The Girls Get Even (4 page)

“Here’s what you do,” said Jake. “You go up to
the Malloys’ front door and ask for Caroline. When she comes to the door, give her the sock and tell her you were worried about whether she got home okay.”

“I was?” asked Peter.

“Well … sure. I mean, we were all wondering … uh … sort of … whether the girls got home all right in the rain,” said Jake. “We didn’t want them to get wet, did we?”

“You were ready to throw her in the
riverì”
Peter said.

“Oh, not really. Just trying to scare her a little,” Josh told him.

“She’ll probably make some nasty remark, but just ignore her. Keep saying you were worried, and here’s her sock, and then ask if they could give you any ideas of what you could be in the Halloween parade,” Jake told him.

“No, I’ve got it!” said Josh. “Tell them we won’t let you be in the parade with us, and you want to be in the parade with them. They probably won’t let you, but if you pay attention, they’ll probably give some clue about what their costume is going to be.”

Peter’s face clouded up and Wally began to feel very uncomfortable.

“But I
can
be in the parade with you, can’t I?”

“Sure, but you’re just saying that so—”

“Then it’s a lie,” Peter said flatly.

“No, it’s not, Peter, because right now I’m telling you that you can’t be in the parade with us, but after you come back from the Malloys, I’ll tell you that you can.”

“But—”

“Just
do
it, Peter¡ Just take Caroline’s sock and see what you can find out.”

“I always have to do everything!” Peter grumbled, yanking the sock out of Jake’s hand, sliding off the table, and banging out the door.

Jake and Josh and Wally looked at each other.

“What do you bet he doesn’t do it?” said Jake.

“He’ll probably just drop the sock in the river and say he couldn’t find out anything,” said Josh.

“I’m going to follow along behind him just in case,” Wally said, moving over to the window. He waited until Peter had got as far as the swinging bridge, then slipped out the door himself.

Since the Malloys had gome to Buckman, nothing was the same, Wally thought, hands in his jacket pockets. He and his brothers couldn’t even enjoy Halloween without worrying what the girls would wear in the parade. Just when he thought maybe they could forget the girls for a change, he had to worry what it would be like to lose the contest to Eddie, Beth, and Caroline and have them boss him around for a whole month. That was
about the stupidest bargain Jake had ever made. It was dumber than dumb.

Up ahead, Peter was in no particular hurry to get to the Malloys’. He was placing the heel of one foot against the toe of the other, and he must have been counting with every step, because every so often he slapped the sock against the cable handrail and said, “Ten!” More steps. “Twenty¡ …”

Wally waited until his younger brother was across the bridge and had disappeared behind the trees on the other side before he went across himself. He quickened his steps as he reached the end because he wanted to make sure he was there in the bushes when Peter knocked on the door.

When Wally stepped off the end of the bridge, however, he paused, with one foot in the air, because Peter was not five yards away from him, stooping to fill Caroline’s sock with stones.

Wally let out his breath. At this rate Peter would reach the Malloy house about midnight¡ He started to say something, then realized Peter probably wouldn’t go up to the house at all if he knew Wally was watching, so he stood motionless, waiting, until Peter stood up and trudged on again, holding the bulging sock in one hand and whirling it around and around above his head.

When he came to the picket fence next to the Malloys’, Peter dragged the sock along it …
whumpity, whumpity, whump
… and began singing at the same time: “This old man, he played one,
he
played
knickknack on
my
thumb
…” And when he reached the end of the Malloys’ driveway, Peter stopped and sang the next verse of the song holding his nose: “This old man, he played two, he played knickknack on my shoe …” When that was done, he pulled his bottom lip out away from his teeth and sang the third verse like that.

Wally didn’t think he could stand it. He wondered if he should go grab the sock and try to find out something from Caroline himself, but he knew it would never work. Caroline would never, ever give him even the slightest clue about what the girls were going to be on Halloween. There was nothing to be done but wait it out.

At long last Peter sighed, straightened, dumped the stones out of the sock, and finally went up the driveway to the Malloys’ front porch.

Wally crept along in the bushes by the side of the driveway, and finally made it up to the garage. He peeked around the corner.

Knock, knock, knock.

At first it didn’t seem as though anyone was home. No one came to the door, and Peter even went over to a window and peeped in. He turned and started back down the steps. Wally wanted to
yell,
Not yet¡ Try again¡
when the door behind Peter opened.

“What do
you
want?”

Crazy Caroline herself¡

“Uh … I—I …” Peter stammered.

“Well?”

Peter held out the sock. “I was worried about you,” he said.

Good job¡
Wally thought.
Nice going, Peter¡

The irritation on Caroline’s face gave way to surprise. “Why?”

“If you got home okay.”

“Why were you worried about me when you were trying to throw me in the river? You weren’t very worried then.”

“I wasn’t trying to throw you in the river. I was asleep in the tent,” Peter told her.

Caroline’s face softened immediately, and Wally wondered whether girls always felt motherly toward smaller children. Sisterly, anyway.

“Well, maybe you
were
in the tent. I couldn’t see.”

“All that was left of you was this sock,” Peter went on in a small voice. Wally decided that if their family ever became poor, they could send Peter out to beg on street corners, because he obviously could wring your heart.

“Who is it, Caroline?” came a voice from inside.

“Peter Hatford. He found my sock.”

“What?” Eddie stuck her head out the door, then came out on the porch, followed by Beth.

“He says he was worried about me. He was in the tent when his goon brothers tried to throw me in the river.”

“They weren’t really,” Peter said. “They were only fooling.”

“Now you tell me,” said Caroline.

“But I was worried you might not find your way home in the rain,” Peter plowed on.

Eddie studied him quizzically. “My, aren’t we concerned all of a sudden,” she said.

“I’m sure Josh and Jake and Wally were awake all night worrying about us,” said Beth. “Nobody came over and offered to let us share your tent, though. If you ask me, Peter, I think you’ve got three baboons for brothers.”

Wally strained to hear what they were saying next, but from where he stood behind the garage, he didn’t think they were saying anything at all. Looking around the corner, it seemed to Wally as though the girls were whispering among themselves.

And suddenly he heard Eddie saying, “It was really nice of you to bring back Caroline’s sock,
Peter. You want to come in for some peanut butter cookies?”

No, Peter, no¡
Wally thought desperately.
It’s a trap¡ Don’t do it¡ Don’t go¡

But even as he thought it, he saw Peter’s head bob up and down, and a moment later Peter disappeared into the Malloys’ house, followed by Eddie, Beth, and Caroline, all three of them grinning.

•   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •
Five
•
A little Chat with Peter

I
t was the chance of a lifetime, and Caroline and her sisters knew it. Mother was at the dentist’s, and they had Peter all to themselves. He was as gullible as a dry sponge; he’d soak up whatever they told him, but one squeeze, and he’d probably leak out all the Hatfords’ secrets.

Beth and Eddie were thinking the same thing, because Peter had scarcely sat down at the kitchen table before there was an orange soda and a plate of cookies in front of him, with a little package of M&M’s on the side.

“Tell me, Peter,” said Eddie, “do your brothers
always
act like goons, or is it just around us?”

“Well, sometimes … I mean …” Peter seemed to be thinking it over, his mouth full of cookies. “Well, most of the time they’re … Well,
you know what? They won’t even let me be in the Halloween parade with them, and I wanted to know if I could be in it with you.”

Caroline knew a trap when she heard it. She could see it, smell it, and so could Beth and Eddie. The three girls exchanged looks. Actually, they had just that morning discussed the matter of a group costume, and decided to go as a centipede—three legs and three arms sticking out one side, three legs and three arms sticking out the other. Four arms and four legs would be even better, but how did they know Peter was telling the truth?

“Well, I don’t know,” said Beth. “We were planning to go as gypsies. Isn’t that right, Eddie? I’m not sure you’d make such a good gypsy, Peter.”

‘Oh, yeah. Gypsies. Right!” said Caroline. “Sure you want to dress up in bracelets and stuff, Peter?”

“Huh-uh,” said Peter, and took a long drink of orange soda.

Caroline sat down on one side of him. “Why won’t your brothers let you be in the parade with them?”

“I don’t know,” Peter told her, and opened the package of M&M’s.

Beth sat down on the other side. “I would think that
four
boys would have a better chance of winning the prize than three.”

No answer.

Eddie tried next. “It’s easy to think up a costume if you’re a boy. All boys have to do is put on old clothes and be bums or something. They hardly have to do any work.”

“Uh-w/z!” said Peter. “We’ve got to cut holes in the bottoms of pumpkins for our heads to go through and—” He stopped, looking suddenly confused. Caroline and Eddie exchanged triumphant glances.

“Oh, I forgot!” cried Peter. “That was last year¡ Yeah, that’s what we were
last
year. Punkin’ heads.
This
year we’re going as pirates. Yeah,
pirates
¡ I
forgot!”

“Sure, Peter. Right. Pirates are a swell costume. I’ll bet that’ll win first prize,” smiled Beth.

Looking much relieved, Peter grinned back and took another long drink of soda.

He was so cute that Caroline almost wished he were
her
little brother. At the same time it seemed foolish not to get all the information out of him that they could.

“Peter,” she said, trying to sound as motherly as possible—if she were to become an actress, she would undoubtedly be asked, at some time in her life, to play the part of a mother—” tell me something; why do your brothers hate us?”

“They don’t
hate
you,” said Peter uncertainly. “They just don’t like you very much.”

“Oh, that makes me feel so much better!” said Beth.

“I mean, well, they
like
you, sort of, but … you’re not boys!”

“How stupid of us!” said Eddie. “We’re so sorry.”

Peter plowed on. “It’s just that we liked the Bensons better.”

“Can
we
help it if the Bensons moved away?” Caroline asked. “Why take it out on us?”

Peter thought that one over too. “Well … see … if
you
go back to Ohio, and the Bensons can’t find anybody to rent their house to, then maybe they’ll come back.”

“I get it,” said Caroline. “Your baboon brothers think that if they make us miserable enough, we’ll leave.”

Peter nodded. “But / don’t want you to be miserable.”

“Of course not,” said Eddie.

“You just want us to leave too,” said Beth.

Peter reached for another cookie. “Well, not
exactly
, because … Wally doesn’t want you to leave either.”

Caroline was genuinely surprised. “He
doesn’t!”

“No. I mean, not yet. He said he wants you to stay in Buckman until we Ve done all the things we wanted to do to you and then … I mean … well …”

‘Oh, we understand perfectly,” said Beth.

Caroline sighed dramatically. “I guess we just can’t win. No matter what we do, the boys will always get the best of us.”

“Right,” said Beth. “Pirates will always win a costume contest before gypsies. But I can’t think of anything else to be, can you, Caroline?”

As Beth put the cookies back in the pantry, however, Caroline followed her in.

“Listen, Beth, are you
sure
we shouldn’t try to get Peter to be in our costume with us?
Four
arms and legs would make an even better centipede, and he could be the tail.”

“No. He’ll give it away. Somehow he’d leak it to the others.”

“Yes, but think how great it would be if we win first place and Peter was on our side¡ Like we’d recruited him right out from under their noses.”

“Better to keep him as spy and not even let on that he is. No telling when we’ll need him again,” said Beth.

They went back in the kitchen where Peter was finishing his drink, and when he put his glass down
he had a wide orange mustache above his upper lip

“Thanks for bringing back my sock, Peter. Come over anytime,” Caroline told him.

“Okay,” Peter said, and after he went outside, he shuffled down the driveway, stopping to pick up an acorn, then another and another, filling his pockets with them, and skipping on.

“Too bad he’s a Hatford,” said Beth, watching.

But Eddie disagreed. “It’s
great
he’s a Hatford. Don’t you realize what a coup this is¡ A spy in their own camp¡ I’m
sure
those guys are going as pun-kin’ heads. They sent Peter over here to make us believe they were going as pirates, and he let the cat out of the bag. This is more fun than I thought.”