“Ha!” said Jake. “That's easy to fix.”
“How? I've got to do this, Jake! I can't say no. If we don't do our December projects, we practically flunk fourth grade!”
“So do it,” said Jake. “If you have to be her for a day, she has to be you, doesn't she?” Jake was beginning to grin.
“Yes,” said Wally.
“She has to do whatever you tell her you'd be doing?” added Josh.
“Yes…,” said Wally. And then the light began to dawn. It was a wonderful thought. A wonderful, terrible thought. He would tell Caroline Malloy that he loved to do something he knew she would hate. That he loved to eat things that would gross her out. Wally began to smile.
It made him feel a little bad, because Caroline had been especially nice to him lately. But what if there was a January project and a February project, and Caroline chose him for a partner every time? If the Malloys didn't go back to Ohio at the end of the summer, there might be fifth- and sixth-grade projects as well, and then she'd follow him into junior high school and high school and…
“Only nine more months and the Bensons come back,” said Jake, saying what they all were thinking.
“We hope,” added Josh. But strangely, Wally noticed, he didn't sound all that eager.
Three
The Promise
“You look awfully smug,” Beth said to Caroline at dinner that evening.
“I do?” Caroline looked innocently around the table. “I was thinking about school, actually. I'm doing a special project with Wally Hatford.”
“Well, that's a change!” said Mother. “I'm glad to see you getting along with the Hatfords, dear. They seem like such nice people.”
Eddie put one hand over her mouth and gagged, but Caroline was surprised to hear Beth say, “I think Josh is the nicest. You should see his paintings, Mother. One hall at school is decorated with student paintings, and four of them were done by Josh.”
“Airplanes, mostly,” said Eddie. “Airplanes and horses and cars.”
“But they're good!” said Beth.
“My, haven't we changed!” said Eddie.
Eddie too, however, seemed to have other things on her mind besides teasing the boys. Though she had never been advanced a grade as Caroline had, she was considered the brain of the family, and she often had other things on her mind besides softball. “I think I've decided what I want to do when I'm grown,” she announced, examining a stalk of broccoli before she popped it into her mouth.
Father looked up, fork poised. “Yes?” he said.
“Sports medicine. Treat athletes.”
“Ouch!” said Coach Malloy.
“What?” asked Eddie.
“That was my wallet groaning,” said Dad. “A sports doctor means medical school, you know.”
“I know,” said Eddie. “But I think I'd be good at it. I'm good in science.”
“You would be good at it, Eddie, and if that's what you want, we'll see you through school,” her father told her.
“I think that would be a wonderful career for you,” Mother said, looking at Eddie admiringly.
Caroline pushed her meat loaf from one side of her plate to the other. There went her dream of a Malloy movie studio. But she could still be a stage actress.
“Well, I know what I want to be too,” she told her parents. “An actress on Broadway.”
“Caroline, you're always onstage, twenty-four hours a day,” said her father. “You can't even tie your shoes without making a production of it.”
Caroline wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not. Miss Applebaum, though, had said that writing was only part of being a writer—the rest was observing and listening. Maybe the same was true of an actress. You were always practicing, making a story out of the everyday things that happened to you.
“When do you have to decide what you want to be?” asked Beth. “I haven't the slightest idea what I'll do.”
“Hopefully, before you're through college,” her father said.
Caroline curled up in a chair in the living room after dinner and wrote out a list of questions she was going to ask Wally. She was certainly being friendly enough to him—even choosing him for her partner. He would just have to open any present she gave him!
What is your favorite food?
What is your favorite game?
What is your favorite TV show?
What kind of books do you like to read?
What time do you go to bed?
What time do you get up?
She was thinking about what she would put in her report. Then she started thinking about how she would give the report. That was even better. Whenever Caroline had to stand up in front of the class and read something, it was her favorite time of day. And for the second time that week, she had a wonderful idea. An awful idea. A wonderful, awful idea, and she gave up all thought of being kind to Wally. This idea was too good to let go.
If she could slip into the rest room just before it was time to give her report and actually put on Wally's clothes, she would get an A+++ on her report. How could Miss Applebaum not give her the best grade in class? She would even look like Wally. But she knew as sure as she had eyes in her head that Wally would never lend her any of his clothes.
That Saturday, Caroline went to the five-and-dime to buy some socks and saw seven-year-old Peter. He was standing at the Matchbox car display case, turning it around and around and saying to himself, “I've got that one… don't have that one…I've got that one… don't have that one…”
“Hi, Peter,” she said.
“Hi, Caroline,” said Peter, and he gave her a big smile, showing a missing tooth on both the top and the bottom. He was on the short side, a little chubby, and had an adorable smile.
“How many Matchbox cars do you have?” she asked him, her mind racing on ahead of her.
“Seventeen,” Peter said.
“If you could have any car you wanted, which one would you choose?”
Peter slowly turned the display case some more until he came to a red double-decker tour bus. “That one,” he said.
Caroline looked at the price. She mentally counted out the money she had in her bank back home, and the money she had in her pocket.
“I'll buy it for you if you'll make a deal,” Caroline said.
Peter's eyes opened wide.
“Come on down the street with me to the drugstore and we'll talk about it over a fudge sundae,” Caroline told him.
“O-kay!” said Peter, smiling even wider.
“A hot fudge sundae,” Caroline said as they stepped outside and into a cloud of snowflakes.
Peter skipped happily alongside her, reciting the names of the seventeen Matchbox cars in his collection. At the drugstore they took a booth, and Caroline ordered one sundae and two spoons.
“Now listen carefully, Peter,” she said. “Because if I'm going to buy you that double-decker bus, you've got to do something for me, and you've got to keep it secret. That's the important part.”
Peter looked a little worried. “Is it bad? Will I get in trouble?”
“I don't think it's bad, and if it's not bad, I don't see how you can get in trouble,” Caroline told him.
The sundae came with a little pitcher of thick hot fudge sauce to pour over it, and they took turns with their spoons. Caroline even let Peter have the first bite.
“First of all,” said Caroline, “you've got to prom-ise—cross your heart and hope to die, Peter—that you won't tell anybody until it's over. Then you can tell the whole world. But for now you have to keep it secret.”
Peter paused, then looked at the big spoonful of chocolate he was digging up, and nodded.
“Okay, here's the deal. Wally and I are partners in a project at school, and we have to sort of be each other for a day.”
“I know,” said Peter. “He already told me. Only he doesn't want to wear your clothes.”
“I wouldn't want him to, but I want to wear his. Just for one day. And it's got to b
e a surprise, so what I want you to do, without telling anyone, is to bring me a set of Wally's clothes—shirt, pants, socks, shoes, cap—that I can wear just long enough to give my report at school, and then I'll give them back. But you can't let anyone see you take them, or tell anybody what you've done until it's over. If you do, you don't get the double-decker bus.”
“Wally'll be mad,” said Peter.
“It's only for a little while. You won't want to take his best clothes, though, because he'd miss them. Bring me stuff he doesn't wear too often. You can give them to me a little at a time if you like, but I've got to have them by next week. And as soon as I have a whole set to wear, I'll go back to the five-and-dime and buy you that bus. Deal?”
“Deal,” said Peter.
“Shake?” Caroline put out her hand.
“Shake,” said Peter.
Caroline slid the dish over to Peter's side of the table and let him finish the sundae. Actresses had to do all kinds of things to get the right part, she thought.
She imagined going to school with Wally's clothes in a paper bag. She imagined slipping off to the rest room just before she gave her report. She imagined Wally Hatford's face when she stood up in front of the class wearing his shirt, his pants, his socks, his shoes.
Caroline was smiling. She couldn't help it.
“ ‘ ’Tis the season to be jolly…!' ” she sang as she made her way back home.
Four
Phone Call
Wally was making up a list of things to ask Caroline. The problem was, he was finding out more about her than he wanted to know. He didn't really care what her favorite foods were or whether she liked mysteries more than science fiction. But he had to fill up at least two pages, according to Miss Applebaum, so he continued to write:
What's the latest time you ever went to bed? Have you ever broken any bones?
Which do you hate most—going to the dentist or
throwing up?
Wally lay on his stomach with a pencil and a pad of paper. He caught some movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked over to see Peter picking something up from the floor and stuffing it into his pocket.
“What are you doing with my underpants?” Wally asked, rising up on one elbow.
Peter paused, like a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Oh!” he said. “Are these your underpants?”
“They were on my floor, weren't they? Yours have Batman all over them, mine are plain. Put them back.”
Wally went on writing on his notepad: Did you ever find any shark's teeth?
This time he heard a noise behind him. Wally turned to see Peter trying to sneak a pair of socks out of his drawer.
“What are you doing? Put them back!” he insisted.
“I—I just wanted to see if you had any of my socks,” said Peter.
“What do you mean? Why would I have your socks? Get out of here!” Wally said. Jeez, what a weird brother!
Peter left.
From his bedroom window, Wally could see the Buckman River, which looped around the end of Island Avenue and came flowing back again on the other side. A road bridge linked the people on Island Avenue with downtown, but there was an old swinging bridge near the Hatfords' place that provided a shortcut for pedestrians. It was across this bridge that the Malloy girls walked to school every morning, and it was this bridge that the Hatford boys used to cross when the Bensons lived in the big house where the Malloys were now.
Wally liked Buckman. He liked the city hall, Mur-phy's Five and Dime, Larkin's Pharmacy with its soda fountain and marble-topped tables, Oldakers' Bookstore with the trapdoor leading to the cellar. He liked the river and the swinging bridge. He liked the way things used to be when the Bensons were here.
If the Bensons lived here now, Wally Hatford wouldn't be lying on his bed on a Saturday morning thinking up questions to ask a girl. First of all, he and Bill Benson would be project partners. He and his brothers and the five Benson brothers might be downstairs at the dining room table starting a game of Monopoly that would last all day. They might be setting out to hike along the river or explore Smuggler's Cove. They might be looking for Indian arrowheads up in the meadow or fooling around the old coal mine.
“Put nine boys together, and they can always think up something to do,” Mom used to say.
“Put nine boys together, and you've got a baseball team,” Dad had answered.
Now, half the team was down in Georgia, and Eddie Malloy, across the river, was determined to make the Buckman Elementary School softball team come spring.
Wally sighed and rolled over on his back. He'd better get this job finished fast because he still had Christmas presents to buy for the family, and he hadn't even started. Right this very minute Josh was across the hall painting a picture for Mom from an old photograph of a windmill. Mom loved handmade presents. But what was Wally doing? Trying to guess how far the beam of sunlight on the opposite wall would travel before the sun disappeared over the roof.
The phone rang downstairs. Mom was working at the hardware store, and Dad was delivering mail, so Wally was about to get up and answer when he heard Josh come out of his room and pick up the receiver.
“Hello?…Hey! How you doin'?” Josh said. “Jake! Wally! It's the Bensons! They're calling from Georgia. Get on the other phone, you guys.”
There were only two phones in the house, so Wally had to share the upstairs phone with Josh while Jake and Peter picked up the telephone downstairs.
“We were just wondering if it had snowed yet up there,” Bill Benson said. “Man, that's one thing we're going to miss this Christmas. Snow.”
Wally and Josh gave each other a high five. It was the first time since the Bensons had moved away that they'd really sounded as though they were missing Buckman. All they'd talked about so far was all the fun things they were doing in their new town, and about Danny's teacher, whom they called a “Georgia peach.”
“It hasn't snowed much yet, but it feels like it's going to,” Jake said from downstairs.
“Yeah, you guys come back here when it snows and we'll have the biggest snowball fight in history,” said Wally into the phone.
They talked a few minutes about school, and then one of the Benson boys asked, “So how are those weirdos over at our place?”
“Weird as ever,” said Jake. “I don't know, they've been sort of quiet lately. I'm not sure what they're up to.”
“You ought to rig up some way to spy on them,” Tony Benson said. “You know that window up in the loft of our old garage? Remember when we used to hold club meetings up there? You could see right into our upstairs windows.”
“Yeah, but how do we walk into your garage now and say we want to use the loft?” asked Josh.
“Easy,” said Bill Benson. “Just say… say that when we moved we gave you guys rights to hold club meetings there.”
“How can we do that?” asked Wally.
“Haven't you ever heard of squatters' rights? It means when somebody has been using property for a long time, whether he owns it or not, if nobody has kicked him out, then he has certain rights to it. Tell them the club is still going on, and you guys want to keep meeting in the same place. Then take your binoculars up there and see what the girls are up to.”
Josh began to grin, but Wally felt a little sick. He wanted less to do with the Malloy sisters, not more.
“Besides,” said Steve Benson, “Coach and Mrs. Malloy won't care. What do they use the loft for? Nothing, I'll bet.”
“But… but what kind of a club are we supposed to say it is?” asked Wally. “We never even had a name for it.”
“A pizza club,” Peter suggested. “We could crawl up there and eat pizza.”
“Don't be dumb,” Wally heard Jake say from downstairs. “We could eat pizza at home. It should be something we do outside.”
“What about an astronomy club?” asked another Benson. “You could be studying the stars from the loft window.”
“Huh-uh,” said J
ake. “We could climb up on our own roof to do that.”
He was right, Wally thought. The Hatford house had a tiny little porch on top, called a widow's walk, that you reached through a trapdoor in the attic ceiling. Widows' walks used to be built on old houses near the sea, so that wives could go up there and look for their husbands' ships returning home, only sometimes the ships never made it, and then the wives became widows. Why someone built a widow's walk overlooking the Buckman River, where the water at its deepest was six feet, Wally never did understand.
“I know!” Josh said finally. “Let's call it the Explorers' Club. That could be almost anything.”
“Yeah,” said Peter. “We're explorers.”
“Why don't you guys send us something official-looking to show to the weirdos, to prove we get to use the loft?” said Jake.
“All right,” Bill promised. “I'll type it up on the computer and send it by e-mail.”
When the Bensons hung up, Wally and Josh went downstairs, and all four boys rummaged about the kitchen looking for crackers and peanut butter. Josh and Jake were as long and lean as pretzel sticks, but still they were always hungry. They talked some about Christmas, and Wally was dismayed to discover that Jake had been working on a present too: He had bought a little plastic cabinet with tiny drawers in it for Dad, and was going to sort out all Dad's nuts and bolts and screws and nails and fill up the drawers. It was something Bill Benson had once given his father for Christmas.
“Man, I miss the Bensons,” Jake said, smearing one of the crackers heavily with peanut butter and popping it into his mouth. “I sure wish they'd move back.”
There was quiet around the table for a minute or two, broken only by the sound of munching.
“Think of all the fun we could have if the Bensons came back and we teased the Malloy girls together!” Josh suggested.
“If the Bensons come back, the Malloys go back to Ohio, remember?” said Wally.
“Maybe they won't. Maybe the Bensons will come back and the Malloys will decide to stay too, just move to another house,” said Josh.
“Yeah!” said Peter. “Then we could all live in Buckman.”