The Boys Return

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  OTHER DELL YEARLING BOOKS BY PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR YOU WILL ENJOY

  THE BOYS START THE WAR

  THE GIRLS GET EVEN

  BOYS AGAINST GIRLS

  THE GIRLS' REVENGE

  A TRAITOR AMONG THE BOYS

  A SPY AMONG THE GIRLS

  DELL YEARLING BOOKS are designed especially to entertain and enlighten young people. Patricia Reilly Giff, consultant to this series, received her bachelor's degree from Marymount College and a master's degree in history from St. John's University. She holds a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University. She was a teacher and reading consultant for many years, and is the author of numerous books for young readers.

  To Eric Horwitz

  Contents

  One: Big News

  Two: Home Decorating

  Three: Bill and Danny and Steve and Tony and Doug

  Four: Pleased to Meet You

  Five: The Plan

  Six: March Twenty-second

  Seven: In the Moonlight

  Eight: A Small Suspicion

  Nine: Trouble

  Ten: A Ghostly Gathering

  Eleven: What Next?

  Twelve: Getting Ready

  Thirteen: In the Loft

  Fourteen: 911

  Fifteen: The Great Hullabaloo

  Sixteen: Goodbye

  Cast of Characters

  The Hatford Family

  Tom Hatford Father

  Ellen Hatford Mother

  Jake and Josh Sixth-grade twins

  Wally Fourth grade

  Peter Second grade

  The Malloy Family

  Coach George Malloy Father

  Jean Malloy Mother

  Eddie Sixth grade

  Beth Fifth grade

  Caroline Fourth grade

  The Benson Family

  Coach Hal Benson Father

  Shirley Benson Mother

  Steve Seventh grade

  Tony Sixth grade

  Bill Fourth grade

  Danny Third grade

  Doug First grade

  One

  Big News

  There was still a little snow on the ground, but the West Virginia sky seemed to have more blue than it had a month before, and the wind didn't bite the way it had in the depth of winter. The best thing about March, Wally Hartford thought, was spring vacation— a whole week free of Caroline Malloy poking his back with a pencil, or tickling his neck with a ruler, or whispering “Wally” in his ear.

  “Do we still have to hang around with them even when we're on vacation next week?” he asked. He and his brothers stopped on the sidewalk in front of their house and waited for the three Malloy girls to cross the swinging bridge.

  Ever since a cougar had been spotted in the neighborhood, the Hatford boys and the Malloy girls had been told to stay together when outside. Wally's parents had been particularly concerned about their youngest, Peter, and the Malloys about their youngest, Caroline. Wally, though, was sure that if a cougar ever tried to take a bite out of Caroline, it would spit her out so fast she wouldn't even know she'd been bitten.

  “We're supposed to stay together whenever we're outside,” said Peter. “Because of the abaguchie.” Before anyone had known what the animal really was, the newspaper had referred to it as the abaguchie, and that was the way people thought of it still.

  “So we'll stay inside the whole week,” muttered Jake. Jake and Josh, the twins, were the oldest Hatfords and were in sixth grade; Wally was in fourth, and Peter in second. Peter liked being around the Malloy girls, and Josh had actually fallen for Beth—for a short time, anyway. Wally felt as though he could stand them in small doses only, but Jake couldn't stand them much at all.

  Down the hill came the girls, their hair blowing in the wind because it was warm enough now to go without caps. They started across the swinging bridge over the Buckman River, which entered town on one side of Island Avenue, looped around under the road bridge to the business district, and flowed back out the other side of the avenue.

  Trip-trap, trip-trap, trip-trap, went the girls' feet on the wooden planks. Whenever Wally heard that sound, he envisioned a troll underneath, waiting to gobble them up.

  “Hi, Josh! Hi, Jake!” said Beth. Her blond hair was all shiny from her morning shampoo. She was the prettiest one of the sisters, Wally thought. She was also the only one of either family who was in fifth grade; Eddie, her older sister, was in sixth with Jake and Josh, and Caroline was in fourth grade with Wally, even though she was a year younger than he. Caroline was precocious, whatever that meant.

  “Now that abaguchie won't get us!” Peter sang out happily as the seven kids headed for school.

  “What are you guys going to do over spring vacation?” Eddie asked. Her real name was Edith Ann, but anyone who called her that was likely to get a sock on the arm. “I'm going to be practicing for baseball tryouts.”

  Jake moaned under his breath. That was what he was planning on doing too.

  “I'm going to write a book!” declared Beth. “It's going to have chapters and everything. I'm calling it The Ghoul from the Ghostly Garage.”

  “That was me! I was the ghoul in the garage last month, right, Beth? Are you writing a book about me?” cried Caroline, hopping up and down while she walked backward, facing her sisters.

  Why was it, Wally wondered, that every time Caroline opened her mouth, she was talking about herself ?

  “No, it's not about you and it's not about last month. The ghoul is a creature entirely from my own imagination,” Beth explained.

  “I could draw the pictures for you,” Josh offered.

  “Perfect!” said Beth. Everyone knew that Josh was the best artist in the school.

  “And I could color them for you,” said Peter.

  That left Wally and Caroline.

  “I'm going to practice my voices,” said Caroline, who wanted to be an actress. She was still walking backward, and glanced around from time to time so she wouldn't bump into anything.

  “What voices are those?” laughed Jake. “Donald Duck? Mickey Mouse? Tweety Bird?”

  Caroline gave him a haughty look. “I'm going to practice reading Tom Sawyer out loud. I'll be all the characters myself—Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Becky Thatcher, Aunt Polly, Injun Joe—” Suddenly her left foot went off the curb, and she tumbled into the street.

  The boys guffawed, but Caroline was laughing too as she picked herself up. Laughing at her wasn't much fun, Wally realized, if Caroline didn't throw her usual fit.

  Once inside the school, they all headed for their own classrooms, and Wally took his assigned desk in the front row, right smack in front of Caroline.

  “Well, class,” said Miss Applebaum. “Let me tell you what I want you to do over spring vacation, so you can be thinking about it.”

  A low moan went around the room. The last thing Wally Hatford wanted to hear was that he'd have homework during vacation.

  “It's not as bad as all that,” said their teacher. “I want you to try something you have never done before, and you decide what that will be. A book you've never read, perhaps; a piece you've never tried on the piano. Maybe you'll learn to Rollerblade, or play the drums, or fly a kite, or make a cake. Be an adventurer! Try something new and tell us about it when you come back.”

  Now, that was the kind of assignment Wally liked. Smiles traveled around the room.

  “All right!” Wally said, grinning, and Miss Apple-baum smiled.

  “You sound as though you already know what you want to do, Wally,” she said.

  Sure, he thought. Eat an entire half gallon of super-fudge ice cream all by himself; stay up until one in the morning watching Batman reruns; put a muzzle on C
aroline Malloy…But what he said was, “Not really.”

  What Wally liked to do most was absolutely nothing—nothing as far as anyone else could see, that is. But a lot was going on inside his head all the while. He could be perfectly content for an hour lying on his stomach on the porch, watching ants going in and out of an anthill on the ground below. How did they know who went where? he would wonder. Did they take turns, or what? Were they all cousins?

  Or he could sit at a fogged-up window and make designs on it with his tongue. He had discovered that if he licked off little round holes in the fog and connected them in just the right way, it would look like a bear's paw print. But always, always, just when he was having the most fun, somebody would come along and say, “What are you doing, you dork?” and “Hey, Mom, Wally's sitting here licking the window!” And then he'd have to get up and act busy.

  No, if Wally had his way, he would spend spring vacation doing nothing whatsoever.

  When the boys got home from school that day, after leaving the girls at the bridge, they gathered in the kitchen as usual for a snack. They were passing around the cheese crackers and peanut butter when the phone rang. Their mother, of course. She always called from the hardware store to be sure that they'd gotten home okay, and that there wasn't an ax murderer waiting to kill them.

  “Hi, Mom,” said Wally, his mouth full of cracker. “Everyone's fine.”

  “Well, that's good, because I have some interesting news,” said Mrs. Hatford. Wally could hear customers' voices in the background, and the sound of someone pouring nails into the measuring scoop on the scales.

  “We're having pizza for dinner?” Wally guessed.

  “Better than that.”

  “Better than pizza?” Wally said. Jake, Josh, and Peter stopped chewing and began watching their brother's face. “A new car?” Wally guessed.

  “Even better than that,” said his mother. “I got a phone call from Mrs. Benson today, and they're coming to spend spring vacation in Buckman.”

  “What?” yelled Wally. “The Bensons?”

  “The Bensons!” yelled Jake and Josh.

  “They're coming back for spring vacation!” Wally told his brothers, and the kitchen erupted in cheers.

  Jake grabbed the phone out of Wally's hands. “Are they moving back here?” He held the phone away from his ear so they could all hear what their mother was saying.

  “We don't know yet. Mr. Benson is going to talk to the college about it.”

  “Are they staying with us?” yelled Josh, trying to get the phone away from Jake.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Benson are staying at a motel, but I said the boys could bunk with us.”

  More cheers.

  “I have to go. I have a customer,” Mrs. Hatford said. “Be good, and we'll talk some more when I get home.”

  But there was already a parade in progress. Jake went marching around the kitchen like a prizefighter, fists in the air, and Peter followed, banging a knife against the peanut butter jar. Josh did a little dance of joy, and Wally just stood there, a silly grin on his face.

  It was because Coach Benson had taken a one-year exchange position down in Georgia, moving his family there with him, that the Malloys had come here in the first place. Coach Malloy had taken over Mr. Benson's job for a year and moved his family—his wife and three daughters—to Buckman, replacing the best friends the Hatfords had ever had.

  “Now the guys will get to see what the Whomper, the Weirdo, and the Crazie are really like,” said Jake, gloating. “Man, we're going to have fun! With Bill and Danny and Steve and Tony and Doug, we'll run rings around those girls!”

  “We get Steve and Tony!” said Josh, choosing the two older Benson boys. “They get to sleep in our room.”

  “I want Bill and Danny,” said Wally.

  “That leaves Doug. Dougie can sleep with you, Peter,” said Josh.

  “There will be sleeping bags all over the place!” said Wally happily.

  “And eleven people around the table at night,” said Jake.

  “We'll do all the stuff we haven't been able to do since the girls moved in,” said Wally.

  “Like what?” asked Peter.

  The room fell suddenly quiet as the Hatford boys tried to think of just what it was they missed doing since the Bensons had gone away.

  “I don't know. Just stuff,” Wally said.

  He didn't know yet what it would be, but he was absolutely sure that sometime, while the Bensons were here, he'd be able to think of something to try that he had never done before. Spring vacation was beginning to look very good indeed.

  Two

  Home Decorating

  When Caroline walked down the hill behind their house with Beth and Eddie the next day, she was thinking about the special assignment Miss Applebaum had given the class. Caroline didn't want to do just any old thing she had never done before. It had to be something great.

  Her sisters suddenly stopped before crossing the bridge.

  “What's wrong?” Caroline asked.

  “Get a look at them!” Eddie exclaimed.

  Caroline's gaze followed her sister's, across the river to where the Hatford boys were waiting for them on the other side, their faces stretched into wide, toothy grins.

  “They look like they did when they brought a worm over on Thanksgiving and passed it around the table with the turkey,” said Beth.

  “They look like they did when we had that snowball fight last winter,” said Eddie.

  But Caroline thought the Hatford boys looked like they did when they'd tried to toss her in the river, or locked her in the toolshed, or cornered her by the fence in their backyard.

  “Well, whatever they're up to, they're just dying to tell us about it, so we might as well get it over with,” said Beth. The girls started across the swinging footbridge.

  “Guess what?” chortled Jake as soon as they reached the other side.

  “I can't imagine,” said Eddie. “You're going to move away, I hope? Leave Buckman?”

  “Ha! Don't you wish!” said Jake.

  “The Bensons are coming back!” said Josh.

  “For spring vacation!” said Wally. “They're going to stay with us!”

  “And we're going to run rings around you!” boasted Peter, parroting his brothers.

  Eddie's eyes narrowed and her upper lip began to curl. “Oh, you are, are you? You and who else?”

  “All five Benson brothers, that's who!” said Wally. “Bill, Danny, Steve, Tony, and Doug!”

  “Ha!” scoffed Eddie.

  “We're so impressed!” Caroline hooted. “I can't wait to meet the mighty Bensons! They're all you guys ever talk about,” said Beth as they trooped off toward the school. The older ones made sure that Peter, as the youngest, was walking in front of them— in case the cougar was lurking nearby, waiting to grab the smallest, weakest one of the bunch.

  “Well, wait till they get here. We used to have more fun than a barrel of monkeys when they were around,” said Jake.

  “More fun than howling outside our windows when our folks were away?” asked Caroline.

  “More fun than wolfing down the pumpkin chiffon pie Mom sent over for your mother?” asked Beth.

  “More fun than demolishing our snow fort out on the river?” asked Eddie. “So, what are you going to do with your Benson buddies? Run the town?”

  “Lots of stuff,” said Wally.

  “Name one thing you can do with them that you can't do with us,” said Beth.

  “Uh… just stuff!” said Jake.

  “Ha!” said Eddie again.

  After the girls got home that afternoon, they told their mother that the Bensons were coming back for spring vacation.

  “Oh, dear!” she said. “I hope they don't want to see inside the house. I really haven't had time to clean it properly the past couple of weeks.”

  Caroline took off her jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. “Why would they want to see inside the house?” she asked.

  “
Because it's their house. We're only renting it, remember? Maybe they'll want to be sure we're taking good care of it—I don't know. I suppose it would be polite to invite them over.”

  Upstairs in Beth's bedroom, Eddie looked at the racing-car wallpaper and said, “I've got a wonderful idea! Just in case they do want to snoop around up here, let's be ready.”

  “How?” asked Caroline.

  “You know what those guys are afraid of most, I'll bet? That we'll turn their bedrooms all around. Let's go out and find all the girly stuff we possibly can and put it up just for spring vacation.”

  Beth and Caroline laughed out loud.

  “Frilly lampshades!” said Beth.

  “China dolls!” said Caroline.

  “Bows and ribbons and ruffles and lace!” said Eddie. “When those guys get a glimpse of their rooms, it will be heart-attack city for sure!”

  They went back downstairs.

  “We're going downtown, Mom,” Eddie called. “Back in a little while.”

  “All right, but stay together,” Mrs. Malloy called from the dining room. “Keep Caroline between you, and make sure you're home before dark.”

  The girls put on their jackets and went down the sidewalk to the bridge connecting Island Avenue to the business district.

  Once on the other side, they passed city hall and the police department, the bank and the hardware store, and continued past the Dairy Queen. They opened the door to the wallpaper store.

  Eddie did the talking. “Do you have any leftover pieces of wallpaper we could buy that won't cost very much?” she asked the owner.

  “Well, not enough to paper a room, I'm afraid,” the man said. “Just odd pieces. What are you looking for, exactly?”

  “Something to go in a girl's bedroom,” Eddie told him.

  “Look in that barrel back there by the stockroom,” the owner said, pointing. “You're welcome to anything you find in there, at a dollar a roll.”

  The girls found the barrel with an odd assortment of wallpaper rolls sticking out the top.

  “Ballet slippers!” said Beth, unrolling one of them. It was a pale blue paper with pink ballet slippers pointed at various angles and a lavender ribbon connecting one to the other, like flowers on a vine.