Well, at least he didn't lie about it, Wally thought. He could have said the man found it in Cincinnati. But scarcely had the thought entered his mind when Jake came running down the stairs again.
“Hey, Wally, just forget I said that, huh? It wasn't the business district at all. It was over by the Ohio River.”
“Jake, it was not. You're lying,” Wally told him.
“What do you care? Do you want one of the girls to boss us around for a day?”
“I'm not lying for you, and that's that,” said Wally.
“You don't have to lie. Just keep your mouth shut,” said Jake.
“I won't do that either, and besides, it would never work,” Wally told him.
“Why not?”
“Because you didn't ask the man what else was in the bottle. And if you can't name the secret thing the girls put inside it, it doesn't count.”
Jake clutched at his head, moaned, kicked a chair, and for the second time went upstairs and slammed the door.
And Wally thought of another rule they'd have to add to the list: Whenever somebody got a phone call saying a bottle had been found, that person had to get a phone number for the caller, so that the others could check up on it. This was getting complicated!
Seventeen
Inspection
When Caroline and her sisters got to school the following Monday and walked inside, there was a huge banner in the hall above the doors to the auditorium: BUCKMAN ELEMENTARY HAS READ 1000 BOOKS!!!
On a large sheet of computer paper taped to the wall beneath were the names of all the students who had read a book in the past month, along with the titles each had read. Beth's name, of course, was at the very top, with the highest number: thirteen.
“Yeah, Beth! Way to go!” Eddie told her. “The girls are taking over!”
“What do you think, Wally?” Caroline said when she got to her room. “Are the Malloys good, or are we good?”
Wally only groaned. He didn't even turn around.
After “The Star-Spangled Banner” had been played over the classroom speakers and the Pledge of Allegiance had been said, the principal's voice was heard: “Congratulations, Buckman students! Over one thousand books! I knew you could do it! And you reached our goal a week early! That means that when April is over, you will have read even more than a thousand books!”
Everybody clapped, and Caroline could hear the applause traveling up and down the hall from other classrooms. The principal went on: “I've been looking over the slips you've turned in, with the names of the books you've read. I see mystery, adventure, humor, and suspense. You've read historical books and nonfiction books and poetry and science fiction. I hope you have been introduced to whole new worlds—new places to explore—and that this will lead to a lifetime of reading enjoyment.
“And now I know you are all wondering when I will spend the night on the roof. It's already on my calendar, folks! Since the county spelling bee is going to be held the evening of Saturday, April twenty-eighth, I will be up on the roof on April twenty-ninth, rain or shine. I'll bring my tent and sleeping bag and, of course, a flashlight and a favorite book to keep me company. And when you come to school the next day, you can stand out on the playground and watch me eat my bowl of Wheaties in my pajamas.”
Everyone laughed.
“So congratulations again, and especially to our very top winner, with thirteen books to her credit for the month—fifth grader Beth Malloy!”
There was more applause, and Caroline whispered, “What do you think, Wally? Aren't we great?”
But before Wally could answer, the principal went on: “I am especially proud of our school this spring— the thousand books, the Buckman Badgers, and all the wonderful winners of our school spelling bee who will participate in the county contest.” Here he read off the winner in each classroom. When he came to Wally's name, everyone in Miss Applebaum's class clapped and cheered, and Caroline didn't poke Wally in the back this time. She even forced herself to clap too. Anyone who had looked as miserable with chicken pox as Wally had, she decided, deserved some applause.
When all the announcements were over, however, and the teacher was collecting lunch money, everyone began talking about the principal and whether or not he would actually spend the night on the roof.
“Do you think he'll really stay up there the whole night?” someone asked.
“I'll bet if it rains he won't,” answered Caroline.
Wally turned around. “I'll bet he goes up there around seven with everyone watching, and about midnight he goes home and sleeps in his own bed.”
“Well, I hope there's a thunderstorm and hail,” a girl said.
“A tornado!” said somebody else, and everyone laughed.
Caroline leaned forward till her mouth was right next to Wally's ear. “You know what might be fun to do, Wally? The Hatfords and the Malloys together? We could sneak over to the school about midnight and see if he's there.”
And Wally whispered back, “Maybe we will.”
At nine o'clock in the morning on the last Saturday of the month, the Hatford boys and the Malloy girls met at the police station, and Jake told Sergeant Bogdan that the girls had put him in charge of the Dirt Squad; he would make sure that everyone did a good job, and the place would be in top shape for the inspection.
“Good!” the sergeant said. “We're expecting Chief Decker at noon.” He led Jake around the reception area, the others tagging along. “See this tile floor? It's been mopped, but it hasn't been scrubbed, really scrubbed, for years. I want this floor to gleam—every square inch of it. That'll mean getting down on your hands and knees with scrub brushes, poking in all the corners. The rest room needs cleaning again, the front window needs washing, and all the chairs along the wall over there need to be wiped down …. The little room we use for a kitchen needs a good cleaning—the microwave, the small fridge, the sink … ”
He handed a list to Jake—all the work to be done from the front door of the station right back to the door to the holding cells—and when he'd returned to his desk, Jake faced the others. “Okay. Josh, you and I will do the chairs and window. Wally, you and Peter sweep the sidewalk out front and wipe off all the door-knobs. Eddie and Beth will get down on their hands and knees and scrub the floor, and Caroline will clean the rest room again, paying special attention to the toilet. When you're through with the floor, Eddie, do the kitchen.”
Caroline could hardly stand it. “Wally does door-knobs and I do the toilet again?” she whimpered.
“It was you who got us into this, so you get the elephant's share,” said Jake without pity.
“This floor is disgusting,” Beth said after the boys had scattered to do their jobs. “There's even chewing gum stuck to it in places.”
“Don't worry,” Eddie told her. “It'll be worth it.” She winked.
“You don't think we'll get in trouble over this?” Beth asked.
“Why would we?” Eddie grinned. “Jake's in charge, remember?”
Jake came by with the Windex. “What's so funny?” he asked.
“We're just telling jokes to make the time go faster,” Eddie said.
“Well, don't forget to do the corners,” he instructed.
“Yes, sir !” Eddie said, and gave a mock salute.
Forty-five minutes later, Sergeant Bogdan came down the hall. “Well, well, you make a good taskmaster, Jake, because I never saw this floor looking so good,” he said.
“Thanks,” Jake said.
Eddie gave a snort under her breath, but Bogdan didn't hear her.
About eleven that morning the girls were just putting away their mops and brushes when Sergeant Bogdan gave a little whistle.
“Son of a gun!” Caroline heard him say. “There's the inspector pulling up right now. He's early!” While he and the Hatford boys lined up outside to greet the police chief, the girls rushed about putting the final touches on the reception area. They heard Sergeant Bogdan say, “Chief Decker, I want you to meet Jake
here. I've got a bunch of kids doing some … uh … volunteer work, you might say, sprucing up the station, and Jake Hatford's the guy in charge.”
Caroline watched the man in the chief's uniform hold out his hand. “Glad to meet you,” he said. “Maybe you'll go into police work one of these days yourself, young man. We need all the good men we can get. So you were in charge of the work detail, huh?”
“Yes, sir!” said Jake, his chest thrust out like he'd just won a gold medal or something.
“Well,” said the captain. “Let's take a look around.” They all came inside, and the captain just smiled at the girls who squeezed by them there in the hall.
“We're done,” Eddie whispered to Jake.
“Yeah, see you later,” said Beth.
“Have a nice day!” said Caroline as the girls went out the door.
Eighteen
The Decorators
“Well, that was a change, Wally thought. He'd expected the girls, Caroline in particular, to hang around and claim the glory. He'd sort of expected her to say she had worked her fingers to the bone. She might even have pretended to faint from exhaustion.
Chief Decker, followed by Sergeant Bogdan, followed by Officer Clay, followed by the four Hatford boys, moved down the hall toward the little kitchenette behind the office. Everything was crisp looking and white, including a tall chef's hat with a pink ruffle around the bottom sitting on top of the microwave.
Wally stared at the ruffle while Jake and Josh stood with open mouths, speechless.
“Hey, look at the hippo!” Peter cried delightedly, pointing to a refrigerator magnet of a hippo wearing a pink tutu and eating a pizza.
Chief Decker turned slowly around the little kitchen. Pink curtains had been tacked over the small window above the sink, and a paper cup filled with daisies stood in the middle of the little table.
Without a word he moved on down the hall to the waiting room, and Wally sucked in his breath, because someone had put lace doilies over the backs of the vinyl chairs and tied bows at the bottom of each metal leg.
“Peppermints!” Peter cried, pointing to the dish of pink-and-white candies on the metal table beside the vinyl couch. On top of the TV, on another lace doily, a dime-store ballerina did a pirouette.
“Is this a police station or my aunt Millie's parlor?” asked Chief Decker with a frown, looking at the dazed faces of Sergeant Bogdan and Officer Clay.
The tile floor gleamed, the walls were spotless, the windows shining, but these were hardly noticed, for when they got to the rest room with its roll of toilet paper tied with pink ribbon, a pink ruffle taped around the lid of the toilet tank, plus a box of pink tissues by the sink and little stick-on hearts around the rim of the mirror, Sergeant Bogdan exploded.
“Jake, what the blazes were you kids trying to do? Embarrass us?” he asked, ripping off the pink ruffle and stuffing it in his pocket.
“We … I … the g-girls must have done this before they left!” Jake croaked.
“A good officer knows what his troops are doing,” said Chief Decker, his eyes twinkling, “and he has to take full responsibility for his subordinates.”
But the worst was yet to come, Wally discovered. Because when they moved back out into the hall and looked in the other direction, toward the holding cells, they found that someone, and Wally knew who, had pasted on the wall row after row of round yellow smiley faces, now grinning at the police chief.
Wally couldn't tell whether Chief Decker was choking or coughing or laughing, and he didn't stick around to find out. All he knew was that he was racing down the hall after his brothers—out the front door of the station, down the steps, and then, as fast as they could go, toward home.
But a block away, the girls were waiting for them. Caroline and her sisters were leaning against a tree, helpless with laughter.
“You dumbos!” Jake yelled when he saw them.
“Oh, come on, Jake. You know it was funny,” said Beth.
“Yeah, what are you going to do? Fire us?” Eddie teased.
“I thought the hippo in the pink tutu was the best,” said Caroline. “Sergeant Bogdan can keep it if he wants, sort of a reminder of what he's going to look like if he keeps on eating so many doughnuts.”
“Well, you could at least have let us in on the joke,” Jake complained as they started home together. “I didn't know what to say. Bogdan kept looking at me as though—” He stopped suddenly. “That's why you put me in charge, isn't it?”
“Clever boy! You figured that out in a hurry,” said Eddie. “Well, you worked us to death with all that scrubbing, so we earned the right to a little fun. I'd say we're about even.”
“I thought it looked nice!” said Peter. “The peppermints were good too!” He held out his hand and showed them a fistful.
“See?” said Beth, laughing some more. “At least somebody appreciates all our work.”
“I'd appreciate you a whole lot more if you'd just leave Buckman!” Jake growled.
“You'd miss us. You know you would,” Beth cooed, and Wally noticed that Josh was even smiling a little.
Nineteen
Not Again!
Mrs. Malloy insisted that the whole family attend the countywide spelling contest that night, even though none of her daughters would be in it. “It's important to show our support for the language arts, just as much as it is to support the band concerts and ball games,” she said.
“Why should I want to go see Wally Hatford win for the fourth grade?” Caroline whined. “I should be up there onstage, not Wally.”
“Caroline, you missed your word, so you should not be up there,” said her mother. “Those were the rules. Thinking things through and taking your time are important too, and you didn't do either of those. Now put on a clean shirt, and let's try to be at the school by seven so we don't have to sit at the very back.”
It was almost more than Caroline could bear. It was like being a famous actress and having to sit in the audience while an understudy went onstage, playing your role. Wally Hatford was a good speller but he didn't like being in contests. He never even liked standing up in front of the room. Caroline deserved to be in that contest. She, who loved the stage and the spotlight, deserved to win for Buckman's fourth grade. She would have been so good at it. She could have worn her best dress, and she would have bowed to the audience when she won first place.
She changed her shirt, and out the door they went, crossing the swinging bridge on a beautiful April night, and walked two blocks to the school. Cars were lined up on each side the street, for people had driven in from all over the county. The air was filled with the sounds of friends calling to friends, parents calling greetings to parents, and contestants laughing and chattering.
The Malloys took seats in the middle of the auditorium and, after they sat down, discovered that the Hatfords—all but Wally, of course—were sitting in the same row across the aisle. Mrs. Malloy leaned forward and smiled, and Mrs. Hatford waved back.
The contest began about fifteen minutes later, with a great deal of lining up and changing places and counting heads before the contestants took their places in the first three rows of the auditorium. The winning first graders from all the schools went up onstage first.
When students spelled their words correctly, they went to the end of the line to wait for another turn. But if they missed, a teacher escorted them to the steps at one side of the stage, and they joined their classmates below.
The winning word for the first grade was untie, and everyone clapped as the boy who won it grinned and waved at his parents.
The second graders came onstage next, their arms straight down at their sides, looking even more serious. When only two girls were left onstage, one misspelled the word dinosaur and—to her even greater embarrassment—broke into tears and left the stage weeping.
The winning word in third grade was discipline, and then it was the fourth grade's turn.
“Remember,” said the county superintendent, who was cal
ling out the words. “You may ask to have a word repeated, and you may ask to have it used in a sentence.” He also reminded the contestants that the winner for each grade would go to the statewide spelling contest in Charleston in May.
Miserably, Caroline watched as Wally Hatford shuffled across the stage, hands in his pockets, beside the other contestants. Mrs. Malloy leaned forward again and smiled down the row at Mrs. Hatford, and Mrs. Hatford leaned forward and smiled back.
“Tremendous,” said the superintendent to the first person in line. The girl spelled the word correctly and moved to the end.
“Scissors,” said the superintendent. The next girl mistakenly put an e before the r and was escorted offstage.
Wally was given the word knowledge, which he spelled correctly, and again the Malloys and the Hatfords exchanged smiles. Peter clapped for his brother.
Caroline was silently weeping already. No actress should have to go through the agony she endured. Look at Wally up there! she thought. His shoulders were slumped, his eyes were on the floor, hands in his pockets, toes pointing inward. He looked as uncomfortable and awkward as an elephant at a tea party. Wally no more wanted to go to the state contest than he wanted to go to the dentist. She would have been such a wonderful contestant to represent Buckman's fourth grade! She would have gone on to the state contest, and then the national, and she would have been on TV. From there it was only a short step to Broadway. Oh, life was so unfair!
One more contestant was eliminated as the line moved toward the superintendent, and once again it was Wally's turn.
“Handkerchief,” said the superintendent.
Oh, that's so easy! Caroline thought. That was the easiest word so far! She could spell much harder words than that.
“Handkerchief,” Wally repeated, looking straight ahead. “H-a-n-d … ” He hesitated, and Caroline knew with every bone in her body that he was about to misspell it so that he wouldn't have to go to the state contest. He would probably put in a c instead of a k.