A Spy Among the Girls

  “Hey!” said Eddie. She bent down and picked it up.

  “‘For My Beloved ’?” she read aloud.

  Caroline's heart leaped. From Wally. It had to be from Wally. “It's for me,” she said, putting out her hand.

  But Beth was reaching too. “No, it's for me,” she said. “From Josh, obviously.”

  Eddie, however, was feeling playful, and she held the note high in the air where her sisters couldn't reach it.

  “How do you know?” she said. “Beloved could be anyone. Maybe it's for me !” She took the note out of its envelope and held it over her head, then continued reading: “ ‘Dear Ugly Stupid…’”

  Beth and Caroline both gasped.

  “It doesn't say that, Eddie!” Beth cried. She leaped up and snatched the paper from Eddie's hand and turned her back to read it. And suddenly she threw it to the floor and, sobbing, ran upstairs and shut her door.

  Eddie looked quizzically at Caroline. “Why would Josh write her a note like that?” she asked. “What a jerk!”

  Caroline leaned down and picked up the piece of paper.

  Dear Ugly Stupid,

  You really are crazy, aren't you? I never liked you before, I don't like you now, and I won't like you in the future. Leave me alone.

  Caroline gasped and clutched her chest, while Eddie stared. And then, just as Beth had done, she ran upstairs, gulping and sobbing, and shut her door. But as soon as she got inside, she stopped. Those sobs were so real! She really was a good actress. And then she had an idea. A wonderful, awful idea. She went to the phone in her parents’ bedroom and dialed the Hat-fords’.

  Sixteen

  Phone Call

  With Mrs. Hatford working at the hardware store till nine and Mr. Hatford out bowling, Wally and Peter were at the kitchen table eating graham crackers and peanut butter when Josh came in and said, “Where's Jake?”

  Wally shrugged. “I don't know. He had his coat on awhile ago. I thought you guys went somewhere.”

  “Well, he didn't tell me,” Josh said.

  There were sounds out in the hall, and Jake came in, his hair mussed up by the wind. He saw the snack on the table and helped himself to a big spoonful of peanut butter.

  “Where have you been?” Josh asked him.

  “Delivering a message to Caroline, that's what,” Jake said, and told him about the valentine. Wally froze.

  “Why would Caroline send a valentine to you?” Josh asked.

  “Because she's crazy. She's out of her mind. She's as nutty as a PayDay candy bar,” Jake answered.

  Wally took another bite of cracker and pretended he was reading the label on the peanut butter jar. He hoped it might seem possible that a girl in fourth grade—a precocious girl who was only old enough for third—might be sending a stupid valentine to a boy in sixth grade.

  “You mean she just walked up and handed you a mushy valentine?” Josh asked.

  “She gave it to Wally to give to me.”

  Josh turned to Wally, and Wally swallowed. “Caroline handed you a valentine for Jake? Just like that?”

  Wally swallowed again. “Just like that,” he said. This was not the way he had planned things. In fact, he had not planned things at all. He had been so surprised by the envelope Caroline had handed him out in the hall at school that he had simply rushed for the door and thrust it at the first person he saw, who happened to be Jake. “For you,” he had said. Which wasn't exactly the same as saying “Caroline said this was for you,” so he hadn't really lied, had he? He sure didn't want his brothers to know that the card had been meant for him! He'd figured Jake would just take one glance at it and throw it out. Or maybe he'd throw it out without opening it at all.

  Josh started to grin. “So what did you tell Caroline?” he asked Jake. “Are you going to carve your initials on a tree? Are you going to meet out on the bridge and kiss?” He seemed to enjoy teasing Jake, the way Jake had teased him.

  Peter laughed too and swung his legs as he took a big drink of milk.

  Jake glared at his twin. “You should talk! I know how you and Beth have been leaving notes for each other at the end of the bridge. You aren't any spy at all. You two are lovebirds, that's what.”

  “We are not!” Josh protested, his ears turning pink.

  “Lovebirds! Lovebirds!” Jake chanted.

  “We're not lovebirds! She's just a friend, and I find out all kinds of things from her,” Josh said again.

  “Like what?” Jake challenged. “That they're making something gross for us to eat? Yeah. Right!”

  “Like how Eddie secretly wants to make pitcher on the baseball team at school.”

  “We know that already,” said Jake.

  “And how Caroline really likes Wally.”

  “She does not!” said Wally, but his ears gave him away. They were burning.

  Both Jake and Josh turned on him then.

  “I'll bet that valentine was for you!” Jake yelled. “I'll bet you knew it all the time ! Caroline didn't write that card for me, did she?”

  “I…I didn't say she did,” Wally stammered. “I just gave it to you to get rid of it. I didn't know you were going to write her back.”

  “Wally!” yelled Jake and Josh together.

  “Do you know what I just did?” Jake bellowed. “I stuck a note under their door.”

  “What did you say?” asked Josh.

  “I wrote ‘For My Beloved’ on the outside, just the way she did. And on the inside I said, ‘Dear Ugly Stupid, You really are crazy, aren't you? I never liked you before, I don't like you now, and I won't like you in the future. Leave me alone.’ ”

  Wally swallowed. “You didn't sign it, did you?” he asked.

  “No. I figured she'd just know.”

  Wally was almost relieved. He'd never have the nerve to be quite that rude, but if anything should stop Caroline from acting so weird, that note should do it. At that moment the phone rang and Wally reached around from his chair and answered. Somebody on the line was sobbing. “Who is this?” he asked.

  But the sobbing grew louder still, and Wally knew it could only be Caroline Malloy.

  “What's the matter?” he asked.

  “H-How could you be so cruel?” she wept. “You don't have to love me, Wally, but you didn't have to call me ugly and stupid.”

  “It … it was—”

  “You don't know how much that hurt!” Caroline continued.

  “But… but I didn't write it. I gave it to—”

  “Goodbye,” said Caroline. “I'm just calling to tell you that you'll never have to look at my face again. You'll never have me sitting behind you in class or following you home from school again, because I will be dead. Goodbye, Wally. Forever!” And she hung up.

  Wally stared at the phone in his hand and then at his brothers.

  “Who was that ?” asked Jake.

  “C-Caroline. I… I think she's going to die,” said Wally.

  “What?” cried Josh.

  Peter looked ready to cry.

  “She's maybe going to kill herself,” Wally said, scared.

  “Because of my note?” asked Jake, disbelieving.

  Wally nodded.

  “She's got to be kidding!” said Josh. “I'm going over there and see.”

  “I'm going with you,” said Jake.

  “We'll all go,” said Wally. “Put your coat on, Peter.”

  “We're not supposed to go over there ever again!” Peter reminded them.

  “Get your coat !” Josh ordered. “We can't leave you here alone.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Jake. “If Caroline was going to do anything dumb like that, her sisters would stop her.”

  “Maybe they don't know,” said Wally.

  In a few seconds the boys had flung on their jackets and were racing down the hill to the swinging bridge.

  “I still think it's a trick,” said Jake. “You know how Caroline—”

  “She was sobbing !” Wally insisted. “She said your note really hurt
.”

  Peter stumbled on the untied laces of his sneakers, and the boys had to pull him back up onto his feet.

  “Jake, you could go to jail if she dies,” Wally said miserably. “You shouldn't have said what you did.”

  “Well, you shouldn't have given me that stupid valentine,” said Jake. “If I go to jail, you'll go with me.”

  Their shoes made hollow thunking sounds on the wooden planks of the bridge. The four boys were panting when they reached the top of the hill behind the Malloys’ house. The back-porch light was on, and one of the cars was gone.

  “I'll bet it's all a trick!” Jake said again. “Their folks are out for the evening, and Caroline's just trying to get even.”

  “Maybe,” said Wally, and hoped his brother was right.

  They hurried up the path to the back door, and then they stopped, one bumping into the other.

  “Oh, no!” breathed Jake.

  For there on the ground, on the crust of old snow, lay Caroline, her legs and arms at a strange angle, a pool of red beneath her head.

  Seventeen

  More Trouble

  This, Caroline thought, was her greatest performance yet. Even better than the abaguchie. Beth was upstairs in her room crying. Eddie was with her, telling her all the reasons the Hatfords were jerks. But she—Caroline Lenore Malloy—was lying out here with her legs tangled, her neck slightly twisted, and a knife clutched in her hand. And the Hatfords, all four of the Hatford boys, were standing over her, at least one of them, maybe two, making little gasping sounds. Peter, in fact, screamed.

  “She did it!” came Jake's voice, scared. “My gosh, she really did it!”

  “She did it out here so she wouldn't bleed all over the floor!” came Josh's hushed voice.

  “Jake! We'll go to jail!” said Wally.

  And then the sound of running feet, someone— probably Wally—running away.

  Oh, this is wonderful! thought Caroline. Even better than she'd hoped. She had been afraid that when she dialed the Hatfords’, one of the parents might answer. Or that Wally would say, “Yeah, right!” when she told him goodbye, and that no one would even bother to check.

  But they had come, all four of the brothers. Wally had run away, she could see through half-closed eyes, but Peter was crying loudly, and one of the twins— Josh, she thought—was taking her pulse.

  “I've got a pulse!” he cried. “She's alive! Call 911, somebody!”

  A window opened upstairs. “Hey!” Eddie's voice. “What's going on? Caroline?”

  “She's…she's hurt!” yelled Jake. “Call 911.”

  “What?” cried Eddie, and Beth appeared beside her at the window. “What are you guys doing over here? What's happened to Caroline?”

  “I d-don't know!” Jake said.

  The two girls disappeared from the window, and it seemed only seconds before they burst out the back door without their coats, crunching over the crusty snow and kneeling on the ground beside Caroline.

  “Caroline?” Beth whimpered.

  “She's…she's…,” Eddie began.

  “Alive,” Josh said. “I've got a pulse! Did someone call an ambulance?”

  “What happened?” Beth asked accusingly.

  “I thought… maybe she…well, sort of tried to kill herself,” Jake said, pointing to the knife, and Beth screamed.

  “Wait a minute,” came Eddie's voice.

  Uh-oh, thought Caroline. Through half-closed eyes she could see Eddie leaning close to her. She heard her sister sniff. Then she saw Eddie reach out with one finger, touch her head, then put the finger in her mouth.

  “Raspberry syrup!” Eddie said, and jerked the knife out of her sister's hand. “Caroline, you creep, sit up!”

  Instantly Caroline rolled over on her back and shrieked with laughter, clutching her chest.

  “Caroline!” Jake said in disgust.

  Eddie started to giggle, then Beth, and then the two older girls collapsed in laughter on the ground beside Caroline, while the boys looked on, embarrassed. All but Peter, who was so happy Caroline was alive that he piled on top of the girls, hooting with merriment.

  “Man, oh man, did she ever trick you!” Eddie said, pointing to the guys.

  “Well, she fooled you, too!” Josh said.

  Beth turned on him. “Oh, what do you know about anything?” she snapped, suddenly jumping to her feet. “I don't know how you can stand there and face me, Josh Hatford, after that horrible note you sent.”

  “What?” cried Josh.

  “So you thought I really liked you, didn't you? You thought I was your girlfriend. Well, how do you know I wasn't just using you to spy on you guys? How do you know I wasn't just being nice so you'd tell me what you were planning next?”

  “What?” yelled Jake. “Josh, you didn't!”

  “All that talk of how you guys were going to trick us this spring. All the things Jake said he'd do to make us miserable come summer. We know all your plans now, and that note you wrote didn't bother me a bit.”

  “What note?” asked Josh. “I didn't send you any note.” He stared at Beth. Eddie and Caroline were staring too. “Do you mean the note Jake wrote to Caroline?”

  Beth's mouth fell open. “That was for Caroline?”

  “Why was Jake writing a note to me?” asked Caroline. “I thought Wally wrote it.”

  There was the sound of running feet below as Wally came tearing across the swinging bridge, and then, in the distance, a siren. Two sirens.

  “Oh, no!” cried Josh, turning to face Wally, who came running back up the hill. “What did you do?”

  “I ran home and called 911,” said Wally, panting.

  All seven of them looked at each other in horror as a patrol car came speeding across the road bridge at the end of Island Avenue and, with lights flashing and siren wailing, turned up the Malloys’ drive.

  Almost before it had stopped, two officers jumped out and came running over to the group.

  “What's the problem here?” the first officer asked. “Where's the girl who was hurt?”

  Caroline glanced around in dismay at the accusatory looks on the faces around her and tried to decide whether to admit it up front or faint for real.

  “Is this the girl?” the officer asked, looking at the raspberry sauce that was drying on Caroline's cheek.

  “That's her, and it was all a big joke!” Peter chortled, trying to be helpful.

  The policeman looked at his partner and then back at Caroline. “Didn't we get a report not too long ago about a missing child who had been lured over here to see an abaguchie?”

  An ambulance pulled up next, and the driver got out.

  “Nobody's hurt,” the policeman called. “Just kids horsing around.”

  The ambulance driver looked disgusted.

  “What is it with you kids? You want to get arrested for turning in a false report?” asked the second officer.

  Wally stepped forward. “I did it,” he said, eager to have the whole mess over with. “I really thought she was hurt. I wasn't trying to trick you. I thought she tried to kill herself because of the note Jake wrote to her.”

  “You thought she'd kill herself over Jake ?” Eddie screeched. “Get real!”

  The officer focused on Caroline again. “What's with the raspberry syrup?”

  “It's supposed to be blood, I think,” Peter said importantly.

  “Peter, will you shut up?” said Jake between his teeth.

  Caroline dramatically pulled herself to her feet. “I'm responsible for the whole thing,” she said. “Arrest me.”

  The officer cocked his head. “Well, now, I'd like to, but simple aggravation isn't quite enough to do it.

  What made you do a fool stunt like this?”

  “Unrequited love,” said Caroline.

  The two officers suddenly started to laugh. So did the ambulance driver.

  Well, let them, Caroline told herself. She had now experienced heartbreak and rejection, and though she could not official
ly add romance to the list, no one could say she was boring.

  “Tell you what,” one of the policemen said, “if you kids can't find enough to do, there are a lot of things that need doing down at police headquarters. You can stop in anytime and scrub our floor, empty wastebaskets, sweep the steps, clean the toilets…How about it? Think you can find enough to do to keep out of trouble, or do you want to come down to headquarters a couple afternoons a week and clean up?”

  “I…I think we can stay out of trouble,” Wally said quickly. The others nodded.

  More headlights turned in at the end of the drive, and Mr. Hatford jumped out of his Jeep. “I was bowling, and picked up a radio call on my police band,” he said. “Is one of the Malloy girls hurt?”

  “Just a little raspberries on the brain,” the second officer said as the two policemen walked toward their car and the ambulance driver turned around in the clearing. “Sorry to have interrupted your game, Tom.”

  There were still more headlights turning in, the ones Caroline dreaded most: her parents’ car returning home.

  Mrs. Malloy almost fell out of the car in her haste to see what was wrong.

  “Eddie! What…?” she cried, rushing over.

  “Everything's okay, Mom. A misunderstanding, that's all. Nobody's hurt and everyone's leaving.”

  “Including us,” said Wally, turning.

  “Hold it right there,” bellowed his father. “I thought we specifically asked you boys to stay on the other side of the river. Why didn't you?”

  “Because Caroline called us,” said Wally.

  “She said she was dying,” put in Peter.

  “Caroline!” said her father. “I told you girls not to bother the boys anymore. What's going on?”

  “I had to call because of the note. Beth was crying,” Caroline answered.

  “What note?” asked her father.

  “The note Jake sent me.”

  “Why was Beth crying?”

  “She thought it was from Josh.”

  “Why did Jake send a note to you?”

  “He thought the valentine was for him.”

  “What valentine?”

  “The valentine I sent Wally.”