The Boys Return (2 page)

“Now the guys will get to see what the Whomper, the Weirdo, and the Crazie are really like,” said Jake, gloating. “Man, we're going to have fun! With Bill and Danny and Steve and Tony and Doug, we'll run rings around those girls!”

“We get Steve and Tony!” said Josh, choosing the two older Benson boys. “They get to sleep in our room.”

“I want Bill and Danny,” said Wally.

“That leaves Doug. Dougie can sleep with you, Peter,” said Josh.

“There will be sleeping bags all over the place!” said Wally happily.

“And eleven people around the table at night,” said Jake.

“We'll do all the stuff we haven't been able to do since the girls moved in,” said Wally.

“Like what?” asked Peter.

The room fell suddenly quiet as the Hatford boys tried to think of just what it was they missed doing since the Bensons had gone away.

“I don't know. Just stuff,” Wally said.

He didn't know yet what it would be, but he was absolutely sure that sometime, while the Bensons were here, he'd be able to think of something to try that he had never done before. Spring vacation was beginning to look very good indeed.

Two
Home Decorating

W
hen Caroline walked down the hill behind their house with Beth and Eddie the next day, she was thinking about the special assignment Miss Applebaum had given the class. Caroline didn't want to do just any old thing she had never done before. It had to be something great.

Her sisters suddenly stopped before crossing the bridge.

“What's wrong?” Caroline asked.

“Get a look at
them
!” Eddie exclaimed.

Caroline's gaze followed her sister's, across the river to where the Hatford boys were waiting for them on the other side, their faces stretched into wide, toothy grins.

“They look like they did when they brought a worm over on Thanksgiving and passed it around the table with the turkey,” said Beth.

“They look like they did when we had that snowball fight last winter,” said Eddie.

But Caroline thought the Hatford boys looked like they did when they'd tried to toss her in the river, or locked her in the toolshed, or cornered her by the fence in their backyard.

“Well, whatever they're up to, they're just dying to tell us about it, so we might as well get it over with,” said Beth. The girls started across the swinging footbridge.

“Guess what?” chortled Jake as soon as they reached the other side.

“I can't imagine,” said Eddie. “You're going to move away, I hope? Leave Buckman?”

“Ha! Don't you wish!” said Jake.

“The Bensons are coming back!” said Josh.

“For spring vacation!” said Wally. “They're going to stay with us!”

“And we're going to run rings around you!” boasted Peter, parroting his brothers.

Eddie's eyes narrowed and her upper lip began to curl. “Oh, you are, are you? You and who else?”

“All five Benson brothers, that's who!” said Wally. “Bill, Danny, Steve, Tony, and Doug!”

“Ha!” scoffed Eddie.

“We're
so
impressed!” Caroline hooted. “I can't wait to meet the mighty Bensons! They're all you guys ever talk about,” said Beth as they trooped off toward the school. The older ones made sure that Peter, as the youngest, was walking in front of them—
in case the cougar was lurking nearby, waiting to grab the smallest, weakest one of the bunch.

“Well, wait till they get here. We used to have more fun than a barrel of monkeys when they were around,” said Jake.

“More fun than howling outside our windows when our folks were away?” asked Caroline.

“More fun than wolfing down the pumpkin chiffon pie Mom sent over for your mother?” asked Beth.

“More fun than demolishing our snow fort out on the river?” asked Eddie. “So, what are you going to do with your Benson buddies? Run the town?”

“
Lots
of stuff,” said Wally.

“Name one thing you can do with them that you can't do with us,” said Beth.

“Uh… just
stuff
!” said Jake.

“Ha!” said Eddie again.

After the girls got home that afternoon, they told their mother that the Bensons were coming back for spring vacation.

“Oh, dear!” she said. “I hope they don't want to see inside the house. I really haven't had time to clean it properly the past couple of weeks.”

Caroline took off her jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. “Why would they want to see inside the house?” she asked.

“Because it's their house. We're only renting it, remember?
Maybe they'll want to be sure we're taking good care of it—I don't know. I suppose it would be polite to invite them over.”

Upstairs in Beth's bedroom, Eddie looked at the racing-car wallpaper and said, “I've got a wonderful idea! Just in case they
do
want to snoop around up here, let's be ready.”

“How?” asked Caroline.

“You know what those guys are afraid of most, I'll bet? That we'll turn their bedrooms all around. Let's go out and find all the girly stuff we possibly can and put it up just for spring vacation.”

Beth and Caroline laughed out loud.

“Frilly lampshades!” said Beth.

“China dolls!” said Caroline.

“Bows and ribbons and ruffles and lace!” said Eddie. “When those guys get a glimpse of their rooms, it will be heart-attack city for sure!”

They went back downstairs.

“We're going downtown, Mom,” Eddie called. “Back in a little while.”

“All right, but stay together,” Mrs. Malloy called from the dining room. “Keep Caroline between you, and make sure you're home before dark.”

The girls put on their jackets and went down the sidewalk to the bridge connecting Island Avenue to the business district.

Once on the other side, they passed city hall and the police department, the bank and the hardware store,
and continued past the Dairy Queen. They opened the door to the wallpaper store.

Eddie did the talking. “Do you have any leftover pieces of wallpaper we could buy that won't cost very much?” she asked the owner.

“Well, not enough to paper a room, I'm afraid,” the man said. “Just odd pieces. What are you looking for, exactly?”

“Something to go in a girl's bedroom,” Eddie told him.

“Look in that barrel back there by the stockroom,” the owner said, pointing. “You're welcome to anything you find in there, at a dollar a roll.”

The girls found the barrel with an odd assortment of wallpaper rolls sticking out the top.

“Ballet slippers!” said Beth, unrolling one of them. It was a pale blue paper with pink ballet slippers pointed at various angles and a lavender ribbon connecting one to the other, like flowers on a vine.

Eddie rummaged among the rolls until she found one that had pink hearts against a white background, with the word LOVE in red, on each heart.

“Oh, we've got to get that one too!” said Beth. “It will drive them absolutely nuts.”

Caroline had not found anything yet for her room, and her sisters helped her hunt until they came across a strip of yellow paper with china dolls on it, each one dressed in a fancy costume and holding a tiny teddy bear.

The Malloys could hardly keep from laughing out loud.

“How much?” Eddie asked at the counter.

The man measured them out. “Tell you what, all you've got here are bits and pieces. What if I said a dollar will cover the lot?”

“Sold,” said Eddie.

Next stop was the dollar store. There they found several bushel baskets of marked-down merchandise—a little soiled, a bit worn, but good enough for their purpose. They spent three dollars and fifty cents on ribbon, lace, bows, hearts, sparkles, spangles, and beads.

For two evenings the girls worked in their rooms, carefully fastening the strips of wallpaper to the wall with straight pins. When they were done, the room with the racing-car paper had a strip of hearts and ribbon down the middle; the room with football wall-paper had a panel of ballet slippers, and the last room, which had been decorated with wallpaper full of marching toy soldiers, now had a strip of china dolls all along the window.

Every picture in every room had a ruffle around it. Every lampshade was trimmed in lace. Every bedpost had a bow attached; there were beads hanging from light fixtures, and sparkles and spangles glistened on every mirror.

The girls went from room to room admiring their handiwork.

“Isn't it
awful
!” breathed Eddie, pausing in the doorway of her own room.

“Atrocious!” Beth agreed. “Do you think we can stand it for a whole week?”

But Caroline rather liked the idea of sleeping in the middle of all this stuff. It was almost like being on a stage set, surrounded by artificial walls and windows. If Caroline had her way, she would spend the whole week of vacation pretending to be onstage. Every person she met would be a character in a play. She, of course, would say her lines perfectly:
How do you do, Mrs. Hatford? Isn't it a splendid, splendid day? or Oh, my poor, darling Peter, to be orphaned at so young an age!

She would cry, she would laugh, she would rage, she would…yes, love! And when her performance was over, the audience would give her a standing ovation and throw roses at her feet.

“After all this work, those Bensons
better
want to come over here and take a look at how we're keeping their rooms,” said Beth.

“If they don't, we'll have to lure them here,” said Eddie. “We didn't go to all this work and expense for nothing.”

Caroline was quiet for a moment. “If
we're
doing all this work to annoy the guys, what do you suppose
they're
up to, to trick
us
?”

But Beth was thoughtful too. “What if they turn out to be nice?”

“Ha!” said Eddie. “All we've heard since we moved to Buckman is the trouble we'd be in for if the Bensons
came back—the wonderful Bensons—the best friends the Hatfords ever had. I'm tired of listening to the guys talk about the mighty Bensons. I can't wait to meet them, and I guarantee that whatever they dish out, we can take, and
then
some!”

Three
Bill and Danny and Steve and Tony and Doug

N
othing much got done on the last day of school before spring vacation. There was a spelling bee in the morning, and a video of Australia before lunch, and in the afternoon, Miss Applebaum passed around pictures of her nieces and nephews.

But just before the final bell she said, “Remember, class, when you come back after spring vacation, I want to hear that each of you tried something you've never done before.” And then she added quickly, “With your parents' permission, of course.”

Wally had liked it better the first time she'd said it, without the “parents' permission” stuff. There were a lot of whoops and shouts and laughter when the doors opened at last. All the students poured outside, ready to say goodbye to winter and welcome spring.

The Hatfords, however, were getting ready to welcome someone else—the Benson boys, who would be arriving the following day with their parents. Mrs. Hatford had already borrowed cots and air mattresses from the neighbors to make beds for five more boys in the house.

At breakfast that morning, Mr. Hatford, in his postal worker's uniform, had sat at the breakfast table and said, “Ellen, do you think we're crazy to have nine boys in the house with us for a week?”

“Probably,” Mrs. Hatford had replied. “But it's what might happen when you and I aren't here, Tom, that worries me most. So I told the store I'd be working only half days next week.”

“Wise move,” her husband had said.

“I figure the kids will be up late every night and will be sleeping in each morning. So I'm going to work from eight till one, then come home and get lunch for everybody. I don't think they can get in too much trouble in the hour or so after they first get up, can they?”

“I'm going to pretend you didn't say that,” Mr. Hatford had said, and he'd kissed her on the cheek and headed for the door.

They had acted as though Wally weren't even sitting at the table with them eating his cornflakes, mostly because Wally's eyes were always half closed at breakfast. But he had heard and remembered everything they said. What was going through
his
mind at that moment was,
If I'm going to try something I've never done
before, I'd better do it between eight and one o'clock, before Mom gets home.