Boys Against Girls (14 page)

      W
ally didn't know if he was more pleased or disappointed. A couple of months ago he would have wanted nothing more than to trap Crazy Caroline under a box and keep her there an hour or so, just to get even for all the stuff the Malloy sisters had pulled on him.

But now, even more, he wanted to catch the abaguchie and see what kind of creature it really was. With the whole town looking for it, the person who
did
catch it would be famous, practically. As famous as anyone could be in Buckman, that is.

Peter was already dancing around the box. Jake and Josh had crawled up on top to make sure Caroline didn't get out. Wally just leaned against a tree, flashlight at his side, and wondered if there was any way his own family could leave Buckman, since the Malloys certainly showed no signs of going.

“Hey, maybe the abaguchie's hungry!” Josh was saying. “Maybe we could dig up some worms and stuff them through the holes.”

“Maybe the abaguchie's thirsty!” Jake said. “We could stuff the hose through one of the holes and turn it on.”

“Yeah, the hose!” Josh said. “Peter, go get the hose.”

“I always have to do everything!” Peter complained.

The back door slammed again. More footsteps, and Wally saw his dad coming across the backyard.

Jake and Josh slid off the crate in a hurry.

“What'd you catch?” Dad asked, coming toward the box. He glanced around at the boys. “What's under there?”

“Car-o-line!” Peter warbled.

“What?”

Jake and Josh reached down and lifted the crate while Wally shone the flashlight on it.

Caroline crawled out, eyes on the ground, and brushed off the knees of her jeans.

“Well!” said Dad, and Wally could tell he was trying not to laugh. “How was the chicken leg?”

Caroline didn't answer. Thrusting her hands in her pockets, she set off for home, looking as embarrassed as Wally had ever seen her. He
almost
felt sorry for her, but not quite.

Mr. Hatford watched her go, then turned to his sons. “Now, what was
that
all about?”

“She tried to take our bait’ said Wally.

“Maybe she was hungry’ offered Peter.

“Will all this never end?” asked Mr. Hatford. “Why do I get the feeling that I don't even know half of all that's been going on around here?”

“ ‘Cause you don't, I guess,” Wally mumbled.

“That's what I thought,” said their father. And then, “Come on, now, and finish your dinner.”

Jake and Josh set the trap again, and then they all went inside.

•

Wally lay by the window that night, listening for the faintest clang of the cowbell. For a snort, a grunt, the slightest growl. But he heard nothing. And when he got up the next morning, he woke to the special fragrance of baking bread.

Mother had been up since five, she told them, and wanted to bake the Thanksgiving bread before she went to work at noon. She was doing the turkey, the vegetables, and the bread and coffee, and Mrs. Malloy was bringing the pies, the potatoes, and a salad.

“If I do the bread today, the vegetables tomorrow, and the turkey and dressing Thanksgiving morning, I think I'll get it all done,” she said.

Wally swallowed. Thanksgiving was only two days
off? Two more days and he'd have to spend two hours looking at Caroline's face across the table? When the Bensons used to come for Thanksgiving, the guys would always do something special. The Bensons would bring a bunch of model planes, maybe, and they'd spend all Thanksgiving, before and after dinner, making models. Or maybe, if it wasn't too cold out, they'd play touch football, and their parents would come out on the back porch to watch.

Josh came down to breakfast.

“You know what I was thinking?” Mother said. “It would be nice to have place cards at the table this year. You're so good at drawing, Josh, why don't you take some index cards and make a place card for each person?”

“Place cards?” Josh yelled. “I don't want to make place cards.”

“Well, you don't have to shout. I thought it would be nice to be fancy for once.”

“See what's happening?” Jake said from the doorway. “We've gone from having a fun Thanksgiving to fancy. Just because the Malloys are coming over.”

“I'll
make place cards,” said Peter, his mouth full of cereal.

“That will be wonderful,” said Mother, raising her eyebrows at Josh, Jake, and Wally.

The only thing that made the day worth living, according
to Wally, was the possibility that they might trap the abaguchie yet. He wasn't sure, but there were times he definitely believed that boys were smarter than girls. What boy would be crazy enough to crawl right into a trap and try to steal the bait without stopping to think that
he
might be trapped instead? Even Peter had brains enough not to do that.

Girls just didn't understand how things worked. They didn't think of the consequences. They just did the first dumb thing that popped in their heads, and always got into trouble. Boys thought
ahead

“Let's check the box before school’ he said to Jake. “Maybe it fell down
without
ringing the bell.”

They put on their jackets when they were through with breakfast and went out across the yard and around the shed.

Wally stopped in his tracks and gave a shout. The refrigerator crate was gone.

Twenty-four
Cruising down the River

      C
aroline felt she could not go home. Screaming when she saw the yellow eyes was bad enough, but to go home now and tell Eddie that she'd been caught in the abaguchie trap? “Let me know when you think up something
really
fun,” Eddie would say. Caroline couldn't blame her.

Of all the humiliating things that had happened to Caroline since she'd moved to Buckman, this had to be the worst. How on earth would she be able to face Wally and his brothers across the table at Thanksgiving?

Think, Caroline¡
she told herself.
You've got to be able to come up with something¡

She crossed the road and started across the swinging bridge, and by the time she reached the
other side, she'd thought of something. Better than any other idea she'd had in her life.

At home she ran upstairs where Eddie was listening to a CD with earphones, and Beth was lying on her back on the floor, legs propped against the wall, a book in front of her face. Beth always read in Eddie's room when she could because her books were so scary, she hated to be alone.

Caroline went over and sat beside Eddie on the bed. She only mouthed the words because she knew Eddie couldn't hear her.

“What?” Eddie took off the earphones and looked at Caroline.

This time Caroline said it out loud, but she did not tell her sisters about being trapped. “How would you like to launch a boat?” she asked.

Eddie looked suspicious. “Launch it where?”

“On the river.”

“Whose boat?”

“Guess.”

Beth put down her book and sat up. “The Hatfords have a boat?”

“It's going to be,” Caroline said, and told them about the abaguchie trap-refrigerator crate at the back of the Hatfords’ yard, and what a wonderful boat it would make.

“Now,
that's
more like it!” said Eddie, and the girls went downstairs for their jackets.

Caroline secretly rejoiced. She'd done it¡ She was friends with Eddie again¡

“Where are you three off to?” Mother called from the kitchen where she was making pie crusts. “I thought you might make a centerpiece out of pine cones or something to take to the Hatfords’ for Thanksgiving.”

“A centerpiece!” choked Eddie.

“We never had centerpieces back in Ohio. Just a bunch of relatives around the table,” said Beth.

“You just never
noticed!”
said her mother. “We always had centerpieces, but I'm too busy to make one this year.”

“We were going for a walk,” Caroline said. “Maybe we can find some pine cones or acorns or something.”

“In the dark?” said Mother.

The girls looked at each other. “We've got a flashlight,” Caroline told her.

“Good. I've got some brown and orange ribbons you could use,” Mother said, and brought the rolling pin down hard again on the dough.

When they got to the trees in back of the Hatfords’ shed, the first thing Caroline did was detach the cowbell so it couldn't ring. Then Eddie picked up one end of the crate, and Beth and Caroline took the other end.

Slowly, step by step, they made their way softly
down the Hatfords’ driveway and across the road to the river.

Caroline did not think her arms would hold up. It hadn't seemed all that heavy at first, but it was big and bulky and banged against her with every step.

She knew she was going to drop it. Was sure she was going to drop it, so to make sure she didn't, pretended she was carrying a little baby sister across a river filled with alligators. If she dropped her end of the crate, her sister, her dear little sister, her
sick
little sister, would fall into the water below and be eaten alive.

Hold on
, she told herself as they crossed the road.

Hold on
, she said as they made their way down the bank.

And then she heard that one marvelous word from Eddie: “Launch!” And the three girls shoved with all their might. In the darkness, the refrigerator crate drifted out into the current.

There was a small story on page six of the newspaper, which Coach Malloy read the next morning at breakfast:

PROOF INCONCLUSIVE IN ABAGUCHIE SEARCH

A tuft of brownish fur found caught in the back door of Oldakers’ Bookstore after a burglar alarm was tripped Monday night is man-made fiber, forensic
experts determined. With further reported sightings of the elusive creature some residents have called the abaguchie, there was speculation that this animal may have been the culprit at Oldakers', where its supposed fur was found caught in the latch.

“These are polyester fibers frequently found on outdoor wear, made to resemble fur, and have no natural properties whatsoever,” said Don Matting, a forensic expert for Upshur County….

Caroline exchanged looks with Beth and Eddie. That was a disappointment, because it
would
have been fun to keep the abaguchie rumor going, but right now they were more interested in whether or not the Hatford boys had discovered what happened to their trap.

They hadn't long to wait, because after they started out for school, they saw the four Hatford brothers in the middle of the swinging bridge, their mouths open, faces forlorn, staring silently at a large wooden refrigerator crate, which had somehow managed to leave their backyard in the middle of the night to throw itself into the Buckman River, and which now sat lodged against a pile of rocks in the very middle, the chicken leg still swinging from a wire on the inside.

Twenty-five
Dinner Guest