The Boys Start the War the Boys Start the War

  “No way. I’d still have to apologize, and I’m not about to apologize to Eddie Malloy if someone burned my feet with hot irons.”

  “Wow!” said Peter, impressed.

  They walked down the sidewalk, crossed the road, and started along the bank toward the swinging footbridge.

  “I know what we can do,” Wally said at last. “We could creep over to their front porch, set the cake in front of the door, then ring the bell and run. That way we wouldn’t have to say anything at all.”

  “If we can get over there without their seeing us,” said Josh.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” Jake told them. “Once we get across the bridge, we’ll stay off Island Avenue and keep to the bushes along the river. When we get opposite their house, well put the cake on the porch when no one’s watching,”

  “This isn’t any fun,” grumbled Peter. “I thought this was a war.”

  “Just a temporary cease-fire,” Jake assured him.

  The boys had just stepped onto the swinging bridge and started across when Wally’s heart almost stopped beating, for coming down the hill on the other side were the three Malloy sisters, and a moment later they, too, were on the bridge.

  For a moment everybody stopped, the Hatfords at one end, the Malloys at the other.

  “Now what?” whispered Wally.

  “They’re trying to block us,” said Jake. “Just keep going. If they want a fight, they’ll get it.”

  The boys started forward again. The girls moved forward too.

  The swinging bridge bounced and jiggled as the two groups came toward each other, Wally held on to the cable with one hand, the cake with the other. He’d never fought a girl in his life. None of his brothers had, either, and he knew that for all of Jake’s talk, they wouldn’t begin now. This was a different kind of battle—a war of the wits.

  But what if the girls didn’t see it that way? What if the Malloys got out in the middle of the bridge and trashed them? Could they fight back then?

  The Hatford brothers had fallen into single file as they approached the middle of the bridge. You always did that when you met someone coming toward you; always said hello and moved over to make room. The Malloy girls, however, came in a row.

  “The first one who tries anything gets the cake right in the puss,” Jake whispered in Wally’s ear.

  The next thing Wally knew, he was face to face with Caroline Malloy—face to nose, anyway, for her swollen nose seemed to take up half her face. It had also turned black and blue. He realized suddenly that if he just gave the girls the cake, he wouldn’t have to walk all the way over to their house. He wouldn’t have to ring the doorbell and say nice things to the parents. He wouldn’t have to fight the girls to get on across either.

  “Here,” he said, holding the box out in front of him. “It’s a cake.”

  Caroline stared at him, then at her sisters.

  “It’s a cake!” Wally said again. “It’s for you.”

  “Yeah?” said Eddie.

  “I’ll just bet!” said Beth. “What dead animal did you dream up this time?”

  Suddenly Caroline grabbed the box out of Wally’s hands and, in one swift toss, flung it over the side of the bridge.

  Wally and his brothers stared in astonishment as Mother’s three-layer chocolate chiffon spilled out into the water, the two top layers heading in different directions. The box—with the bottom layer still in it—bobbed up and down in the current, and the whipped cream frosting, like foam, floated downstream.

  Caroline and her sisters stood with their hands over their mouths, eyes like fried eggs.

  “Oh, Lordy!” gasped Caroline. “It really was a cake!”

  The box below was sailing away.

  “Enjoy!” said Wally, grinning. “Don’t forget to return the plate.”

  With that the four Hatford brothers turned around and went back toward their side, of the river, though the youngest lingered just long enough for one last look in the water. “Wow!” he said.

  “What are we going to do?” Caroline cried to her sisters.

  “Don’t ask me!” said Beth. “You’re the one who threw it in.”

  “But you didn’t believe it was a cake, either, Beth. You know you didn’t!”

  “We’re in this together,” Eddie agreed. “I probably would have taken the box and dumped it over their heads.”

  “I suppose we could always say we ate it,” Caroline mused, watching the whipped cream frosting leave a long trail in its wake. And then she cried suddenly, “The plate! We’ve got to return the plate!”

  The box seemed to be floating toward the Malloys’ side of the river. The girls ran back across the bridge and down the bank to the water’s edge.

  “There it is!” Eddie shouted. She looked at Caroline. “Go for it.”

  “It’s not fair!” Caroline cried. “We’re in this together, you said.”

  “Okay, we all go in,” decided Eddie, and the girls took off their shoes and socks, and rolled up their jeans.

  The water did not seem as warm as it had been a week ago when Caroline slid off the sheet and disappeared into the muddy brown of the Buckman River. Now it was almost six in the evening, August had become September, and that little change made a difference.

  The riverbed was rocky in places, and where it was bare, thick mud oozed up between Caroline’s toes. Now and then something tickled her ankles as she waded out toward the center, and she did not even like to think what it might be.

  The box had stopped at a pile of brush in the river, but one corner appeared to be sinking.

  “Hurry, Caroline!” Beth yelled, plodding along behind.

  Caroline took a deep breath and waded in up to her waist. The more water-logged her jeans became, the heavier they felt, and the harder it was to walk.

  “Hurry!” Beth screeched again.

  Caroline took a giant step forward this time, but her foot slipped on the slimy bottom. The last thing she saw before the water washed over her was the white box rising up over the debris with the current, and sailing on downstream.

  Glub, glub, glub. Water filled her ears, her nose—clouded her eyes. Gasping, she reared up, all her clothes heavy now. Before she could see anything, however, she could hear shrieks laughter from the opposite bank, and knew that the Hatford boys had been watching.

  “We’ll get them.” Eddie called. “Don’t pay any attention, Caroline. Just get the plate.”

  But the box was moving faster than the girls could keep up, and—what’s more—seemed to be sinking slowly at the same time. More hoots from the boys. Caroline began to swim.

  Caroline Lenore, she told herself, you are an actress, and actresses don’t pay any attention to distractions. Make this your neatest performance yet.

  And so, as she swam toward the center of the Buckman River where she had last seen the box, she pretended that she was a young mother swimming, swimming, desperately swimming, to rescue her small child before he disappeared forever beneath the waves.

  Caroline tried to concentrate on her face. She would have a look of agonized terror, she decided, opening her eyes wide, teeth frozen behind half-parted lips, little gasps coming from her throat. She could see the Hatford boys back on the far bank, watching.

  The camera would move in for a close-up of her face, and just then she would close her eyes, and … plunge. Caroline went tail up like a duck, diving beneath the surface, her arms outstretched, feeling for a box or a china plate. Once she thought she touched it, but it was only the slimy moss of a rock.

  “There it goes!” shouted Beth, pointing farther downstream as Caroline surfaced. “Oh, m’gosh, it’s headed for the rocks!”

  Her baby! Her poor baby! The cameras still rolling in her head, Caroline plunged forward again, arms battling the water as she stroked. Faster, faster … her only child! In another minute he would be dashed against the rocks.

  Out of the corner of her eye she could see the Hatford boys going home. They weren’t even going t
o stay till the end! No matter. A good actress played her part whether or not the entire theater was empty. On she swam.

  The box came apart just before the largest rock in the river came into view. She could see the plate spilling out, sinking, and she lunged. She had it! She’d found him! She’d rescued her little baby, her heart’s delight!

  Holding the plate against her chest, Caroline crawled up on the rock and swooned.

  “For corn’s sake, Caroline, cut the comedy!” Eddie yelled, swimming toward her. She and Beth reached the rock and climbed up beside Caroline, who collapsed dramatically against them, going limp in their arms.

  “Caroline, knock it off!” Eddie said sternly. “Is the plate okay?”

  The mood was broken; the show was over. Caroline blinked, her hair streaming water into her eyes, and examined the plate. It still had a sticker on. the bottom, as though it were new, and there was a dainty scalloped design around the edge—the kind of plate her mother used for cookies at Christinas, or served little sandwiches on when she entertained the faculty wives. Miraculously it was not broken, but there was a fine hairline crack in the surface. “It’s okay, I guess,” she told Eddie.

  Eddie and Beth slipped into the water again, and Caroline reluctantly followed, swimming back to the bank behind her sisters.

  “What are we going to tell Mom?” Beth asked as they put on their socks and sneakers. “What will we say about the cake?”

  “Never mind the cake, what will we tell her about us,” said Eddie. “Look at us! Soaked to the skin!”

  Dinner at the Malloys was almost never before seven, because Coach Malloy had football practice until six-thirty every evening in the fall. The girls had just time enough to rush upstairs to shower and change before they saw his car making its way down Island Avenue, to park at last in the clearing between the house and garage.

  He slid into his chair at the table. “You girls look as though you’d been swimming” was the first thing out of his mouth.

  “In that river?” asked Mother, placing a roast before them.

  “I just took a shower,” said Beth, which was the honest truth.

  “Me too,” said Eddie.

  “Well, that’s where I’m headed after dinner,” their father said. “I don’t know if I’ve got a team or not, Jean, they all seem pretty green to me. But I’ll tell you one thing, I’m going to make them one by the first of October.”

  “Of course you will,” said Mrs. Malloy. “You know, I sort of like living in a small town like this.”

  “I think it stinks,” said Eddie, reaching for the pepper.

  Her mother looked up. “Why, Edith Ann?”

  “It’s a town full of dumb boys, is what it is, and I pitched better than any boy at recess today, but I still have to try out for the baseball team.”

  “It’s only fair,” said her father. “Have you met any of the neighbors?”

  “I have,” said Mrs. Malloy. “The people next door are friendly. And I met our mailman for the first time, a Mr. Hatford. He says he lives across the river, and his wife works at Grady’s Hardware. By and by, I imagine, we’ll meet them all.”

  Caroline looked at Beth and Eddie and said nothing. But after dinner, when Mother went upstairs to write some letters and the girls were on kitchen duty, she said, “You know what we have to do, don’t you? Return the plate.”

  “You know what will happen if the boys answer the door; they’ll take the plate, break it, and tell their mother we did it,” Beth said.

  “Then we’ve got to make sure the mother’s there when we ring the doorbell. In fact, we’ll ask to talk to her,” said Caroline.

  Eddie went to the telephone in the hall and looked up the number for Grady’s Hardware, then dialed. “What time do you close?” she asked.

  “Nine o’clock,” a man told her.

  Eddie hung up and looked at the others. “We leave here at nine-fifteen, and we’d better figure out exactly what we’re going to say.”

  “Right!” said Caroline. “Beth, you write the script, and we’ll practice it a couple times first.”

  At a quarter past nine the girls crossed the bridge in the moonlight, the plate securely in Eddie’s hands. It was a beautiful night, almost too lovely to be angry at anyone, Caroline thought. Beth must have felt the same way because, halfway over, she said, “Why do you suppose the Hatford boys hate us so much?”

  “I don’t think they hate us,” Caroline mused. “I’ll bet they’re just mad that the Bensons moved out and we moved in. The Bensons had all boys, you know.”

  “Well, too bad!” Eddie snapped. “I didn’t ask to come here any more than they wanted me to.”

  “I suppose we could just ring the doorbell and say, ‘Look, let’s bury the hatchet and be friends,’” Beth suggested.

  The girls looked at each other and smiled a little.

  “Naw,” said Caroline. “This is a lot more fun.”

  The porch light was still on when the Malloy girls went up the steps to the Hatfords’ large porch, which wrapped around three sides of the house. Through the curtains they could see Mr. Hatford stretched out on the couch, watching TV, and a boy somewhere in the background, who seemed to be doing his homework at the dining-room table.

  Caroline pressed the button. The doorbell chimed. Footsteps. The door opened. And there was Wally Hatford, his eyes wide.

  “Who is it, Wally?” came a woman’s voice in the background.

  “It—it’s …”

  “Who?”

  A woman appeared and Wally disappeared—disappeared as though the floor had opened and swallowed him up.

  “Hello, Mrs. Hatford,” Caroline said sweetly, “We came to return your cake plate.”

  “My goodness, so soon? There was no hurry.”

  “It was wonderful,” said Beth; “Chocolate is my favorite. Chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting.”

  “Well, it was an old recipe, but it always works well for me. Chocolate chiffon, it was, to be exact.” Mrs. Hatford looked pleased.

  “Right. Chocolate chiffon,” said Eddie. “Thanks a lot.”

  “We want our neighbors to feel welcome.” Mrs. Hatford told her. “If there is anything at all we can do to help you get settled, we’d be glad to. The boys, also.”

  An actress, Caroline knew, had to be ready to ad-lib when the occasion arose, and that occasion was now.

  “Oh, I know there would be lots of things Dad could use boys foreseeing as how he has only girls.” Caroline said.

  “Well, you just let us know—any chores at all.” said Mrs. Hatford. “Call us anytime, and I’ll send them right over.”

  Wally stood motionless in the hallway as his mother closed the door.

  “Well, they certainly must have enjoyed that cake, to eat it all in one meal,” she said. She turned the plate over in her hands, then frowned, “My goodness, it’s cracked! You’d think they would have taken better care of it, wouldn’t you?”

  Wally started to tell her what had happened to the plate, but stopped. If he said any more, he’d have to explain why the girls had thrown it in the river. And if he told why, he’d have to tell about the dead fish and the way he’d banged Caroline’s nose in class.

  “They probably fed it to a dog,” he said lamely.

  Mother wheeled about. “Wallace, I don’t know what’s got into you lately. All you boys have been on edge. Maybe you don’t have enough to do. Need a few extra chores around here.”

  Hoo boy! thought Wally as he went upstairs.

  This evening sure hadn’t turned out the way he’d wanted. He and his brothers had had a laughing fit watching Caroline out there in the river, trying to find that plate. He never thought she would, and the boys would have waited around if they hadn’t remembered that dinner was on the table.

  Wally lay on his stomach on his ted and stared down at the braided rug. Ordinarily he would have tried to figure out just how the little loops of orange got hooked onto the loops of green—where it all began
, and which piece you’d have to pull first if you wanted the whole thing to come unraveled, but now he was too mad at the Malloys to give it much thought.

  He’d like to pull a loop on the Malloy sisters, that’s what, and watch them come apart for once. He’d like to see them pack their bags and take off out of town at seventy miles an hour.

  It just wasn’t like it was when the Bensons lived in Buckman. Back then they always signed each other’s notebooks on the first day of school—the Hatfords and the Bensons. They’d give each other new nicknames for the year, and once they’d all taken the names of football players. That was the year Wally had been Joe Montana. Things were sure different now. Caroline and her black-and-blue nose! Eddie and that dumb cap! Beth and those stupid books she read.

  She’d left one on the steps a few minutes at recess, Josh had reported, and he’d seen the cover: Fang, King of the Vampires. What kind of a girl would read a book like that? Weirdo was right.

  When the Hatford boys were ready for school the next day, they watched until the Malloys were across the bridge and well up the sidewalk before they set out themselves.

  “You see what’s happening, don’t you?” Jake grumbled. “They’re running our lives! They’ve only been here a week, and already we can’t even leave for school when we want; we make sure they’ve got there first.”

  “And Mom thinks they’re nice! They’re poison!” said Josh.

  Wally did not turn around in his seat once to look at Caroline, and she didn’t bother him—no blowing on the back of his neck or whispering in his ear. At lunchtime he sat as far away from her table as he could get, and when he left at the end of the day, Miss Applebaum said, “Thank you, Wally, for being a good listener.” He could have puked.

  Jake and Josh and Peter were waiting for him when he came out. Josh had a smile on his face.

  “What have you got to grin about?” Wally asked.

  “At recess this afternoon,” Josh told him, “I went inside for a drink of water, and when I came out again, there’s Beth, on the bottom step, reading her stupid book.”