“I can't understand it!” she said. “I was sure there was a dish of leftover peas and mushrooms in here, and now it's gone. And lima beans! What happened to the lima beans?”
Jake, Josh, and Wally were doing homework on the kitchen table.
“We ate them,” Jake said quickly.
Mrs. Hatford turned around and stared.
“You ate them? You hate lima beans!”
“We were hungry,” said Josh. “There weren't any cookies.”
Mrs. Hatford closed the refrigerator door and studied the boys in front of her. “There weren't any cookies, so you ate lima beans instead? Do you expect me to believe this? I'm not stupid.”
Wally figured he'd better head her off before the whole truth came out. “We took care of the peas and mushrooms too, and then we made brownies. Well, one of us did.”
“Will wonders never cease!” Mrs. Hatford declared. “I didn't even know you boys knew how to make brownies.”
“Shut up, Peter,” Jake murmured.
“I didn't say anything!” Peter said.
“Well, don't!” Jake warned him. And then, to their mother, “There was a recipe on a box of cocoa.”
“Then where are they? Could I have one?”
“We ate them,” said Wally.
“All except the yucky parts,” said Peter, and all the brothers turned and glared at him at once.
Mrs. Hatford sighed. “Oh, well. I think I'll make a casserole for dinner. You boys better move your homework to the dining room table.”
The twins picked up their books and headed for the other room. Wally followed with the pencils and pens, and Peter set his glass of pop on the dining room table and sat down at one end.
“Listen, Peter,” said Jake. “Don't tell Mom that Caroline was here and that she baked the brownies. Mom would get mad. Just keep it secret and we'll never do it again, okay?”
“You'll be nice to her now?” Peter asked.
“Even polite,” Jake promised. “Just don't tell Mom.”
“Okay,” Peter promised, and the boys breathed a sigh of relief.
▪
The next morning when Wally came down to breakfast, he saw the corner of an envelope sticking out from under the front door. He picked it up. Josh's name was on it, so he took it to the kitchen, where the twins were eating cereal, and laid it on the table.
“What's this?” asked Josh.
“I don't know. It was under the door,” Wally said.
Josh looked at the envelope. The letters of his name had been cut out of a magazine and pasted to the envelope. All the words on the inside had been cut out of magazines too, until they formed a message:
SOMEBODY really likes you.
TO FIND out who, come to 503
MAIN street tonight at 7:15 and say
you came to see about ELMER.
Jake was reading the comics. “What is it?” he asked.
Josh stuffed the paper in his back pocket. “Just something dumb,” he said.
Wally started to say something, then stopped. If someone took the time to spell out your name with letters cut out of magazines, it must mean something. And why was Josh blushing?
He didn't say anything, however, and on the way to school, Josh hung back until he was walking beside Wally. Jake and Peter were up ahead. “Hey, Wally, do me a favor, huh?” he murmured. “Come downtown with me tonight. I have to see someone about that note.”
“Who?” asked Wally.
“I don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out. It said if I went to a certain address at seven-fifteen, I'd find out. Why don't you come with me? I can't ask Jake. He'd make a big deal out of it.”
“Sure,” said Wally. Jake and Josh usually did everything together. Neither ever asked Wally to do anything with him alone except stuff that always turned out bad—stuff that Wally would end up getting the blame for.
What Wally was thinking about, however, was what he should say to Caroline about those brownies. As they went up the steps to the school, he decided he would say nothing at all. That would really drive her nuts.
She would want to think she'd grossed them out. She would want to know they'd spit out the peas and mushrooms. She would want to know how they had dissected every single brownie to dig out the lima beans. So he wouldn't tell her any of that.
No sooner had he sat down in his seat than he felt her ruler poking him in the back. He turned around.
“Good morning, Wally!” Caroline chirped, looking angelic. “How did you like the brownies?”
“They were great!” said Wally. “Thanks.” He turned back around.
There was silence behind him.
Poke, poke went the ruler again.
Wally turned around.
“You ate them all? Every single one?” asked Caroline.
“Yep,” said Wally.
“And … and you didn't notice anything?” Caroline asked in dismay.
“Notice what?”
“Well, weren't they sort of lumpy and … uh … bumpy?”
Wally shrugged. “I don't know. We ate them so fast we didn't notice, I guess.”
Caroline's face fell.
“Oh,” she said.
“Why?” asked Wally.
“Nothing,” Caroline said. “I'm glad you enjoyed them.”
▪
That evening Jake was doing homework again at the dining room table when Josh glanced over at Wally and nodded and they separately left the room.
Outside, pulling on his jacket, Josh said, “It's just somebody saying she likes me, and I'm curious. It said if I wanted to find out, I had to go to 503 Main Street tonight and say I came to see about Elmer.”
“Who's Elmer?” asked Wally.
“I don't know. Never heard of him,” said Josh.
This was sort of exciting, Wally thought, even though a girl was probably behind it. Kind of like a detective story.
“What's at 503 Main?” Wally asked. “Is that Ethel's Bakery? Oldakers’ Books?”
“I don't know,” Josh said again.
It wasn't either one. It was the old movie theater.
“You think we should just go in?” Josh asked.
“Maybe we should knock first,” Wally suggested.
Josh knocked, softly at first. Then loudly.
There were footsteps inside and a bearded man opened the door.
“Uh, hello,” said Josh uncertainly. “I came to see about Elmer.”
“Elmer?” the man said quizzically. Then suddenly his face changed and his eyes lit up. “Ah! Elmer!” he said, opening the door wider still. “Come right in!” He smiled at them both.
This is really weird, thought Wally.
They went through the lobby and the man opened the inner doors to the small theater. About fifteen people were milling around, some walking about onstage. The thing Wally noticed first was a huge backdrop on which a woman was painting a farm scene—a horse, a cow, a barn, a field …
Josh stopped in his tracks and Wally could see that he had noticed too. The woman was trying to paint the horse's legs on the backdrop, only they were the strangest-looking legs Josh and Wally had ever seen.
“I could paint better than that,” Josh whispered to Wally. “If someone would just give me a brush, I could paint that whole scene better than she's doing.”
But the bearded man was saying, “Come on! Come on!” and then, “Jane, this young man is here to see about Elmer. I think we've found the grocer's sons.”
And Josh and Wally found themselves being ushered onto the stage among a group of smiling faces. And there, looking almost as embarrassed as Josh himself, was Beth Malloy.
Eight
Hostage
Caroline could hardly believe her eyes. It had worked! Her plan had actually worked! Josh had gotten the message and he was just curious enough to come and find out who really, really liked him, as the note said. What she did not expect, however, was that Wally would show up too.
“Ladies and gentlemen,”
said the director to the rest of the cast, “I believe our prayers have been answered/ ‘ Everyone clapped.
Josh stared at Beth, and Beth's face turned as pink as her sweater.
“You're Josh and Wally Hatford, aren't you?” the director asked. “All right, boys, you are going to be Elmer and Clyde. Josh, you're Elmer, and Wally, you're Clyde.”
Wally was already shaking his head and moving backward, but Josh seemed hypnotized by the scenery.
“The horse is all wrong,” he said, pointing.
Everyone turned and looked at the scenery. The artist sat back on her heels and looked at her painting, tipping her head to one side.
“It is wrong,” she said, “but I don't know exactly why. I told them when they asked me to paint the set that I wasn't good at animals.”
“Josh is!” cried Caroline quickly. “His pictures are all over the halls at school, and horses are one of the things he draws best.”
“Josh,” said the director, “we really, really need you. You only have a few lines in the play, and Wally just has to hang around onstage. But could you possibly consent to help paint the scenery too?”
Caroline held her breath. If the director couldn't find any boys to play the parts, she'd probably call the whole thing off, and there would go Caroline's chance to be in a real grown-up play. Any minute Josh and Wally would bolt. Any minute they would realize that she had put that note together. Any minute, in fact, Josh could pull it out of his pocket, walk over, and smush it in her face, just as the girls had rubbed snow in Jake's face the day before.
Except that Josh was still staring at the horse on the backdrop, and everyone was staring at Josh and waiting, and finally he said, “Yeah, but I'll have to do the cows over, too. There's something wrong with their legs.”
“It's acrylic paint. You can paint right over my work,” the woman said. “Oh, we do appreciate you, young man. We'll put your name on the program.”
“Now!” said Jane, the director. “Let's have the scene where Elmer proposes to Annabelle,” and she explained to Josh and Wally the parts they would play in the story—how the grocer's lazy sons would not help out on the farmer's land, but when Elmer met Annabelle, he changed his mind, and it was when the two families came together that the town of Buckman was born.
So everyone watched while Josh took Beth's hands and said, “Annabelle, I never thought I'd amount to much, but when I met you, everything changed.”
And Beth, glancing shyly at Josh, then down at the floor, said, “With you by my side, Elmer, we can do anything.”
All Wally had to do was sprawl in a corner and pretend to chew on a piece of clover.
“Perfect!” said the director.
At which point Caroline was to come out, stage left. While Elmer and Annabelle were still holding hands, she said to the audience, “If they think they're going to have a wedding without inviting me to be in the bridal party, just wait!” And she said it with such force, such style, that the rest of the players all clapped. All except Tracy Lee, her understudy, who glared at her from the first row.
When the rehearsal was over, Josh and Wally were the first ones out the door, though Josh did agree to come by after school the following evening and work on painting the set.
Beth seemed in a daze as she walked home beside Caroline.
“I can't believe what happened!” she kept saying. “What made Josh and Wally just walk in there and volunteer to be in that play?”
Caroline was about to tell her, but then she decided that had better be her secret. It was better for Beth to think that they were there because they wanted to be than that they had been tricked into coming. So she chirped, “You know, of all the Hatford boys, I think Josh is the nicest. Next to Peter, of course.”
“Well, he's certainly a lot different from Jake,” Beth agreed. “He's a good artist, too.”
▪
The following day at school, Wally seemed to be avoiding Caroline. Even when she poked him with her ruler and said, “Good morning, Clyde,” he wouldn't turn around.
Uh-ohy Caroline thought. I'd better not annoy him. So she ignored him for the rest of the day, and that seemed just fine with Wally.
The girls had only been home twenty minutes that afternoon—a note from their mother said she was attending a meeting of the faculty wives—when there was a knock on the door and Caroline opened it to find Peter on their doorstep.
“Hi, Peter, come in,” she said.
Peter was not smiling. He walked straight out to the kitchen and sat down on a chair. Then he glanced around the kitchen at Caroline and her sisters.
“Why did you put lima beans in our brownies?” he demanded of Caroline.
Aha! So the boys had noticed!
“Because,” said Caroline, “you kidnapped me and held me hostage. If they had asked nicely, I might have baked them some brownies and done it right.”
“They were yucky!” Peter complained. “We had to dig out all the peas and lima beans and Jake was really mad!”
“Good!” said Caroline. “So was I.”
Eddie, however, sat down at the table across from Peter and said, “You know, we can't quite figure out what's going on with your brothers. Are you guys friends with us or not? I thought you said your New Year's resolution was to be nicer to us.”
“It was,” said Peter. “We promised Mom we'd treat you like sisters, too, but Jake says you don't always have to treat sisters nice.”
“I see!” said Eddie. “A loophole! Well, I guess if you treat us like sisters, we can treat you like brothers. Right?”
“I guess so,” said Peter doubtfully.
Eddie exchanged looks with Beth and Caroline, and they knew she was up to something.
“Okay, I'll tell you what,” Eddie continued. “You guys kidnapped Caroline and held her hostage, so we're going to kidnap you.”
Peter's eyes opened wide.
“I don't know how to bake brownies!” he said, looking alarmed.
“Oh, you don't have to make them. We're just going to keep you here for a little while and give you treats!” Eddie said. “All you have to do is eat them. Get out the chocolate chips, Beth.”
Beth opened the cupboard and reached for a package.
“O-^zy!” said Peter, smiling.
“The only thing is, you have to promise to come over here every few days and tell us everything your brothers are planning to do to us,” said Eddie.
“Yeah,” said Beth. “It's only fair.”
“But you can't let them know about it, okay?” Eddie said. “If we're your sisters, then you have to be good to us and tell us everything. And every time you come, you get candy or cookies or ice cream of something.”
“O-kay!” Peter said again.
Beth sat down on the other side of Peter, and Caroline opened the bag of chocolate chips.
“Now!” said Beth. “Did Josh tell you that he was going to be in a play?”
Peter nodded.
Caroline gave him a chocolate chip.
“Did he say I was in it too?” asked Beth.
“Uh-huh,” said Peter.
Another chocolate chip.
“Did he say he liked me?” Beth went on, trying not to giggle.
Peter thought about it. “I think so,” he said, and looked at the chocolate chips, waiting.
“What happened at your house last night?” Beth went on.
“Josh said he was in a play and had to hold hands with you and get married and Jake said he was crazy,” Peter told them.
Caroline poured out a whole bunch of chips and pushed them across the table toward Peter.
Nine
Birthday Blues
You're going to do what?”
Mrs. Hatford was balancing the checkbook when Josh and Wally got back from the theater, and Mr. Hatford asked what they'd been doing.
“We're going to be in a play,” Josh repeated. “I have to do it, I think, if I want to paint the scenery, and I really want to paint it. It covers
the whole back of the stage, and it would be the first time outside of school that anyone has seen my paintings.”
“Yeah, Mom, you should see the scenery they've got there now. The cows look like bathtubs with women's legs on them,” put in Wally, eager to stand up for Josh and be the buddy of his older brother.
“Well, my goodness, that's something!” Mrs. Hatford declared. “Josh is going to paint the scenery for the play?”
“And he'll get his name on the program too,” said Wally.
“Do we get to come and see you?” asked Peter.
That was the part Wally dreaded—that people would come and see them. “I guess so,” he said miserably.
“It's all part of the grand celebration of Buckman's two hundredth anniversary,” said Mr. Hatford, enjoying a cup of coffee over his newspaper. “They're thinking up all kinds of ways to celebrate. It's nice to see them making use of the old theater.”
The only person who hadn't said anything yet was Jake. He was sprawled in front of the TV when Josh and Wally came in, but when they finally went upstairs, he followed. So did Peter.
“Are you guys nuts?” Jake asked as soon as they had all gathered in the twins’ bedroom.
Josh looked uncomfortable. “Why?” he asked, getting out his Game Boy and pretending to play on his bed.
“Since when did you ever want to be in a play? How come you went off without telling me? What's going on?” Jake wanted to know.
Josh pretended he hadn't heard and frowned at the game in his lap.
Wally tried to help. “He really wants to paint the scenery. And he only has to say one line.”
“Yeah? What?” asked Jake.
Josh went on frowning at the Game Boy, and Wally didn't know what to say. He waited.
“Well?” said Jake.
There didn't seem any point in not telling, because when the family came to see the play—the family and the whole town of Buckman, in fact—they'd hear Josh say it loud and clear.
“ ‘Annabelle, I never thought I'd amount to much, but when I met you, everything changed,’ “ Wally told him. “That's Josh's line.”
“Oh, boy!” Jake yelled, throwing back his head in disgust. “Oh, boy!” Then he stopped yelling and stared at Josh. “Who do you have to say it to?”