The Girls' Revenge (15 page)

“I guess so. It was just a joke,” said Caroline in a voice as soft and meek and polite as a kitten.
She can really act!
Wally thought, impressed.

Miss Applebaum reached down and opened the lower drawer of her desk. “Very well,” she said, taking out the square box, minus the angel wrapping paper, and handing it to Caroline. “Since you seem to know the contents so well, it's obviously yours. You may have it.”

“Thank you,” said Caroline.

She walked back toward Wally, deposited the box on his desk, smiled sweetly, and said, “For you, since you obviously like them so much.” And then she laughed, and Wally smiled, and he began to wonder: Who was the Crazie? Caroline or him?

Twenty-one
Paying the Debt

C
aroline did not tell her sisters what she had done for Wally. She didn't even tell them what Wally had been planning to give her. It was a secret—a secret between Wally and Caroline.

For the rest of the week, she did not want to poke Wally in the back, bump his shoulder, tweak his ear, or run her ruler along the back of his neck. The Hatfords and the Malloys pretty much stayed to themselves. Until Sunday morning, that is, when Buckman awoke to four inches of snow.

The girls were awakened by their father, who poked his head into every bedroom in turn.

“Eddie?” he called. Then, “Beth? Caroline?”

And when each girl rose up on her elbow and looked at him, he said, “It snowed again, it's Sunday morning, and there are three snow shovels in the garage. It's a good way to earn some money to pay off your debt, so I suggest you get up now.”

There were groans and whispered protests from the three bedrooms, but the girls had no choice except to pull themselves out of bed, into their sweatpants and sweatshirts, and, after a hot oatmeal breakfast, to stagger sleepily out to the garage. They stood looking at the three snow shovels lined up like sentries against one wall.

“I don't even know how much to charge,” Eddie said, her shoulders hunched, hands in her pockets. “We never had to do this before.”

“Five dollars a house?” Caroline suggested.

“Even if we did every house on Island Avenue, we wouldn't have enough to pay the rest of what we owe,” said Beth.

All three girls were grumpy at being awakened, and Eddie, in particular, had that look in her eye.

“Let's go across the river and knock on the Hatfords' door,” she said.

Beth looked at her incredulously.
“Why?”

“Just to make them feel guilty,” she said. “To show them that we're up and working while they're still lazing around. That we can shovel just as fast as they can.”

“Yeah, let's!” said Beth.

With shovels over their shoulders like workers in a salt mine, the girls traipsed down the hill and across the river on the swinging bridge, icicles hanging off the cable handrails like teeth.

There was no sign of activity at the Hatfords' or any other house on the street. The Hatfords' newspaper was still lying on a heap of snow out by the road.

Beth picked up the paper, and the girls waded through the snow and clomped up the steps onto the porch. Beth knocked.

They could hear a chair scrape the floor inside, then footsteps, and finally Mrs. Hatford opened the door, followed by Jake.

“Why, my goodness, it's the Malloy girls, at eight o'clock in the morning!” she said. “Won't you come in and have some cocoa?”

Jake backed up as though afraid that they might, and Caroline noticed that he was still wearing his pajama bottoms and T-shirt.

“No, thank you,” said Beth. “We just wondered if you wanted your sidewalk and steps shoveled. Only five dollars.”

“Well, aren't you the early birds, though!” Mrs. Hatford declared. “And here I have four boys with strong backs, who—”

“We're trying to earn money we sort of owe our dad,” said Caroline in her most pitiable voice. “So we thought we'd start with you.”

“Oh, well, in that case… Ordinarily I'd have the boys do the shoveling, but… You girls go right ahead, and when you're through, come inside for the five dollars and some cocoa as well.”

“Mom!”
Jake wailed, but the door closed, and Eddie, Beth, and Caroline exchanged grins as they thrust their shovels into the snow on the steps and began to scrape and push. They could hear pounding footsteps from inside and knew that Jake was waking up Josh and Wally and Peter, and together the four boys were probably looking out a window at them right now.
“I'll bet they just can't
stand
this!” Beth said. “
Us!
Doing the shoveling for
them
!”

“I don't know about that,” said Caroline. “Maybe they can stand it very well. Maybe they
love
to see us work.”

But Eddie agreed with Beth. “They'll be embarrassed as anything. Imagine having the neighbors see
girls
shoveling the sidewalk for
boys
!”

“What do you bet they come out and order us to go home?” said Beth.

“Well, if you're right, they'll probably come out and do it for us. They'll just have to prove they're stronger and bigger and smarter and faster, when they're really dumber than doorbells and slower than snails,” said Eddie.

They had finished the steps and half the sidewalk when suddenly the front door opened and out came Jake and Josh, followed by Wally and Peter, all wearing boots and jackets and mittens and caps.

“Don't let them push us off,” whispered Eddie. “No matter what they say, their mom said we can do it.”

“Shovel faster!” murmured Caroline.

“Don't even look at them,” said Beth.

Caroline was shoveling as fast as she could when four pairs of boots appeared in front of her, and she looked up to see the Hatford brothers looking back. Looking at her and Beth and Eddie.

“Need some help?” asked Josh.

“No,” said Eddie.

“Really?” Josh said.

“We're doing just fine,” Eddie responded.

“I know, but how are you going to do all the other houses on the street? Mom said you're trying to earn some money…”

“So what?” said Eddie. “We can do the sidewalks up one side of the street and down the other all by ourselves.”

“Eddie!”
whispered Beth. “We can't!”

“Well, we thought maybe you'd like us to help,” Josh told her. “I mean, you could do one side of the street and we'll do the other. Or maybe we could work together on the same driveway.”

“Yeah? And you guys walk off with all the money? No way!” said Eddie.

Wally spoke up next: “What if we said you could have all the money?”

Eddie, Beth, and Caroline stared at the four boys as though they had sprung four new heads.

“You've got to be kidding,” said Caroline.

“No, we're not!” Peter piped up. “Josh said we're going to help you so you won't be mad at us anymore.”

“Shut up, Peter,” Josh muttered.

“Well, if you're going to help, then help. Don't just stand there gabbing,” Eddie snapped, still not trusting. She dumped a shovelful of snow so close to Wally's feet she could have buried him had he been any closer.

In response, Wally dug up a shovelful of snow and dumped it close to where Eddie was standing. Then the four boys began madly shoveling snow, dumping it as close to the girls as they could get without actually touching them, and the girls madly shoveled back.
In less than two minutes, the rest of the Hatfords' sidewalk was as clean as a bald-headed baby.

“Well!” said Beth when she looked around and discovered that they were at the end of the sidewalk. “
That
didn't take long.”

Josh walked down the road to the next house and knocked on the door.

“Shovel your steps and walk?” he asked. “Only five dollars to have it done in five minutes? Driveway's five bucks extra.”

“Five minutes?” said the neighbor, looking out. “I
wondered
how I'd get to church this morning! Okay, it's a deal.”

And so it went. People who had never paid before to have someone shovel their walk and driveway paid five or ten dollars just to have it done in five minutes.

It got to be a game after a while. Who could do their side of the walk or driveway faster, the boys or the girls? Who could dump their snow closest to the other side without actually dumping it on anyone? It wasn't long before they had earned forty dollars.

Only when Peter began to complain that his feet were cold did Caroline realize they hadn't collected yet from Mrs. Hatford. And so, some of them dragging their shovels, others with shovels over their shoulders, they headed back up the block, their breath frosty in front of them, and slogged through the snow to the Hatfords'.

“Hey!” said Peter, cheerful now that they were going back to get warm. “I have a great idea! We could have sort of a business! Whenever it snows, we could go out together and make a lot of money!”

“Yeah, and give it all to the girls,” Jake said dryly.

“Why not?” said Eddie. “We're worth it.”

“Ha!” said Wally. “You give these girls money, they buy you presents like boxes filled with cat puke and mouse feet.” He grinned at Caroline.

“You should talk!” said Caroline. “You were going to give me a pair of underpants.
Your
underpants.”

“But
you
were trying to trap us in the garage,” said Wally.

“We wouldn't have done it if you hadn't been spying on us from the loft in the first place,” said Eddie.

“We wouldn't have been meeting up there if we didn't think you were plotting something new just to bug us,” said Josh.

A car was pulling up into the Hatfords' driveway just as the three Malloy girls and the four Hatfords came dragging their shovels along the sidewalk.

They stopped and watched the car.

The driver's door opened. One booted foot came out and settled itself on the driveway, then the other foot, a hand, a head, until finally a woman in a blue coat was out of the car and looking around.

“Well, hi, Wally! Jake! Josh! And Peter, too. My goodness, how
are
you?” the woman said. “Would you believe I haven't worn boots since we moved to Georgia?”

The boys were speechless and could only stand and stare, because there, going up their sidewalk to the front porch, was Mrs. Benson, mother of their five best friends, the best friends the Hatfords had in the whole wide world. Well, maybe.

Twenty-two
Company

W
hen Mrs. Benson saw the girls, however, she stopped and looked them over.

“Would these be Coach Malloy's daughters, by chance?” she asked Wally.

“Yes,” he said.

Mrs. Benson studied them over the rim of her glasses. “I see!” she said, and went on up the steps. Mrs. Hatford was holding open the door.

“She
knows
!” breathed Wally.

“Knows what?” asked Eddie suspiciously.

But Wally only swallowed.

“Did you write the Bensons and tell on the girls?” whispered Josh accusingly.

Jake, however, looked hopeful. “Maybe they're coming back!” he said. He ran up the steps after Mrs. Benson, and Wally and Josh followed wordlessly, leaving the girls staring after them on the sidewalk.

Mother was hugging Mrs. Benson in the hallway, and Dad was saying, “Well, Shirley, this is a surprise!”

“Actually, I'm spending the weekend with my sister in Elkins,” Mrs. Benson explained, “but I thought it might be a good idea to check on things here, especially after the letters the boys got from Wally.”

Wally swallowed again.

“Letters?” said Mother. “What letters?”

“The letter about how Caroline tried to kill Beth, I'll bet!” said Peter helpfully.

“You know,” said Dad, “I think we should sit down at the kitchen table and have a cup of coffee.” And when he saw Wally edging toward the stairs, he said, “You guys are included. Have some orange juice.”

The grown-ups sat at one end of the big country table in the kitchen, the four boys at the other, while Mrs. Benson drank her coffee.

“We just didn't know what to make of it, those girls throwing hammers around up in the bedroom and painting our garage. Granted, it's old, but it served us well, and I'd think that a man employed by the college—a coach, in particular—would let us know if he wanted to make changes on our property.”