The Boys Start the War (2 page)

“Think,
Wally!” said Jake. “Think of the most terrible, awful, disgusting, horrible thing in the world.”

Wally tried. He wondered if there was anything more awful or disgusting than pigeon poop on a waffle.

“Dead fish,” he said finally.

Jake and Josh looked at each other.

“That’s it!” yelped Josh. “We could dump them on the bank over on the other side, and the family will think the river’s polluted.”

“We’ll dump everything dead we can find, and they’ll be afraid to swim or fish or anything,” said Jake. “Start collecting all the dead stuff you can, and put it in a bag in the garage. Great idea, Wally!”

“Hoo boy!” cried Josh. “The war is on!”

“Wow!” said Peter.

Wally blinked. How had this happened? What
had become of his wonderful day? Only a few minutes ago he’d been peacefully planning to float a waffle box down the river—see if it would make the curve at the end of Island Avenue and come back up the other side. Then he was going to climb to the top of the courthouse to see if there really were bats up there, the way Josh said, and after that he was going to jump from the largest branch of the sycamore into the river, and maybe he would even have gone out to the cemetery after dark, just to say he’d been.

He waited his turn at the trapdoor and slowly climbed down the ladder to the attic below. He picked up his plate, went down to the kitchen, scrunched up the empty waffle box and his waffle along with it, and then, with a sigh, threw them both in the trash.

C
aroline Malloy leapt out of the car and rushed across the lawn, her ponytail flying out behind her like a flag.

“The river!” she screeched. “Beth! Eddie! Look!”

Edith Ann, the oldest, who hated her name and made everyone call her Eddie, stuck her baseball cap back on her head and wandered over. Beth, who had had her nose in a book,
The Living Tentacles of Planet Z,
ever since the family left Ohio that morning, came slowly across the yard, turning a page as she walked, and probably would have stepped right off the edge of the bank if Caroline hadn’t caught her.

“Look!” Caroline said again, and the three sisters stared out over the Buckman River.

They were lined up like steps. Eddie, eleven, was tallest by far, and always wore her cap, even to
the dinner table, Beth, ten, was fair-haired and pale-skinned, and tended to list to one side in a strong wind. It was eight-year-old Caroline, with dark hair and eyes like her father’s, who had big plans for that river. Caroline, her mother always said, was precocious.

“I hope there are rapids!” she cried. “I hope there’s a dam and a waterfall and quicksand and snakes …”

She couldn’t go on. It was just too exciting. If they were only going to be here a year, she wanted to make the most of it. Caroline wanted to be an actress, and she imagined a scene in which she was floating unconscious in the water, heading for the falls, and someone had to rescue her. Or she might be sinking in quicksand, and would cleverly grab a vine at the last minute to pull herself out.

If it was a really dangerous scene where she had to paddle through rapids or something, she could always count on Eddie to be her stuntwoman. In fact, if Eddie did the hard parts and Beth wrote the script, the three of them could play almost any scene they liked.

They’d call their company Malloy Studios, her dream went on, and it would take its place beside Universal and Paramount in Hollywood. Actress, scriptwriter, and stuntwoman, all related. Not that Beth and Eddie knew anything about this, of course.

“Caroline on the River,”
she said to the others. “Would that make a good movie title, Beth?”

“The River on Caroline,
maybe,” Eddie told her.

Beth made a face. “Movie titles have to be mysterious, like
Faces in the Water
or
Curses in the Current
or something.”

“How about
The Nymph from Nowhere?”
Caroline suggested. “How does that sound?”

“Girls!” yelled their father. “We need your help unloading before the van gets here. I’ve got to move the car.”

Caroline took one last look over her shoulder as she followed her sisters back to the house. Picking up her own suitcase, she went upstairs, where Eddie and Beth were choosing bedrooms. She didn’t much care what room she had, because as far as she was concerned, there was only one place she really belonged, and that was onstage. Somewhere in her life there was a stage, a camera, lights, and a script just for her.

“You can have this room, Caroline,” Eddie said, showing her the one next to the bath.

Caroline dropped her things on the floor and went right to the window to study the river once again, Eddie leaning over her shoulder.

“Hey!” Eddie said after a moment. “Look over there!”

“Where?”

“On top of that house across the river. Do you see something moving?”

Caroline rested her chin on her hands and
squinted. She
did
see something, but she wasn’t sure what.

“I’ll get Dad’s binoculars,” she said, running downstairs and out to the car.

“Take something with you as you go,” her father insisted as she started toward the house again, and Caroline picked up at bag filled with shoes.

When she returned, Beth was in her room also.

“What are you looking at?” Beth asked.

“We’re not sure,” said Caroline. She crouched by the window, holding the binoculars up to her eyes. Then she giggled,
“Look
at them over there! They even have field glasses!”

Beth squeezed between Caroline and Eddie and looked where her sister was pointing. “They look like leprechauns,” she said.

“They’re boys,” Eddie told her.

“How can you tell? They could be leprechauns, chimpanzees, creatures from the black lagoon …”

“But what are they most
likely
to be, Beth?” Eddie insisted. “Hand her the binoculars, Caroline.”

Beth took the binoculars. “Boys,” she answered.

“Right.”

“Spying on us!” Beth said, starting to smile.

“Right again.”

“What are we going to do?”

Eddie laughed. “Give them something to look at.”

“But what?”

“We’ll see,” said Eddie.

Caroline smiled to herself. Whatever did girls do without sisters? She took the binoculars again and watched as the four boys across the river slowly made their way back down the trapdoor in the roof.

“Whatever we do, it’s got to be good,” said Eddie. “If they want a show, we’ll give them something to talk about.”

“Like what?” Beth insisted. “Dance naked around the yard?”

Eddie gave her a pained look and was quiet a moment, thinking. At last she said, “Somebody has to die, and Caroline’s it.”

“Eddie!”

“Oh, just pretend,” Eddie told her.

Delicious goose bumps rose up on Caroline’s arms. “I hope we don’t go back to Ohio,” she said aloud. “I hope we
never
go back. This is so much more exciting.”

“Here’s what we’ll do,” said Eddie. “We’ll wait until we see them up there spying again. Then Beth and I will go down to the river carrying Caroline.”

“In a sheet,” said Beth. She went to her room for a notebook and pencil and returned, scribbling as she came. “We’ll be carrying Caroline in a sheet and walking real slow, crying.”

“Like one of those old silent movies! Oh, Beth, that’s wonderful!” Caroline said.

“When we get to the river, we’ll lay her down and cry some more,” Eddie continued.

“And I’ll have my arms folded over my chest. I’ll look like this,” Caroline closed her eyes and let her lips fall open just a fraction.

“We’ll have to pray over her,” Beth said. “We’ve got to take our time.”

“Okay, but when it’s over, we’ll tip the sheet and slide you off into the river, Caroline. You’re the best one to do it because you swim like a fish,” Eddie told her.

“You’ll have to hold your breath and sink deep down, then swim underwater for a ways,” Beth cautioned. “Make sure you climb out far up-river where there are bushes to hide you.”

“And the boys will think I’m dead!” Caroline said. “Eddie, this is the most wonderful idea you’ve ever had. But shouldn’t I have flowers?”

Flowers,
Beth wrote in her notebook.

“What If Mom sees us?” Caroline wondered.

“She won’t,” Eddie said. “She’ll be so busy moving in, she won’t know where we are half the time.”

Caroline, Eddie, and Beth exchanged smiles and went downstairs to help. A wonderful script and an audience, ready and waiting, Caroline thought. What more could she possibly want?

It was four days later that Beth rushed in with news. She had been reading a book back in the trees near the river when she saw the boys come over the swinging bridge and sneak along the bank on the Malloys’ side.

“They were dragging a large plastic bag behind them, and dumped it on our bank, right at the edge of the water.” Beth panted. “And do you know what was in it? Dead fish! Dead birds! Run-over squirrels and possums! The boys want us to think the river’s polluted. I heard them talking!”

“Those creepy jerks!” cried Caroline.

“Those jerky creeps!” said Eddie. “This isn’t a joke anymore. This is war!”

For two more days the girls spied on the boys. Whenever they passed a window, they looked. When they went to the old garage and climbed up in the loft, they kept one eye on the house across the river. And finally, on the third morning, when Mr. and Mrs. Malloy were debating whether Mother’s plants or Father’s trophies should go in the sunny room on the left side of the house, Caroline looked out and saw the four boys spying on them again from the widow’s walk.

She rushed into the next room and told Eddie and Beth.

“Now!” whispered Eddie.

They got a bedsheet and took it to the kitchen. Taking off her shoes, Caroline lay down on it with her arms folded across her chest. Then Beth picked
up the sheet at one end, Eddie picked up the other, and they moved slowly out the back door. Step by step, with heads bent, they walked somberly down the sloping hill toward the river.

They found a spot on the bank where they were sure the boys could still see them, and then struggling hard to keep from laughing—gently laid the bedsheet down, Caroline hoped there were no dead fish or squirrels beneath her.

“Cry,” whispered Beth.

“What?” murmured Caroline, barely moving her lips.

“Not you,” said Beth. “Cry, Eddie.”

Eddie wasn’t so good at acting, but through half-closed eyes, Caroline saw her older sister put her hands to her face, her shoulders shaking.
Wonderful.

Beth did it much better, of course. Beth even crawled over and kissed Caroline tenderly on the forehead. It was rather nice having her sisters weep over her. Even nicer when Beth picked a few wildflowers and put them between her folded fingers. Both Beth and Eddie bowed their heads.

“Now I lay me down to sleep …” Eddie recited, and Beth joined in.

But then came the hard part. Caroline swallowed as she felt the sheet being lifted again. Her bottom bumped against the ground once or twice as she was carried down the bank.

Finally she felt her head begin to rise as the top
of the sheet was lifted, her feet begin to fall as the bottom of the sheet was lowered, and in what was the greatest performance of her life so far, Caroline Malloy, her body stiff as a board, eyes closed, arms still folded across her chest, slid all the way off the end of the sheet and into the chilly water.