refreshments. Waving good-bye
to Pink as he pulled away from the curb, she turned and went back into the
library with a sigh. She tried to concentrate on how happy Beth had been when
Jana told her she would come tonight and not let thoughts of Randy and Sara's
being here together send her into a panic.

A sudden banging on the door startled her. Looking around,
she saw Beth standing outside with her arms too full to open the door.

"Gosh, Beth," said Jana, laughing as she pushed
open the door for her friend, "we're only going to be here overnight. You
brought enough stuff to stay a week."

Beth dropped her sleeping bag at her feet and shifted the
lavender makeup case she was carrying to the other hand, which also held a
bulging paper bag. In addition, she had her backpack hanging on one shoulder
and her purse dangling from the other.

"Keith's going to be here," she said, as if that
explained it all.

"So?" asked Jana.

"Jana, what's wrong with you? He's going to see what I
look like when I first wake up in the morning. You know, greasy hair, puffy
eyes. In fact, I was thinking about staying awake all night to make sure I don't
get too messed up. What do you think?"

"I think you're crazy," replied Jana, but
instinctively her hand went to her hair. She hadn't thought about how she would
look in the morning, especially after flopping around in a sleeping bag all
night. Her hair would be dripping with grease, and before she left home she had
felt the beginning of a pimple on the left side of her nose. It would be as red
as a stoplight by morning.

How would Sara Sawyer look? she wondered. Perfect, probably.

"So I had to bring shampoo and conditioner and my
blow-dryer and curling iron," Beth went on, nodding toward her makeup
case. "I know they don't have showers here, but I can wash my hair in the
bathroom sink. Oh, and I brought my acne medicine and one of Brittany's
cover-up sticks, just in case of emergency. You can borrow it if you want to. I
see you've got a zit coming on your nose."

"Oh, Beth, you're too much!" Jana said, snorting
in exasperation. "Come on. Let's find a place to put all this stuff before
everybody else gets here."

Beth picked up her sleeping bag again and lumbered along
behind Jana as they crossed the main room of the library and headed for the
children's wing, where the overnight party was going to be held. Even though
she wasn't exactly a child anymore, Jana still loved the children's wing. It
had been added to the old building only a few years before and had a modern
look, with lots of windows full of hanging plants, and a cathedral ceiling that
rose to a high point in the center of the room. Along one wall was a huge
hammock and several big overstuffed chairs, where kids could curl up with their
books, and in winter there was always a fire in the fireplace. On the opposite
wall was the most amazing thing in the whole library, a tree house. A huge old
elm tree that had to be removed from the library grounds when the children's
wing was added had been brought inside and set into the concrete under the
floor; local parents had constructed a real tree house among its branches. It
was the coziest place in the world to read a book.

"Come on in, girls," called Mrs. Hawley, the
children's librarian. She gestured toward an empty corner of the room. "You
can put your things over there for now and help me get set up. The children
should begin arriving pretty soon."

For the next few minutes the girls were too busy for Jana to
give much thought to Randy and Sara or greasy hair and sprouting pimples. They
helped Mrs. Hawley set up the refreshment table and distribute craft materials
and games to each of the small reading tables around the room. The children and
their parents were pouring in by now, and most of the junior-high Book Buddies
had arrived also. Jana tried to keep her eyes down so that she wouldn't look at
the door at the wrong moment and see Randy and Sara coming in together.

At one point, when Jana set her plate of brownies on the
refreshment table and Beth added her own platter of peanut butter cookies, Beth
glanced toward the door. Suddenly she nudged Jana and said in a high-pitched,
squeaky voice, "Oh, my gosh! Keith's here! How do I look?"

"Great," Jana called over her shoulder as she left
Beth standing beside the refreshment table and raced to the tree house, where
two boys were midway up the ladder, hanging on with one hand and trying to push
each other off with the other.

"Okay, guys. Enough. Somebody's going to get hurt,"
she said in her most authoritarian voice.

"I was here first!" yelled the bigger of the two,
lunging at the other boy.

"No, you weren't!" insisted the smaller one, who
immediately hauled back his foot and kicked the bigger boy in the shin.

"I said, stop it!" Jana commanded. She reached out
to grab each of them, only to find that now they were attacking her with their
fists.

Before she could react, Keith stepped between Jana and the
boys, grabbing each one firmly by the arm and drawing them slowly down the
ladder. When they were standing on the floor, he leaned down and began talking
to them. Jana watched in amazement. She couldn't hear what Keith was saying to
the boys, but their immediate reaction was to drop their heads in shame, and
she thought she heard the bigger boy saying that he was sorry. A moment later
they raced off in opposite directions.

"Wow, Keith. That was terrific," said Jana in
genuine admiration. "You really know how to handle second-grade boys."

Keith beamed at her. "Nothing to it," he joked. "Used
to be one myself."

Jana couldn't help laughing. She remembered Keith in second
grade, and he had been a holy terror.

Keith's eyes twinkled. "So maybe now you're glad I came
tonight," he said. "Maybe we could sit over in the corner, and I
could explain the secrets of stopping fights between little kids."

"All right, Keith, don't start that again," warned
Jana. "I told you, I'm not going to date you, and that's that."

"Oh, come on, Jana. Just go out with me once, okay? Try
it—you'll like it! I promise!"

"No, Keith," she said between clenched teeth. "Now
leave me alone." She spun away and left him standing beside the tree
house.

"What was
that
all about?" Beth demanded
when Jana returned to the refreshment table.

Jana avoided Beth's eyes. "What was what all about?"

"You and Keith. It looked like a pretty private
conversation to me."

"Don't be silly," replied Jana. "Those two
little kids were trying to kill each other. Keith broke them up when I couldn't."

"Yeah, I saw that," said Beth. "But then you
both hung around. What were you talking about, anyway?"

"Nothing . . ." Jana hesitated. "I mean . . .
I complimented him on being able to handle second-grade boys . . . and, well .
. . he made a joke about how he used to be one. Honestly, Beth, I don't
understand why you're so paranoid."

Beth sighed. "Me, either. Sorry."

Jana felt like collapsing with relief. She would absolutely
die if Beth ever found out that Keith was asking her out. There would be no way
in the world that she could explain the truth to her best friend. It was too
awful to tell
anyone
, even the rest of the Fabulous Five.

At the same time, she had the funny feeling that someone
else was watching her. Looking up, she locked eyes with Randy, who was standing
alone by the checkout desk on the other side of the room. He didn't move when
their eyes met, and his expression was anything but smiling. Jana's momentary
feeling of relief was replaced by a sinking feeling.

How long had Randy been watching her? Had he seen her
talking to Keith, too? she wondered. And if he had, did he have the same
suspicions as Beth?