The Boys Start the War

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  “Who do we like at school?” Jake asked. There were friends, of course, but none they liked as well as the Bensons.

  “We could wrap up in blankets and roll down the stairs,” said Peter.

  “Negative,” said Josh.

  They decided at last to turn out all the lights and play hide and seek. Wally was it.

  He sat down on the couch in the living room and counted to fifty.

  “Here I come, ready or not.” he yelled, and groped his way to the hall.

  It was one of the most exciting games the boys played, and they reserved it for moments of incredible boredom. When you were “it” in the dark you never knew when a hand was going to reach out and grab you, whether you would crawl under the bed and find a body, whether you would collide with someone on the stairs.

  He heard a soft thud from somewhere, but wasn’t quite sure if it was up or down, in or out. It had to be in, though, because outside was off-limits. There were three live bodies waiting to be found, and in the dark, they could change hiding places as much as they liked. Even if you touched something, you had to make sure it was a person.

  The noise came again. Upstairs. Wally was sure of that now. He ran his hand along the wall and started up, his other hand sweeping the air in front of him.

  Halfway up the stairs, however, he heard another sound, and this time goose bumps rose on his arms. It was a sound like nothing he had ever heard before.

  It seemed to be half human, half animal, yet more like a fire siren, only very, very soft. It rose and fell like the wind. Maybe it was the wind.

  Then it stopped, and all Wally heard was the rain beating down on the roof. He went on, running his hand along the wall, poking each step with his foot to make sure there wasn’t a hand ready to grab his ankle. Just as he got to the top, however, the strange siren song came again.

  He heard somebody running along the hallway, and then Peter’s voice, calling shakily, “Wally?”

  “What’s the matter?” Wally said, putting out his other hand so Peter wouldn’t run into him. Peter ran into him anyway, and grabbed his arm.

  “What’s that noise?” Peter said.

  “I don’t know. Probably Jake or Josh.”

  “I don’t wanna play this game anymore,” Peter told him.

  “Well, go down and sit on the couch, then, until I find the other guys.”

  “No, I wanna stay by you.”

  Whoooeeeooo. Whoooeeeooo.

  It was not a siren. It was not anything Wally could figure out.

  “Josh, cut it out.” he yelled.

  “It’s not me,” came a voice from one of the bedrooms. “What the heck is it?”

  “Jake, I’ll bet.”

  “Turn on the lights,” Peter begged.

  “No, we can’t until we find Jake. That’s the rule.”

  Whoooeee, whoooeee, whoooeeeoooo….

  Footsteps downstairs.

  “Hey, what are you guys doing?” came Jake’s voice. “Who’s singing that song?”

  It was not Jake. Three sets of feet went flying down the stairs, the boys tumbling and rolling, until Wally and his brothers lay in a heap at the bottom.

  Three figures huddled on the widow’s walk on top of the Hatfords’ house. Rain beat steadily down on their yellow slickers and the air was cold.

  “Even if we catch pneumonia and die, it’s worth it.” said Caroline, her teeth chattering.

  “Even if we fall off the roof and break both legs,” Eddie agreed.

  “One more time?” Beth asked.

  “No. Didn’t you hear them running? Let’s wait until we think they’ve forgotten about it, then sock it to them again,” said Eddie. They giggled.

  It had all started when Beth heard a group of women called Sweet Honey in the Rock on the radio, singing a song they had written called “Emergency.” She had called the others to listen. Caroline wasn’t sure how they did it, but, using only their voices, the singers had managed to make themselves sound just like a fire siren, each singing a differerit pitch, but rising and falling together at exactly the same time.

  So Caroline; Beth, and Eddie had gone out in the garage and lain in the loft, practicing quietly, and they did it—not as well as Sweet Honey in the Rock, but well enough. What’s more, they discovered that if they kept their voices soft, and wavered them just a little, they sounded like something none of them had ever heard before—not a siren, exactly—not quite human, not quite animal…. And as soon as they discovered that, they knew what they were going to do. Never had they felt such power.

  “How long should we wait? I’m so soggy, I’m going to grow mushrooms,” Beth said.

  “We have to lull them into thinking they were imagining things,” Eddie told her.

  Caroline smiled to herself in the dark as she huddled in her corner of the widows walk. She had been so embarrassed when Mr. Hatford called and asked for his briefs back! And then, to have to walk down to the bridge with Mr. Hatford watching, and exchange things with Wally—it was too much; a humiliation that dreadful needed revenge.

  She almost wished it were daylight and clear so that she could see out over Buckman. It felt strange being up here on the Hatfords’ roof at night, and she imagined how much fun the boys must have had spying on her and her sisters when her family first moved in. If she and Eddie and Beth had lived over here, and it were the Hatfords moving in, she had no doubt they would have been spying on them. But that was beside the point. She wasn’t even sure what the point was anymore, except that she and Beth and Eddie had never had so much excitement back in Ohio, and she hoped they would not go back when a year was over.

  “Okay, let’s do it again.” Eddie whispered.

  All three girls leaned down over the trapdoor in the roof, mouths close against the crack.

  “One, two, three … go,” said Beth.

  And then they sang the song—the terrible, electrifying siren song that started low and soft, then rose higher and higher, louder and louder, tapering off into nothing, like the wind.

  There was the thud of running feet once more from inside. Closet doors opening and closing. Yells. Squares of yellow light appeared on the lawn as lights went on all over the house.

  “We’re driving them absolutely nuts.” Eddie grinned.

  “Positively bonkers,” said Caroline. “How long are we going to keep doing this? Till they come running and screaming out of the house with their hands up?”

  It was a question they hadn’t discussed.

  “Why don’t we keep it up till their parents get home?” said Beth.

  “Because then our parents will be home, and we’ll have a lot of explaining to do,” said Eddie.

  “What time is it?”

  Eddie tried to see her watch in the darkness. “Eight-thirty, I think.”

  “Fifteen more minutes, then,” Caroline said. “Mom said not to expect them back before nine. That will give us time to get home and put the ladder away.”

  The footsteps and door banging went on for some time before the house grew quiet again. Once more Beth gave the signal, and once more the three girls leaned over, noses almost touching the roof, and made the sound that rose and fell like the wind. This time they wavered their voices so that the song was even more eerie—ghostlike.

  When they stopped, however, there was no noise from below. No voices, no footstep. Nothing. The girls did it again, a little louder, and waited. Still nothing. Caroline looked over the side of the railing. There were no squares of yellow light on the lawn, meaning that the boys had turned out all the lights. What were they doing?

  She and Eddie and Path exchanged glances. “Maybe they left. Maybe they just silently closed up and headed for the school to get their parents,” said Beth.

  “Wouldn’t that be a blast!” said Eddie.

  “We could do this again sometime, when their folks are away,” Beth laughed. “We could drive them wild.”

  “We could drive them out of Buckman, and then we’d have the town to ou
rselves,” said Caroline.

  They waited a few minutes longer. If the boys had gone to the school to get their parents, it meant the Hatfords’ car could be turning in at any moment.

  “We’d better go,” said Eddie.

  Carefully they climbed over the side of the widow’s walk, then made their way down the sloping roof, scooting along on the seat of their pants—slowly, cautiously, grasping the shingles with their fingertips as they came, Caroline in the lead. But when she reached the place they had left the ladder, Caroline saw that the ladder was gone.

  “WHOEEEOOO!” came a yell from the yard below, and the four Hatford brothers emerged from the porch, yelling like banshees in the darkness.

  For the second time Caroline’s face burned with humiliation. There was nothing left but surrender.

  “Okay, okay, put the ladder back up,” she said, but the boys paid no attention.

  “WHOEEEOOOO!” they yelped, running about the yard in the rain.

  “Put that ladder back up!” Eddie commanded, as though it would do any good.

  “You wanted to be up there, you’re up there,” yelled Jake. “Have a good time.”

  “Want some pillows? Have a good sleep!” called Josh.

  It was beginning to rain harder now. It came down in huge drops; like water splashing out of a basin.

  “Wally!” bellowed Caroline, but the boys only laughed and ducked inside under the porch roof. What had been fun before was scary now. Because of the rain and the dark, it was hard to maneuver.

  “Come on,” said Beth, inching her way backup the roof, “I’ve got an idea.”

  Caroline and Eddie followed clumsily, strands of wet hair blowing in their faces. Caroline felt wet through and through. They reached the railing around the widow’s walk and crawled under.

  “I just have a hunch….” Beth said, bending over the trapdoor again. “Help me lift it, Eddie. See if it’s latched.”

  All three girls edged their fingers beneath the rim to the lid to the trapdoor and tugged. Just as Beth suspected, the boys hadn’t latched it again after their last spying episode.

  The girls stared down into total darkness.

  “Are there stairs?” Eddile asked.

  Caroline leaned over and put one arm down as far as it would reach, “No,” she said disappointedly.

  “We could jump,” said Eddie.

  “We don’t dare. We don’t know what’s under there.”

  “What good is this going to do?” Eddie said.

  “Just wait.” Beth told her. “We’re going to keep the door open. You’ll see,”

  There was hail along with the rain now—smaller stones at first, then larger and larger.

  “WHOOOOEEEEOOOO!” yelled the boys delightedly on the porch below.

  “Let’s go inside where it’s warm and dry.” came Jake’s voice loudly from the porch.

  “Yeah, let’s make some hot chocolate,” said Wally.

  “With marshmallows,” added Peter. “Yum, yum!”

  There was the sound of a door slamming as the boys went back in.

  A minute went by. Then two or three. The rain and hail was hitting the floor beneath the trapdoor. The girls could hear it.

  Suddenly a light came on, illuminating the Hatfords’ attic and the stepladder beneath. Hail was pinging against the floor. There was already a large puddle of water.

  “Hey!” came Wally’s voice. “Jake! They’ve opened the trap! They’re letting in water!”

  Feet pounded on the stairs, and Caroline looked down into Josh’s and Jake’s angry faces.

  “Close the trap!” Jake demanded. “You’ll ruin the floor.”

  “So?” said Caroline.

  A car was pulling in the driveway.

  “Your folks are home,” said Eddie.

  “Come on down! Get out of here! Hurry up!” Josh yelled.

  Caroline slid inside, holding on to the raised edge around the opening of the trap until her feet were securely on top of the stepladder, Eddie came next, and finally Beth, fulling the door closed behind her.

  “Hurry!” Josh was saying, pushing them toward the stairs to the second floor, and they thundered down, the boys at their heels.

  But it was too late. Just as Caroline reached the front door, it opened, and Mr. and Mrs. Hatford walked in.

  “Hello.” said Caroline, and then, as she and her sisters went outside, “Good-bye.”

  Mr. Hatford looked at his wife.

  “Was it just my imagination, or did I see three girls, in yellow raincoats, walk out our front door?”

  “You did.” said Wally’s mother. “Listen, you guys, what in the world is going on?”

  “Those girls were up on our roof.” Wally said.

  “In this rain?”

  “They were, Mom,” Josh put in.

  “Singing!” added Peter, nodding his head.

  Mr. Hatford looked slowly around the room. “Singing in the rain; three girls in yellow raincoats; nine o’clock at night; on the roof.”

  “How did they get up there?” asked Mother.

  “They brought a ladder,” said Peter.

  Wally wished his younger brother hadn’t said that, because he knew what the next question would be. It was his father who asked and answered it both.

  “If they got up the ladder to get to the roof, why didn’t they go down the ladder to get to the ground? Because the boys took the ladder away, why else?”

  Wally wanted to sneak off to the living room with his brothers, but Father was in the doorway.

  Mother sighed “I used to think the Benson boys were more than I could take, but those girls are going to drive the wild. I wonder if the Malloys give any thought at all to how they are raising their children.”

  “Now, Ellen, we saw George and Jean Malloy at the school tonight, and they seemed warm and friendly to me,” Father told her.

  “Not friendly enough to tell me they liked my cake,” Mother said huffily. “I gave them every opportunity, and all they talked about was how nice it was for the boys to wash their windows.” She took off her jacket and hung it up. “Even sent the plate back without anything on it, a crack in it too. That’s just not the way we do things in Buckman.”

  Wally ducked sheepishly under his father’s arm and made his escape.

  A letter arrived the following day from the Benson boys addressed to J.J.W. and P. Hatford:

  Hi, Guys!

  It’s raining down here, so we figured it was time to write you all a letter. How ya doing?

  We’re doing okay, I guess. You know what Georgia’s full of? Red ants. Red ants and roaches and lots of peach and pecan trees, and, of course, sun.

  We’ve got this big old house—really, really old near the University, and so far Dad likes it here. Mom too. She likes this house. It’s got this enormous attic you wouldn’t believe. If you guys were down here we’d be up in the attic all the time, I’ll bet. Stuffs hidden in the walls—old newspapers and things, I mean. One of them dates back to 1887. Mom said the house used to belong to a Confederate soldier. We’ve been looking for bullets and stuff at the back of the yard, but so far we haven’t found any.

  Did Wally get Applebaum this year? You should see the teacher Danny got. A Georgia P-E-A-C-H. Every guy who gets her this year is one lucky stiff. School’s not too bad. Lots of boys here, right in our neighborhood, too, so that’s good. Wish you were here, though.

  The first thing we’d do if you ever come down to Georgia is go up to the attic, because it’s probably the first thing you’d want to see.

  The second thing would be to ride around town on the tour bus. Boy, there’s so much to do you could probably live here twenty years and not do it all.

  Anyway, write to us sometime and tell us about the people who moved into our house. Mom wants to know if they’re taking good care of it. I asked her the other day if we were going back to Buckman after the year is up, and she said she didn’t know, it was up to Dad. So I asked him, and he said, “Who knows
?”

  Take care, you guys,

  Bill

  (and Danny and Steve and Tony and Doug)

  Dear Bill (and Danny and Steve and Tony and Doug):

  We got your letter and I can’t say we’re glad you like Georgia, because we hoped you wouldn’t. You want to know who rents your house? A Whomper, a Weirdo, and a Crazie, that’s who. So far here is what these girls have done:

  Outpitched the boys at recess (even Jake).

  Pretended one of their sisters (the Crazie) was dead and dumped her in the river.

  Threw a cake in the river.

  Stole a flashlight.

  Stole Dad’s underwear.

  Crawled up on our roof in a rainstorm and hollered through our trapdoor.

  If you were here, and we were in Georgia, would you be glad? I don’t care if you guys have a Georgia P-E-A-C-H for a teacher or not I don’t care if you have Miss America. If you don’t come back and send these dweebs back to Ohio, I’ll tell everyone in Buckman how you wet your pants once on the playground.

  Wally

  (and Jake and Josh and Peter)

  P.S. I don’t know if the Malloys are taking good care of your house or not. We had to go over and wash their windows for them. That should tell you something.

  “I’ll bet they’re never coming back,” Wally said as he sealed his letter.

  “They sure didn’t sound very sad about being in Georgia,” said Josh.

  “You know what?” said Jake after a minute. “If one of the Malloy girls ever comes over here again, let’s kidnap her. Lock her up. We’ll make her sisters pay plenty to get her back.”

  “Wow!” said Peter.

  “Tom and Ellen Hatford seem like such nice people,” Mother said at breakfast as she put some melon on the table. “Did I tell you girls that we talked with them a little while at the school the other night? I told them I appreciated the boys helping wash our windows.”

  “Yeah, great job,” Eddie said dryly.

  “Mrs. Hatford, though, is … well, a bit on the odd side. I was standing with her over by the refreshment tables and as I reached for a cookie, she said she was glad my family enjoyed desserts so much, that we all had such hearty appetites. One little cookie, and she made it sound as though the five of us could finish off a whole cake in one meal!