“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 Ex
plorers' Club—Spy Club, we should call it— we could sneak out there and trap them.”
Twelve
Calling 911
“Holy smoke!” gasped Jake. “Did you see that?”
Even without the binoculars, Josh and Wally saw very well what had happened in Beth's bedroom.
For a moment they stared at each other in horror. Then they went tumbling down the ladder to the floor below and ran like lightning down the hill, across the bridge, and into their house.
Mother was back in the dining room, still wrapping packages, and Dad, who was a sheriff's deputy as well as a postman, had not come home yet.
The boys tore upstairs, where Josh grabbed the phone in the hallway and dialed 911.
“I want to report a murder,” he said, breathless, his sides heaving. “Over on Island Avenue… the Ben-sons' house…I mean, where the Malloys are now. In an upstairs bedroom.” And then he hung up.
From downstairs they could still hear the Bugs Bunny tape Peter was watching on the VCR. Then Mother's footsteps sounded in the hall below.
“Boys?” she called.
“Yeah?” answered Jake, still breathless.
“Are all three of you home?”
“Yeah …”
A pause. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah, we were just having a race,” said Wally.
“Okay. If any of you have homework tonight, you'd better get at it,” Mother said.
The boys went into the twins' bedroom and shut the door. Then they sat down on the two beds and looked at each other.
“Maybe Caroline didn't kill her. Maybe she only knocked her out,” Josh ventured.
“Well, if she didn't kill her, she sure meant to,” breathed Wally. They didn't call Caroline the Crazie for nothing, but they hadn't figured she was that crazy.
“Think we should have told Coach Malloy instead?” asked Jake after a minute.
“What if he tried to cover up? Say Beth fell and hit her head or something. I mean, wouldn't it be natural?” said Josh.
“Man! I never thought I'd see a real murder!” said Wally. He could still feel his heart racing. “Do you suppose Caroline will confess?”
“No. She'll lie,” said Josh. “But if there's a trial, and she does lie, we'll be witnesses.”
“You didn't tell the police who you were,” Wally reminded him.
“I'm not dumb. I don't want them to think we had anything to do with it. Don't tell Mom, either.”
“Let's sneak back over and see what happens,” said Jake.
They went downstairs again.
“Mom, we forgot something. Be right back,” Jake yelled, and they ran across the road, then over the bridge, and up the hill to a clump of bushes some distance from the Malloys' back door.
The policemen were already knocking, and just as the boys reached the bushes, they saw Coach Malloy usher them inside.
“Do you suppose he knows what happened upstairs yet?” asked Josh. “Jeez! Beth! I can't believe it!”
“I'll bet Caroline's made up some lie. She's such a good actress she'll probably get away with it too,” said Wally.
“What would make her that mad, though? I've been mad at you guys plenty of times, but I'd never hit you over the head with a hammer,” Josh mused.
They could see lights coming on upstairs, then the two policemen moving about from room to room.
“Well, they've found her by now,” said Jake. “Any minute they'll call for an ambulance.”
“Or a hearse,” said Josh.
The boys waited some more.
Much to their surprise, however, when the door opened again, the two officers came out alone. They were not leading Caroline Malloy out in handcuffs. There was no stretcher with a body on it, either. Mr. Malloy and one of the officers were, in fact, shaking hands.
“What?” said Josh, staring.
“Do you suppose Caroline hid the body?” asked Wally.
“Maybe Beth recovered, and was just dazed,” said Jake, and the boys watched dumbfounded as the squad car turned around in the clearing and headed back down Island Avenue toward the business district. The back door of the house closed, and the light on the porch went off.
“Wait a minute,” said Jake, grabbing his brothers' arms. “The light! Don't you remember? Right after Caroline hit Beth, the light went out.”
The three boys looked at each other.
“So who turned it out? Caroline wasn't anywhere near a light switch that I could see, and I had the binoculars,” said Jake.
“They knew we were watching!” gasped Josh.
“They had it all planned!” croaked Wally. “They must be in there laughing their heads off.”
Chagrined, the three boys started back down the hill toward the bridge.
“Listen,” said Jake. “We'll say we knew all the time. If they find out we made that call and start teasing us, we'll say the joke's on them. I'll bet Coach Malloy didn't think it was so funny. I'll bet he had plenty to say to Caroline.”
“Yeah, we'll get off the first shot. We'll ask them whether or not they were grounded for a week.”
The boys climbed up the bank from their end of the swinging bridge and started to cross the road. Suddenly, however, Wally grabbed Jake's arm with one hand, Josh's with the other, and pulled them to a stop.
The police car with its red-and-blue lights flashing had circled around in the business district and was coming straight down the road toward them.
Step by step, the boys moved back into the bushes until the squad car passed, but then they watched in shock as it slowed and turned into the Hatfords' driveway.
“Oh, no!” wailed Wally.
“How did they know we made the call? I never told them who I was!” said Josh.
“We're dead meat! Roadkill!” moaned Jake. To make things worse, Dad was home.
The two officers got out of the car and walked toward the Hatfords' front porch. When they rapped on the door, it sounded like a hammer pounding in Wally's ears.
It was Mom who answered. In the light from the porch, Wally could see the alarm on her face, and he knew right away she suspected the worst—that he and Jake and Josh had drowned in the river or something.
“Good evening, Ellen,” said one of the men. “Don't be alarmed. I just wondered if we could come in for a few minutes.”
“Certainly,” said Mother. And then Wally heard her call, “Tom? Harry and Joe are here from the police department. I think you'd better come down.”
The door closed.
Outside, Wally, Josh, and Jake stared at each other.
“You want to spend the night in the Bensons' garage?” asked Jake.
“How about a one-way ticket to Texas?” moaned Josh.
There had been times in Wally's life when he had thought about running away. Not that he really planned to, or even particularly wanted to. He had just heard now and then about kids actually doing it, and wondered what it would be like—how you knew where to run off to, and what you did after you got there. Now the subject hit him squarely in the face.
The officers didn't stay at the Hatford house very long. It seemed only five minutes, in fact, before the front door was opening again, the men were saying good night to Mom and Dad, and then the squad car backed out of the driveway, without the flashing lights.
Mother went back inside when the police had gone, but Dad did not. Instead he walked to the edge of the porch, cupped his hands over his mouth, and bellowed like a bull moose: “Wallace, Joshua, and Joseph! Get in here! Now !”
“You want to spend the night in the woods?” Wally whispered to his brothers.
“He'd just come looking for us,” said Josh.
“Heck, we didn't do anything wrong!” said Jake. “Let's go in. All we did was report a crime. What looked like a crime, anyway. It's the girls who should be in trouble, not us.”
They came out of the bushes as their father yelled again, crossed the road, and went up the steps to the porch, where Mr. Hatford
held the door open for them. Whenever Dad held the door open, Wally always felt like a prisoner going into his cell.
“Sit down!” their father thundered.
Peter came in from the other room, eating a Pop-Tart, and watched with wide eyes.
“Okay,” said their father. “What happened?”
“What do you mean?” asked Jake and Josh together. Wally decided not to speak unless he had to.
“What was this ‘attack’ you reported to the police?”
“What attack was that?” asked Josh.
Now Mr. Hatford was getting red in the face. “Don't play dumb with me! Why did you guys call the police and say someone was being murdered upstairs at the Malloys'?”
“Because we saw Caroline hit Beth over the head with a hammer, Dad, and Beth collapsed on the floor, that's why!” said Jake, taking the offensive.
“Wow!” said Peter.
“Didn't Mom always tell us to report a crime? We were just being good citizens,” added Josh.
Now Mom was standing in the doorway, her arms folded over her chest. “What, exactly, did you see?”
The boys described the scene in detail, Wally forgetting his vow of silence and filling in whenever a new detail was needed: how Beth was arguing with Caroline, both of them getting angry, Beth stamping her foot and turning her back on her sister, and Caroline picking up the hammer…
“We just did like you said, Mom,” Josh finished. “We got involved. We reported a crime.”
“So you saw it in detail,” said Mother.
“Absolutely,” said Jake. “As though we were right there in the room.”
“Uh-huh,” said Mother. “And where exactly were you that you could see this so well?”
Wally's heart began to sink.
“They were in the Explorers' Club!” said Peter helpfully. “Looking through the binoculars. You can see really, really good from there.”
“What?” said Dad.
“We've got permission from the Bensons to use their loft,” Jake bleated. “They signed a paper and everything. We've got squatters' rights to the loft in the garage. We can meet up there whenever we want. Mr. Malloy said it would be okay.”
“And the window of this loft faces the girls' bedrooms?” asked Mother.
The Girls' Revenge Page 6