The Boys Return (12 page)

“A fourth grader, Caroline Malloy, 9, witnessed the cougar entering the open door of the garage on the property they rent from the Bensons and locked the animal inside. Wally Hatford, also in fourth grade, was in the loft of the garage at the time and had to be rescued by firemen. Jack Werner, of Animal Control, then entered the loft through the window and tranquilized the agitated animal.

“The cougar is believed to be the same elusive creature, dubbed the ‘abaguchie,' which has stalked residents of Buckman for the past several months. It is thought to be responsible for the deaths of several area pets.

“The Malloy girls, in conjunction with the Hatford boys and the visiting Benson brothers, presently of Georgia, had hatched a scheme for capturing the cougar. Authorities believe the animal was drawn to the garage by the smell of a fried chicken dinner the children had consumed several hours earlier in the garage.

“ ‘We don't condone any private citizen taking it upon himself to capture a wild animal,' Officer Lou Hanson said. ‘Cougars are dangerous, and although they usually live solitary lives and keep their distance from humans, more and more wild animals are roaming closer to towns as man encroaches on their natural habitat. Cougars, of course, are rare in West Virginia, and it's possible that this one was owned by someone who had no license to harbor a wild animal and who did not want to notify authorities when the cougar escaped. We're just grateful that the ordeal is over and no one was hurt, but we've got to give the kids credit for quick thinking.' ”

Mr. Hatford, however, wasn't about to credit anybody. Now that his son was safely home again, he thought of all that
might
have happened.

“Wally, what were you
thinking
?” he demanded.

“That I was about to die,” Wally answered simply.

“The cougar could have
killed
you! Maimed you forever!” Mr. Hatford looked around the table at his three oldest sons. “I don't know whether to ground you for a month or send the whole lot of you to Siberia!”

It was Jake who showed quick thinking now. “How about if we put in ten hours at the police station, mopping floors or washing windows or whatever they need us to do?” he suggested.
Any
thing was better than being grounded.

“Sold!” said his father. “I'll tell them you're coming. But what I don't understand is if you boys were going to try a cockeyed stunt like that, why Wally? Why not one of you older boys?”

“We drew names,” said Jake, “and Wally got picked.”

Mrs. Hatford suddenly swooped down and put her arms around Wally as he took another bite of Cocoa Puffs. “Oh, Wally, if anything had happened to you, I don't know what I would have done,” she murmured. “I'd miss you so much!”

Wally stared straight ahead as she planted a kiss on his cheek and his brothers giggled. She'd miss him? She would actually
miss
him? She
almost
sounded as though she'd miss him more than anyone else in the family.

Mr. and Mrs. Benson arrived shortly after that, having
heard the early-morning news. Mrs. Benson was still in her slippers.

“My gracious, is everyone all right?” she cried.

“We put them together for five days, Tom, and look what happens!” said Mr. Benson, giving each of his sons a grateful hug. “They're in the newspaper. On the radio! TV! The works!”

“TV?” yelped Danny delightedly.

“It was on the early news, and they'll repeat it again at eight-thirty,” said his mother.

“Well, I'm staying home from work today, so I'll see it too!” Mrs. Hatford turned on the TV and they watched six commercials before the local news was repeated.

“The cougar captured yesterday in the garage at six-eleven Island Avenue has been checked over by wildlife experts and is on its way to a remote area of the Smoky Mountains, where it will be set free,” the commentator said. “Its capture was part of a scheme by twelve local children to trap the animal, and though things didn't go quite according to plan, the cougar was locked in the garage long enough for animal control officials to tranquilize it and remove it from the premises. Buckman salutes the twelve plucky kids who hatched the scheme, but the final word from the mayor is, ‘It's okay this time, but don't let it happen again.' ”

“Can we go to the Malloys' now?” Steve asked. “We want to show them the newspaper.”

“The Malloys read newspapers too, you know,” Mr. Benson said. “Why don't we take all you kids to the movies?”

“We'd really rather see the Malloys,” said Tony.

“Then yes, by all means,
go
!” Mrs. Hatford said, glancing at the continuing rain outside the window. And then, to Mr. and Mrs. Benson, she added, “They are so wired this morning, I won't be able to keep them in the house. Please stay and visit—we can have the kitchen all to ourselves.”

Grabbing their jackets, the boys ran outside into the misty rain and headed for the footbridge. The water had been rising in the Buckman River and was only six feet below the bridge.

“If it keeps on raining like this, the river will flood,” said Danny. “Remember that time it got up almost as high as the footbridge?”

“Come on!” Steve said. “I see the girls outside.”

Indeed, the Malloys were waiting for them, standing out in the yard in their yellow slickers. They looked like crossing guards, Wally thought. He had only come over here because the other guys wanted to come, but he knew that Caroline would be unbearable.

She was.

“Did you see? Did you see?” she called excitedly, running forward to meet them. “My picture's right there on the front page, and—”

“We're
all
on the front page, Caroline,” said Eddie. “Pipe down, will you?”

“So, what do you think? Was it a good idea or was it a good
idea
!” Steve bragged.

“Okay, so it was a good idea!” said Jake irritably. Now
Steve
was getting unbearable.

“I didn't even get a chance to put the chicken out,” said Eddie. “The cougar must have been really hungry to go for those leftover food scraps and bones.” The twelve of them moved inside the garage to keep dry.

“Wally, weren't you
scared
up there in the loft?” Beth asked him. “I'd have been terrified.”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Wally. “I figured I'd get down sooner or later.”

“Weren't
you
scared, Caroline, when you shut the door?” asked Bill.

Caroline dramatically placed her hand over her heart. “Absolutely, positively terrified!” she answered. “My entire life flashed before my eyes. All the roles on Broadway I would never play. ‘Do it for the good of Buckman,' I told myself, even though I might be clawed to death.”

“Oh, brother!” murmured Tony.

All day, neighborhood kids came by the garage to see where the cougar had been trapped. They wanted to climb up into the loft to see where Wally had been hiding, to see the window where the animal control man had climbed inside. Caroline sat at the back of the garage holding court like a queen, and all she would say when friends asked if she had been scared was, “Absolutely, positively terrified.”

“She's sickening,” said Beth. “
Do
something, Eddie!”

“Hey, Caroline,” Eddie called. “You know what we just found out? You may have RM disease. Anyone who is anywhere near a wild animal, like a cougar, is susceptible to an airborne virus that's sometimes fatal. You were probably closer than anyone.”

Caroline stopped bragging and stared at her sisters. “I wasn't as close as the animal control people.”

“They've all been vaccinated against it,” Eddie said. “You weren't.”

Caroline's face paled. “What are the symptoms?”

“Rapid heartbeat, excitability, flushed face, sweating hands, delusions of grandeur…”

“Oh, my gosh, Eddie, what will I do? How will I know if I've got it?” Caroline cried in alarm.

“You'll have to go to the hospital and get a bunch of tests. They stick a tube down your throat and take about twenty blood samples, and put wires in your ears and everything.”

“What
is
RM disease?” Caroline asked, quickly getting to her feet and ready to run inside the house.

“Running-mouth disease,” said Eddie, and everyone laughed. Caroline glowered at her sister and sat back down, arms folded across her chest.

Wally laughed too, and looked around at the guys, glad it was all over and they could enjoy the rest of spring vacation. The boys were sitting on one side of
the garage, the girls on the other. All except Steve and Eddie. They were sitting together, side by side, and they were practically
touching,
Wally noticed. After all this, one of the Bensons had fallen for Eddie Malloy! He couldn't believe it!

Sixteen
Goodbye

“
T
his was the most exciting spring vacation we ever had,” Beth declared on Saturday as the girls woke to still more rain on the roof. “Even though I feel like I'm turning into a mushroom. Will this rain never stop?”

“I'm going to miss Steve, I think, when the Bensons go back to Georgia,” said Eddie.

“What?”
cried Caroline.

“I will. He's the nicest Benson of all.”

“Well,
I'm
going to miss all the excitement,” said Caroline, “but at least I finished my school assignment, and the newspaper story makes a new page for my résumé when I become an actress. Then they'll
see
that I can play incredibly brave roles onstage. I'll bet I'm the only girl in the whole United States who ever locked a cougar in a garage.”

“I don't know about that, but I'll bet you're the only girl in the whole United States who goes around bragging so much about it,” Beth told her.

“You don't understand, Beth! Actresses need all the attention they can get to stay in the public eye. It's not wrong to go around tooting my own horn.”

“No, but you don't have to
lean
on it!” said Eddie dryly.

The girls had scarcely brushed their teeth when there was a knock on the back door. Eddie opened it.

“Steve!” she said.

He smiled a little shyly. “Just came over to say goodbye. We'll be leaving in a little while.”

“Goodbye?” said Eddie. “Why, you just got here, practically.” She saw the other boys coming across the yard behind him.

“I know. But Mom wants a day to get the laundry done and everything before we start back to school,” Steve said. “So we're going home this morning.”

Eddie and her sisters stepped out on the back porch. “We didn't get to do half the stuff we really wanted,” Caroline complained.

“We didn't either,” Doug piped up. “We were going to wave sheets in front of your window and make you think it was ghosts.”

“Shut up, Dougie,” Bill told him.

“And Steve was going to slip a note under your door,” said Peter.

“Shut
up
!” said Steve. His face turned pink.

Eddie's did as well.

“Have you decided whether or not to move back to Buckman?” Beth asked Tony.

“I don't know. Dad hasn't said. What about you?”

“We don't know either. Maybe it depends on what
your
dad does,” said Beth.

“I guess there's not room for two football coaches at the college,” said Eddie. “What they should do is start a baseball team or something.”

“Yeah,” said Steve. “That would be neat.”

There was a blast from a horn across the river. “We've got to go,” Tony said. He looked at Jake. “You guys better write to us, okay?”

“Yeah, now that we've met the Whomper, the Weirdo, and the Crazie, you have to keep us posted on what they do,” said Danny, and he and Bill grinned.

“That's
us,
I suppose? Ha, ha, ha!” said Eddie.

“Hope you make the team, Eddie,” said Steve, smiling at her.

“I'll write you if I do,” she said. “Hope you don't hear any more ghosts, Beth,” said Tony.

“Hope you get laryngitis, Caroline, and can't talk for a month!” said Bill. The boys laughed, and so did Caroline.

The horn sounded again, and the Benson boys set off down the hill beside the Hatfords.

“I never thought I'd miss those guys, but I will,” said Beth.

“I never thought I'd miss boys at all, but I do,” said Eddie.

“But isn't it nice just to be sisters again and not have
them
coming over every day, climbing all over the loft and tracking mud up on the porch with their stinky shoes?” said Caroline.

“No,” answered Beth and Eddie together.

That night, Caroline lay in bed thinking about school, and about how she might be asked to describe for the class how she had caught the cougar.
I know! she thought. Wally and I can do it together! He can stand up on Miss Applebaum's desk and pretend it's the loft, and I'll be down below…
She felt herself drifting off into a dream about cougars and firemen and Wally Hatford when she suddenly heard a
tap… tappitytap…tap…tap…tap… tap.