A Traitor Among the Boys (11 page)

Caroline looked from Beth to Eddie.

Eddie began to grin. “Okay,” she said.

“One … two … three …
gol”
Beth said, pressing the doorbell hard, and she and her sisters went sailing off the porch, across the yard, and tumbled down the bank toward the bridge.

They lay in the snow, their heads barely peeping up over the bank.

The porch light came on again, and they could hear the door opening.

“Hey!” came Wally's voice. “Hey! Jake! Josh! Come here!”

There was the sound of running feet, Jake's bellow, Mr. Hatford's whistle, and Mrs. Hatford's exclamations.

“Who in the world did this?” said Mrs. Hatford. “What do they think it is? Halloween?”

“Can we get out?” asked Wally, and the girls giggled when they heard the worry in his voice.

And then the snow wall came tumbling down, and Wally, Jake, and Josh ran to the edge of the porch in their stocking feet and looked around.

Silently the girls went on across the bridge, and then they linked arms and sang as they climbed the hill toward home.

▪

Mr. Malloy was watching TV when his daughters came in. “Where have you been?” he asked. “You look as though youVe been ice-skating! It's almost nine o'clock!”

“We've been having so much fun out on the ice!” Caroline said, winking at Eddie. “We just couldn't make ourselves stop.”

“Girls!” called their mother from the dining room, where she was looking through a brochure of oil paintings, “I want you to see something.”

The girls slipped off their jackets and walked into the next room. Mrs. Malloy pointed to a painting of the Appalachian Mountains in snow and fog. “I'm thinking of buying this painting from a gallery in El-kins—if not this exact picture, maybe one like it. I thought it would look especially nice over there above the buffet. What do you think?”

The girls came around behind her chair and looked at the picture.

“I like the fog,” said Beth.

“I like the snow,” said Caroline.

“I like the mountains,” said Eddie. “Go ahead and buy it, Mom.”

“I think this artist does wonderful work,” Mrs. Malloy said, “but sometimes paintings look better on canvas than they do in a brochure and sometimes they look worse. I'll just have to see for myself.”

“Does this mean we'll be staying in Buckman? I mean, are you buying pictures to go in this house?” asked Beth.

“I have no idea where we'll be come August,” her mother told her. “But wherever we are, I think this painting might be gorgeous on any wall. You girls get to bed now. It's late.”

The girls went upstairs, smiling to themselves. Their parents didn't suspect a thing.

“That
will teach the guys to mess around with us,” said Eddie.

“That
will earn us a little respect,” said Beth. ‘’They'll
never
guess we lifted all that heavy snow and carried it up to their porch.”

“We are totally, positively amazing!” said Caroline. “The magnificent Malloy sisters strike again!”

▪

“I suppose you thought that was funny,” Wally said to Caroline the next day as he slid into his seat at school.

“Funny, and extremely clever,” smiled Caroline. “We're not just
girls,
Wally! We're
professional
We are so professional at being girls that we can outfox a boy any day, any time, any season. We can outgirl a boy before he even knows what hit him! Just think, Wally Hatford, we are something that you and your brothers can
never
be—wonderful, glorious, intelligent, adventurous, magnificent girls!”

She threw out her arms in a grand gesture and whacked Miss Applebaum, who happened to be coming up the aisle passing out their book reports.

“Oh! I'm sorry!” Caroline gasped.

“Could we have a little less grandeur, Caroline, do you think?” said her teacher.

▪

Peter came over after school.

“Do I get some cookies?” he asked.

“Do you get
cookies?
How about a whole handful?” said Beth, leading him out to the kitchen.

She had already started a batch of double-chocolate-chunk cookies, her own special creation with little
bits of coconut in them, and they were almost ready to take out of the oven.

“You really
are
a baker, aren't you!” Peter said admiringly.

“Yep. I think I'll go to culinary school or something,” said Beth. “You know what I'll call my bakeshop when I get one, Peter? Malloy's Masterpieces, maybe. Or Beth's Breads or just Breads and Brownies or something. How does that sound?”

“It sounds wonderful!” said Peter. “I know what / want to be, too.”

“What?”

“A spy! Or a detective.”

“Hey, you'd make a great spy,” Beth told him.

“You put that snow up on our porch, didn't you?” Peter went on. “Jake was really mad!” He watched as Beth opened the oven door. Eddie and Caroline came out in the kitchen too, and they all waited for the first batch to cool.

“So what happened?” asked Caroline.

“Dad made us clean it all off this morning before we went to school,” Peter said.

“Aw, poor you!” said Caroline.

Eddie poured Peter a glass of milk. “Well, who knocked down
our
snow fort?
We
were mad!” she said.

Peter waited till a saucer with two large cookies sat in front of him, and then he said, “How many cookies do I get if I tell you something else?”

“All you can eat!” Caroline said quickly, picking up a cookie herself and blowing on it.

“Jake and Josh and Wally are going to sneak out
of school early tomorrow and go to the swinging bridge and build a big wall of snow so
you
can't go across, and then they're going to hit you with snowballs.”

“Peter, you're a wonderful brother to us,” said Eddie, exchanging looks with her sisters. “Give him another cookie, Caroline!”

▪

The next morning while the girls were eating breakfast, Eddie said, “Okay, I've got it. When school's out, we don't come home the usual way; we walk down to the business district and use the road bridge to get to Island Avenue. The boys can wait at the end of the swinging bridge all night if they want to, but we'll be home having cocoa, laughing our heads off.”

And they broke into laughter right then.

▪

It began snowing a little before noon, however, and the next time Caroline looked out the window of her classroom, the flakes were coming down so thick and fast, they looked like giant white flowers. By two o'clock, several inches had accumulated on the window ledges, and the wind had picked up.

The principal's voice sounded over the school intercom.

“Students,” he said, “there's a sudden winter storm warning for this area, and we have decided to close school an hour early—”

Every classroom erupted in cheers.

“You are all to go directly home, unless you have specific instructions as to where else to go in an emergency.
The forecasters are predicting a foot of snow with gusting winds, and I repeat: all students are to go directly home.”

All the kids in Caroline's class hurried to get their coats, laughing excitedly and staring out the hall windows at the approaching blizzard. The sky was gray and looked like broiling broth in a kettle.

“Have a nice snowdrift!” Wally said to Caroline.

“Have a nice avalanche,” she replied.

“Have a good frostbite,” said Wally.

“Same to you,” said Caroline.

There was no need for the girls to take the road bridge back to Island Avenue because, with the coming storm, everyone was intent on simply getting home. The snow seeped into their sneakers. Out on the road, cars were already sliding about, skidding when they tried to stop and acting crazy.

The swinging bridge creaked and swayed as the girls made their way across, and they had to keep brushing snow from their faces so they could see. They made their way up the hill behind their house and let themselves in the back door.

There were no sounds from inside, however. No smell of hot cocoa waiting. No music. No rustling sounds coming from their mother's desk.

“Mom?” Caroline called.

No answer.

Beth went upstairs to check but soon came down again. “She's not here,” she said. “I can't find any note. She almost always leaves a note.”

“And her car's gone,” said Eddie. “Look at the calendar. Maybe she had an appointment.”

Caroline went to the little study
off
the living room and checked Mrs. Malloy's engagement calendar.

Noon,
it said.
Fisher's Gallery, Elkins.

Caroline looked at the desk clock. It was already half past two, and Elkins was thirty miles away.

Eighteen
Lost …

”W
e're out of cookies!”

Peter's bellow filled the house.

“Then eat crackers or something. Don't stand there shouting!” Wally told him.

But Peter was indignant. “Why don't we ever have cookies like the Mailoys do? Yesterday they had coconut cookies with big hunks of chocolate in them! The day before that it was peanut butter.”

Jake, Josh, and Wally came to the doorway of the kitchen and looked at Peter.

“How do
you
know?” asked Josh.

“They gave me some.”

The boys continued to stare.

“Do you mean you go over there every day and they give you cookies?” asked Jake.

Peter nodded. “Big ones, too! And sometimes they're still warm!”

Jake sat down at the table next to Peter. Wally and Josh sat down across from him.

“Uh-oh,” Peter murmured.

“Okay, tell us everything,” said Josh.

Peter pressed his lips together and thrust himself against the back of his chair, arms folded across his chest.

“Listen, Peter, the Malloy sisters don't just invite you over for cookies every day for nothing,” said Josh.

“I won't telir
Peter declared.

“Tell what?” asked Wally.

“How they kidnapped me.”

“They
kidnapped
you?”

“I won't tell because they let me go,” said Peter.

“Yeah, they kidnapped you and fed you cookies and let you go if you did
whati”
asked Jake.

“If I didn't tell you what I told them. And I won t!

Wally was furious. “You told them everything we were planning to do to them, didn't you? You're a snitch, Peter!”

“I am not! You said we were going to treat them like sisters, and I was just being nice.”

“You told them we were going to knock down their fort, didn't you! That's why they were out there waiting to ambush us!” said Jake. “You went over there and told them!”

“I did not! I called them up.”

Wally moaned. “You
are
a snitch!”

“A traitor to your brothers,” said Jake.

“A weasel,” said Josh.

Peter started to cry, and the boys immediately felt sorry.

“Oh, never mind,” said Josh. “But the only way you can make it up to us is to call the girls and tell them you won't be giving away our plans anymore. You've either got to be in the brotherhood or you've got to go over there and live. You can't have it both ways.”

“You mean I could go over and live with them?” Peter asked, brightening.

“No!” the boys all bellowed together.

“But you have to decide if you're for or against us,” said Wally.

Peter thought some more.

“For,” he said finally, without enthusiasm.

Wally handed him the telephone and dialed the Malloys’ number.

“Hello,” Peter said when someone answered. “I have to tell you I can't come over there anymore and give away secrets because I have to be a brotherhood.”

Jake started to laugh. The boys waited.

For a long time, it seemed, Peter simply sat there with the telephone to his ear without saying a word.

“Who is it? What's she
sayingV
Jake asked when he couldn't wait another minute. “Boy, she must really be giving him an earful.”

Peter looked at his brothers and held out the phone.

“She's crying,” he said.

The boys stared at each other.

“Crying?” asked Josh.
“Who?”

“Beth. Her mother's gone in the blizzard,” Peter said.

Josh took the phone. “Beth? This is Josh. What's wrong?”

Wally sat at the table without moving. He had known the Malloy girls when they were angry, embarrassed, amused, and delighted, but he had never known one of them to cry. What were you supposed to do if a girl cried? If she was your sister?

“Yeah,” Josh was saying. “Yeah…. Gee, I don't know…. Yeah, I can imagine….”

And finally, to the surprise of the others, he said, “Listen, do you want us to come over?”

When he hung up, Josh said, “Their mom went to Elkins this morning, they think, and hasn't come back.”

“What time did she leave?” asked Jake.

“We were trying to figure that out. Eleven, maybe. Eleven-fifteen. They tried to call their dad at the college, but he's at a meeting somewhere and they can't find him. They're scared.”

Scared? What were you supposed to do when a sister was scared? Wally didn't know that either. He looked out the window and could see nothing but snow. They had a
reason
to be scared.