Fabulous Five 007 - The Kissing Disaster by Betsy Haynes Page A

toward the school, she looked back and gave Beth a
weak smile. "Thanks, anyway."
    Things didn't get much better during the afternoon, although
Dekeisha and Mandy both said hello in the halls. By the time Melanie got home
from school she was exhausted. She had barely gotten through her classes with
everyone staring at her and acting as if she were poison. She finished her
homework thinking that all she wanted to do was go to sleep and forget all
about Wacko Junior High and about The Fabulous Five and mono and dances. She
couldn't go to the dance committee meetings anymore because Dr. Garroway had
prescribed a lot of rest. She was almost ready to climb into bed when her
mother called her to the phone.
    "It's Christie," said Airs. Edwards. "She
sounds really anxious to talk to you."
    Melanie frowned and leaned against the wall. Christie had
hardly spoken to her at school today. Why on earth was she calling now? She
considered telling her mother that she didn't feel like talking to anyone. But
instead she put the receiver to her ear and said in a tired voice, "Hi,
Christie. What do you want?"
    "I've got something important to tell you."
Christie's voice sounded excited. "Really important. Can you talk?"
    "What's it about? I'm really beat."
    "You're going to want to hear this," Christie
assured her. And then she added mysteriously, "It's about the kissing
disease."

CHAPTER 17
    Melanie's scalp tingled as if a thousand daddy longlegs
spiders were dancing in her hair. "What about the kissing disease?"
she whispered.
    "Well," Christie began importantly, "my
brother Mike called a little while ago to say that he's coming home this
weekend. He's in medical school, you know."
    "I know! I know!" insisted Melanie, slapping the
wall behind her impatiently. "What about the kissing disease?"
    "I'm getting to that. Anyway, I answered the phone, and
after he told me he would be home for the weekend, I asked him if he had
studied anything about mononucleosis in medical school yet. At first he thought
I had it, and he laughed, calling it the kissing disease and asking me where I
got it."
    Christie paused, and Melanie's heart sank. This didn't sound
like anything she wanted to hear. She was about to say so when Christie started
talking again.
    "So I said, no, I don't have it, but do you really get
it from kissing? And he laughed again and said, no, that's just a myth. It's
really a virus that makes kids sick when they get too tired and run-down and
don't eat right or take care of themselves. He said it's really hard to catch
from someone else, and that the odds are about a billion to one against getting
it from kissing. Isn't that terrific!"
    Melanie was too weak-kneed to answer right away, and she
slid slowly down the wall and sank to the floor as a giddy smile spread across
her face. If you couldn't get it from kissing, then she hadn't passed it on to
Scott or Shane, either.
    "Are you there?" demanded Christie. "Answer
me!"
    "I'm here," said Melanie.
    "You didn't faint, did you?" Christie asked
anxiously. "Maybe you'd better get back to bed."
    "I didn't faint. In fact I've never felt so great in my
life. And what's more, no matter what that witch Laura McCall and her friends
are trying to spread, I couldn't have started an epidemic of the kissing
disease!"
    "Right," said Christie. "The trouble is that
she has practically everybody convinced that you did and that you're a walking
disaster."
    Melanie's happy mood fizzled away like a balloon with a slow
leak. "Is it that bad?"
    "Worse," said Christie. "Don't tell anyone I
told you this, but at noon I overheard Elizabeth Harvey telling some girls that
she had accidentally touched your locker with her left hand and that she was
heading straight to the girls' room to wash it off."
    "What!" shrieked Melanie. "I thought mono was
supposed to be a kissing disease, not a touching disease."
    "That was before Laura and her gossipy friends started
talking about it," conceded Christie.
    Neither of them said