Fabulous Five 015 - Melanie's Identity Crisis Read Online Free PDF Page A

"I'm ready if you are."
    Melanie swallowed a mouthful of warm chocolate chip cookie
and opened her notebook. "Okay," she said, making a number 1 beside
the top line. "Tell me about yourself. When were you born? Where? When did
you get married to Grandpa Pennington? That sort of stuff."
    Dutifully, Gran Pennington recited the information while
Melanie wrote it in her notebook. Every so often the older lady would remember
a story about her childhood or the early days of her marriage, and Melanie
would make notes about that, too, and about Grandpa Pennington, who had died
two years ago. Finally they had exhausted the questions about Gran Pennington,
and Melanie brought up her great-great-grandmother.
    "You said Cordia Mae Lee was a character. Mom said
something like that, too. What can you tell me about her? Is she buried in the
old cemetery north of town?"
    "Yes, she's buried there, and I even have some pictures
of her in one of these old albums." Gran Pennington carefully lifted the
trunk lid and removed a fragile leather-bound album with PHOTOGRAPHS written
across the front in scrolly gold letters. She opened it, turned a few yellowed
pages, and smiled. Then she handed the album to Melanie.
    "There she is, sitting under a shade tree in front of
the old family home. She was very musical. In fact, that's where your mother
gets her talent on the piano. You know," she added brightly, "I've
never noticed until now just how much the two of you favor each other. You even
have Cordia's reddish-brown hair and blue eyes."
    Melanie blinked as she looked at the picture. There was
Great-great-grandmother Cordia, sitting under a tree with sheets of music
spread around her and smiling at the camera. But what gave Melanie such an
eerie feeling was that her grandmother had been right about how much she
resembled her relative from long ago. It was almost as if she were looking at
herself in a mirror.
    "Now let me see, what can I tell you about her?" said
Gran Pennington, rubbing her chin and gazing thoughtfully into the distance. "As
you can see, your great-great-grandmother was a very pretty young woman,"
she began slowly. "So pretty, in fact, that the young men swarmed around
her like bees around honey."
    Tingles raced up Melanie's spine, and she couldn't help
smiling with pleasure. "Really?" she whispered.
    "That's right. In fact, some of the girls in her sewing
circle at church snubbed Cordia for a while because their own boyfriends were
trying to call on her. And there's another story about a young man who
threatened to climb to the top of the church steeple and jump off when she
wouldn't go riding with him in his buggy."
    "Well, it sounds as if it wasn't her fault,"
Melanie said defensively. "She couldn't help it if the boys thought she
was gorgeous and totally irresistible."
    Gran Pennington laughed. "Oh, she could have helped it
if she'd wanted to. The truth is, she was a flirt! In fact, according to
some, she usually had two or three beaus at once, and she tried to keep each
one from knowing about the others. Can you imagine a thing like that?"
    Melanie gulped and looked down at the album where
Great-great-grandmother Cordia smiled at her. What would Gran Pennington think
if she knew how much her own granddaughter loved to flirt? And that Melanie
always had two or three crushes of her own?
    "Thumb on through the album, if you like,"
suggested Gran Pennington. "There are pictures in it of Cordia with
several of her boyfriends, or beaus, as she called them. Let's see . . ."
Gran reached over and flipped a few pages. "Here she is again with one of
them."
    Melanie felt a ripple of excitement at the sight of the
happy couple, smiling at each other instead of the camera. Cordia was sitting
in a swing tied to the leafy branch of a tree, and she was looking up at a
blond-haired boy who seemed about to give the swing a push. Under the picture
were the faded words: John , my very best beau. "Oh,"
Melanie sighed aloud, trying to imagine herself