A Spy Among the Girls (12 page)

“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
Jak
e
?” 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 officially 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.”

“Well, you folks sort it out. Unrequited love is too complicated for us,” said the first officer, as the men got into their patrol car. “Good night.”

Mr. Hatford looked at his sons. “Home!” he ordered, and the four boys retreated down the hill. He
got into his Jeep, backed out of the driveway, and headed across the road bridge.

Coach Malloy glared at his daughters. “House!” he said, pointing. The three girls went inside, followed by their parents.

Caroline was frightened. Her father, his face purple red, looked as though he might explode.

“George, let me handle this,” said Mrs. Malloy.

“You'd better, because if the police show up here one more time, I'm going to
give
those girls away!” he bellowed, and went marching up the stairs, each step sounding like thunder.

Mrs. Malloy herded the girls into the dining room. “Sit!” she ordered.

Caroline fell weakly into a chair at the head of the table. Mrs. Malloy sat at the other end, and Beth and Eddie sat together on one side.

“Tell me
everything
!” the girls’ mother commanded. “Don't leave out a single thing.”

Timidly Caroline began. All the things she had done to get Wally to fall in love with her, how he'd rejected her valentine, her phone call to the Hatfords, the death scene with the raspberry syrup…Every now and then Beth or Eddie would chime in with a detail she had overlooked. Then Mrs. Malloy asked questions of her two older daughters—exactly how the Hatford boys had been involved in the science project, whether Beth considered Josh her boyfriend…

When all had been told, Mrs. Malloy simply sat with her hands folded under her chin and surveyed her
daughters. Mrs. Malloy quiet was even more alarming than Mrs. Malloy angry.

“I thought,” said Mrs. Malloy finally, looking first at Caroline, “that you wanted to be an actress. A very good actress.”

Caroline stared. “I
do
! That's what this was all about!”

“No,” said her mother. “That is not what it was all about. What it was about was making Wally Hatford as uncomfortable as possible. What it was about was embarrassing those boys. The first thing a really good actress must have is the ability to empathize with other people. Do you know what that means, Caroline?”

“I…I'm not sure,” Caroline murmured.

“It means thinking what they're thinking, feeling what they're feeling, and then showing that you care.”

Caroline sniffled.

“If you embarrassed Wally in front of your class and again after he called the police, and felt nothing for what
he
must be feeling,” Mrs. Malloy went on, “then I would say you have no empathy at all, Caroline, and you'd better choose another career.”

Caroline's eyes immediately filled with tears. “I… I…
did
understand what he was feeling, but—”

“But you didn't
care
? That's even worse, Caroline.”

Caroline was sobbing now. “I
do
want to be an actress. More than anything in the world. Oh, I
do,
Mother, I do!” Beth and Eddie were staring at her uncomfortably, but Caroline was desperate to make her mother understand.

“So are those real tears or make-believe? I can't even tell anymore,” Mrs. Malloy said with disgust in her voice. “I am very disappointed in you, Caroline.”

“I'll…I'll make it up to Wally!” Caroline pleaded. “I'll write him a note—”

“No!”
said Beth and Eddie together.

“No more notes,” said Beth. “I've seen enough notes to last a lifetime.”

“I'll…I'll call him up,” said Caroline.

“No more phone calls,” said her mother. “Tomorrow you will walk right up to Wally Hatford and tell him you are sorry. Do you understand me, Caroline?”

Caroline nodded, still weeping.

Mrs. Malloy turned to Eddie next. “
You
will apologize to the Hatfords for tricking Josh and Jake into a science project they didn't completely understand.” Then she looked at Beth. “I don't know what
you'll
apologize for, but I'll think of something. Do you two girls understand me?”

“Yes,” said Eddie and Beth together in small voices.

“Go to bed,” said their mother.

The girls went upstairs. The lights in the Malloy house began to go out, one by one. Finally all the windows were dark and there was nothing left but two shining eyes, like hot burning coals, watching from the trees in back of the house.

Eighteen
Secret Meetings

J
ake, Josh, Wally, and Peter beat their father home on foot, but they didn't get upstairs before his Jeep pulled into the driveway and he stormed into the house.

“What did we
tell
you?” he yelled, lining them up like soldiers before a firing squad. “What did we say about going across the bridge and hanging around the Malloys?”