Peter sounded a little too eager, Wally thought. Living in the same town as the Malloy sisters was like having cats and dogs in the same pen. It was like trying to mix oil and water. It just didn't work.
Five
Company
So far, all Caroline had managed to get from Peter was one of Wally's old T-shirts with BUCKMAN EXXON on it in red-and-blue letters. She would rather have had a T-shirt with the word WALLY across the front, but Wally wore the Exxon shirt so much that everyone would know it was his when she put it on. Of course, she had to wash it first. It smelled like sweat and peanut butter.
“Keep trying,” she told Peter. “You don't get the double-decker Matchbox bus till I get his shoes and pants too.”
At school, when the first reports were being read in class, Miss Applebaum did not seem especially pleased with them.
“Students, listen,” she said. “A good interviewer does not just ask yes-or-no questions. The inter-viewer's job is to get a person talking about things that interest him. If he says he doesn't like school or he doesn't like sports, ask why. If he says history is his favorite subject, ask why. A one-word answer means that the question wasn't any good.”
Caroline saw Wally Hatford's shoulders rise in despair and heard a small sigh come from his chest. They had already agreed to meet at the library on Saturday and interview each other across a reading table. She smiled to herself. No matter what Wally did, her report would be better than his because she would be standing in front of the class wearing his clothes!
Meanwhile, Christmas lights were coming on all over Buckman. Christmas bells and greenery decorated all the lampposts on Main Street. Oldakers' Bookstore had Christmas picture books and teddy bears in the window. The five-and-dime had a display of Christmas ornaments, and the hardware store was featuring sleds and snow saucers.
Mrs. Malloy came home one afternoon with some blue crinkle ribbon and a huge roll of wrapping paper decorated with blue-and-gold angels.
“I found these on sale at the hardware store,” she said. “You hardly ever find Christmas wrap on sale before Christmas, but Mrs. Hatford told me about it when I went in to buy a tree stand. We could wrap all our presents in angel paper this year.”
“I need to get my secretary a present,” Coach Malloy told her. “If you get any ideas, let me know. I haven't known her long enough to guess what she likes.”
“What I would like for Christmas is to go back to Ohio,” said Eddie. “There isn't any girls' softball team here, and if I don't make the boys' team next spring, I won't be playing at all.”
“Well, don't give up yet,” said her father. “When they see how you can hit, Eddie, I have a feeling they'll take you on.”
“And I haven't heard anything about a science fair, either,” Eddie continued. “I had a special experiment I wanted to do this time on photosynthesis.”
“Just wait and see what happens,” said Mother. “The school year isn't even half over.”
“Are we going to invite the Hatfords for Christmas dinner?” asked Beth.
Mrs. Malloy looked surprised. “Why, no, I hadn't planned on it. Why? Do you think I should?”
Beth shrugged. “I don't know. They invited us for Thanksgiving. I thought maybe we'd be inviting them for Christmas.”
Caroline gave her sister an Are you crazy? look. The Hatfords? Here? At Christmas?
“Well, maybe I could invite them over for cookies and punch one evening during Christmas week,” Mother continued. “There's just so much going on, though—the college is having a faculty party and there are all the Christmas concerts…”
Caroline thought of the gross-me-out present she was preparing for Wally. She still didn't know what it would be, but she knew it would be awful. Having the Hatfords there at Christmas was not a good idea.
“I don't think we need to do that, Mother,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Eddie. “Let's just send them a card.”
“Well, we'll see,” Mother replied.
Saturday came, and Caroline put on her parka, picked up her notebook, and walked to the library. As she was going up the steps, she could see that Wally was there ahead of her. He was standing just inside the door with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, looking around uncomfortably.
Caroline could not resist. She softly pushed the door open, stepped up behind Wally, and poked him in the back with the corner of her notebook.
Wally wheeled around.
“Hi,” she said. “You want to sit down at a table over there and ask each other our questions?” He nodded, so she led the way to a table in the corner. She took off her parka and gloves, but Wally left his on and sat in the chair sideways, as though ready to bolt from the room at any minute.
“You want to ask yours first, or what?” said Caroline.
“I don't care,” said Wally.
Caroline tried to be as polite as possible. “Okay, you first,” she told him, and leaned back with her hands in her lap.
Wally reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper folded into eight sections. He slowly unfolded it, cleared his throat, scratched his head, and said, “Would you rather go to the dentist or throw up?”
Good grief, thought Caroline, as the minutes ticked by. How was he supposed to be her for a day if he didn't ask any better questions than that? Maybe that was the point, she decided. He didn't want to do anything different at all, so he was careful about what he asked.
But when it was her turn to interview Wally, Caroline got the shock of her life.
“What's your favorite food?” she asked.
“Parsnips and chicken livers,” Wally said, and Caroline was sure he was trying not to laugh.
“Favorite book?” she asked.
“The History of Military Strategy in the United States in the Eighteenth Century,” he told her. He must have seen that title on a library shelf, Caroline decided, the most boring book he could find, just so she'd have to read it.
Favorite music? Violin concertos.
Favorite TV program? Wall Street Week.
Caroline didn't think she could stand it.
“You're making this up just so I'll have to do it!” she said.
“How do you know? You don't live at my house,” Wally told her.
“Wally, you've never read a book like that in your life!” Caroline protested.
“I love military strategy,” he said, grinning.
Caroline tried hard to keep her temper, but they could never be friends in a million years, she decided. She and Wally Hatford just didn't mix.
The following day, the Malloys were enjoying a Sunday afternoon at home. Beth and Eddie were in the kitchen helping Mother bake Christmas cookies; Coach Malloy, who taught chemistry too, was grading papers on one side of the dining room table; Caroline was on the other side writing up her report.
The doorbell rang.
“Somebody else will have to get that,” Mother called from the kitchen. “We're just taking a batch of cookies out of the oven.”
“I'll get it,” said Caroline's father.
He put down his pen and walked to the front door.
“Well, hello there,” Caroline heard him say. “Come in!”
She looked up to see the four Hatford brothers walk into the hallway. Jake was holding a piece of paper, and Caroline thought they looked somewhat nervous.
“Who is it?” called Mother.
“The Hatford boys,” said the coach.
At that, Beth and Eddie emerged from the kitchen. Beth still had a hot pad in her hand.
“Well, I have some cookies for them,” Mother called. “Tell them to have a seat.”
“Sit down! Sit down!” said Caroline's father.
In the dining room, Caroline put down her pencil and watched. Now what was all this about? she wondered.
“We can't stay very long,” said Josh.
“We're always glad to have you visit,” said Coach Malloy. “Beth? Eddie? You girls and Caroline come in here and say
hello. We've got company.”
Eddie came into the living room and stood leaning against the doorway. Beth put down the hot pad and sat on the hassock next to the fireplace. Caroline stayed right where she was because she could see the whole room.
“We just thought maybe we ought to show you this paper we got from the Bensons,” Josh said. “I mean, to make it official and everything.”
“What's this?” asked Coach Malloy. He pulled his glasses back out of his pocket and stuck them on again.
“Well, your garage used to be our clubhouse. I mean, we were up there in the loft a lot before the Bensons moved to Georgia,” Jake tried to explain.
“Yeah. The Explorers' Club!” put in Peter.
“And…we'd like to keep on meeting there, if it's okay with you,” said Josh.
“Squatters' rights,” said Wally.
Coach Malloy took the paper and looked it over. He smiled just a little.
“Squatters' rights, huh?” he said. “All you want to do is meet in the garage? Well, I certainly have no objection to that, boys. And if you ever want to wash my car while you're in there, go right ahead.”
“Wait a minute!” said Eddie. “Those guys are going to be up there in our loft?”
“The Bensons' loft,” Jake corrected.
“We're explorers,” said Peter importantly.
“Yeah, and I'm the tooth fairy,” said Eddie. “Dad, you don't know what you're doing! Trust me!”
But Coach Malloy only laughed, and invited the boys to have a snack.
Six
Class Report
“Did you see the look on Eddie's face when her dad said we could meet in their loft?” Jake chortled as the boys went back across the swinging bridge, their pockets full of Christmas cookies. “She would have clobbered us if she could.”
Jake was usually the mastermind behind whatever plot the Hatfords hatched. He had been the first of the twins to be born, and he “just seemed to go right on leading the way,” Mother always said.
Josh was quieter. Where Jake liked to be doing something, Josh liked to make things. There wasn't another person in the whole family who could draw a straight line, but Josh had enough talent to make up for it.
The bridge swayed and bounced with every step they took. Peter was the only one who still held on to the cable handrail as he crossed.
“Yeah, Caroline freaked out too,” said Wally. “Did you see the way she put her head down on the table?”
“They make good cookies, though,” said Peter, chewing noisily.
The only one who hadn't said anything so far was Josh, and when they reached the other side of the river, he said, “Beth didn't seem to mind much.”
“She didn't?” asked Wally. “She wants us to spy on her?”
“She doesn't even know we're going to spy,” said Josh. “She just… didn't seem too surprised, I guess. I don't know. I think she's nicer than Eddie or Caroline.”
“How do you figure that?” asked Jake.
“She just is. She doesn't yell at us like Eddie does.”
“She's prettier, too!” put in Peter.
“Ha! You turn your back on any one of those girls and no telling what would happen,” said Jake. “At least this way we'll be able to see what they're up to.”
When they got home, their father was putting up the Christmas tree, and suddenly the Malloy girls were forgotten. Everybody had a turn saying whether the tree should lean a little more to the left or the right, and finally it was secure in its stand, its top almost touching the ceiling.
“You guys bring down the ornaments from the attic, now, and help your mother with the decorating,” Dad said. “With all the extra holiday mail, I'm working late every day from now till Christmas, and I'm beat.” He sprawled out in a chair and took off his shoes.
“We will,” said Josh, and the boys scrambled up the stairs to the attic.
Finally, when the living room floor was covered with boxes, Mrs. Hatford brought in a bowl of popcorn and set it on the coffee table. “I thought maybe we'd like a snack while we decorate the tree,” she said.
“Why don't we ever have cookies?” asked Peter. “The kind that look like bells and stars, and have sparkles and frosting on them?”
“Because I work at the hardware store, Peter, and I'm simply too tired to bake in the evenings,” Mother said.
“Popcorn is fine,” Wally told her, full of the Christmas spirit, and he set to work stringing the lights. In fact, he was feeling particularly good. He had managed not to ask Caroline Malloy one single question that would require him to do anything different to live as she did for one day. Get up, eat breakfast, go to school, come home—that was it.
On the other hand, she was going to have to do all kinds of dumb stuff if she did what he had told her he liked to do. Not only that, but he and his brothers got to use the Bensons' loft while they were away.
It wasn't that he hated the Malloy sisters. He didn't even dislike them, really. He just wished that Caroline would leave him alone. Caroline nice was almost as scary as Caroline mean. He just wanted them to stay on their side of the river and he would stay on his, that's all. But as long as Caroline kept poking her nose in his business, he would poke his nose in hers.
When Mother got out the little white reindeer with the red bows around their necks, she said, “I met Mrs. Malloy in the supermarket last night, and she said the strangest thing. She seemed to think I had a gourmet recipe for parsnips and chicken livers, and wondered if she could borrow it. She said Caroline needed to try it. Isn't that strange? It sounds perfectly awful to me.”
Wally, who had picked up a handful of tinsel, felt it fall through his fingers again. “What… did you tell her?” he asked.
“I said it sounded positively disgusting. That we never ate parsnips and didn't much care for chicken livers either. She said that Caroline must have misunderstood. ‘I guess she did!’ I told her. ‘The favorite food in our house is pizza.’ Then Caroline came by the hardware store and said she was looking for a book called Military Strategy … oh, I forget the exact title. It wasn't in the library, and she wondered if we had a copy.”
Wally's voice began to squeak. “What did you tell her?” he asked again.
“I told her it was not a book that anyone in our family would read, and she'd better try someone else. Then she said she was looking for a good book to read herself, and wondered what your favorite books were, Wally. I told her about those mysteries on your shelf and she thanked me and said it was exactly the kind of book she wanted, and maybe she'd come over and borrow one sometime. I hope I said the right thing— that she was welcome to borrow one of yours.”
Wally held back a groan.
“She even asked what time you went to bed, and I told her as late as you possibly could—that more than once I'd found you reading by flashlight under the blankets. Is that girl sweet on you or something—all these questions?”
This time a long tortured cry came from Wally's lips.
“Mom, I wish you wouldn't talk about me to Caroline. I don't care what she asks, you don't have to tell her.”
Mrs. Hatford looked confused. “I didn't know what else to do, Wally. She's obviously interested in you. She was just being nice.”
“She wasn't being nice, Mom, she was being nosy! The next time Caroline asks you a question, tell her to ask me.”
“All right,” said his mother. “Why do I get the feeling that I don't know half of what goes on around here?”
“Because you probably don't, Ellen,” said her husband. “And I have the feeling you wouldn't want to know. Let Wally and Caroline work things out for themselves.”
Great! thought Wally. Now Caroline not only had proof that he was fibbing, but she had the correct answers too. Now she got to eat pizza and stay up late and read mystery books too!
Wally dreaded going to school on Monday because they had to give their reports on each other, and he hadn't spent very much time trying to imagine what it would feel li
ke to be Caroline. In fact, he hadn't tried to imagine it at all.
He got out of bed at last, and looked for his baggy blue pants. He couldn't find them anywhere. He put on a pair of old jeans instead, and then he looked for his sneakers with the purple laces. He couldn't find those either.
Wally stood in the center of his floor, tipped back his head, and bellowed at the ceiling, one long, continuous “Arrrggghhh!”
“You calling a moose?” asked his father, sticking his head in the bedroom. “Hurry and dress, now. If you're ready when I leave for the P.O., I'll give you a ride. It's cold out there.”
The four boys ate their cereal, then piled into Dad's car. Peter was lugging a big plastic leaf bag, which he clutched tightly in one hand, and was the first out of the car when they reached the school. He ran on ahead of the others and disappeared down a corridor toward his second-grade class.
After Miss Applebaum had taken the roll, she said, “We still have eight more reports to hear, so I think we'll start with those this morning. I want to finish them before Christmas vacation. Remember, I'm looking for how well we are increasing our powers of observation. I want to see how well you listened, how original you were with your questions, and what you learned about the art of the interview. Wally and Caroline, you're next on my list. Who wants to go first?”
“I do,” said Wally. He wanted to get it over with. He wanted to feel that this would be the last time in his entire life he would ever have to say Caroline's name out loud in public.
He stood up in front of the room and tried not to look at Caroline. He told the class when Caroline was born, and how she'd had the chicken pox but not the mumps. She had two fillings in her teeth, she'd never broken a bone, and she would rather go to the dentist than throw up. “What was it like to be Caroline Malloy for a day?” he said. “Actually, rather boring,” he answered. And then he sat down. He heard Caroline asking permission to go to the rest room, and her footsteps leaving the room. Ha! He grinned in spite of himself.
Miss Applebaum was frowning, however. She said that while the questions Wally had asked Caroline might have seemed original, they did not deal with the important things about a person at all, and therefore we did not know Caroline much better after the interview than we did before.