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OTHER YEARLING BOOKS BY
PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR YOU WILL ENJOY
THE BOYS START THE WAR
THE GIRLS GET EVEN
BOYS AGAINST GIRLS
THE GIRLS’ REVENGE
A TRAITOR AMONG THE BOYS
A SPY AMONG THE GIRLS
THE BOYS RETURN
THE GIRLS TAKE OVER
BOYS IN CONTROL
GIRLS RULE!
To Michael Oldaker and his bookstore
Contents
One: Starting Now
Two: Call from Jake
Three: Under the Floorboards 13
Four: Roving Reporter
Five: The Secret
Six: Psychic Energy
Seven: Gone
Eight: Peter Squeals
Nine: The Old Times Tribune
Ten: Ghostly Gray
Eleven: Letter to Georgia
Twelve: Caroline Pickford
Thirteen: Down with Tyranny!
Fourteen: A Roundtable Discussion
Fifteen: Letter from Georgia
Sixteen: Uh-oh
Seventeen: In the Dark
Eighteen: Haunted House
Nineteen: Bones!
One
Starting Now
It was the day after the Fourth of July. The sun was warm, the air was breezy, and time was moving slowly, just the way Wally liked it. No clock telling him to get up, no bell ringing for class—just twelve hours stretching out before him, with only a wisp of leftover firework smoke in his nostrils.
But Wally Hatford had come to a decision. Since he was ninety-nine percent sure that the Malloy girls would be moving back to Ohio when summer was over, he didn’t want any guilt feelings hanging around once they were gone. So he was going to be super-nice to them.
Well, maybe not super-nice. Maybe not even nice, exactly. But he would probably be polite. Okay, maybe not polite polite, but he certainly wasn’t going to do anything to make them mad. Especially Caroline.
Wally had just finished reading the first book on his summer reading list, A Ghost’s Revenge, and it was one of the creepiest, scariest stories he had ever read.
The book said that each person has a ghostly self that shadows him all the time, whether he knows it or not. When the person dies, the ghost takes over, but even when the person is alive, that ghostly self can make its presence known if it gets mad enough. Sometimes it even latches on to that person’s enemy and haunts him for a while. Forever, even!
In the story, a man cheated his neighbor, and after a time the neighbor moved away, but the neighbor’s ghost didn’t. It hung around to get even. Everything the man tried to do went wrong. His vegetables wouldn’t grow, his car broke down, his dog got sick, and his roof caught fire.
This worried Wally a lot.
It was only a story, of course. Wally knew that. But if the Malloy girls moved back to Ohio, where they used to live, Wally did not want their ghostly selves, if they had any, hanging around him. If they moved away, he did not want one of those ghostly selves—especially Caroline’s—trying to settle a score with the boy who maybe hadn’t treated her as well as he could have. It was only a piece of nonsense, but it didn’t stop Wally from dreaming that he heard a scritch, scratch, scritch in the cellar. Then a soft thump, thumpity, thump on the stairs. Then a creak, crickety, creak of the floorboards in his bedroom, and then an icy hand.…
“Yipe!” Wally said aloud, suddenly snapping to attention as his twin brothers came out on the porch.
“What’s the matter with you? Got ants in your pants?” said Jake as he flopped down on the glider and Josh took a wicker chair. Wally had been sitting on the floor, leaning against a post.
“Something like that,” said Wally, giving his head a shake.
If Mom and Dad knew all the tricks he and his brothers had played on those Malloy girls, Wally thought.…! Of course, the girls had played their share of pranks too, but the truth was, the boys had started it. And though Wally had usually gone along reluctantly, he had definitely been involved. He had most certainly done things he shouldn’t have. A ghostly presence would remember that. Wally didn’t care if their vegetables didn’t grow, but he didn’t want their car to break down or their roof to catch fire, just because he hadn’t been nicer to Caroline Malloy.
Jake stretched his long legs out in front of him and pulled a sheet of paper from his jeans pocket. After unfolding it section by section, he pointed to the print at the top of the page. “Listen, Wally,” he said. “You want to be in on something? If Josh and I put out a neighborhood newspaper, that counts as three books on our summer reading list. You want to help out?”
By now, Wally had learned that whenever Jake had an idea, alarm bells should go off right, left, and every which way from Sunday. Still, a newspaper might be fun.…
“Just any kind of newspaper?” he asked.
“It has to be three issues of a newspaper about historical stuff in Buckman. That shouldn’t be too hard,” Jake answered.
It did sound sort of interesting. “So what would Iget to be?” asked Wally. “Manager? Photographer? What?”
“We thought maybe you could be the spell checker. You know … go over the stuff we write,” Josh explained.
“Forget it,” said Wally, and settled back against the post again. If there was a least attractive job to do, it was always Wally who got to do it.
Jake pulled a Three Musketeers bar out of his pocket and held it out toward Wally. “You’d be good at it,” he said.
Wally knew he was a good speller. Whenever he came across a new word, it lit up in his brain like a neon sign. But he didn’t like the idea of Jake and Josh having all the fun; he wanted to be something more than spell checker.
“No deal,” he said.
“We’ll have a great time,” said Josh.
“So, have a blast,” Wally told him.
Jake held the candy bar a little closer. “Okay, you can be spell checker and distributor. How about that?”
“What does the distributor do?” asked Wally.
“Sees that the newspaper gets around,” said Jake.
“You mean, take it door to door,” said Wally.
“Well, that, too,” said Jake. The candy bar came closer still. Wally guessed it was an old one left over from last Halloween. Tucked away in a sock drawer, maybe.
“You’d also get your name on the masthead along with ours,” said Josh.
That was more like it. Wally reached for the candy bar, unwrapped it, and took a bite. It tasted like old socks too!
“The only problem,” said Josh, “is that even with you and Peter helping out, it’s still going to be a lot of work. We’re wondering if maybe we should ask the Malloys to go in on it with us.”
Wally closed his eyes. Hadn’t they gotten in enough trouble with Eddie, Beth, and Caroline over the past year? Why did they have to go looking for disaster? “Are you nuts?” he asked.
“It’s just a thought,” said Jake.
“If they move back to Ohio, Eddie won’t get summer reading credit for putting out a newspaper. Why would she want to help? Why would Beth and Caroline want to be in on it at all? They’re not even in the same grade as you,” Wally said.
Jake and Josh ha
d been in sixth grade along with Eddie Malloy, Beth had been in fifth, and Wally had been stuck down in fourth grade with Caroline. The last thing in the world Wally wanted to do was to spend a summer around her.
“Maybe they’d just like to do it for fun. It’s one way to spend July,” said Josh.
“As if they couldn’t find stuff to do on their own,” said Wally. “If they get to be on our newspaper, Eddie will try to be boss and you know it.”
“I’ve already thought of that,” Jake told him. “So I’ve named myself editor. I’m going to write up stories, and Josh will draw some comics. We’ll tell the girls they can choose any job they want on the newspaper except editor, illustrator, or distributor.”
Well, maybe that wouldn’t be too bad, Wally thought. No reason the girls couldn’t do their part on their side of the river, and the Hatfords could do their work over here. If anyone crossed the swinging footbridge that they used to go back and forth, it wouldn’t have to be often and it wouldn’t have to be Wally.
He looked across the river at the white house on Island Avenue. The Malloys were renting it from the Bensons, the best friends the Hatford brothers had ever had. The Buckman River flowed into town on one side of Island Avenue, circled around under the road bridge leading to the business district, and flowed out again on the other side.
“Man oh man, if the Bensons were back, we could sure put out a good newspaper,” Wally said. “We could have a production line going you wouldn’t believe.”
“Yeah, well, they’re not back, because Steve and Tony signed up for a bunch of summer stuff down there, and so did Bill and Danny and Doug,” said Josh disgustedly.
“We figured they’d be back here the second that school let out in Georgia. We figured wrong,” said Jake.
Wally could hear seven-year-old Peter come banging in the back door. The screen door slammed, the refrigerator door thumped, and there were footsteps coming down the hall; then the front screen door flew open. Peter was trailing sand from the sandbox Mrs. Hatford had brought home from the hardware store.
Sucking on an orange Popsicle, he sat down on the glider beside Jake. Because both Mr. and Mrs. Hatford worked during the day, Peter’s three older brothers were responsible for him until their parents came home.
“What’s everyone doing?” Peter asked.
“Planning a newspaper,” said Jake. “Want to help?”
“Will I get my name in it?” Peter asked.
“Absolutely,” said Jake. “On the very first page.”
Well, if even Peter was going to be in on it, Wally decided, he would be too. This was probably one of the last things the Hatfords and the Malloys would do together. If he was going to be nice, it had better be now. If he was going to be polite, that meant starting today. If he was just going to get along, well … he could do that, too.
Two
Call from Jake
Caroline perched in her father’s big chair and didn’t move a muscle. Her eyes were closed, her hands folded, and she sat very straight, shoulders not even touching the back of the chair. Her long brown ponytail came almost to her waist, but it didn’t move either. Not a fraction of an inch. She looked like a sculpture in an art museum.
When twelve-year-old Eddie walked into the room, apple in hand, Caroline said softly, “Eddie, did you sense anything just now?”
Eddie stopped chewing. “Huh?”
“Before you came into the room, did you sense that I was here? Do I have an aura or anything?”
“An aroma, you mean? Are you asking if you smell?”
“No, I was reading a book about famous actresses, and it said that some of them—like Greta Garbo—had a certain aura about them. People could tell almost before they entered a room that she was in it, or that she had just left.”
“Probably her perfume,” said Eddie.
Caroline, who longed to be in the movies herself or to be an actress on Broadway, shook her head. “A good actress sends out vibrations,” she said.
“Well, don’t send any vibrations my way, Caroline,” her sister told her, plunking herself down on the couch. “I want a peaceful summer.”
Caroline sighed. It was hard being precocious. It was difficult enough to have skipped a grade and to have to go through school with kids a year older than you— Wally Hatford, to be precise—but even worse when your own family couldn’t understand what you were talking about.
She concentrated again on producing an aura. She imagined every cell on her scalp tingling at the approach of another person, every hair on her head giving off electricity. Perhaps if she hummed very softly—one long, low note—it would help people sense her aura before they ever entered the room.
“Hmmmmm, ”she hummed.
Beth, the middle sister, came into the living room just then. Not only did she not hear Caroline’s hum, she didn’t see Caroline’s feet and stumbled over them as she crossed the rug. Of course, Beth tripped a lot because she always had her nose stuck in a book. She and Eddie were as blond as Caroline was dark, and the two older girls often joked that Caroline must have been found along the side of the road, because she didn’t resemble anyone else in the family.
“I don’t know why you’re bothering with your summer reading list,” Eddie said, looking at Beth. “I’m not bothering with mine because we probably won’t even be here in September.”
“But if Dad decides we’ll stay in Buckman, you’ll be in big trouble, Eddie,” Beth told her.
Eddie only shrugged. “We’ll know by August. If we stay, I’ll catch up on my reading then. Besides, the seventh graders here get credit for three books if they produce three newspapers on Buckman’s history. I’d rather do the newspaper.”
Caroline stopped humming and turned around in the armchair. “So why don’t you, Eddie, whether we go or stay? I’d like to help write a newspaper. That might be fun!”
Beth lowered the mystery book she was reading, Cave of the Spider Women. “Yeah, let’s do it, Eddie! I could write an article on the haunted houses of Buck-man,” she offered.
“ What houses?” asked Eddie.
“I don’t know, but there have to be some! Buckman’s an old town, and all old towns have ghosts. Besides, if a newspaper’s not interesting, no one will read it. And that would make it interesting!”
Eddie wiggled one foot while she thought it over. Finally she began to smile. “Oh, what the heck, let’s do it. Let’s start a newspaper.”
Caroline clapped her hands.
“I get to be editor, of course,” Eddie added.
“Of course,” said Beth.
“Then what would I do?” asked Caroline. “Something interesting, Eddie.”
“Janitor?” Eddie teased.
“Something important!” Caroline demanded.
“I suppose you could write obituaries,” said Eddie.
“What’s that?”
“Little stories about people who have died,” said Beth.
“All right!” said Caroline. “Could I be like a reporter? Go around interviewing their relatives and everything?”
“Sure, if you can find any,” said Eddie. “Knock yourself out. But these have to be historical people, you know. They can’t just have died yesterday.”
At that very moment the phone rang, and Caroline went into the hall to answer.
“Hey!” came Jake’s voice. “Could I talk to Eddie or somebody?”
“I’m somebody!” said Caroline.
“I mean somebody normal,” said Jake. “Let me talk to Eddie.”
Caroline held out the phone. “Phone call for a normal person!” she called. “Eddie, it’s for you.”
Eddie swung her legs off the couch and ambled over.
“It’s Jake,” Caroline whispered to Beth, who had followed them out into the hall.
Eddie held the phone away from her ear as the girls always did when they talked to a Hatford. They wanted the others to hear.
“Hi,” Eddie said. “What’s up?”
“J
osh and I were looking at our summer reading list, and we’ve decided to do the newspaper. We wondered if you guys were interested,” Jake told her. “You know, go in on it with us.”
“Why would we be interested when we might be moving back to Ohio?” said Eddie, winking at Beth and Caroline.
“It would be something to do,” said Jake.
“Who would do what?” asked Eddie.
“Josh says he’ll draw a cartoon and Wally’s going to be distributor and take the papers around,” Jake said.
“That figures,” said Eddie. “What about you?”
“Editor, of course,” said Jake.
“Yeah?” said Eddie. “Who elected you editor?”
“Well, somebodys got to be in charge. What would you like to do for the paper?”
“I don’t know,” said Eddie. “Beth and Caroline might go along with it, but I’m not sure I want to be a part of this.”
“Why not?” said Jake.
“Because all the good jobs are taken.”
“No way,” said Jake. “There are plenty of things you could do.”
“If you get to be editor, then can I choose something else? Any job at all?” Eddie asked.
“Sure!” said Jake.
“Positive?”
“Yeah! Just name it. What do you want to be?” Jake asked.
“Editor in chief,” said Eddie.
Three
Under the Floorboards
There was a cloudburst just after dinner, and Wally went back out onto the porch to watch. He loved being on the porch during a hard rain, water cascading out the downspouts, the air thick with a damp-earth smell.
He liked to figure things out, and once the rain had stopped, he wanted to watch water drip through a crack in the gutter overhead. As less and less water ran down the shingles and into the gutters, the drips came farther and farther apart. Wally was counting the seconds between drops. “One … two …. three …. four …… five ……. ”
Out came Jake and Josh and Peter. Just once in his life, Wally thought, he would like to enjoy a rain or an anthill or a spiderweb without interruption. He would like to count drops or drips or ants or all the separate sections of a spiderweb without one of his three brothers barging in to ask, “What are you doing, Wally?”