The Girls' Revenge (8 page)

“When we're not trying to bug you guys, you mean?” Now Caroline
was
smiling. “I guess I like to imagine things—how it would feel to be lost in the woods or to be starving to death or to be an old lady—things like that.”

Wally started to say, “Isn't that sort of crazy?” but then he remembered that when he'd said he liked to float things down the river, Caroline could have said the same thing about him.

“I suppose we should be writing some of this down,” he told her.

“Yeah,” said Caroline. They each took out a notebook and began.

On the way home that afternoon, Wally told his brothers about his interview with Caroline and how he was probably going to pass fourth grade after all. And how Caroline had really changed.

“She's not completely crazy,” was the way he put it.

“She sure bakes good cookies!” said Peter.

That evening, however, as Peter was watching a Bugs Bunny tape on the VCR, and Mother was busy at the dining room table, which was covered with wrapping paper and presents, Jake looked at Josh.

“Why don't we hold a club meeting?” he said.

“Now?” asked Josh.

“Explorers don't just go out in the daytime,” said Jake, and grinned.

“You mean, spy on the girls?” whispered Wally.

“Why not?” said Jake.

Wally thought about it. Why not? The girls knew the guys could be in the loft at any time. If they didn't want to be spied on, all they had to do was pull down their shades.

“Whose room faces the loft?” asked Josh.

“Beth's, I think.”

“Okay,” said Josh. “Let's do it. But leave Peter behind.”

They put on their jackets.

“We've got a little errand to run, Mom,” said Jake, poking his head into the dining room, where their mother was putting a label on a box for one of their aunts.

Mom winked. “Okay,” she said.

That was the nice thing about Christmas; there were secrets all over the place. If you said you had to go out for a while or you had to run an errand or you were going to your room and didn't want to be bothered, everybody understood. Mom, of course, didn't have a clue, and Dad was still out delivering packages.

Jake carried a flashlight because there was no moon at all. At the bottom of the bank where the swinging bridge began, there was only blackness. They climbed up the bank on the other side and went single file, glad they didn't have Peter to worry about, and made their way to the old garage, around Coach Malloy's
car, to the ladder on the side wall. Then they climbed up to the loft.

They crawled across the dusty floor to the window and crowded around it. Wally got the binoculars from the tin milk box and held them to his eyes.

The lights were on in Beth's bedroom. Beth was sitting on the bed talking to Caroline, who was standing in the doorway. The girls seemed to be having an argument.

“Look at the Crazie,” said Jake. “She's really teed off about something. Let me see those binoculars for a minute, Wally.”

The boys took turns watching through the binoculars. Beth would say something, then Caroline, then Beth, then Caroline. Beth stood up finally, hands on her hips, and leaned forward. Now they appeared to be shouting, though of course the boys couldn't hear what they were saying.

“Boy, I never saw Caroline this mad before,” said Wally. “I wonder what it's all about.” He didn't even need binoculars to see how angry Caroline was getting.

Through the window they watched Beth shouting back, stamping her foot. She turned her back on Caroline finally, arms folded across her chest.

Suddenly Jake and Josh and Wally gasped in horror, for at that very moment, Caroline picked up a hammer from on top of a dresser, raised it high in the air, and brought it down on her sister's head.

Beth Malloy crumpled to the floor, and the light went out.

Eleven
A Case of Murder

E
ddie had been lying on her bed in the dark in her stocking feet, listening to a new CD, when she happened to look out the window and see a small yellow light bobbing across the swinging bridge and then up the hill toward the Malloys' backyard.

“Beth! Caroline!” she called. “I think we've got company!”

Beth and Caroline had been in Beth's bedroom wrapping a new hammer and pliers and screwdriver set as a Christmas present to their father. They left the paper and ribbon on the floor and hurried into Ed-die's darkened room.

“Look out this window,” Eddie said. “Down the hill toward the river.”

The three girls watched.

“I don't see anything,” said Caroline.

“Keep looking,” Eddie insisted.

“Looks like the beam of a flashlight,” Beth said finally. “I'll bet the boys are back.”

“Holding a club meeting at night? In the dark?” said Caroline.

“What do you think? They're spying on us, of course,” said Eddie. “And if they're caught, they'll say they're holding a club meeting. Well,
you
know what we do to spies.”

“Give them something to talk about!” breathed Caroline excitedly.

“Right!” said Beth.

“I suggest we
really
give them an eyeful this time. I suggest murder,” said Beth, who had just finished a book called
The Rise of the Worm People.
“Caroline, why don't you pretend to hit me on the head with a hammer or something. And act like you're really mad! Only be careful to bring the hammer down on the other side of my head, away from the window, so it only looks like it hit me, and I'll crumple to the floor.”

“All right!” Caroline said eagerly. “What will you do, Eddie?”

“I'm going to keep out of it. If we're all in the room together, it will look like a put-up job. It will be more convincing if it's just the two of you.”

The girls began to giggle.

“They should be going up the ladder to the loft just about now,” Beth said. “I'll go in and sit on the edge of my bed, and Caroline, you come in and pretend you're having an argument with me. After a while I'll stomp my foot and turn my back on you, and that's
your cue to pick up Dad's hammer and pretend to hit me over the head.”

“Got it!” said Caroline. It was wonderful being a team against the boys with Beth and Eddie again.

They could hear Eddie chuckling to herself in the hallway as they took their places.

Caroline, standing in the doorway, moved her arm and shook her fist, her face contorted with anger, but all the while she was reciting the words to “Jingle Bells.”

“ ‘Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh,’ ” she said, glaring at Beth.

“ ‘O'er the fields we go!’ ” Beth retorted angrily.

“ ‘Laughing all the way!’ ” said Caroline, pleased at how well she and her sister were playing their parts without a trace of a smile.

In the hallway, Eddie was laughing out loud. It was all Caroline could do to keep a straight face.

“ ‘Bells on bobtail ring, making spirits bright, what fun it is to ride and sing…’ ”

“ ‘A sleighing song tonight!’ ” finished Beth, standing up, stomping her foot, and turning her back on Caroline.

Caroline reached over, picked up the new hammer on the dresser, and, holding it up in the air, brought it down in the space between Beth's head and the wall, murmuring, “Now!”

Beth toppled over and collapsed on the floor.

Eddie, waiting in the hall, slipped one hand around the door frame and clicked off the light.

The three girls rolled about on the rug, laughing
hysterically. Finally, when they couldn't laugh anymore, they lay still, grinning up at the ceiling.

“Those guys are so gullible they'll swallow anything,” Beth said.

“I'll bet they knew we were fooling, though,” said Eddie. “But that's half the fun.”

“They'll probably knock on the door and ask Dad if we're all right, just to bug us,” said Caroline.

“Wouldn't that be a riot?” said Eddie. “If they do, we'll just turn on the light again and go on wrapping presents and pretend nothing happened. Boys have got to be the dumbest creatures that ever lived.”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Beth. “Josh isn't so dumb.”

“You're always standing up for Josh,” Caroline observed.

“Well, he's different from Jake. He's nicer,” Beth said.

They stayed on the floor about five minutes in the dark, and had just about decided that nothing was going to happen, that the boys had figured out they were joking, when they suddenly heard a siren coming from downtown Buckman. It seemed to be coming across the road bridge from the business district and heading up Island Avenue. The siren grew louder and louder, and instead of going on past the house, it sounded as though the police car had turned into the driveway. Caroline could see the reflection of the revolving light on the wall of Beth's room.

“Eddie!” she cried in horror, bolting straight up.

Two car doors slammed, one right after the other,
and there were hurried footsteps across the ground, then a loud knock at the front door.

“Dear, can you get that?” the girls heard their mother call.

There was the sound of their father's footsteps crossing the living room, entering the hall, and then the creak of the front door opening.

“Good evening, Coach,” came a man's voice. “Is everything all right here?”

“As far as I know,” said Mr. Malloy, sounding surprised. “Why? Come on in.”

“We got a report about an attack in an upstairs bedroom.”

“What?” cried Father.

“Someone was attacked with a hammer. It was an anonymous call.”

“Eddie?” came Father's voice from the bottom of the stairs. “Is everything okay up there?”

And before the girls could answer, one of the policemen said, “Do you mind if we look around?”

“Go right ahead,” said Father. “Beth? Caroline? The officers are coming up.”

The girls were already on their feet, lunging for the light switch. The hammer, the pliers, and the screwdriver were kicked under Beth's bed, and by the time the officers reached the top of the stairs, three girls were seated on the rug in Beth's room, making bows out of Christmas ribbon.

“What's going on?” asked their father, following the policemen into the room.

“What do you mean?” asked Eddie. “We're wrapping presents.”

“Did you girls have a fight or anything?” one of the officers asked.

“A fight?” asked Caroline innocently.

“What would we fight about?” asked Beth, putting one arm around Caroline's shoulder, the other around Eddie's.

“Well, we got an anonymous call about an attack up here in one of the bedrooms and thought we ought to check it out,” said the policeman.

“I'll bet it was those Hatford boys!” said Eddie. “They're always causing trouble.”

“Mind if we check the other rooms to make sure?” an officer asked Dad.

“Please do,” said Father. “If there's a body lying around up here, I want to know about it.”

The policemen took a quick look in the other rooms, then tipped their caps to Mother, who had come upstairs to see what was going on.

“Sorry to have bothered you folks. Have a good Christmas, now,” one of the men said as they went back downstairs.

When the door closed after them, Mother exclaimed, “Now what was
that
all about, do you suppose?”

“I have no idea,” said Father. “You know, Jean, maybe it's a good thing we had all girls. If those Hatford boys belonged to us, we'd be in a mental ward.”

And upstairs in the bedroom, Eddie, Beth, and Caroline pressed their faces to their knees and rocked with silent laughter.

When all the fuss had died down, however, Eddie
looked mischievously around her. “Call the police on
us,
will they? I think we're entitled to revenge.”

The very words made the hair on Caroline's arms stand up in anticipation.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered.

“I'm not sure. I'm thinking,” said Eddie. “But maybe, just maybe, the next time they have a meeting of the Explorers' Club—Spy Club, we should call it— we could sneak out there and trap them.”

Twelve
Calling 911