The Girls Take Over

  “Would you use it in a sentence, please?” he asked.

  “Of course. The man who gave the donation wishes to remain anonymous.”

  The first and last parts were easy, Wally thought, but what was the letter in the middle? He closed his eyes and tried to see the word. E? he wondered, his head feverish. No, e wasn't right.

  “A-n-o-n …, ” he began, “y-m-o-u-s.”

  “Correct. You may go to the end of the line.”

  Wally didn't know whether he was glad or disappointed. He wanted so much to scratch. His head throbbed and his cheeks felt on fire. He went to the end of the line and stood against the bookcase this time. He rubbed his arm against the sharp corner of an encyclopedia.

  Three more students took a turn, and then Caroline was next. She smiled at the teacher. Then she turned and smiled at the class. Wally couldn't stand it. It was as though she were onstage. As though she expected everyone to clap and throw roses at her if she got her word right, and how could she miss? She was Little Miss Perfect!

  “Ready?” asked the teacher.

  “Ready,” said Caroline in her queen-of-the-world voice.

  Miss Applebaum looked at the list before her. “Your word is precocious.”

  Wally closed his eyes. He knew it. Of course Caroline would get a word like that. Of course she would get it right. Miss Applebaum might as well have asked her to spell her own name. He opened his eyes.

  Caroline was so confident that she did not ask to have the word repeated. She did not ask to have it used in a sentence. She smiled again at the teacher. Smiled at the class. Then she opened her mouth and said, “P-r-e-c-o-s-i-o-u-s.”

  Wally snapped to attention. It was wrong! She had spelled it wrong! Caroline Malloy's first word in the spelling contest, and she'd blown it!

  And just as suddenly, Caroline, too, realized that she had it wrong.

  “C,” she cried. “I meant p-r-e-c-o-c-i-o-u-s!”

  Miss Applebaum looked at her sadly.

  “Miss Applebaum, I knew that word! I knew it all along!” Caroline gasped. “I was just so excited that I got a word I knew that I spelled it too fast. It's p-r-e—”

  “I'm sorry, Caroline, but the rule is that you have to spell it right the first time.”

  Caroline stared at the teacher without moving. Then she faced the class. “But I knew it!” she wailed. “I knew it, I knew it!”

  “Sit down,” somebody said.

  “But I knew it!” Caroline kept repeating, tears forming in her eyes.

  “Take your seat, Caroline,” Miss Applebaum said.

  The next girl correctly spelled sergeant, accompanied by soft wails from Caroline in the second row.

  Wally stuck it out to the end. He correctly spelled abruptly and beneficial, and then he was the last one left.

  “Class, let's have a big round of applause for our fourth-grade winner,” said Miss Applebaum. “Wally Hatford will go to the county spelling contest for our grade.”

  Everyone clapped. All but Caroline. She had her face buried in her arms, and every now and then her shoulders gave a little shudder.

  Wally raised his hand. “May I go to the rest room?” he asked.

  “Of course,” said the teacher.

  Wally walked stiffly from the room, feeling really sick. He went down the hall to the boys' rest room and shut himself in a stall. Then he scratched and he scratched and he scratched.

  Fifteen

  Clean and Beautiful

  “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

  That was what Coach Malloy would tell his football team when they were behind in a game. It hung on a plaque in the Malloys' kitchen, and now, the day after the school spelling contest, Caroline was looking up at it on the wall.

  Maybe that was meant for her. The going had certainly been tough for her lately. It wasn't enough that she had fallen in the river and almost been swept away. Not enough that everyone was mad at her because of the note she had put in her bottle. Now she had blown the spelling bee as well, and it was Wally Hatford, not she, who would represent their fourth grade in the county contest. What a lousy April!

  What she felt worst about, however, was that Beth and Eddie were hardly talking to her. Caroline couldn't bear being ignored. The next day after school, when the Hatford boys had gone on home, leaving the Malloy girls to walk alone, Caroline trailed woefully behind her sisters, who acted as though she weren't there.

  Finally she said in a small sad voice, “So what am I? Just another leg, trailing along behind you?”

  And when neither of them answered, she said, “Maybe I'm not even a leg. Maybe I'm just a foot. A tired old foot that just clumps along at the end of a leg behind her sisters.”

  Even though her sisters were ahead of her, Caroline could tell from the way their cheeks puffed out at the sides that they were smiling.

  “A shoe !” Caroline cried pitifully. “A dirty old shoe with a floppy sole that—”

  “Okay, okay,” Eddie said, turning around and laughing. “Come on up and walk with us, but can you possibly stay out of trouble for once?”

  “I never tried to get us in trouble,” Caroline said. “I never meant for us to have to do work at the police station.”

  “That doesn't help,” Eddie told her.

  “Well, I'm sorry I got you guys mixed up in it. But it just might turn out to be fun.”

  “Fun!” cried Beth. “Are you crazy?”

  “I've got an idea,” Caroline confided.

  “See?” said Eddie. “She's at it already.”

  “But this wouldn't hurt anyone,” Caroline insisted.

  “Okay. What?” Eddie asked.

  “Well, you know how Sergeant Bogdan says he wants the station clean and beautiful the day of the inspection?”

  “I heard the word clean, Caroline. I didn't hear the word beautiful,” Eddie told her.

  “Okay, okay, so I made that part up,” said Caroline. “But do you remember what we did to the Benson boys' rooms when they were here last month to visit?”

  Eddie's eyes began to crinkle just a little at the corners. Beth's, however, opened wide.

  “You don't mean … ?” Beth said, staring first at Caroline, then at her older sister.

  “Not wallpaper or anything, but what if we … sort of … tied bows to the rolls of toilet paper, and put lace doilies on the tables in the reception room, and daisies on the sergeant's desk. Wouldn't that be a hoot?”

  “They couldn't say we were doing any harm,” Eddie agreed.

  “And everything would be neat and clean,” said Beth.

  The girls looked at each other. “Let's do it!” they said.

  “Just for the fun of it,” said Eddie. “But I've got an even better idea. Let's don't tell the boys. Let's tell Sergeant Bogdan that Jake's in charge of the Dirt Squad, and to let him assign us our jobs. Then, when all the stuff we've left behind is discovered, it's Jake who will get in trouble.”

  Beth clapped her hands gleefully.

  “Except, of course, Jake will give us all the worst jobs to do,” said Caroline.

  “It'll be worth it,” said Eddie.

  Instead of going home—Mother was at a meeting of the Faculty Wives' Club, anyway—the girls knocked on the Hatfords' door. Jake answered. When he saw Caroline, he almost closed the door on her, but Eddie stopped him.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “We just dropped by to say hello to Wally and see how he's doing,” Eddie said.

  “Well, he's … uh … ”Jake turned toward the living room and didn't seem to know how to answer.

  But Peter, who had followed his older brother to the door, chirped, “He's right over there on the couch. But Mom made a cake for him because he's the spelling champion, aren't you, Wally?”

  When the girls walked into the living room, they found Wally Hatford in his racing-car pajamas, with red spots all over his face and arms. He had just started to stand up and make his getaway, but it was too late. He sank back against
the cushions and held a pillow in front of him to hide his pj's, and Caroline felt a sudden rush of pity for him. She really, truly did.

  “How are you feeling, Wally?” she asked.

  “How do you think ?” he answered.

  “Did you bring him anything?” asked Peter, studying their pockets and backpacks, as though the girls might have a treat that Wally could share with his brothers.

  “Just our cheerful faces,” said Beth. “Congratulations on the spelling contest, Wally.”

  “Yeah, that must have been a big surprise for you, huh, Caroline?” Jake said with a smirk.

  Wally wasn't smiling, however. He looked about as miserable as a person could look.

  “We just came by to tell you guys that we're really sorry Caroline got you in trouble along with us, and we feel sort of responsible,” Eddie said. “There isn't any way to make it up to you, I guess, but we'll let you be in charge of the Dirt Squad, as Sergeant Bogdan calls it, when we go to the police station at the end of the month. Just tell us what to do and we'll do it.”

  “Huh?” said Josh.

  “We'll tell Sergeant Bogdan that we're taking our orders from you, Jake, and you can supervise,” said Eddie.

  Jake and Josh looked at each other quizzically.

  “Because,” said Beth, “if we do a really good job for them, maybe the police won't be so mad at us either.”

  “There are sure a lot of things happening at the end of April!” said Caroline. “The police station is being inspected, the principal spends the night on the roof if we read a thousand books, there's the county spelling contest, and one of us will win the bottle race.”

  “Well, your bottle won't make it, Caroline. It hardly went any distance at all,” said Wally, and even his words sounded feverish.

  “Unless nobody else's bottle is found,” Caroline said.

  The boys looked at each other uneasily.

  “Anyway,” Eddie said hurriedly, “Caroline is really sorry for all the trouble she's caused”—she paused and looked in Caroline's direction, and Caroline put on her most apologetic face—“and, with the baseball games starting next month, we just wanted to begin the season on good terms with everybody.”

  “Okay, if that's the way you want it,” said Jake.

  “Good,” said Eddie. “Get well soon, Wally.”

  “Drink a lot of water,” said Beth.

  “And try not to scratch,” said Caroline.

  Sixteen

  Bad and Worse

  “They're up to something; you can count on it,” said Josh.

  “Caroline looked like the cat that swallowed the canary,” said Wally.

  “They must have been out of their minds,” Jake gloated. “We'll give them the dirtiest jobs of all. I'll make them sorry they ever thought of making us boss.”

  “I think the girls are nice!” said Peter, settling down in his corner of the couch with a bag of pretzels. “I think they said nice things and you're just being mean to them.”

  “Us? Mean to them?” said Jake. “Peter, if Caroline hadn't written that stupid note, we wouldn't even have to do any work at the police station at all!”

  “Well, I'll help,” Peter offered.

  “Fine. You can come too. We'll all be boss,” Jake told him.

  “Who was that?” Mrs. Hatford called from the kitchen, where she was making a pot of chicken soup for Wally.

  “Just Caroline and her sisters, saying they're sorry,” said Peter.

  Mrs. Hatford came to the kitchen doorway. “Really? Maybe there's hope for that girl yet!” she said.

  There was baseball practice every day after school, and by the following Monday Wally felt well enough to go watch Jake out on the ball diamond. Peter crawled up on the bleachers beside him and Josh.

  “If we work hard at the police station, will it keep you from going to jail?” Peter asked.

  “We're not going to jail,” Josh said. “But Jake is really going to make the girls work!”

  “No matter how hard he is on them, they'll be twice as hard on us if any of their bottles wins the race,” said Wally.

  “Whose bottle is ahead?” asked Peter.

  “Caroline's is the only one that's been found so far. Boy, some body's bottle had better go farther than hers by April thirtieth.”

  Down on the field Eddie was up at bat, Jake pitching. The coach had divided the players in half, so that some were practicing batting and some were practicing fielding. Wally watched as the guys in the outfield automatically moved a few yards back whenever Eddie came up to bat. She even held the bat down close to the knob in a power grip, while a lot of the boys held the bat farther up for more control.

  Whack! went the bat, and the boy in right field had to chase the ball along the ground before he could throw it back. By that time Eddie had made it all the way to third.

  It was unsettling watching her play almost better than anyone else on the team. Jake had thought that he and Eddie were evenly matched, but if Wally had to bet on one of them, it would probably be Eddie.

  During a break in practice Jake climbed up on the bleachers with a cup of Gatorade and sat down beside his brothers.

  “Man, that Eddie is really good,” Wally said.

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” Jake said sullenly. “Do you see how everyone moves back when she steps up to bat? Like she's the star! The big shot! Everybody will come to the game just to see Eddie Malloy play!”

  “If anyone hears you talk like that, Jake, it'll sound like you're jealous,” Josh said.

  “Well, heck! Who wouldn't be? I've been waiting to get on the sixth-grade team since I was in kindergarten; waiting for when I could finally play for the Buckman Badgers. And now that I'm in sixth grade, what happens? Number one: our best friends move to Georgia; number two: the Malloys come to town; number three: we get in more trouble than we've ever been in before; and number four: Eddie Malloy makes the team big-time.”

  “So what can you do about it?” said Josh. “Nothing.”

  But Jake smiled just a little. “Not exactly. I'll work her like she's never been worked before at the police station. She won't be such a big shot then. She's really going to be sorry she made me boss.”

  The next practice day went even worse for Jake. He didn't get to pitch at all. The coach used Eddie as pitcher the whole time because she was so good at throwing strikes. It was as though Jake weren't even there.

  And as if that weren't enough, when Jake got up to bat, Eddie struck him out. Not once, but twice. The ball came at him so fast he could hardly blink. What was she, a robot? A creature from outer space? Where had she learned to pitch like that? From her dad, of course, Jake grumbled to Wally.

  Dinner that evening was especially miserable. No matter what dish Mrs. Hatford passed to Jake, he said it smelled rotten. It tasted awful. He wouldn't eat garbage.

  “How about if you eat in your room for a week and get only bread and water?” Mr. Hatford said finally. “What's wrong with you, anyway? You're making the whole family upset.”

  “He's mad at Eddie,” Peter volunteered, and Wally elbowed him.

  “Pipe down,” muttered Jake.

  “Now, what could a girl do to put you in such a foul mood, Jake?” asked his mother.

  “She struck him out two times!” said Peter.

  “Ah!” said Mr. Hatford. “So that's it.”

  “Well, what do you expect? Her dad's a coach,” said Jake. “Why couldn't you have been a coach, Dad, instead of a mail carrier?”

  “Well, son,” said his father, “that's the way the ball bounces. And your going around mad at Eddie Malloy isn't going to make you a better player. Maybe if you'd pay attention to the way she pitches and the way she swings, you'd learn a little something.”

  “Oh, I'm not really mad at her, I just hate her guts, that's all,” said Jake. And he angrily attacked his scalloped potatoes.

  Wally was never too good at sports himself, but he knew what it felt like to be jealous of someone. To feel t
hat life was against you. To feel as though you'd like to catch the first bus out of town and never come back.

  Josh wasn't much help because he was working on maps for geography, and when Josh made a map, it wasn't just the basic stuff; he put in mountains and rivers and all kinds of things the teacher hadn't required, just because he was so good at drawing. He only half listened to Jake's complaints.

  It was Wally who sat on the sofa beside Jake after dinner and tried to think of something to cheer him up.

  “She could always get sick before a big game, and then you'd pitch the whole time,” Wally said.

  “Eddie never gets sick. She's as strong as a horse. She's made out of steel or something,” said Jake.

  “She could trip sometime running bases and break her ankle,” said Wally.

  “Get real,” said Jake.

  The phone rang just then and Wally answered.

  “If it's Eddie, I don't want to talk to her,” said Jake. “Hello?” said Wally. “Is this the home of Jake Hatford?” asked a man's voice.

  Wally hesitated. Was this more bad news or what? What had Jake done now?

  “Yes,” he said finally.

  “Well, I thought he'd like to hear I found a bottle with his name in it, and I'm just calling to let him know,” the man said pleasantly.

  “Oh! Just a minute!” said Wally. “Jake! Someone found your bottle! Take the phone!”

  Jake leaped up from the couch, tripping on his sneakers on the rug, and grabbed the phone.

  “Hello?” he said. “Yeah … ?Yeah … ? Where did you find it?”

  There was a long silence. Wally watched his brother, hoping for any piece of good news that might make him feel better. If one of their bottles could get past Hall at least, then Caroline wouldn't be queen.

  “Oh,” Jake was saying. Then, “Thanks a lot.” He hung up.

  “What did he say?” Wally asked. “Where did he find it?”

  “It was stuck in the roots of a tree, and he found it when he went fishing,” Jake said.

  “But where?”

  “Just under the road bridge to the business district,” said Jake. He clomped upstairs, went into his room, and slammed the door.