Who Won the War? (4 page)

They stopped at Oldakers' Bookstore first, and it was like heaven to step inside the air-conditioned room.

“How you doin'?” called Mike, the owner.

“Any empty boxes?” Wally asked. “We're collecting them for the Malloys. They're going back to Ohio.”

“So I heard,” said Mike. “I got some early calendars in this morning. You'll find the boxes in the back.”

“Thanks,” said Wally. He and Peter walked down the rows of mysteries and science fiction novels and through the café at the back, until they came to the
stockroom. Three empty boxes sat just inside the door. Wally picked up two, Peter got the other, and they carried them back outside.

At the drugstore, Mr. Larkin told them they could have the boxes that some chocolate syrup had come in. He winked at Wally. “And how would you guys like a handful of jelly beans?”

“I wouldn't mind!” said Peter.

Wally was never sure about those jelly beans, though, because Mr. Larkin never took them out of the jelly bean jar. He would open a drawer beside the cash register and take the jelly beans from there. Were those the ones that had fallen on the floor, maybe?

“Thanks,” Wally said as the druggist dumped a fistful into the two outstretched hands.

A yellow jelly bean in Wally's hand had dark marks on one side. Had somebody kicked it with a shoe? he wondered. A red jelly bean looked faded. Had someone sucked on it for a second or two and then spit it out? Peter put all his jelly beans in his mouth at once, but Wally ate them one by one, exploring them a bit with his tongue.

With two more boxes added to their load, Wally gave Peter the smallest, and he carried the rest. Ethel's Bakery was next.

“I flattened all my boxes yesterday,” Ethel told them, “but I can give you one that my flour came in this morning.”

Peter put it on his head upside down. There was just enough flour in it to give his hair a fine white coating, so that he looked like a little old man.

“We've got enough,” Wally told him. “We'll tell Jake and Josh to get the rest. Let's go home.”

“It's certainly going to be different around here with the Malloys gone,” said Mrs. Hatford that evening at dinner.

“Maybe,” said her husband. “But with the Bensons coming back, things won't be any quieter, that's for sure. Five boys in place of three girls can never be quieter.”

“I just wish I'd been a better neighbor,” said Wally's mother. “It couldn't have been easy for Jean to move down here with her family for a year, not knowing a living soul, and having to fit in with the faculty wives and do all that university stuff. We should have had them for dinner more often.”

“We had them for Thanksgiving, remember?” said Mr. Hatford. “Besides, you work full-time, Ellen. Jean Malloy didn't expect you to do more.”

“It just would have been nice if I could have been more helpful,” said Mrs. Hatford. “I think I'll have them over for brunch right after the van leaves on moving day. I'll tell them to stop by here for a bite before they go. They'll surely appreciate that.”

“I know they will,” said her husband.

Jake managed to find a couple of boxes at a filling station, and Josh got one from next door.

“After dinner,” Mrs. Hatford said, “you boys take these boxes on over to Mrs. Malloy and ask if there's
anything else we can do. I'll call her myself and invite her for brunch on moving day.”

All the boxes had been piled on the front porch, and after dinner the four boys set to work separating them into four piles, one for each of them to carry. Some had grit at the bottom and had to be turned over and tapped. Some had bunches of rolled-up paper, or store receipts.

Wally was stacking the pile of boxes he would carry and shook out some dust. A small piece of paper fluttered out too. It was just a shopping list, and he had started to throw it out when something caught his eye. He read it again:
Eggs, Rope, Tomato sauce, Flashlight, Dynamite.

“Hey!” he said.

Jake looked up. “What?”

“Dynamite!” said Wally.

“Huh?” Jake reached over and took the slip of paper from him. “Dynamite?” he said. “Where would you go to buy dynamite?”

“Where you'd go to buy rope and a flashlight, I guess,” said Wally. “Doesn't that sound sort of suspicious to you? Rope, flashlight, dynamite?”

The boys stared at the paper some more.

“I don't know. Eggs and tomato sauce don't sound too dangerous to me,” said Josh.

“Maybe this isn't a list of stuff to get from one store. Maybe it's a list of things from several stores,” said Jake.

The boys looked at each other. What
did
someone
want with rope and a flashlight and dynamite? Wally took the note back and stuffed it in his pocket. He wasn't letting go of
this!

Wally didn't sleep very well that night. Maybe he should walk that piece of paper down to the police station and turn it over to the sergeant on duty, he thought. No, it was too ridiculous.

But as the night went on, Wally worried. What if he
didn't
turn that paper over to the police and then there was a big explosion? What if
then
he rushed it down to the police station and the officer said, “Why, anybody knows this is the handwriting of Mad Bomber Bill, Wally. If we had seen this list in time, we could have checked his house over, looked in his garage to see if he had any explosives.”

And maybe Mad Bomber Bill had a little nephew who always followed him around. And on that particular day Mad Bomber Bill told the little boy to stay home.

“Go on back to your mother and quit following me around,” Mad Bomber Bill might have said.

But maybe the little boy was too fond of his uncle and only pretended he was going home. Maybe he turned around and kept following his uncle, hiding behind trees all the way. And maybe Mad Bomber Bill went into somebody's house to place the dynamite. And when he came back out to light the fuse, the little boy ran inside to see what his uncle had put in there that was so secret.

And then maybe the fuse started to burn, and as it got closer and closer to the dynamite, Mad Bomber Bill saw his little nephew playing around inside the house, and maybe he called, “No! Come out! Come out!” But maybe it was too late and the little boy stumbled and the dynamite went off and …

“No!” yelled Wally.

His eyes popped open. There was complete silence in the house. His room was dark.

Suddenly he heard a door open at the end of the hall, and a few moments later his mom came in.

“Wally?” she said. “Was that you?”

“Was who me?” said Wally, his heart pounding.

“I just heard someone yell, and it sounded like you,” said his mother.

Wally's head whirled and he tried to think. “It was Bill,” he said.

“Who?” said his mother.

“A dream,” said Wally.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Maybe,” said Wally.

“Then go back to sleep,” she told him.

“Okay,” said Wally. But he heard the grandfather clock in the hall downstairs chime out one, then two, then three o'clock before he finally fell asleep.

Five
Dare

“I
don't know why you told the Hatfords that we'll go to Knob Hill some night at midnight,” Beth said to Eddie. “You know Mom will never let us.”

“Yeah, but the Hatfords won't be able to go either, so it will make it sound as though
they're
the ones who chicken out,” said Eddie. “I just like to keep them on the hot seat. Didn't you see how suspicious they were acting at Smuggler's Cove, like I was going to pull something on them? It drives them nuts when we're polite. Now we can sit back and see what they come up with.”

“It looks like they're going on a safari,” Caroline said, glancing out the kitchen window. Beth and Eddie turned to look, and coming up the hill from the river were the four Hatford boys, each carrying a load of boxes on his head, each load balanced by a pair of hands.

Mrs. Malloy came into the room just then. “What in the world … ?” she said, going to the back door.

“Empty boxes from Mom,” said Wally as they stepped up onto the porch. “She thought maybe you could use them for packing.”

“How thoughtful of her!” said Mrs. Malloy. “Of course we can use them! Moving always takes more boxes than you think. Just stack them there in the front hallway, would you, boys?”

The Hatfords walked through the kitchen and the dining room and deposited their load in the front hallway while the girls watched.

“Do you have time to stay for some cookies and iced tea?” said Mrs. Malloy.

Was that a serious question? Caroline wondered. Did boys have stomachs?

“Yes!” said Peter, answering for them, and they all went back to the kitchen and sat around the big table, where the girls were just finishing their dinner. Mrs. Malloy put a platter of brownies and sugar cookies on the table, along with a pitcher and some paper cups. Then she left the kitchen to carry a few of the boxes upstairs.

Jake looked slyly around the table. “Question,” he said. “If somebody told you he was going to buy some rope, a flashlight, and some dynamite, what would you think he was going to do?”

“Hmm,” said Eddie. “If he needed a flashlight, then he was probably going to be working at night.”