The Boys Return

  Eddie rummaged among the rolls until she found one that had pink hearts against a white background, with the word LOVE in red, on each heart.

  “Oh, we've got to get that one too!” said Beth. “It will drive them absolutely nuts.”

  Caroline had not found anything yet for her room, and her sisters helped her hunt until they came across a strip of yellow paper with china dolls on it, each one dressed in a fancy costume and holding a tiny teddy bear.

  The Malloys could hardly keep from laughing out loud.

  “How much?” Eddie asked at the counter.

  The man measured them out. “Tell you what, all you've got here are bits and pieces. What if I said a dollar will cover the lot?”

  “Sold,” said Eddie.

  Next stop was the dollar store. There they found several bushel baskets of marked-down merchandise—a little soiled, a bit worn, but good enough for their purpose. They spent three dollars and fifty cents on ribbon, lace, bows, hearts, sparkles, spangles, and beads.

  For two evenings the girls worked in their rooms, carefully fastening the strips of wallpaper to the wall with straight pins. When they were done, the room with the racing-car paper had a strip of hearts and ribbon down the middle; the room with football wall-paper had a panel of ballet slippers, and the last room, which had been decorated with wallpaper full of marching toy soldiers, now had a strip of china dolls all along the window.

  Every picture in every room had a ruffle around it. Every lampshade was trimmed in lace. Every bedpost had a bow attached; there were beads hanging from light fixtures, and sparkles and spangles glistened on every mirror.

  The girls went from room to room admiring their handiwork.

  “Isn't it awful!” breathed Eddie, pausing in the doorway of her own room.

  “Atrocious!” Beth agreed. “Do you think we can stand it for a whole week?”

  But Caroline rather liked the idea of sleeping in the middle of all this stuff. It was almost like being on a stage set, surrounded by artificial walls and windows. If Caroline had her way, she would spend the whole week of vacation pretending to be onstage. Every person she met would be a character in a play. She, of course, would say her lines perfectly: How do you do, Mrs. Hatford? Isn't it a splendid, splendid day? or Oh, my poor, darling Peter, to be orphaned at so young an age!

  She would cry, she would laugh, she would rage, she would…yes, love! And when her performance was over, the audience would give her a standing ovation and throw roses at her feet.

  “After all this work, those Bensons better want to come over here and take a look at how we're keeping their rooms,” said Beth.

  “If they don't, we'll have to lure them here,” said Eddie. “We didn't go to all this work and expense for nothing.”

  Caroline was quiet for a moment. “If we're doing all this work to annoy the guys, what do you suppose they're up to, to trick us?”

  But Beth was thoughtful too. “What if they turn out to be nice?”

  “Ha!” said Eddie. “All we've heard since we moved to Buckman is the trouble we'd be in for if the Bensons came back—the wonderful Bensons—the best friends the Hatfords ever had. I'm tired of listening to the guys talk about the mighty Bensons. I can't wait to meet them, and I guarantee that whatever they dish out, we can take, and then some!”

  Three

  Bill and Danny and Steve and Tony and Doug

  Nothing much got done on the last day of school before spring vacation. There was a spelling bee in the morning, and a video of Australia before lunch, and in the afternoon, Miss Applebaum passed around pictures of her nieces and nephews.

  But just before the final bell she said, “Remember, class, when you come back after spring vacation, I want to hear that each of you tried something you've never done before.” And then she added quickly, “With your parents' permission, of course.”

  Wally had liked it better the first time she'd said it, without the “parents' permission” stuff. There were a lot of whoops and shouts and laughter when the doors opened at last. All the students poured outside, ready to say goodbye to winter and welcome spring.

  The Hatfords, however, were getting ready to welcome someone else—the Benson boys, who would be arriving the following day with their parents. Mrs. Hatford had already borrowed cots and air mattresses from the neighbors to make beds for five more boys in the house.

  At breakfast that morning, Mr. Hatford, in his postal worker's uniform, had sat at the breakfast table and said, “Ellen, do you think we're crazy to have nine boys in the house with us for a week?”

  “Probably,” Mrs. Hatford had replied. “But it's what might happen when you and I aren't here, Tom, that worries me most. So I told the store I'd be working only half days next week.”

  “Wise move,” her husband had said.

  “I figure the kids will be up late every night and will be sleeping in each morning. So I'm going to work from eight till one, then come home and get lunch for everybody. I don't think they can get in too much trouble in the hour or so after they first get up, can they?”

  “I'm going to pretend you didn't say that,” Mr. Hatford had said, and he'd kissed her on the cheek and headed for the door.

  They had acted as though Wally weren't even sitting at the table with them eating his cornflakes, mostly because Wally's eyes were always half closed at breakfast. But he had heard and remembered everything they said. What was going through his mind at that moment was, If I'm going to try something I've never done before, I'd better do it between eight and one o'clock, before Mom gets home.

  When the dark green van pulled into the Hatfords' driveway Saturday afternoon, the Hatford boys swarmed outside and almost pulled their friends out of the rear seats, yelling and punching each other and chasing the newcomers around the house.

  Wally liked Bill Benson the best because they were the same age and they both knew what it was like to be the middle boy in a large family. Bill was a little pudgy and he was always good-natured, just like his brother Danny, a year younger, who had Bill's round face and blue eyes and was even more chubby. The three of them used to do things together when the Bensons lived in Buckman.

  Steve and Tony were closest in age to Jake and Josh. The twins, however, were string-bean skinny, while Steve was broad-shouldered and short, and Tony was broad-shouldered and tall. All four boys could eat three hamburgers apiece and a load of fries without even stopping to burp. Steve was in seventh grade already, but Tony and the Hatford twins would soon be twelve.

  Doug was the youngest, a year younger than Peter. He was a small boy with hair so blond it almost looked white.

  “How are you? How was the trip up?” asked Mrs. Hatford, embracing Mrs. Benson while the two men shook hands.

  “Well, it's good to be out of that van,” Mrs. Benson said. “Hal and I will be going on to the motel later, but we thought we'd stay a little while to chat and help the boys get settled.”

  “You're certainly staying for dinner!” said Mrs. Hatford.

  “Well, that would be lovely,” Mrs. Benson said. “You know what I would really like to do? Stroll over to our old house and see how it looks.”

  “Well, you're in luck, Shirley, because Jean Malloy called just this morning and invited us all to tea,” Wally's mother said. “Tea and cookies, she said. And I thought you might enjoy a little walk after your long trip up from Georgia.”

  Wally elbowed Bill and saw Jake and Josh exchanging looks with Steve and Tony.

  “You mean we finally get to meet the weirdos?” whispered Bill.

  “Yep. The Whomper, the Weirdo, and the Crazie, up close in living color,” Wally replied.

  “In their natural habitat!” added Josh.

  “Yeah, Mom, let's go over there,” said Steve loudly. “I'd just love some tea and cookies.”

  His mother looked at him suspiciously.

  “They make good cookies, too!” said Peter, nodding emphatically. “You want some cookies, Dougie?”

  Doug
Benson nodded his almost-white head.

  “Just let me get all the bags upstairs and clean up a bit,” said Mr. Benson, reaching into the back of the van for some of the suitcases. Mr. Hatford took two of them and started for the house.

  “I'll call and let the Malloys know we're coming,” said Mrs. Hatford.

  Upstairs, the boys ran from room to room, seeing where each of them was going to sleep, pulling things out of suitcases, trading comic books, and throwing underpants at each other. When Jake and Josh closed the door of their room after Tony and Steve were inside, however, Wally knew they must be planning something. Whatever it was, he wanted to be in on it.

  “Come on,” he said to Bill and Danny, and the three boys converged on the twins' bedroom.

  At first Jake wasn't going to let them in, but after he peeked outside to make sure Peter and Doug weren't there, he let Wally and the two chubby Benson boys into the room. Then he locked the door.

  “Tony's got a great idea,” Josh said. “Listen.”

  Tony was sitting on the edge of Josh's bed, his feet on one of the army cots Mrs. Hatford had put in the room. “We've been thinking how we could help you get back at the girls for all the stuff they've done to you,” he said. “The snowballs down the neck, the pencil poking in Wally's back…”

  “The way they turned Peter into a spy…,” said Steve.

  “Caroline making you think she was rabid,” said Danny.

  “And the time she put lima beans in the brownies,” said Bill.

  Tony's grin widened. “What we're going to do, see, is make them think our old house is haunted.”

  Wally made a face. “They'll never fall for it. Eddie in particular.”

  “Don't be so sure,” Tony said mysteriously, and he took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. It looked as though it were a hundred years old. “Handle it gently,” he said, giving it to Wally.

  The paper was yellowed and the edges raggedy. One edge, in fact, was torn as though it had been ripped from a notebook. The brown ink was blurred, and the words seemed to have been written with an old quill pen; there were stains in the center of the page.

  March 23, 1867, it said in the upper right corner. The date was so faint that Wally could hardly read it.

  “Read it out loud,” Tony urged him, so Wally cleared his throat and began:

  “Yesterday was one of the saddest days of my life here on Island Avenue, and I am so overcome with grief that I hardly know what I am about. My sister, Annabelle, was found in the river yesterday, having gone down with me to see the high water. Her guardian angel must have deserted her, for her foot slipped and the swirling water carried her away before I could grab her.

  Oh, the look on her face as she cried out to me has burned its image on my heart!

  “I ran along the riverbank as far as the road bridge, screaming as I went, but no one came in time and the water carried her under. She was found later on the other side of Island Avenue, caught in the brush along shore.

  “Her body lies in the parlor now as neighbors come to call, a candle at her head and feet, and my eyes are so swollen from crying I durst not let them see me.

  “But strangest of all, I know that Annabelle is with me yet. For when we used to lie together in our bed of a morning, we would sometimes amuse ourselves by each, in turn, rapping out a rhythm of an unnamed song on the wall behind our heads, the other to guess what song it might be.

  “And late last night, after her body was laid out in her black dress and lace collar, I went to my room and was startled to hear the tap, tappity, tap of a song—a song I know well, and my blood ran cold to hear it: ‘I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.' She used to tap out that song for me to guess, my own name being Kathleen, and it pleased me much. But it pleases me no more, for I can only guess that, because I could not save her, she will come again in the night for me, to take me with her.”

  Wally stared hard at the piece of paper after he'd finished reading, and then at Tony. Jake and Josh were staring too, their lips parted, eyes huge.

  “Where did you find that?” Jake asked.

  “In the wall of my room when we used to live where the Malloys are now, of course,” said Tony.

  “What? You never told us about it!”

  “That's because it never happened,” Tony said, trying hard, it seemed, not to smile.

  “What?” said Josh.

  Steve and Tony burst into laughter, and Tony had to explain. “I got a kit for my birthday that will make any piece of paper look old. It's got ink and a quill pen, and when you write something, you brush this kind of liquid over the paper and stick it in the oven for ten minutes, and it turns yellow, and spots appear.”

  “But… the words! ‘I durst not let them see me.' No one talks like that anymore, Tony. How could you make that up?”

  “I know. I copied it out of a book and changed the words around a little, adding ‘Island Avenue,' for one thing.”

  “How did you come up with the title of that song?” asked Wally.

  “My grandmother used to sing it. It's supposed to be a love song, I think—‘I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen'—but it sounds sort of spooky if a ghost says it.”

  Jake's mind was already at work. “Okay. So you're going to tell the girls you found a page out of a diary in your wall when you lived there. Caroline's in your room now. How are you going to convince even her that there's a ghost hanging around?”

  “I've got it all figured out,” said Tony, and his brothers grinned.

  Four

  Pleased to Meet You

  Caroline had just gone into the bathroom to brush her teeth—the Hatfords were bringing the Bensons to tea in half an hour—when she heard a startled shriek from the hallway.

  She realized she had not shut her bedroom door after her, and now it was too late. She stuck her head out the bathroom doorway.

  Mrs. Malloy was standing with one hand over her mouth, staring into Caroline's bedroom. Then, in rapid succession, she opened first Beth's door and then Eddie's, emitting a shriek each time she looked inside.

  “Caroline Lenore! Bethany Sue! Edith Ann!” she cried, going back to Caroline's bedroom and starting the procedure all over again. Eddie came out of her bedroom and Beth came warily upstairs.

  “What are you trying to do? Drive me out of my mind?” cried their mother. “I've spent the whole morning cleaning, the Bensons will be here in half an hour, and look what you've done to their bedrooms!”

  “They're our bedrooms right now, Mom, and besides, none of this stuff is permanent,” Eddie explained.

  Coach Malloy came upstairs to put on his shoes. He tried not to smile as he looked where his wife was pointing and took in the lampshades, the ruffles, the beads, the wallpaper…

  “Take this stuff down this minute!” Mrs. Malloy ordered.

  “Mother! They're our rooms!” Beth protested.

  Mrs. Malloy turned helplessly toward her husband. “They did this on purpose just to annoy those boys!” she said.

  Now Mr. Malloy couldn't hold back his smile. “Well, I'd say they're going to succeed very well, but it's only a joke, Jean. And Eddie said all the stuff can come down—it's not glued on. You did promise them, when we moved here, that they could decorate their rooms any way they wanted, you know.”

  “Whose side are you on?” cried Mrs. Malloy.

  “The side of reason and sanity, peace and quiet,” he answered, going into the bedroom to finish dressing.

  “Well, I just hope nobody has to come up here to use the bathroom!” Mrs. Malloy grumbled, going back downstairs. “If we can keep everyone down there, at least that's presentable.” She turned around. “And for heaven's sake, girls, keep those doors closed!”

  Caroline, Beth, and Eddie didn't at all mind keeping their doors closed, because they knew two things: One, the Benson boys wouldn't be able to resist sneaking upstairs to see what the Malloy girls had done to their rooms; and two, when they discovered the doors were closed, chances were they w
ould open them only a little anyway, just enough to peek in. The girls had placed their strips of wallpaper in exactly the right places to be seen if their doors were opened about four inches. They made sure that in that first glimpse, every Benson boy would see at least one beaded lampshade, one ruffled picture, one bow, one lacy something-or-other, and that was worth all the work the girls had put into decorating their rooms so atrociously.

  At two minutes to four the front doorbell rang, and Caroline—dressed in her black velvet dress and patent leather shoes—answered.

  There were Mr. and Mrs. Hatford with Mr. and Mrs. Benson and nine smiling boys, enough for a baseball team. The boys looked so scrubbed and angelic she could hardly believe that five of them were the mighty Bensons she had heard so much about. As for the Hatfords, she had never thought they could look angelic either. Suddenly, on impulse, she curtsied as she held open the door. Then she heard one of the Bensons whisper to Wally, “She's the Crazie, right?”

  Maybe they weren't so angelic after all.

  Mrs. Malloy was coming out of the kitchen, and she hurried forward to shake their hands just as Coach Malloy came in the back door with two more logs for the fire.

  “We're so glad you could come over,” she said. “We're certainly enjoying this house, and we thought you might like to have tea in familiar surroundings.”

  “How good of you to invite us!” said Mrs. Benson as the girls' father took their coats. Mr. Hatford made the introductions.

  They all sat primly around the living room, talking about the weather in Georgia and college football. When Caroline and her sisters went out to the kitchen to get the little cakes and sandwiches their mother had prepared, none of them could quite believe how polite and sincere the nine boys seemed. Except for referring to her as the Crazie, which must have been Wally's doing, Caroline said the Bensons were perfect gentlemen.

  “And cute!” said Beth.