And you know who did it? Who set off the dynamite? The guy who was yelling at us at the mine. And you know who he was? Some old man whose dog Tippy fell in that mine shaft and died down there and the guy didn't discover where he was till too late. He told the police he'd been looking for his dog for a long time and finally found where he'd fallen in. The guy was so mad that the county hadn't closed up that mine, and so worried, I guess, that some kid might fall in there someday—especially when he saw Jake and Eddie in there—that he figured he'd better do something about it himself, so he bought some dynamite and blew up the entrance. Then he took a sharp rock and scratched something on the rocky wall: This is for you, Tippy.
That was how the police found him. That, and our description of his truck. I don't know what will happen to him. The newspaper says he did the county a service—the old coal mine should have been sealed up decades ago, and this guy did it for us. But the police say you can't go around setting off explosives no matter how good your reason might be. Dad thinks the guy will probably have to pay a fine, but that's all. And the newspaper might even pay it for him, for doing a public service!
But you guys should have been here! It was a blast, in more ways than one. Right in the middle of the police chief's questioning us, a ladybug landed on Caroline's shoulder—they're still coming into the house from somewhere—and she jumped up and down and screamed. Now even the chief of police knows she's nuts.
The girls will probably be going back to Ohio tomorrow. That's when their power's supposed to come back on, according to their dad. If you don't get here soon, there won't be any time left before school starts again. If you get this e-mail, write back.
Wally (and Jake and Josh and Peter)
Twenty-one
E-mail from Georgia
Dear Wally (and Jake and Josh and Peter):
Hey, man! You guys really do get the excitement, don't you?
You know what I wish? I wish we had stayed in Buckman while the girls were there. I mean, I wish they'd been living someplace else and we could have been in on all the jokes and stuff.
All the summer sports are over down here, and we'll be leaving for Buckman tomorrow. Dad plans to drive straight through in one day, so we have to get up at five in the morning. This is the last time we can use the computer before it's packed. I sure hope our house is still the way we left it. I hope the girls haven't put ballerina wallpaper in our bedrooms. I hope that Buckman is just the way we remember it, and that the swinging bridge hasn't been washed away in a storm or anything.
What was it you always called those girls—the Whomper, the Weirdo, and the Crazie? Eddie the Whomper, because she could hit a baseball so far; Beth the Weirdo, because she read all those gross books about aliens and stuff; and Caroline the Crazie, because you never knew what she'd do next. Tell the Whomper, the Weirdo, and the Crazie goodbye for us. Tell them we'd better not find any weird stuff in our rooms. Tell them this time when they go back to Ohio, stay there. And if they can't stay there, then at least come back when we're around to help make their lives miserable.
Bill (and Tony and Danny and Steve and Doug)
Twenty-two
Goodbye! Goodbye!
The call came at seven-thirty the following night. The electricity was on again in Ohio.
“Hooray!” shouted Eddie and Beth and Caroline together, and Mrs. Malloy's face relaxed with relief and pleasure.
“We're going to leave first thing in the morning,” she told the Hatfords. “You have all been so wonderful to put up with us for five days.”
“It's been wonderful for me to come home and find dinner all prepared and the house straightened up,” said Mrs. Hatford. “And it gave us a chance to get to know each other a little better, Jean.”
“Are we really, truly leaving, Mom?” asked Caroline.
“Right after breakfast,” her mother answered. “I want you girls to pack up all your things tonight and set your bags out in the hall, ready to go. Then all
you'll need to do in the morning is put your pajamas and toothbrushes in your bags, and we're off.”
The girls did the dishes and cleared the table that evening. As soon as they were done, while the boys were watching a preseason football game on TV, Eddie whispered to her sisters, “We've got to pay a visit to the Benson place before we go.”
“How can we?” Beth asked. “The house is all cleaned up and locked, Eddie. Mom's already left the key with Mrs. Hatford.”
“We don't need a key,” said Eddie. “Just follow me.”
Were they going to get in trouble again just before they left? Caroline wondered. Hadn't their trip to the old coal mine been trouble enough?
“If we do something bad, Eddie, God will probably turn off the electricity in Ohio again, and we'll have to stay here forever,” she said.
“God wouldn't punish the whole state of Ohio just because of us,” Eddie told her. “Get a flashlight and let's go.”
Out the back door they went, being careful not to let the screen slam. They went down the steps, around the side of the house, and across the road, then started across the swinging bridge to the other side of the river.
“I'm going to be sorry to leave all this,” said Caroline in a small voice.
And she was surprised to hear Eddie say, “Me too. Ohio's going to seem so boring without the boys.”
“There are boys in Ohio, too,” said Beth, “but not as nice as Josh Hatford.”
“So what are we doing going back to the old Benson place?” asked Caroline.
“Just a little something to make sure they don't forget us,” said Eddie.
Up the hill they went until they could see the house and the old barn that was used for a garage.
“Into the garage,” said Eddie.
And once inside, she said, “Up the ladder.”
They had a lot of good memories of the loft in the old Benson barn. Who could forget the “abaguchie” they trapped in the barn, with Wally up in the loft? Or the way the girls had spied on the boys from the loft window and vice versa?
“What do we do now?” asked Beth when all three of them were on the floor above.
In answer, Eddie pulled out her Swiss Army knife and tried it out on one of the wooden rafters. It made a deep clean cut. “I just want to make sure they remember our names,” she said. “Hold the flashlight, Beth.”
Caroline clapped her hands delightedly. “Be sure to include my middle name,” she said.
The Malloys were here, Eddie carved, making slow deep cuts in the wood. Eddie, Beth, and Caroline Lenore. Then she sat back on her heels to admire her work.
“The next time the Hatfords and the Bensons crawl up here for one of their club meetings, they'll have us to remember!” said Beth.
“As though they could ever forget us!” said Caroline, taking the knife and carving an exclamation point after her name.
Eddie slipped the knife into her pocket, and the girls crawled back across the floor—through old screen doors and boxes of junk—to the ladder. Caroline went down first and walked over to the door. But when she tried to push it open, it wouldn't budge.
“Hey!” she yelled. “Someone's locked us in!”
“What?” said Eddie.
“The door won't move,” said Caroline, pushing with all her strength.
“But there wasn't any lock on that door!” said Eddie. “How could we be locked in?”
“We'll be here forever!” Caroline wailed dramatically. “No one knows we're over here, and the Bensons aren't back!”
“Can it, Caroline!” Eddie said. “Save your tears for Broadway.” And then she whispered, “I'll bet the Hatfords are right outside holding the door closed.”
She and Beth and Caroline all put their shoulders against the door and pushed. It gave a little but bounced back. There was muffled laughter from the other side.
Eddie leaned over and whispered something into Caroline's ear, and immediately Caroline began to smile. While Eddie and Beth kept pushing again
st the door, Caroline climbed back up the ladder and crawled over to the loft window, dragging a box of old hubcaps with her.
She peered out the window in the gathering dark, and sure enough, there were Jake and Josh and Wally, all laughing, all pushing hard against the garage door.
Caroline lifted the box of hubcaps to the edge of the window. She held one out.
“Look out below!” she yelled.
Wally looked up. “Hey!” he yelled as the box began to tip. “She means it!”
The three boys scattered just before a rain of hubcaps tumbled down, rolling and clanking and clunking all over the ground.
Eddie and Beth burst through the door, and they all ended up laughing as they ran after the rolling hubcaps and got them back in the box and up to the loft again.
As they walked together back down the hill to the swinging bridge, the moon full in the sky, a light breeze blowing, Caroline said to herself, Always remember this moment, because it will never come again. Caroline was full of “last moments,” because they always seemed so dramatic, something she could remember when she went onstage.
The girls packed up as their mother had said to, and set their bags outside the bedroom door. The next morning, Mrs. Malloy woke them early so that they could have breakfast with the Hatfords. The boys were sitting sleepy-eyed over their cereal at the table, and Mr. Hatford had on his postal uniform, ready to leave for work.
“I'm going to miss finding you here when I get home from work each day,” Mrs. Hatford told them.
“It was nice having girls around the house for a change.” She ignored the groans from the boys.
“But you won't miss having four extra people lined up for the bathroom, and clothes all over the place,” Mrs. Malloy told her. “Now you can have your house back the way it was, and I can't tell you how grateful I am that you let us stay.”
Mr. Hatford carried their bags and suitcases out to the car before he told them goodbye. Then he got in his own car and drove off. The girls stood facing the boys on the driveway, all of them feeling awkward and wishing the moment was over.
“Goodbye, Ellen. You're a jewel,” Mrs. Malloy said, hugging the boys' mother.
“Goodbye, Jean. Have a safe trip,” said Mrs. Hatford.
There was no hugging the boys, of course—except Peter. Each girl hugged him hard.
“I don't want you to go,” he said in his little-boy voice.
“Well, you still have some of those cookies we baked,” Beth said. “I put extra chocolate chips in them, just for you.”
Eddie looked at the boys. “Goodbye, guys. Have a crummy year,” she said, laughing.
“Goodbye,” said Jake, grinning. “Hope you flunk seventh grade.”
The mothers looked helplessly at each other. “Where did we fail?” Mrs. Malloy said, laughing.
“Goodbye, Wally,” said Caroline. “Look for my name on Broadway.”
“Sure, when the Mississippi River runs dry,” said Wally.
The girls climbed into the car, and Mrs. Malloy got into the driver's seat.
“All we need now is for the car not to start and to have to spend another week with the Hatfords while it's fixed,” said Beth.
But the car did start, and soon it was backing down the drive. The girls waved. The boys waved. Caroline pressed her nose against the window and watched as the boys disappeared, the house disappeared, and the swinging bridge disappeared. In just a few minutes, she and her mother and sisters were out of town.
“Okay, boys,” Mrs. Hatford said. “Go back upstairs and air out your sleeping bags. Pick up all your clothes and put them either back in your drawers or in the hamper.”
The boys usually hated the job of straightening up, but Wally was so eager to get his room all to himself again, and the twins were so eager to get their own bedroom back, that they went straight upstairs to gather their stuff.
Jake and Josh took their sleeping bags out on the back porch and unzipped them, then flopped them over the railing.
“Hey!” yelped Jake. “There are ladybugs in mine!”
“Mine too!” cried Josh as bugs began flying in all directions.
Two notes fluttered to the ground, one from each bag. Wally, who had heard the twins' yells, came running out on the steps and picked one up.
‘A little something to remember us by,’ ” he read aloud.
Josh read the other: “ ‘The Whomper, the Weirdo, and the Crazie.’ ”
“Caroline, will you please stop wailing!” said her mother from the driver's seat. “I can't listen to that all the way to Ohio.”
“Yeah, Caroline, get a grip,” said Eddie.
“This was the most exciting year of my life and it will never come again,” Caroline said, weeping. “We didn't even get their e-mail addresses. We may never hear from them again.”
“That would be so bad?” said Eddie.
“We can always call, you know,” said Beth.
Caroline unzipped her backpack and pulled out a tissue to blow her nose. Then she screamed.
“Now what?” said her mother.
“Ladybugs!” cried Caroline. “My backpack's full of them! And here's a note!”
Beth snatched it from her hand and read it to the others: “ ‘Thought you'd like something from Buckman to take along with you. Have a good trip. Jake and Josh, Wally and Peter.’ ”
Now, you tell me: who won the war?
About the Author
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is often asked how she got her ideas for these boy-girl battle books. With this, her last book in the series, here is the answer: “I was waiting to speak to a large group of students, and as they noisily entered the gym, one of the teachers yelled, ‘If you don't quiet down, I'm going to seat you boy-girl-boy-girl.’ ” Instantly, she says, there was a hush over the crowd, and she thought, Yes! There's an idea for a new series—the rivalry and teasing between boys and girls.
She has had a lot of fun writing these books: 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; The Boys Return; The Girls Take Over; Boys in Control; Girls Rule!; Boys Rock!; and Who Won the War? Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is the author of more than 125 books, including the Newbery Awardwinning Shiloh. She and her husband live in Bethesda, Maryland. They are the parents of two grown sons and the grandparents of Sophia, Tressa, and Garrett Riley.
Read all about the Hatford boys and the Malloy girls.
The Boys Start the War
Just when the Hatford brothers are expecting three boys to move into the house across the river where their best friends used to live, the Malloy girls arrive instead. Wally and his brothers decide to make Caroline and her sisters so miserable that they'll want to go back to Ohio, but they haven't counted on the ingenuity of the girls. From dead fish to dead bodies, floating cakes to floating heads, the pranks continue—first by the boys, then by the girls— until someone is taken prisoner!
The Girls Get Even
Still smarting from the boys' latest trick, the girls are determined to get even. Caroline is thrilled to play the part of Goblin Queen in the school play, especially since Wally Hatford has to be her footman. The boys, however, have a creepy plan for Halloween night. They're certain the girls will walk right into their trap. Little do the boys know what the Malloy sisters have in store.
Boys Against Girls
Abaguchie mania! Caroline Malloy shivers happily when her on-again, off-again enemy Wally Hatford tells her that the remains of a strange animal known as the abaguchie have been spotted in their area. Wally swears Caroline to secrecy and warns her not to search by herself. But Caroline will do anything to find the secret of the bones and finds out the hard way that she should have listened.
The Girls' Revenge
Christmas is coming, but Caroline Malloy and Wally Hatford aren't singing carols around the tree. Instead, these sworn enemies must interview each other for the dreaded December class project. Caroline, as usual, has a t
rick up her sleeve that's sure to shock Wally. In the meantime, Wally and his brothers find a way to spy on the Malloy girls at home. The girls vow to get revenge on those sneaky Hatfords with a trap the boys won't soon forget.
A Traitor Among the Boys
The Hatford boys make a New Year's resolution to treat the Malloy girls like sisters. But who says you can't play tricks on sisters? The girls will need to stay one step ahead of the boys and are willing to pay big-time for advance information. Homemade cookies should be all it takes to make a traitor spill the beans. In the meantime, Caroline is delighted with her role in the town play. Don't ask how Beth, Josh, and Wally get roped into it—just wait until showtime, when Caroline pulls her wildest stunt yet!
A Spy Among the Girls
Valentine's Day is coming up, and love is in the air for Beth Malloy and Josh Hatford. When they're spotted holding hands, Josh tells his teasing brothers that he's simply spying on the girls to see what they're plotting next. At the same time, Caroline Malloy, the family actress, decides she must know what it's like to fall in love. Poor Wally Hatford is in for it when she chooses him as the object of her affection!
The Boys Return
It's spring break, and the only assignment Wally Hatford and Caroline Malloy have is to do something they've never done before. Wally's sure that will be a cinch, because the mighty Benson brothers are coming. It will be nonstop action all the way. For starters, the nine Benson and Hatford boys plan to scare the three Malloy sisters silly by convincing them that their house is haunted. Meanwhile, everyone in town has heard that there's a hungry cougar on the prowl. When the kids decide to take a break from their tricks and join forces to catch the cougar, guess who gets stuck with the scariest job?
Who Won the War? Page 10