Never mind that she was the one who had seemed to like Buckman the most. Never mind that she loved thinking up new ways to annoy Jake and Josh and Wally, and sometimes even Peter. The fact was that everybody else was busy, and she was not.
And so, with the angel wrapping paper and the blue crinkle ribbon that Mother had bought at the hardware store, Caroline wrapped, in a small flat box, the grossest thing she could find to give to Wally Hatford, and set it by the pile of presents waiting to be delivered there by the door. Inside was a little puddle of cat vomit that Patches, the stray cat, had deposited on the Malloys' back steps. There was a big fat hairball in the middle of the vomit and, if you looked closely, you could even find a piece or two of undigested mouse feet.
Eighteen
Mistake #1
The week before Christmas was always the busiest time in the Hatford household.
Mr. Hatford was late getting home every night. Each year, it seemed, people mailed their Christmas cards and packages later and later, and the boys' father might be out till six or seven o'clock trying to get everything delivered by Christmas Eve.
“Just don't do it, Tom!” Wally's mother would say. “If people don't think enough of their aunt Emma to buy her a present in time, then I don't see why you need to knock yourself out trying to deliver it by Christmas Eve.”
But then she would remember a present she had forgotten to buy for somebody, and so—each year was the same, with Mrs. Hatford and the boys doing the wrapping and decorating by themselves.
The boys didn't talk about the Malloys much. For one thing, they hardly even saw Eddie, Beth, and Caroline, the girls were so busy trying to earn money to pay for the jacket. In the days that followed, however, with the girls' signs on trees and light poles all over Buckman, advertising their jobs, Josh said he was feeling a little bit sorry for them. And with Christmas only a few days off, Wally, perhaps, should have been thinking about forgiveness too. But he couldn't quite forgive them yet, because there was one little joke he had up his sleeve that was too good to pass up.
He had to admit he was a little bit mad—no, a lot mad—that he had got paint on the sleeves of his jacket. But he was also still mad at Caroline for wearing his clothes to school. He could forgive her for wearing his trousers, maybe, and his T-shirt, his socks and shoes, but his underpants? Was there any boy in Buckman who would like to have his underpants displayed in public by a girl who was wearing them?
Most boys, he figured, would have decontaminated them. Most boys, in fact, would probably have thrown them out. Wally himself was certainly never going to wear them again, especially underpants that had a happy face painted on the seat, but he had big plans for those underpants.
A few days before Christmas, he put them in a box and wrapped them in the angel-print paper that Mother had brought home from the hardware store. It was the blue-and-gold paper that the hardware store was selling at half price. He put the box aside to take to school on the last day before the Christmas holidays, to put in Caroline's book bag.
He was afraid she might guess who it was from, and if she did, she'd probably throw it in the Buckman River without opening it. So he didn't even put her name on it, just a little folded piece of paper under the ribbon that read, “From a secret admirer,” so she'd be sure to open it. He no more admired Caroline than he admired stinkweed. When she saw the underpants, though, with another note—“Since you liked them so much, you can have them”—she'd know Wally was no admirer.
The day before vacation, Wally ate his breakfast as usual, and when no one was looking, he went into the living room to get the little box off the mantel. At least he thought he had put it on the mantel. He wanted it someplace he would see it every day so he would not forget it, but now he didn't know where it was. There were small flat boxes and rectangular boxes, but not the square box he had used to hold the underpants.
“Mom!” he yelled. “Where's that box I wrapped the other day? I have to take it to school.”
“There are boxes all over this house, Wally. Which one do you mean?” she called back.
“The square one in the angel wrapping paper. I left it on the mantel, I think.”
“There were four boxes on the mantel, and they all had the angel wrapping paper,” his mother answered. “I have no idea which one you're talking about.”
Wally's heart began to pound. This was too good a joke to get lost somewhere.
“Well, it's not here, and I've got to find it,” he said.
“Who was it for?” his mother asked, coming to the doorway.
Wally felt he could not possibly tell her it was for Caroline. He knew she would demand to know what was in it. Mom could smell trouble a mile away.
“For my teacher,” he fibbed.
“Well, how nice! You'll have to find it without my help, though, because I've got a ton of things to do before I leave for work this morning,” she said.
Wally kicked snow all the way to school that morning. He couldn't believe his great joke was ruined. All that work to wrap up the package like it was something really special, and now it was gone. Whoever got it wouldn't even understand the joke, and if Wally found it later, it would be too late to take it to school and slip it into Caroline's book bag.
“Hi, Wally,” Caroline said when he walked into the classroom. She didn't poke him in the back with her ruler, either. “Merry Christmas.” And to Wally's surprise, he found a present sliding over his shoulder, falling into his lap. Was this her way of apologizing for the paint prank, maybe?
Fortunately, no one seemed to be looking, but Wally felt his ears burn anyway—partly at getting a gift from a girl, partly because the girl was Caroline, and partly because he knew what he had almost given her.
“Uh… thanks,” he said, and stuffed it into his desk before anyone could see it. If Caroline thought he was going to open it here in the classroom in front of everyone, she was crazy.
He felt uncomfortable all morning with Caroline sitting behind him on her best behavior. Was it possible that after all the stuff they had done to make each other miserable, she liked him anyway?
Wally bolted through the door at recess, keeping as far away from Caroline as possible, and sat on the other side of the lunchroom from her at noon. He was never so glad as when school was over for the day. He crammed Caroline's present to him into his book bag, then set out for home with his brothers, glad that the Malloy girls were already far ahead.
The boys were almost a block from home when they heard the light tap of a horn behind them and turned to see Mother's car pulling over toward the curb.
Mrs. Hatford rolled down her window.
“I took the afternoon off to do some Christmas errands,” she told them. “I should be home in about an hour. Wally, I found that gift you wrapped and just dropped it off at the school. I told Miss Applebaum you couldn't find it this morning but wanted her to have it.”
Wally's jaw dropped to his chest. “What?” he said.
“That box you wrapped. You left it on the bookcase. I just gave it to your teacher, so you don't have to worry about it anymore.”
Mother drove away, and Wally wondered if you could have a heart attack when you were only nine years old. Without a word to his brothers, he whirled about and ran as fast as he could back to the school, his book bag banging against him. His teacher had just received a gift that said, “From a secret admirer,” and a note with his underpants saying, “Since you liked them so much, you can have them.” He would probably be thrown out of elementary school and sent to a military academy.
He had to stop this. His sides began to ache, his forehead to sweat. He tore up the driveway to the school and around to the faculty entrance. Then he stopped, because Miss Applebaum's car was just pulling out of the parking lot, and then went rolling down the street.
Dear Wally (and Jake and Josh and Peter):
Man, the Malloy girls must be something! Painting our garage?
I wonder if there will be anything left of our
house to come back to—if we come back, that is.
Dad's been offered a job here in Atlanta for next year, but he doesn't know yet if he's going to take it. There are a lot of things we'll miss up there in Buckman if he does. Christmas is going to be really weird down here with the weather so warm. We'll miss the snow most of all.
We've got a present for Danny's teacher, though—the one who's a Georgia peach. Man, she's pretty. We're thinking of giving her one of Mom's special batches of brownies, maybe. Why don't you give Miss Applebaum a jar of dill pickles?
Merry Christmas! Make sure the Malloys' tree doesn't catch on fire and burn down our house!
Bill (and Danny, Steve, Tony, and Doug)
Nineteen
Mistake #2
Coach Malloy did not care for Christmas shopping. Each year, instead of a present, he gave his wife a catalog and asked her to choose from it whatever she liked. He left shopping for the girls to his wife as well. This year, in fact, Mother had to choose a gift for his secretary, and also for the receptionist who answered the phone for the whole department.
“I'm about shopped out,” Mother said as the family enjoyed a late breakfast. “Two days till Christmas.” And then, turning to her husband, “Is there anyone else at the college we've forgotten who might be expecting a present from you?”
“I don't think so,” Coach Malloy said, looking for the sports section, finding it, and dropping the rest of the newspaper onto the floor. “What did you buy the women in my office?”
“I ordered a box of pears for the woman who answers the phone, but I thought your secretary deserved something more personal. You said she was engaged to be married, didn't you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I found a small carved wooden box to keep notes and love letters in. I think she might appreciate that.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Mr. Malloy.
Caroline was glad she did not have to shop for presents for secretaries. It was all she could do to buy gifts for her family. Her biggest inspiration of all, however, was Wally Hatford's present—the cat vomit with the hair ball and the piece of undigested mouse in it. She was dying to know if he had opened it in the rest room at school, or at home, or was saving it till Christmas morning.
Everyone seemed to be relaxing and enjoying the weekend. Eddie had only one more house to clean, the morning before Christmas. Beth, however, had an order for six dozen cookies to be delivered by Christmas Eve, and the woman wanted them fresh. Beth had to get up early the next morning to bake all day. It was not how she had hoped to spend Christmas Eve day, but it had to be done.
Mrs. Malloy had gone out to empty the garbage after breakfast when she called, on her way back inside, “Package for you, Caroline. I didn't think Mr. Hatford had been here already. It was just sitting on the back steps. Now why would he put it there?”
Caroline took one look at the box and figured Wally had given her a present in return—something even grosser than cat vomit. She took it to her room, then had second thoughts and took it out to the garage instead. Maybe she should call the bomb squad to open it. It was probably something that would explode in her face.
It was wrapped in the same angel-print paper that she had used to wrap her gift to Wally. In fact, it looked like the very same present she had slipped over his shoulder. Caroline stood in the middle of the floor and, holding one corner of the wrapping paper, shook it loose from its contents.
Out tumbled a small wooden box, engraved with hearts and flowers. The word Letters was carved on the lid, which could only mean love letters, surrounded as it was with cupids and stuff.
Caroline gasped. The secretary's present! For the woman who was about to be married! Somehow she had picked up the wrong present and given Wally Hatford a box for love letters! This was a terrible mix-up! In horror, she opened the lid, and there was a note in Wally's handwriting: Yuuuck! Wally Hatford.
Then who…?
Caroline felt weak in the knees. She tore into the house and looked up Dad's secretary's name in the phone book. Then, afraid to ride her bike on the icy streets, she stuffed the present, paper and all, into a shopping bag and set out across the river, toward town and the apartments across from campus.
It took twenty minutes to find the right apartment, and when she rang the bell, no one answered. It was still early.
She couldn't just leave the box out there in the hallway. The secretary wouldn't even know who it was from. Somebody might walk off with it. Finally, when Caroline was about to leave, she heard the chain slide off on the other side, and the door opened just a crack.
A sleepy-looking woman in a bathrobe stared down at Caroline.
“Are you Dad's secretary?” Caroline asked, and she realized she was on the verge of tears.
In turn, the secretary asked, “Are you one of the Malloy girls?”
“Yes,” said Caroline. “I…I brought the present Dad was going to give you for Christmas. Mom picked it out. I think there's been a horrible mistake.”
The secretary opened the door and invited her in. “Yes,” she said, “I guess so.”
There in the trash basket, just inside the door, was more angel wrapping paper and the box in which Caroline had placed the cat vomit.
“Do you want to sit down?” the woman asked, rubbing her eyes with two fingers.
Caroline sat, and her chin trembled.
“I'm really sorry,” she said haltingly. “I was playing a trick on a boy at school, and somehow he got your present and you got his, and Dad doesn't know.”
The secretary reached for the present in the shopping bag that was already unwrapped. Caroline had removed the note from Wally. There was only a note on the wrapping paper that said, “For all your precious memories. C. Malloy.” The C, Caroline realized, stood for Coach, but how could Wally have known that?
“It's lovely,” the secretary said. “I'll put my fianc´e's letters in this. I wondered what I had ever done that would make your father send me such an awful thing for Christmas. In fact, I was about to call and ask him.”
Caroline cringed.
“Tell me,” the secretary went on, “who could you possibly dislike so much that you would send him cat puke with hairballs in it? Mouse feet, even?”
“Wally Hatford,” Caroline answered.
“What did he ever do to deserve this?”
Caroline thought about it. She could remember a lot of things Wally had done to deserve it, but the strange thing was, everything she thought of had been kind of fun.
“I don't know,” she said at last. “He's just fun to tease, that's all.”
“Did he give you something awful for Christmas?”
“No. He didn't give me anything.”
The woman smiled a little. “Well, I'm not sure I would have given you anything either. But I do appreciate your coming over with this, Caroline. Thank you. And I promise not to mention it to your dad.”
Caroline walked thoughtfully back home, realizing how close she had come to disaster. If Wally had not returned the box—if he had not said anything at all— and if the secretary had called Caroline's father, things would have been in an even grander mess than they were already. She shivered in spite of her coat and mittens.
I will never tease Wally Hatford again, she vowed silently. I will stop hating the Hatfords. Actually, she'd never really hated them in the first place. They'd disgusted her and teased her, but she didn't hate them. In fact, when and if her dad decided to go back to Ohio with the family, she realized she would miss all the fun she'd had with them very much.
When she walked into the house, however, and smelled the comforting fragrance of the cookies Beth was baking, there sat Peter Hatford, a chocolate chip cookie in one hand, a lemon square in the other.
“Guess what, Caroline?” he said happily. “I've got two jobs!”
“Really?” said Caroline pleasantly, in her new role as friend to the Hatfords. “What are they?”
“I'm cookie taster for Beth. I have to t
aste one cookie from every batch she makes and see if she forgot the sugar or anything.”
“Hey, how lucky can you get?” said Eddie darkly, raising her eyebrows at Caroline. “Tell Caroline what your other job is. Tell her who hired you.”
“I'm a spy for Jake and Josh and Wally,” said Peter. “I'm supposed to report everything you're doing here.”
Caroline stared at Peter. “Then why did you tell us?”
“Because Beth said I could have all the cookies I could eat if I'd tell her why Jake sent me over here. She said it wouldn't make any difference, I could still tell them what you're doing.”
“Great!” said Caroline, exchanging looks with Beth and Eddie and trying not to laugh. “And what will you tell them we're doing?”
“Making cookies,” said Peter.
“And what else will you tell them?” prodded Beth. “Remember that little poem I taught you? What are little girls made of?”
“ 'Sugar and spice, and all that's nice,' ” said Peter. “You got it!” said Eddie. “Tell your brothers that, and watch them go ballistic.”
Twenty
The Worst Christmas Ever
Wally knew it was going to be an awful Christmas. Three uncles and one aunt arrived on Christmas Eve and, as always, they brought an armload of presents. That was the nice part.
Mother roasted the big turkey for Christmas Eve dinner, one of the ones all the workers had received from their boss at the hardware store, and that was nice too. Especially the mince pies and chocolate cake.
It was even nice when Tom Hatford and his three brothers stood around the old upright piano after dinner, and while Aunt Vivian played, formed a quartet and sang carols. With his stomach full of turkey and rolls and mashed potatoes and chocolate cake, with a heap of presents waiting to be opened beneath the tree, how could anyone not feel cheerful? Wally asked himself.