Fabulous Five 031 - The Fabulous Five Together Again (7 page)

"Christie!" called Connie. She heard his footsteps
as he ran after her.

"Wait," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.
They walked along in silence for a few moments before he spoke again. "You
know, I wish I were as lucky as you."

"As lucky as me?" She looked at him incredulously.
She had just told off every one of her best friends, and he was calling her
lucky.

"Yes, you." Connie took Christie's hand. "You've
got so many friends, they're fighting over you. But come to think of it, maybe
that's not being lucky. Maybe that's just what happens when you're the
wonderful kind of person you are."

Christie smiled and shrugged. "Thanks, but I'm not sure
that I have any friends after what I said in there."

"Sure you do," he told her, taking her by the
shoulders and turning her so they were facing each other. "They'll get
over it. You'll see."

"I'm so confused, Connie," she said. "I don't
know what I want anymore. I am excited about going back home . . . to the
United States. But I don't want to leave here, either. I like England. I like
all my friends here, and I like you a lot." She smiled up at him.

"I like you, too," he said. "But your going
home doesn't mean we'll never see each other again. You and your mother can tag
along when your father comes to London on business, and who knows—maybe I'll
travel to the States with my father on a business trip. I could have done it
before, but I didn't have any reason to go. Besides that, if you go to either
Oxford or Cambridge, as you've been planning, you'll have to come back, won't
you?"

Christie looked up at Connie. His blond hair was swept
across his forehead, and his blue eyes seemed so warm. "Thanks," she
said softly. "You're a really nice guy, do you know that?"

He bent down and kissed her. "Why don't we go back and
see who's left at Montague's. Maybe we can act as referees, if anyone is still
standing."

When they walked back into Montague's, Christie was amazed
at what she saw. The Fabulous Five and the British girls, instead of standing
toe to toe and shouting at each other, as Christie expected, were sitting
around the table and talking as if they had been friends forever.

"Christie!" called Jana when she saw her and
Connie walk in.

"She's back," Phoebe said. "Come sit down,
Christie."

After Christie was seated, Katie said, "First, we want
to apologize, Christie. We all knew how important this week was to you, and we
ended up acting like total idiots, and we know it."

"I'll say," chimed in Jana. "We got carried
away. I think we were jealous of Phoebe, Nicki, and Ellie because we thought we'd
never see you again."

"And then I had to drop the fact that you're moving
back to the States on them like a bombshell," added Melanie.

"After you left, we remembered how we felt when you
moved away," said Jana. "It was as if we had lost a part of
ourselves. We thought The Fabulous Five might be broken up forever. I'm sure
that's how Phoebe, Nicki, and Eleanore are feeling right now."

"We told them all of this while you were gone,"
explained Melanie.

"And we had to confess, too," said Phoebe, smiling
at The Fab Five. "We were just as jealous as they were. We resented their
coming over here and taking up so much of your time."

"We should have remembered how important they were to
you," continued Eleanore. "We didn't take time to get to know your
chums, the way we should have. None of us was thinking about you."

"All this confessing is liable to make me cry, and then
my eye liner will run," said Nicki. "The bottom line is, we've all
acted like poops, Christie, and we're sorry."

As Christie looked around at the seven girls, she knew that
Connie was right. She was lucky to have such fabulous friends on both sides of
the ocean.

The following evening Christie and her parents drove The
Fabulous Five to the airport. Phoebe's father had brought the British girls by
to see them off, too. They all stood talking as they waited for the gate to the
jetway to open.

As Christie stood watching the others, she started thinking
about what had happened to her since she had come to London. For one thing, she
had changed. For the first time, she had moved away from friends she had known
all her life and found that you can't count on things staving the same forever.
She had discovered what it was like to move to a foreign country and suddenly
be the odd one, not understanding everything that was said or what people
meant.

Now a huge part of her would be staying here in England.
Some of her would stay with Phoebe, Nicki, and Eleanore, no matter how things
turned out. Little bits of her would stay with Mrs. Mansfield, Mr. Dudley, and
Miss Woolsey, one of her favorite teachers at St. Meg's. And bigger pieces of
her, pieces that could never be replaced, would stay with Connie and Jenny. She
quickly brushed away a tear.

Jana's voice suddenly broke through Christie's musing. "When
Christie was going away," she was telling Phoebe, Nicki, and Eleanore, "we
wanted to give her something special to remember us by. You know the bears that
she keeps on her bed that look like us?"

"Well . . ." Katie jumped in. "We were hoping
to leave you something nice to remember us by, so that you didn't only have bad
memories of us."

"We asked Christie if it would be all right if we took
the bears back and gave them to you," said Beth. "They mean a lot to
us."

She opened her bag and pulled out the bear dressed in bright
colors with hoop earrings hanging from its little brown ears. "This is
supposed to be me," she explained, handing it to Nicki. "I want you
to have it."

As Nicki reached out to take it, Christie noticed tears in
her eyes.

"And this is me," said Melanie, pulling out her
bear with the dress covered with hearts.

Eleanore took it.

"And there's no doubt who this is supposed to be."
Katie chuckled, taking out her bear with the white wig and judge's robe.

Phoebe took it from Katie.

"Since there are four bears and only three of you, I
guess you'll have to share mine," said Jana, pulling hers out.

Nicki wiped her eyes with her hand and fumbled in her bag
for a tissue. "Darn you guys, anyway," she muttered, blowing her nose.
"You're spoiling my image."

"One of these days you'll be getting another bear to
remember me by," said Christie. "The one dressed in a tennis outfit
that my father gave me."

Just then a voice came over the loudspeaker, announcing the
boarding of The Fabulous Five's flight. Christie hugged each of them in turn.
Then Phoebe stepped forward and hugged them, too. Nicki and Eleanore did the
same.

Wow, Christie thought as her best friends disappeared down
the jetway, pretty soon I'll be flying home, too.