A Traitor Among the Boys

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OTHER YEARLING BOOKS
BY PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR
YOU WILL ENJOY

THE BOYS START THE WAR

THE GIRLS GET EVEN

BOYS AGAINST GIRLS

THE GIRLS’ REVENGE

A SPY AMONG THE GIRLS

THE BOYS RETURN

THE GIRLS TAKE OVER

Contents

One:
New Year's Resolution

Two:
Early-Horning Visitor

Three:
A Little Conversation

Four:
Big, Big Mistake

Five:
Trapped

Six:
Tryout

Seven:
Elmer

Eight:
Hostage

Nine:
Birthday Blues

Ten:
Letter to Georgia

Eleven:
A Curious Celebration

Twelve:
P.S.

Thirteen:
“Break a Leg”

Fourteen:
The Birth of Buckmsn

Fifteen:
The Awakening

Sixteen:
War

Seventeen:
The Traitor Returns

Eighteen:
Lost …

Nineteen:
… And Found

One
New Year's Resolution

O
kay, then, it's decided. The girls can stay,” Jake said, looking around the breakfast table, where six different boxes of cereal were scattered. “But
only,
⁹⁹
he added, his mouth full of Frosted Flakes, “if they play by our rules.”

As though they had anything to do with the Mal-loys staying in or leaving West Virginia.

The first week of January had passed, and the boys had still not made their New Year's resolutions. Mrs. Hatford had given an order: they were not to leave the kitchen until each had decided how he would improve as a human being in the 365 days ahead. Jake, Josh, Wally, and Peter decided it would be easier to come up with one joint resolution they could all do together: they would let the Malloy girls stay in the house across the river where their best friends, the Bensons—all boys—used to live.

Mrs. Hatford came into the kitchen just then to get the watering can for her fern.

“Well?” she said. “Do I hear four good resolutions in the making?”

“No, but we have one really good one that we'll all do together,” said Josh, Jake's eleven-year-old twin.

Their mother looked cautiously about the table. “Okay, I'm listening.”

Wally Hatford, age nine, who was sitting beside seven-year-old Peter, the youngest, stuffed another bite of toast into his mouth so that he wouldn't be the one to answer, because he could almost predict what his mom was going to say.

“We've decided,” said Jake, “that we'll let the Mal-loys live in Buckman, if they want to, after their year is up.”

Mrs. Hatford slowly removed her glasses and her eyes traveled from Jake to Josh to Wally to Peter.

“Let
them?” she asked in disbelief. “Are they renting their house from
youT

“What we mean,” said Josh, “is that we won't make things hard for them anymore.”

Mrs. Hatford focused on Wally next. “Meaning … ?” she asked. It
always
happened this way: Wally got the hard questions.

“Meaning that we won't dump dead fish and birds on their side of the river to make them think it's polluted,” Wally said miserably.

Peter nodded vigorously. “Or dead squirrels,” he said. “Don't forget the squirrels.”

Their mother put one hand on the back of a chair
to steady herself, and finally came around and sat down on its seat. Hard.

“Do you boys mean to sit here and tell me that you actually tried to drive the Malloys out of Buckman? That you tried to get them to move back to Ohio?”

Wally thought it over.
Was this a trick question?
“Yep,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because we wanted the Bensons to come back,” Josh told her. “They were the best friends we ever had.”

“And you thought—you thought—” Mrs. Hatford began, “that if you drove the Malloys away, the Bensons would return?”

“Something like that,” said Jake, looking a little chagrined. “We thought it might help, anyway.”

“Are you completely, positively out of your minds?” Mrs. Hatford yelled. “Have you lost every ounce of common sense you were born with? Did it ever occur to you that the decision will be based on whether the Bensons like it well enough to stay in Georgia, and not on what is happening up here to their house?”

“Well, if they lost their renters, we thought they'd at least consider coming back,” said Josh.

Mrs. Hatford slumped in the chair and closed her eyes for a moment.

“All right,” she said weakly. “Let's hear it. What else did you do?”

The boys leaned their elbows on the table and thought about it—Jake and Josh in their sweatpants
and T-shirts, Wally in his racing-car pj's, and Peter in his Bambi pajamas with a tail on the seat of the pants.

“We howled outside their house once when the girls were alone,” Wally ventured, probably the least offensive thing they had done.

“We locked Caroline in the toolshed,” said Peter.

Mrs. Hatford gasped.

“But we let her out when we thought she was getting rabid,” Wally said quickly.

Their mother could only stare.

“We messed up the pumpkin chiffon pie their mother sent over and spied on Beth's bedroom and got them lost in the woods,” said Jake.

Mrs. Hatford buried her face in her hands. “What else?” she asked, her voice high and tight.

Wally felt miserable seeing his mom that way. The four brothers exchanged anxious looks.

“That's about it,” said Wally.

Mrs. Hatford dropped her hands again. “I want a
filli
confession!” she demanded. “Don't leave out a single thing.”

The boys sighed in unison and tried to think some more.

“We took a worm when they invited us over at Thanksgiving and put it on Caroline's plate,” said Jake.

“And we
were
going to dump a can of worms on them one night in the cemetery, but they never showed up,” Josh remembered.

“And how about the night we trapped Caroline in the cellar of Oldakers’ Bookstore and she couldn't get
out?” said Wally, smiling a little as he remembered, then just as suddenly wiping the smile off his face.

Slowly Mrs. Hatford stood up. “I am surprised, frankly, that the Malloys
are
still here. I am surprised that Jean and George are speaking to us at all!”

“Well, it's not as though they never did anything to
usi”
said Jake. “They've done plenty!”

“And all of it deserved, I imagine,” Mrs. Hatford said, just as her husband wandered into the kitchen for his second cup of coffee.

He looked curiously about him. “What did I miss?” he asked.

“Don't ask,” said Mrs. Hatford. “Don't ask.”

Wally didn't know if this meant the conversation was over and he could make his escape or not. He slowly inched his chair away from the table.

“Stay right where you are!” Mrs. Hatford said. Wally froze.

It was Mr. Hatford who made his escape. He poured his coffee and immediately left the room, as though he couldn't get away fast enough.

Jake and Josh didn't move, because their mother was looking right at them.

“Now get this,” she said. “You are not only going to
let
the Malloys stay in Buckman if they like, you are going to be
nice
to those girls. You are going to be helpful, polite, friendly, and whatever else I can think of for as long as they live in our town.”

“Forever?” gasped Wally. He could see himself being helpful, polite, and friendly for an afternoon, maybe—a day, perhaps. Maybe even a whole week. But
foreveri

“Forever,” said Mrs. Hatford. “Beginning now. I don't want to hear of one unkind word, one scowl, one argument. … I want you to treat those girls as though they were your sisters.”

Wally instantly felt better. If the Hatfords had sisters, he was sure they wouldn't always get along. They wouldn't always be polite to each other. Jake and Josh must have been thinking the same thing, because they didn't look quite so uncomfortable now either.

“Like
sistersl”
Mrs. Hatford repeated.

“Like sisters,” Jake promised.

“I think I'll go lie down,” Mrs. Hatford said. “I've only been up an hour, and I'm ready to go back to bed.”

The boys went into the living room and spread out in front of the fireplace with the morning comics. Their father was reading the sports section at the dining room table, so the boys had the living room to themselves. Jake was actually grinning.

“Since we've never had sisters …,” he began softly.

“… And we don't know
how
we would treat them if we did …,” added Josh.

“… I figure we can do about whatever we like,” finished Jake. “We'd probably treat sisters the same way we treat each other, and
we
don't always get along. We fight and argue and play tricks all the time.”

“Right!” said Wally. “We just won't lock anyone in the toolshed anymore.”

“Or spy in their bedroom windows,” said Josh. “Especially Beth's.”

“If they ever give us a pumpkin pie again, we won't tear it apart looking for dog doo,” said Wally.

Peter said nothing, but he looked happy. He looked, in fact, like a second-grade boy who liked the Malloy girls and was glad things were going to be better between their two families. He looked like a boy who, having just finished breakfast, was already thinking of lunch, and remembering the cookies he occasionally got, baked by Eddie, Beth, and Caroline Malloy.

And so, while his brothers were reading the comics, Peter put on his clothes, pulled on his boots, got his coat from the closet, and set out over the swinging bridge to the house on the other side of the river.

Two
Early-Morning Visitor