Free Fabulous Five 028 - Breaking Up by Betsy Haynes

floor as she jumped to her feet beside
Jana.
    "What did he say?" Beth cried excitedly. "I
saw Keith pitch this note in your lap. Does it say he wants to get back
together with me?"
    Jana watched in horror as Beth fumbled with the square piece
of paper.
    "No!" yelled Jana. "Give that to me!"
    Beth looked at Jana in surprise as she continued to unfold
the paper. "But—"
    "I said, give it to me!" Jana demanded. Her hand
flew out, and she grabbed at the note, tearing it in half.
    A crowd of kids was gathering now to see what all the
yelling was about, and Jana could see Randy staring at her with a shocked
expression. She couldn't react. Everything seemed to be happening in slow
motion.
    Beth was looking down at the two halves of the note,
suspended in the air from their outstretched hands like pieces of a jigsaw
puzzle. Now she was looking up at Jana, her eyes filled with pain. Slowly Beth's
mouth opened and formed Jana's name.
    "It says, 'Keith Masterson plus Jana Morgan!"'
Beth cried. "How could you? You're supposed to be my best friend, and you
stole my boyfriend!"
    "But, Beth! You don't understand!" Jana protested.
"I didn't steal your boyfriend. Keith's been asking me out now that I'm
not going steady with Randy, that's all."
    "Oh, yeah! I've seen you two with your heads together.
And you tried to make me think you were talking about me!"
    Jana grabbed Beth's arm and pulled her to the side of the
room. "Beth!" she insisted, glaring at the crowd of kids staring
goggle-eyed at them. "Everybody will hear you!"
    "I hope everybody does hear me," Beth
snapped. "I couldn't figure out why in the world you broke up with Randy,
but now I understand. You wanted Keith! In fact, it was probably your
idea for him to break up with me! Well, you can have him, and I'll never
speak to you again! "

CHAPTER 13
    Jana gathered her things and left the library before the
others were up the next morning, making an excuse to Mrs. Hawley that she wasn't
feeling well. She didn't want to hang around and have to face Beth again, much
less Randy or Keith.
    When she got home, she said a quick hello to her mother and
Pink and went to her room, pacing the floor and thinking about her incredible
fight with Beth. They had been best friends practically forever, and they had
never had an argument this big before. Beth had whirled off like a tornado
after her big outburst, leaving Jana feeling humiliated and totally alone.
    "Of course Beth's totally hyper," she reminded herself
aloud, "especially when it comes to Keith. And when she saw the note, she
was too upset to listen to reason. But still , she should know I would
never do such a terrible thing."
    Why hadn't Keith come to her rescue and explained the truth?
Or why hadn't Randy stuck up for her? He knew what kind of girl she was. But
neither of them had said anything. They had left her to face Beth's anger
alone.
    I have to talk to somebody, she thought a while later. She
looked at her watch, amazed at how much time had passed. It was two o'clock on
Sunday afternoon. Maybe she could call Katie and Melanie. They should be at
home now, and if she couldn't talk to her friends in The Fabulous Five, whom could she talk to?
    Jana curled up on the end of the sofa and dialed Katie's
number. It rang only once before Katie answered.
    "Hi, Katie. It's Jana," she began, suddenly
realizing that she hadn't planned what she was going to say.
    "Oh, hi," Katie responded, and Jana thought she
sounded a little funny.
    "So . . . how was your big gourmet pizza party last
night?" asked Jana hesitantly.
    "Wow, it was très terrific," said Katie,
sounding like her old self now. "You should have tasted the pizza. I put
anchovies and zucchini on it."
    Yuck! thought Jana, but she didn't say it. Instead she
asked, "How did Tony like it?"
    "He thought it was delicious, even though he wasn't
very hungry."
    Jana put a hand over the receiver so that Katie wouldn't
hear her giggle at the idea of Tony Calcaterra's not being hungry for