Melanie's Identity Crisis

Fabulous Five #15

by Betsy Haynes

While working on a genealogy project for family living class, Melanie uncovers a shocking secret about her past.

Genres: Young Adult

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

ABOUT ME

Maybe it's because my feisty grandma chased tarantulas around with a broom when we lived on an oil lease property when I was a baby that made me love danger and adventure. And maybe it was my father's spending nights as a trombonist with the bands of his day and his days spent drawing sketches that sparked my artistic side. Do you suppose that because my mother stood only four feet ten inches tall that I feel like a giant at five feet? And I'm sure my FBI (Full Blooded Italian) step-father, his seven brothers and sisters and their families are responsible for my LOVE of Italian food. That's who I am. Who are you?

My First Book, Peppy The Frog That I Wrote In The 2nd Grade

I'll always be a child at heart. Whenever I close my eyes, wonderful, funny, awful, embarrassing memories of middle school/​junior high come flooding back to fill the pages of my contemporary novels. My childhood friendships and rivalries with old enemies all find their way into my books. I've even spied on my own kids for story ideas.

Unlike most kids who can't wait to grow up, I've gotten younger--at least my stories have. I've stepped into the world of 7 to 10 year olds.

I and my husband, Jim, live in Texas on Lake Lewisville north of Dallas. We are owned by our greyhound, Miller. Our favorite things to do are traveling the world and boating.

Reviews

[Tiffany Spencer]

Melanie’s Identity Crisis
Melanie is struggling to answer the questions on a questionnaire to help her better know herself before they start to look for their ancestors for their genealogy project. Katie tells her to just fill out the answers with boys 9or involving them). By the time she gets to biology, her day has taken a downfall. Garett passes her in the hall and doesn’t speak and Shane give his attention to Shawnie instead of her. Also, Scot Daley passed her on his bike and didn’t say hello. In last period, Mrs. Clark gushes about the genealogy project. She asks what they learned about filling out the questionnaires. Melanie thinks she should put together all the boy's answers and turn it into a book. Not that she *just* wants to know about the boys, but it’s them she’s most interested in. Mrs. Clark says the point of the questionnaire was to show them that they all have traits that are different from each other and that might be traced to their ancestors. She says they’re going to start looking for clues as to why they’re the way they are and passes them all genealogy charts. Melanie wonders what she’ll find out.

The studets have all these lofty expectations of who they might be related to. Tony thinks he’ll be related to Sylvestor Stalone because he’s Italian. Shane thinks he’ll be related to an alien race because his parents are so far out. Beth hopes Jana really will be related to Trevor Morgan so she can get them Brian Damage tickets. All the while, Melanie is in a funk because Shane hasn’t spoke to her again. The night before she worked on her chart with her parents. Melanie’s mother is able to race her side back to her great (great) grandmother. She finds out her great (great) grandmother Cortia was always getting into trouble with boys. She had so many boyfriends her other girlfriends were jealous. Melanie wonders if some of her personality got passed down to her. Only Joel and Funny don’t raise their hands when asked if they’ve filled in most of their charts. Mrs. Clark says next they’ll get to know the relatives on their charts by talking to the people in their family and getting them to tell stories. Melanie decides to ask her grandmother. After class, she stops Funny and asks her about the project. Fnny says she thinks it’s dumb. Funny shows her (her) genealogy chart is blank. Then she rips the chart to shreds and stomps down the hall, leaving Melanie staring after her.

Melanie follows Funny into the girl's bathroom and apologizes. Funny says it wasn’t her fault. She just doesn’t want to do the project. She says it’s because she’s adopted and she doesn’t need to find out about the Hawthorne family tree. She’s been adopted since she was six and half the time she just doesn’t think about it. She says she doesn’t bring up her biological parents because her parents might not think she loves them. She says the project is making her feel like a nobody. Melanie tells her it’s not true. Everyone loves how she makes them smile. Melanie tells her she’ll see her at Bumpers, but when she gets there she’s not with her crew and doesn’t show up.

Shane does talk to Melanie about how Igor was put in an Iguana tank to find a mate but was jumped by males. Melanie is amused but can’t help but think that’s all Shane talks to her about. A little later, she meets up with the Fabulous Five. Joel says he needs two copies of the chart. One for his biological father and one for his stepfather. Janna tells him he just needs one (for his real father). At lunch, she tells her friends about Funny and asks that they keep it a secret. Katie says it’s not a big deal and she doesn’t feel sorry for her. Jana says she didn’t know and it makes sense now why Funny’s been acting quiet. Katie says she should talk to her parents.

Melanie tells Funny she should just talk to her parents, show them the chart, and let them take it from there. Funny says it might make them feel bad. Mel says maybe maybe not. They probably knew this would come up one day. Mel says she’ll keep everything crossed for her. Funny says she’ll let her know how it goes. In class, Curtis says one of his relatives (John Barlow) was buried in the old cemetary and was a spy in the Revolutionary War. Mrs. Clark says they’re going to pay a trip to the cemetery and make grave rubbings. Melanie wonders if her great (great) grandmother is buried there. She heads for her Grandmother’s after school. She leads Melanie to a room with a trunk. She says the trunk belonged to her (great) great-grandmother. She says she was a character. Before she was married it was her hope chest. It held needlework they’d need once they got married. She begins to ask her grandmother questions and she answers. Even throwing in some personal stories. She asks if she’s buried in the cemetery across town and she says she is. Then shows her some pictures in a scrapbook. She says she was musical and that’s where her mother got her talent. Melanie, she says even favors her great (great) grandmother. She tells her all the boys use to swarm around her because she was so pretty. Some girls at her church snubbed her because their boyfriends wanted her. She was a flirt and had two or three boys at a time. She even had a boy say he’d throw himself off a roof if she didn’t go for a ride with him. Her grandmother gives her the book to take home and some love letters and papers she collected after the years.

The letters are sappy. I’ll spare you, There’s one from one of the boys in the picture pushing her on a swing (John). Melanie gets wrapped up in the letters and can relate to them. Melanie finds a letter about her mother about to have a baby and starts to read it. It says News That Kathy Is Going To Have A Baby. It’s a note from her mother to her mother calling her “an accident” and that now she’ll have to wait to pursue her dream of being a concert pianist. Melanie doesn’t read anymore. She takes the pictures and heads for home. Melanie starts to think that her mother (couldn’t) possibly love her because she was the reason she didn’t achieve her dreams. And why didn’t her mother tell her she wanted to be a concert pianist? She thinks about how she took piano for a while and then got bored with it. This was probably another disappointment to her mother.

Funny is happy the next day and says her parents say she really *is* a Hawthorne and her parents really wanted a baby and picked her out. So she was a chosen baby. Now Melanie is the one upset and doesn’t want to face anyone in class. She thinks about the irony of trying to make Funny feel wanted and then finds out *she* was the unwanted one. She knows she can’t stay in the bathroom crying. She starts to think about how the other day her mother yelled at her for not taking her books up to her room, and how she’s always on her about cleaning her room (but not her brother) and how she wouldn’t listen to her mother made her go to school and didn’t believe her when she really did have stomach aches. She thinks of all the times they rejected her (like when she wanted a dog until she saw Rainbow). So she goes to the nurse and tells her she feels sick. The nurse asks if someone’s at home she can call. She calls but no one answers. The nurse asks if she’d like to lay there until she can find her. Melanie says no and the nurse finds her contact and calls her. (Mrs. Miller). Turns out her mother was at Mrs. Miller’s and she comes right away to pick Melanie up, She sends Melanie up to her room to rest and says she and Jeffie will be extra quiet. Melanie watches her mother and Jeffie and feels like crying.

Melanie gets upset because her mother goes out to the store instead of staying with her. Melanie’s mother stops by her room a few times but doesn’t come in or insist she eat. She starts to look at Cordia’s pictures. There’s something familiar about John. He looks a lot like Scoot. A coincidence? Melanie wonders what it’s like to have boys throwing themselves at her and how the boys she likes are ignoring her. Charles reminds her too somewhat of Shane. At dinner, she tries to tell her parents about her visit to Grandma but they're engrossed in Jeffy telling them about a movie he saw. Her father gets mad for some odd reason and leaves the table.


The next day she tells her friends. Katie tells her she’s being ridiculous but Melanie tells them about the letter. Then she tells the only time her mom pays attention if she’s yelling. Janna says maybe she could tell she wasn’t sick. Melanie goes on to tell about dinner. Katie reminds her that her mother stays at home so she can be there for her and how she’s always making them brownies. But Melanie thinks this doesn’t prove anything. Then she thinks Scot doesn’t want her and Shane doesn’t want her. Funny comes up to her in school and says she looked for her. Melanie lies and tells her she was sick. Funny reminds her of the trip. On the bus, she perks up a little when Shane asks her a question. Shane starts to tell this story about how they took Igor to the zoo but he said all the females weren’t his type. Mrs. Clark tells them to pick a grave and use a gold crayon if it’s a relative. As she touches Cordia’s grave, Melanie feels a sense of comfort, Cordia would have understood her. If only she were there.

She starts telling Cordia about her guys. The crayon flies out her hands and when she looks up to get it Scott is two tombs down. Maybe it’s a message from her great (great) grandmother that she should flirt with Scott. So she starts a conversation with him about the rubbings. It works! He comes over and pays extra close attention to her rubbing. Then she tells him what she learned about Cordia (and what she found). She’s about to throw some compliments his way but the teacher calls for him. He’s been so busy talking to her he hasn’t finished his own work. She tells her grandmother thanks and starts to work on her own work. She notices she missed a spot but then she sees Shane. She doesn’t get a chance to talk to him because the teacher says it’s time for them to go. She shrugs. She’ll have another chance. It’s what her great (Great) grandmother wanted.

At Bumpers, Melanie gets the second of her men back. Shane sits by her and brings her a tray full of food. Katie says boys get interested in boy things and need breathing room too. (They *do* drop off into out of space sometimes. TRUUUUE). Melanie asks if she can spend the night at Funnys. She says if it’s a problem with the Fantastic Foursome she won’t do it. Funny says they don’t have to know. Now she can find out how a “chosen child” is treated. Tony isn’t related to Sylvestor Stalone but he is related to Madonna. Katie’s great (Great) grandmother worked to give women the right to vote. Then Melanie tells them about Cordia. Funny and Melanie’s parents are both happy they’re expanding their circle. Melanie gets jealous right away when she sees Funny’s mother’s hug to her.

Melanie finds out Funny has a collection of clown dollas and wants to go to “clown college” one day (Is there really such a thing?) Then they start talking about boys. Funny says she admires how comfortable she is with talking to boys. Melanie notices how much MRs. Hawthorne just like Funny. But did her mother get it from Funny? She notices how her mother has taken over her chores for the night and how affectionate Funny and her father are with each other. Funny’s parents also listen to every word. Funny’s parents treat her like royalty. Funny notices later that Melanie is quiet and asks what’s wrong. She says nothing but then tells her she notices how attentive her parents are., but she can’t tell them much about her own parents.

When she gets home she starts to make a list of all the things that show her parents don’t live her, but her mother calls her downstairs to put up her sleeping bag, Gran stops by and shows Melanie a newspaper clipping. Courageous Girl Saves Dog from Death. It’s about how her great-grandmother) saved a dog that someone they threw in a creek. Pointing out that she and Cordia have a love of dogs in common. Eventually, Melanie tells Funny about her situation. But she leaves out the jealousy she’s felt. She turns the tables and tells her to follow the same advice she gave her. (Talk to them). She confronts her parents but she tells her she should have read the rest of the letter. She takes Melanie over to her Grandmother’s. The letter goes on to say now she and Larry have another more wonderful dream to concentrate on. Melanie has learned her cherry personality comes from the Hawthorne family and her smile from her mother. Also that her parents really do love her and that some things can be passed down through generations (looking at Cordia’s picture).

My Thoughts
When I first read the teaser about this one in the last one (and when I first began it) I thought this was going to be boring. Unless Melanie really was related to someone famous I didn’t see myself being interested in this project. But surprisingly I could relate to this a lot. There have been times I’ve (teasingly and not) wondered who my real family is. When it comes to my dad’s side (for example) I am SOOOOO different from them. They like sports. I could care less about sports (particularly football. It just makes me roll my eyes at all this college and high school football hype this time of year). They love animals. Most animals I’m kinda scared of. They LOVE events. I mean these people will throw an event for no other reason than the sun came out. Then when they have events (especially my dad the more people around him the better). I’m more of a homebody and I enjoy things with only a couple of people or a few people and I don’t have to celebrate every single freaking holiday on the calendar. They love kids and most of them are teachers. Someone on GR once told me you should be a teacher. While I was grateful and appreciative of his comment and compliment, the idea of me being a teacher just does not do anything for me. So a lot of times I do not feel like I fit in with them. My mother is a wonderful person but sometimes even though I know I’m not adopted (too many pictures of proof that yes I’m definitely her daughter) I got some of the things Melanie was saying. Like the always being fussed at (and blamed) for small things. Also, the sometimes she felt like her mother didn’t listen. Which is something I’ve thought about lately and wondered (and actually said I’d never do this) if I had a daughter would I have been this way? I didn’t have a genealogy project in school, but I think a lot of my ways come from my grandfather on my dad’s side. Later, I was so happy to see that one of my little cousins acted similarly because I really *would* have thought where in the world did I come from. I’m NOTHING like these people.

Something Melanie really did that I liked was even when she was worried that Garett, Shane, and Scott weren’t talking to her, she didn’t go up to them and ask if she did something. She played it cool and acted indifferent. Even though she was upset she didn’t let it show. Then eventually Shane did come to her. It is *SOOO * true that sometimes males will go into this unreachable hole unexpectedly. You might not even know until years later why. That is if you ever know at all. But sometimes they’ll just disappear and it won’t be a thing you’ve done. But just *wait*. If they’re worth anything they’ll come back. If there’s worth anything they’ll at least tell you a lil bit. They might say “It’s a lot in my head: or “the voices are too loud”. Or something to that effect to let you know I need a little space to work this out. If they just leave you hanging then you’ hanging well then you learned something. And do you *really* want this in the future?

Rating: 7

[Sayo -bibliotequeish-]

As a kid every Saturday we went to Kmart, and every Saturday my mom would let me buy one thing, and it was ALWAYS a fabulous five book. (The cover looks like a spiral notebook cover... I thought that was very clever)
I also managed to track down all the Taffy Sinclair books at a thrift store.

I wonder if this series is still at my parents I would definitely read them again.
I remember in the Taffy books Melanie was chubby and it make references to her eating brownies and then one day she was like NO i don't want the brownie... and then she got skinny.
This is a very vague memory... so don't quote me on this one, what you CAN quote me on is that Taffy had a crooked bicuspid, and Jana ate cream cheese and jam sandwiches,... which I tried because of her and they were DIS-GUS-TING, and I never trusted her again.

[Erin *Proud Book Hoarder*]

I read several Fabulous Fives growing up - they didn't stand out as too interesting and were a little over-dramatic, but they worked for my age group at the time. I liked the clique and the girls involved as they went through different situations at home, school, and together.