Boys in Control

  “That's the spirit, Eddie!” said her father. “Where's the next game? Clarksburg, is it?”

  “Yeah. Are you coming?”

  “Wouldn't miss it for the world,” Coach Malloy said.

  At school, the kids in Caroline's class were beginning to read their book reports aloud. Every day in English two or three more students got up to tell why they had chosen a particular book.

  Wally stood up and read his report about Wringer. Everyone listened intently, especially when they found out there really was such a town in Pennsylvania, and that there really was a pigeon shoot, and that boys really were hired to wring the necks of injured and dying pigeons.

  “Very good, Wally,” the teacher said. “Isn't it interesting how Mr. Spinelli took an incident from real life and turned it into a work of fiction?”

  At recess, when people were putting their books away, Caroline said to Wally, “I think that sounds like a good book. It's sad, but I'll read it sometime.”

  “I didn't do a good job telling about it, though,” said Wally. “There's a lot of stuff going on in the book that just doesn't come out in a report.”

  “Just like my play!” said Caroline. “I could see all kinds of things going on in my head while I was reading it that you couldn't see when you heard it. That's what actors and actresses do—they bring the words to life onstage.”

  Wally thought about that a minute. “Well, maybe,” he said. “Maybe I'll like the second act better.”

  There was, of course, baseball practice again after school, and when the Malloy girls finally got home and were sharing a bag of chips, they noticed more bags and boxes in the hall.

  “What's this?” Beth asked her mother.

  “More things for the Women's Auxiliary sale,” said Mrs. Malloy. “This is giving us a chance to clean house. When you girls finish your snack, would you go down in the basement and see if there's anything else that could go?”

  “Most of that stuff belongs to the Bensons,” said Eddie.

  “I know. But we put some of our own things down there too.”

  So the girls sauntered over to the basement door and went down the steps. Eddie and Caroline rummaged through the old tires and garden hoses along one wall, while Beth stood back on the stairs, surveying the basement and holding the bag of chips.

  Suddenly Beth said, “Hey!”

  Eddie and Caroline turned around.

  “What?” asked Caroline.

  Beth stuffed another handful of chips in her mouth and pointed to the long metal heating ducts overhead.

  “What?” said Eddie, and went back up the stairs to where Beth was standing, to see where she was pointing.

  There, on top of a metal duct, almost out of sight, was a small notebook or something.

  “What do you think it is?” asked Beth, still chewing.

  “I don't know,” Eddie said. “Furnace instructions maybe?” She went back down the steps, pulled the stepladder over, then climbed up and ran her hand over the top of the metal duct until she reached the notebook. She pulled it down and a shower of plaster dust and dirt came with it.

  “Yuck!” she said, lowering her head and flicking the stuff from her hair.

  It was a small photo album with no label on the cover. Still standing on the ladder, Eddie opened it up. Her eyes grew wide and a slow smile spread across her face. “Hey!” she said. “Pay dirt!”

  “What is it?” asked Caroline, reaching for it. But Eddie only clutched it to her chest, came back down the ladder, and, grinning mysteriously, motioned her sisters to follow her up to her room.

  “Find anything for the sale?” Mrs. Malloy called from the dining room.

  “Only old tires, and those are the Bensons',” Eddie answered.

  Up in her room, Eddie closed the door behind them and the three girls sprawled on her bed.

  “You'll never guess!” Eddie said, still smiling, and opened the cover. There were color photographs of… who else? The Hatford and Benson boys, in the silliest pictures the girls had ever seen. They appeared to have been taken sometime in the past year, for the boys looked only a little younger than they were now.

  Yet there was Peter Hatford dressed in a diaper, curled up on a blanket and sucking a bottle. There was Jake with strands of cooked spaghetti dangling from his nostrils, a cap with a propeller on his head. There was Wally in bunny pajamas two sizes too small, with sleeper feet and floppy ears. There was Josh in Batman underpants and a Batman T-shirt with a cape around his shoulders.

  The girls were too astonished to make a sound at first; then they burst into laughter at the humiliating pictures of the boys. The five Benson brothers had their photos in the album too: Steve Benson dressed as a ballerina; Bill bending over with a rip in the seat of his pants, blowing soap bubbles at the same time; Tony in white knee socks with a pacifier in his mouth and a Dr. Seuss hat on his head; Doug holding a teddy bear and sucking his thumb; and Danny wearing a T-shirt that said KICK ME HARD, holding a blueberry pie in which he had obviously just buried his face.

  “What do you suppose made them take these pictures?” Eddie gasped in disbelief.

  “I don't know,” said Beth, “but this is too good to pass up.” She went to the phone in the hallway and dialed the Hatfords’ number.

  Wally answered, and Beth held the phone out so that her sisters could hear.

  “Hi, Wally, this is Beth,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you that I think we've found something else for your Treats and Treasures yard sale.”

  “Good,” said Wally. “Bring it over on the twenty-eighth, okay?”

  “Oh, but I thought you should know about it first,” Beth went on. “We found it in the basement on top of a heating duct.”

  “Yeah?” said Wally.

  “It's a photo album, with pictures.”

  “Yeah?” Wally said again.

  “And you look really great in those bunny pajamas,” Caroline said over Beth's shoulder, giggling.

  “What?” yelled Wally, and the girls heard him bellow, “Josh! They found those pictures!”

  Josh's voice sounded from the kitchen. “Who did? What pictures?”

  “The Malloys. The pictures!” he squawked.

  There were cries of anguish in the background; then Josh took the phone. “Where were they?” he asked, his voice tense.

  “On top of a heating duct in the basement,” Beth explained. “We thought we'd offer them for the Women's Auxiliary yard sale. Unless, of course, you guys want to negotiate or make a trade of some sort.”

  “Trade for what?” asked Josh.

  “I don't know, we'll think of something,” Beth said, and hung up, still laughing.

  Seven

  Missing

  Josh threw back his head and howled, Jake and Wally joining in.

  Mrs. Hatford was just coming through the back door, and she paused as she dropped her car keys on the counter.

  “Is this a braying contest or something?”

  “That stupid Bill Benson!” Wally cried.

  “Stupid Steve and Tony and all of them! They should have taken those pictures with them!” said Josh.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” asked their mother.

  Josh look at Jake and Jake looked at Wally and nobody wanted to say anything, but finally Peter, the only one who seemed calm, spoke up: “Pictures,” he said.

  “Pictures of whom?”

  “Us,” said Peter.

  “So?” said his mother.

  “Doing silly things,” Peter answered uncertainly, looking at his brothers for guidance.

  “Well, is that so awful? What kinds of things?” asked Mrs. Hatford as she went to the refrigerator to see what to make for dinner. She took out a package of pork chops and studied the lower shelf.

  Josh did the telling. After all, Wally figured, he was making all those beautifully decorated signs for the yard sale. His mother could hardly get mad at him.

  “Jake had spaghetti coming out of his nose,” he s
aid.

  Mrs. Hatford straightened up and looked around.

  “He had what?”

  “And I was wearing a diaper and sucking on a bottle!” Peter said, laughing.

  Mrs. Hatford turned slowly to Wally.

  “I was wearing my old bunny pajamas and Josh was in his Batman underpants and a cape.”

  Mrs. Hatford was trying not to laugh. “ Why would you guys want your pictures taken like that?”

  “The Bensons did it too!” said Peter. “One of 'em was in a ballerina costume and one put his face in a blueberry pie and—”

  “Why?” Mrs. Hatford asked again.

  The boys looked at each other.

  “Just for fun,” Josh said finally.

  “So where are they?”

  “The Malloys found them in the basement.”

  “Well, for goodness’ sake, just ask the girls to give them back!” said Mrs. Hatford. “Now, let me see if we have any more applesauce in the cellar.” And she went down the stairs.

  The boys looked at each other. There were times, Wally thought, when their mother seemed to be the smartest woman in the world and times, like now, when she seemed to have no imagination whatsoever. Did she really think that the girls, who had thought of every trick in the book to play on them—girls, in fact, whom the boys had tormented from the very moment they moved to Buckman—were going to give back pictures of the boys in their underpants and bunny pajamas? Did she really believe that if Wally went over to the Malloys’ house and said, “Could you please let us have those ridiculous pictures back, the ones with spaghetti coming out of Jake's nose?” the girls would say “Sure,” and hand them over? Was she living on another planet?

  They went up to the twins’ bedroom to think it over.

  “Why did we ever take those pictures in the first place?” Wally wondered aloud.

  “You know why, Wally!” said Josh. “We were all in on it. We made a pact that we would always be loyal to each other, no matter what, and to make sure, we took the most embarrassing picture we could think of for each one of us. If one of us ever betrayed the rest, we were going to show his picture around school.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Wally sighed. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Until the dumb, stupid Bensons forgot to take the pictures with them!” said Jake. “Just tell me this, Wally. Was Eddie on the phone? Was she doing any of the talking?”

  “No. Only Beth,” said Wally.

  “Well, maybe Eddie didn't see the pictures, then,” said Jake. “She might get them back for us, now that we're working together on the same team.”

  “And maybe pigs have wings,” said Josh.

  “Well, I'm not going to get upset before this next game!” Jake declared. “I'm not even going to think about it, if I can help it. Josh, you'll have to bargain with them.”

  “How?” Josh bleated. “The only Malloy who likes me a little is Beth, and it was Beth who was doing the talking!”

  All eyes turned to Wally. “No!” said Wally. Then he shouted it. “NO!”

  This time they must have taken him seriously, because suddenly the twins turned toward Peter.

  “Peter,” said Josh. “We really, really need you. We need you to go over to the Malloys’ and ask for those pictures. Just get those pictures and bring them back. And don't come home until you do.”

  “Okay,” said Peter. He went back downstairs and out the door.

  Wally looked at his brothers. This was too easy. They stood at the window at the top of the stairs and watched the youngest Hatford go down the walk and cross the road. They watched him start across the swinging bridge. When he got to the center, where the supporting cables on each side hung low enough to grab as handrails, they watched him stop and peer over the edge.

  “Why is he just standing there?” Jake asked. “What's he doing?”

  “Spitting,” said Wally.

  “What?”

  “That's what he's doing,” said Wally. “He's spitting in the water to see how far it will float.”

  Jake and Josh stared at Wally.

  “You can't see your own spit in the water. It gets mixed up with the river.”

  “I know,” said Wally. “But that's what Peter's trying to find out.”

  His brothers were still looking at Wally strangely, though, and Wally wondered if he and Peter were the only boys in Upshur County who had ever passed a May afternoon by spitting in the Buckman River.

  Eventually, however, Peter began walking forward again, stopping now and then to try to see the river between the slats in the bridge, and at long last he reached the other side and started up the Malloys’ hilly lot.

  “I sure didn't need this right now,” said Jake. “I'm trying not to let anything throw me off stride for Saturday's game. Clarksburg's going to be a tough team to beat.”

  “Well, I sure didn't need it either,” said Josh. “What if Beth brings those pictures to school and puts one up on the bulletin board or something?”

  It went without saying that Wally didn't need this either. He didn't need it now or ever. He didn't need Caroline sticking the picture of him in his bunny pajamas on the end of a ruler and thrusting it over his shoulder at school. He didn't need her passing the pictures around the girls’ table at lunch. He didn't need to walk by groups of giggling girls out on the playground and see them all point to him. No sir, he didn't need that at all.

  “Do you think they'll give the album to him?” Josh asked as the minutes ticked by and Peter disappeared from view at the top of the hill.

  “If they give the pictures to anyone, it will be Peter,” said Jake. “They like Peter. They think he's just the sweetest thing that ever lived. Ha! They should check out his closet sometime. They should smell his breath after he's eaten cheese! But hey! If Peter gets the pictures back, he can smell like dog doo for all I care.”

  Mr. Hatford's car turned into the driveway, and the boys could hear his footsteps as he came into the house.

  They heard the voices of their parents in the kitchen below, and the sound of the TV as Mr. Hatford turned on the evening news. There came the smell of frying pork chops, and the clatter of plates on the table.

  Wally and his brothers stood at the upstairs window, noses pressed against the glass.

  “Come… on!” Josh breathed.

  “Where is he?” said Jake.

  “Well, you can't expect him just to say, ‘Give me the pictures,’ and think they'll hand them right over,” said Wally. “He's got to be sweet first.”

  “Man, I don't know how he does it. He's so sweet that the girls always feed him cookies when he goes over there,” said Jake.

  “They bake them especially for him,” said Josh.

  “Which makes him even sweeter,” said Wally.

  Five more minutes went by. Then ten.

  “Boys!” came their mother's voice from below.

  “Wash up. Supper's on the table.”

  “Oh, man!” Wally whispered.

  “Coming!” called Josh.

  They went into the bathroom and washed their hands, doing everything in slow motion, hoping to stall for time.

  Down the stairs they went, stopping at the front door to peer out again at the swinging bridge, looking for a lone figure coming down the hill from the Malloys’ with a photo album under his arm.

  Nothing.

  They went into the kitchen, where mashed potatoes and green beans and pork chops sat on various platters, and a dish of applesauce stood in the center of the table.

  Mrs. Hatford glanced around at her brood, then went to the kitchen doorway and called, “Peter?”

  “Uh…he'll be back any minute, Mom,” said Wally. “He's doing an errand.”

  “At suppertime?” his mother asked.

  “He'll be along,” Josh echoed.

  The rolls in the oven were just beginning to brown around the edges, and Mrs. Hatford grabbed the pot holders to take them out. For the next few minutes she was busy with that. The boys
helped themselves to the food at hand and amiably discussed the rolls and how good they were spread with their mother's cherry jam.

  But right in the middle of supper, Mrs. Hatford said, “Where is Peter? Where did he go?”

  “He should have been back by now,” said Wally.

  “Do you or do you not know where he went?” asked Mr. Hatford.

  “He went to the Malloys’ to get some pictures back,” said Josh.

  “Aha! So he's doing the dirty work for you,” said Mrs. Hatford. “How long ago did he leave?”

  “Twenty minutes, maybe,” said Jake.

  “Say thirty,” said Josh.

  “Well, for heaven's sake, he should have been back by now,” said Mrs. Hatford, looking concerned.

  And at that very moment the phone rang.

  Eight

  The Visitor

  Who do you suppose will come over to get it?” Beth asked mischievously.

  “I don't know, but I'm going to let you two handle it,” said Eddie. “Jake and I are getting along okay right now, and I don't want any trouble between us before the game on Saturday. He was awfully nice to practice with me last week, so if there's any negotiating to do, you guys will have to do it.”

  “Man oh man, do we ever hold all the cards!” said Beth. “We've never been in such a good bargaining position before, Caroline. What should we ask for in return? All their earthly possessions?”

  “We'd better think about this a long time,” said Caroline. “We don't want to blow it. Maybe we shouldn't decide until the championship game is over. We could tell the guys we'll give it back in June, and we'll make our conditions then.”

  “Good idea,” said Eddie. “We're not saying we won't give it back. We're just saying we won't give it back right now.”

  “Let's take another look at it,” said Beth. “I want to imprint these on my brain forever.” She giggled.

  The girls sat down on the bed again, and this time they savored every picture. They hooted and howled when they came to the photo of Wally Hatford in bunny pajamas two sizes too small, and Caroline even rolled off the bed in laughter.