A Spy Among the Girls (11 page)

When they came to the swinging bridge, however, Eddie went first, and Beth hung back, so Caroline stepped onto the bridge. When she had taken only a few steps, she glanced over her shoulder in time to see Beth taping a small piece of paper to the cable handrail.

Caroline quickly faced forward again as Beth came up behind her.

A note!
Beth was taping a secret message to Josh, Caroline was sure of it. This was wonderful! It was wonderful because it was full of mystery and romance and intrigue. And it was awful because it was happening to Beth instead of her.

The girls gathered in the kitchen for corn chips and pop. Mrs. Malloy was ironing shirts in the dining room and listening to a symphony on a CD. Caroline and her sisters talked for a few minutes, and then Beth and Eddie took their books upstairs. As soon as Beth was out of the kitchen, Caroline put on her coat again and slipped out the back door. Darting from bush to bush,
she made her way down the hill until she found a spot where she was sure she could not be seen from either Beth's window or the other side of the bridge. Then she waited.

She didn't have to wait long. Almost no time at all, in fact, because thirty seconds later, she saw Josh Hat-ford saunter down the bank, hands in his pockets. Glancing quickly over his shoulder, he stopped on the bridge, resting his arms on the cable handrail as though just thoughtfully looking out over the river. But ever so stealthily, he reached over, peeled off the note Beth had taped there, thrust it into his pocket, and then ambled back up the bank.

Tears rolled down Caroline's cheeks.
She
wanted a note.
She
wanted romance. She didn't especially want Wally Hatford as a boyfriend, but if she had to have one to experience love, she'd do anything.

She went back to the house and lay facedown on the couch.

Mrs. Malloy looked in on her. “Tummyache, Caroline?” she asked.

Caroline rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling. “Heartache,” she replied in as tragic and dramatic a voice as she could manage.

Mrs. Malloy leaned against the doorway and studied her daughter. “Are we talking heartache as in a pain in the chest, or heartache as in a broken heart?” she asked.

“A broken heart,” said Caroline. “Shattered into a million pieces.” Oh, she was good. Even her mother believed her!

“Hmmm,” said Mrs. Malloy. “We wouldn't be talking about one of the Hatford boys, would we? I thought we had an understanding that—”

“I don't want to talk about it,” said Caroline, and turned her face to the wall. She felt so sorry for herself, she couldn't help smiling.

Dinner was early that evening because Mr. and Mrs. Malloy were attending a concert at the university.

“We won't be late, girls,” their mother told them. “But I expect you to have your homework done and be in bed by the time we come back. Okay?”

“We will,” Eddie promised.

The girls did watch TV for a while, however, but when they turned it off at eight-thirty and headed upstairs, all three of them saw it at the same time: an envelope thrust under the front door.

“Hey!” said Eddie. She bent down and picked it up.

“‘
For M
y Beloved
’?” she read aloud.

Caroline's heart leaped. From Wally. It
had
to be from Wally. “It's for me,” she said, putting out her hand.

But Beth was reaching too. “No, it's for
me,
” she said. “From Josh, obviously.”

Eddie, however, was feeling playful, and she held the note high in the air where her sisters couldn't reach it.

“How do you know?” she said. “
Beloved
could be anyone. Maybe it's for
me
!” She took the note out of its envelope and held it over her head, then continued reading: “ ‘Dear Ugly Stupid…’”

Beth and Caroline both gasped.

“It doesn't say that, Eddie!” Beth cried. She leaped up and snatched the paper from Eddie's hand and turned her back to read it. And suddenly she threw it to the floor and, sobbing, ran upstairs and shut her door.

Eddie looked quizzically at Caroline. “Why would Josh write her a note like
that
?” she asked. “What a jerk!”

Caroline leaned down and picked up the piece of paper.

Dear Ugly Stupid,

You really are crazy, aren't you? I never liked you before, I don't like you now, and I won't like you in the future. Leave me alone.

Caroline gasped and clutched her chest, while Eddie stared. And then, just as Beth had done, she ran upstairs, gulping and sobbing, and shut
her
door. But as soon as she got inside, she stopped. Those sobs were so real! She really
was
a good actress. And then she had an idea. A wonderful, awful idea. She went to the phone in her parents’ bedroom and dialed the Hat-fords’.

Sixteen
Phone Call

W
ith Mrs. Hatford working at the hardware store till nine and Mr. Hatford out bowling, Wally and Peter were at the kitchen table eating graham crackers and peanut butter when Josh came in and said, “Where's Jake?”

Wally shrugged. “I don't know. He had his coat on awhile ago. I thought you guys went somewhere.”

“Well, he didn't tell me,” Josh said.

There were sounds out in the hall, and Jake came in, his hair mussed up by the wind. He saw the snack on the table and helped himself to a big spoonful of peanut butter.

“Where have
you
been?” Josh asked him.

“Delivering a message to Caroline, that's what,” Jake said, and told him about the valentine. Wally froze.

“Why would Caroline send a valentine to
you
?” Josh asked.

“Because she's crazy. She's out of her mind. She's as nutty as a PayDay candy bar,” Jake answered.

Wally took another bite of cracker and pretended he was reading the label on the peanut butter jar. He hoped it might seem possible that a girl in fourth grade—a
precocious
girl who was only old enough for third—might be sending a stupid valentine to a boy in sixth grade.

“You mean she just walked up and handed you a mushy valentine?” Josh asked.

“She gave it to Wally to give to me.”

Josh turned to Wally, and Wally swallowed. “Caroline handed you a valentine for Jake? Just like that?”

Wally swallowed again. “Just like that,” he said. This was not the way he had planned things. In fact, he had not planned things at all. He had been so surprised by the envelope Caroline had handed him out in the hall at school that he had simply rushed for the door and thrust it at the first person he saw, who happened to be Jake. “For you,” he had said. Which wasn't exactly the same as saying “Caroline said this was for you,” so he hadn't really lied, had he? He sure didn't want his brothers to know that the card had been meant for
him
! He'd figured Jake would just take one glance at it and throw it out. Or maybe he'd throw it out without opening it at all.

Josh started to grin. “So what did you tell Caroline?” he asked Jake. “Are you going to carve your initials on a tree? Are you going to meet out on the bridge and kiss?” He seemed to enjoy teasing Jake, the way Jake had teased him.

Peter laughed too and swung his legs as he took a big drink of milk.

Jake glared at his twin. “
You
should talk! I know how you and Beth have been leaving notes for each other at the end of the bridge. You aren't any spy at all. You two are lovebirds, that's what.”

“We are
not
!” Josh protested, his ears turning pink.

“Lovebirds! Lovebirds!” Jake chanted.

“We're not lovebirds! She's just a friend, and I find out all kinds of things from her,” Josh said again.

“Like what?” Jake challenged. “That they're making something
gross
for us to eat? Yeah. Right!”

“Like how Eddie secretly wants to make pitcher on the baseball team at school.”

“We know that already,” said Jake.

“And how Caroline really likes Wally.”

“She does not!” said Wally, but
his
ears gave him away. They were burning.

Both Jake and Josh turned on him then.

“I'll bet that valentine was for you!” Jake yelled. “I'll bet you knew it all the time ! Caroline didn't write that card for me, did she?”

“I…I didn't say she did,” Wally stammered. “I just gave it to you to get rid of it. I didn't know you were going to write her back.”

“Wally!” yelled Jake and Josh together.

“Do you know what I just did?” Jake bellowed. “I stuck a note under their door.”

“What did you say?” asked Josh.

“I wrote ‘For My Beloved’ on the outside, just the
way she did. And on the inside I said, ‘Dear Ugly Stupid, You really are crazy, aren't you? I never liked you before, I don't like you now, and I won't like you in the future. Leave me alone.’ ”

Wally swallowed. “You didn't sign it, did you?” he asked.

“No. I figured she'd just know.”

Wally was almost relieved. He'd never have the nerve to be quite that rude, but if anything should stop Caroline from acting so weird, that note should do it. At that moment the phone rang and Wally reached around from his chair and answered. Somebody on the line was sobbing. “Who is this?” he asked.

But the sobbing grew louder still, and Wally knew it could only be Caroline Malloy.

“What's the matter?” he asked.

“H-How could you be so cruel?” she wept. “You don't have to love me, Wally, but you didn't have to call me ugly and stupid.”

“It … it was—”

“You don't know how much that hurt!” Caroline continued.

“But… but I didn't write it. I gave it to—”

“Goodbye,” said Caroline. “I'm just calling to tell you that you'll never have to look at my face again. You'll never have me sitting behind you in class or following you home from school again, because I will be dead. Goodbye, Wally. Forever!” And she hung up.

Wally stared at the phone in his hand and then at his brothers.

“Who was
that
?” asked Jake.

“C-Caroline. I… I think she's going to die,” said Wally.

“What?”
cried Josh.

Peter looked ready to cry.

“She's maybe going to kill herself,” Wally said, scared.

“Because of my
note
?” asked Jake, disbelieving.

Wally nodded.

“She's got to be kidding!” said Josh. “I'm going over there and see.”

“I'm going with you,” said Jake.

“We'll all go,” said Wally. “Put your coat on, Peter.”

“We're not supposed to go over there ever again!” Peter reminded them.

“Get your
coat
!” Josh ordered. “We can't leave you here alone.”

“Wait a minute,” said Jake. “If Caroline was going to do anything dumb like that, her sisters would stop her.”

“Maybe they don't know,” said Wally.

In a few seconds the boys had flung on their jackets and were racing down the hill to the swinging bridge.

“I still think it's a trick,” said Jake. “You know how Caroline—”

“She was
sobbing
!” Wally insisted. “She said your note really hurt.”

Peter stumbled on the untied laces of his sneakers, and the boys had to pull him back up onto his feet.

“Jake, you could go to jail if she dies,” Wally said miserably. “You shouldn't have said what you did.”

“Well, you shouldn't have given me that stupid valentine,” said Jake. “If I go to jail, you'll go with me.”

Their shoes made hollow thunking sounds on the wooden planks of the bridge. The four boys were panting when they reached the top of the hill behind the Malloys’ house. The back-porch light was on, and one of the cars was gone.

“I'll bet it's all a trick!” Jake said again. “Their folks are out for the evening, and Caroline's just trying to get even.”

“Maybe,” said Wally, and hoped his brother was right.

They hurried up the path to the back door, and then they stopped, one bumping into the other.

“Oh, no!” breathed Jake.

For there on the ground, on the crust of old snow, lay Caroline, her legs and arms at a strange angle, a pool of red beneath her head.

Seventeen
More Trouble

T
his, Caroline thought, was her greatest performance yet. Even better than the abaguchie. Beth was upstairs in her room crying. Eddie was with her, telling her all the reasons the Hatfords were jerks. But
she
—Caroline Lenore Malloy—was lying out here with her legs tangled, her neck slightly twisted, and a knife clutched in her hand. And the Hatfords, all four of the Hatford boys, were standing over her, at least one of them, maybe two, making little gasping sounds. Peter, in fact, screamed.