Boys Against Girls (7 page)

She had promised Wally she wouldn't tell her sisters, but her shoelaces were crossed when she said it, and
everybody
knows that if something is crossed when you promise, it isn't a promise at all.

At lunchtime she sought out Beth and Eddie and told them what she had learned from Wally.

“Let's go to the bookstore today!” she said. “Two of us can be lookouts, and the other can climb through the trapdoor.”

She hoped Eddie would say that she, Caroline, could be the one to go down.

“We'll do it, but not this afternoon,” said Eddie. “I've got to write a report on Balboa.”

“I'm not going anywhere until I finish this book,” said Beth. “Caroline, you should read it¡
Land of the Leeches¡
It will make your skin crawl!”

Caroline's heart sank. “How many more chapters?” she asked.

“I just started. Sixteen, I think.”

Caroline was dismayed. She couldn't count on her sisters. Hadn't she spent a whole hour Sunday afternoon batting balls just so Eddie could practice her pitching? Now, when
she
needed a little help, where were Beth and Eddie?

In the next thirty seconds Caroline decided two things:

She could not stand knowing that the trapdoor was there in the bookstore and she couldn't go through it today.

She would do it alone, and not tell anyone about it till it was over.

Her mind raced on ahead of her.
The Secret Staircase
,
starring Caroline Lenore Malloy. What a wonderful movie that would make¡ In fact, getting ready for the part was almost as much fun as doing it.

First, the costume. Dark. No, not dark. Mousy. Sort of brownish-grayish. Something to blend in with the woodwork. Nothing too light or too dark, too loud or too dramatic. A pair of faded jeans, an old jacket that Beth had given her, worn-out sneakers—that should do it.

What should she take? A flashlight to look for the bones once she got down there; a screwdriver, in case the trapdoor was screwed shut.

The bell rang and Caroline dreamily took her seat again behind Wally, hardly even noticing him. When an actress has been given a role, she in turn gives her heart to her performance, Caroline knew. A role like this required a full range of acting ability:

Cautious excitement:
Caroline wrote it down on the back of her spelling paper. She would leave to begin the adventure like Joan of Arc, going off into battle, confident that she could discover the abaguchie's bones.

Deep foreboding:
That was what her face would have to show next. Caroline wrote that down too. She imagined that Wally's back was a mirror and she was studying her own face in it. The forehead would be frowning. The teeth would be set— clenched, perhaps. Eyes narrowed, thinking.

And then, of course, when she reached the bottom of the secret staircase and discovered she was in the abaguchie's lair, there would be sudden terror¡

Caroline bolted back in her seat, making her eyes wild. Huge¡ Her lips would be slightly parted. Her throat would feel—

“Caroline Malloy, do you want to see the nurse?” came Miss Applebaum's voice.

Caroline blinked. Where was she? What was she doing here in this classroom? Where was the secret staircase?

“Do you have a pain somewhere?” the teacher asked.

“No.”

“You looked as though you might be having an attack of some sort.”

The other children giggled. Wally's shoulders were shaking with laughter, but Caroline didn't even care.

“Do you think you might be able to take part in our geography discussion?” the teacher asked. “We were discussing petroleum products, Caroline. Can you tell us where in the world we might find the most oil?”

“At the bottom of the secret staircase,” said Caroline dreamily.

Eleven
Waiting for Caroline

      “I
think” said Wally, on the way home from school with his brothers that afternoon, “that the spider is about to capture the fly.”

“What spider?” asked Peter, skipping to keep up with his older brothers.

Wally, Jake, and Josh exchanged looks.

“What
fly?”
Peter demanded.

“What I mean is, we're about to trap Caroline,” Wally told him.

“Don't tell Peter!” Josh said. “He'll blab.”

“I
won't”

“You won't on purpose, Peter, but sometimes you let things slip,” Jake told him.

“I won't!” Peter screeched, stopping there on the sidewalk, fists clenched, eyes scrunched up in fury.

“Okay, but not
one
word to anybody!” Wally warned. “I'll bet my last nickel that as soon as
school is out, Caroline is going to Oldakers’ bookstore and go down in that cellar when no one's looking.”

“Why?” asked Jake.

“Because she asked me about the abaguchie today. She said if there
were
abaguchies around Buck-man, somebody should have found some bones. And then it came to me—this idea, sort of.” He grinned just a little.

“Well?” said Jake.

“I told her there
were
some bones—that nobody knew what they belonged to—and that they were down in the cellar of Oldakers’ bookstore. I just know she's going to go there today and sneak down in that cellar.”

“So?” said Jake.

“Then what?” asked Josh.

So? Then what?
After all his brilliant work luring Caroline to the cellar, his brothers didn't know what to do?

“What do you mean, then what?” squawked Wally. And he suddenly realized he didn't know either. He put his imagination on fast-forward. “Then we'll—we'll all go in and stand on top of the trapdoor so she can't get out.”

“That's
it!”
said Jake. “That's perfect¡ You're a genius, Wally.”

But Peter looked worried. “Not
ever?”

“Don't be stupid, Peter. Of course we'll let her out sometime. Just not right away, that's all,” Josh told him.

“So we can't let her out of sight for a minute,” said Wally. He pointed. “There she is, going over the bridge with her sisters. Maybe they'll
all
go down into Oldakers’ cellar.”

“If they see us following them, though, they won't,” warned Jake. “What we've got to do is go stand inside the drugstore where we can watch the door of Oldakers'.”

“And, Peter, if you blab, you can't come with us,” Josh told him.

“I
won't
blab¡ I just think we ought to put some food down there or something.”

“Food?” said Wally.

“In case they get hungry.”

“Peter, we're talking about fifteen or twenty minutes. Anybody can go without food for fifteen or twenty minutes.”

Peter looked much relieved. “Okay, then,” he said.

As soon as the boys put their schoolbooks on the table and grabbed a handful of cheese crackers, they were off again, heading toward the business district. A quick glance inside Oldakers’ told them the girls weren't there yet, so they crowded into Larkin's Pharmacy and went over to the window.

Mr. Larkin, the pharmacist, looked up from his pills and bottles. “How ya doin', boys?”

“Okay’ said Wally.

They took positions just far enough back so they couldn't be easily seen, but close enough to the window so that Caroline and her sisters could not get into the bookstore unnoticed.

Four o'clock became four-thirty. The cashier glanced over at them. “Anything I can do for you?” she asked.

“Uh … no, thanks,” said Wally.

“I'll bet she doesn't come,” Jake whispered. “Maybe she had a piano lesson or something.”

“Yeah, who says that even if she comes, it'll be today?” said Josh.

Wally was getting a little peeved. “Well, just go on home, then,” he said hotly. “Just go on home and miss her if she
does
come. Oldakers’ closes at six. If she's not here by then, we'll leave.”

“What are we supposed to tell Mr. Larkin?” whispered Jake. “He keeps looking over at us. So does the cashier.”

Wally looked around. The magazines were at the back of the store beside the prescription counter. The games were over by the soda fountain along one wall, one of the last soda fountains left in the state of West Virginia. Up here beneath the front window
was a rack of women's socks and underwear. To his left was a shelf of Ace bandages.

Mr. Larkin was walking toward the front of the store.

“You boys waiting for somebody?” he asked.

“No, uh … we're trying to decide what to buy,” Wally said, because neither Jake nor Josh said a word, and Peter had wandered off to look for Matchbox cars on the toy rack.

“Maybe I can help,” said the pharmacist.

Wally desperately focused on the women's socks and underwear, and just as quickly turned his attention to the Ace bandages.

“I was sort of looking for a knee bandage,” he said.

“An elastic knee sleeve? For yourself? Well, let's measure you and see,” Mr. Larkin said.

Wally exchanged horrified looks with Josh and Jake. He didn't have any money with him, and even if he had, he wouldn't spend it on an elastic knee sleeve.

“It's—it's not for me, it's for my dad,” he said quickly. And then, because he knew Mr. Larkin would wonder why Dad wasn't buying it himself, said, “He hurt his knee so bad, he can hardly walk.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Mr. Larkin said. “Why don't I call home and ask him to measure around his knee, and—”

At that precise moment Wally saw Caroline Malloy walking along the other side of the street toward Oldakers', carrying a flashlight¡

“I'll be right back, Mr. Larkin,” he said. “I'll go home and measure Dad's knee myself.”

And as soon as Caroline went inside the bookstore, the boys crossed the street and watched furtively through Oldakers’ store window.

Twelve
Trapped

      C
aroline's idea had been to go right home from school, check in with Mother, grab a doughnut or something, and then, when Beth and Eddie were settling down to their homework, slip out of the house with Mother's flashlight and Dad's screwdriver, and go to Oldakers’ by herself.

Now, however, everything seemed to conspire to keep her from getting outside of the house. Mother told her that before she did anything else, she was to clean her room, change the linen on her bed, and put her dirty sheets in the hamper.