A Traitor Among the Boys (2 page)

H
ere's something that might interest you, girls,” said Mrs. Malloy, glancing at the morning paper as she buttered her toast. “The town of Buckman will be two hundred years old on January twenty-first.”

“That doesn't particularly interest me,” said Eddie, the oldest, who was eleven. “If / was going to be two hundred years old on the twenty-first, I'd be interested. I'd expect the biggest birthday party I'd ever had.” Eddie was wearing a pair of pajamas that looked like a baseball uniform because it
was
a baseball uniform. She'd worn it back in Ohio when she was on the girls’ softball team, and it was about the most comfortable garment she'd ever had on.

“It doesn't interest me at all!” said Beth, who was ten. She was baking still another batch of cookies, and the kitchen smelled like cinnamon. Beth had begun baking cookies to sell before Christmas, and now, it seemed, she couldn't stop. Every few days she thought
up new recipes, and cookie sheets covered the stove, the countertops, even the top of the microwave.

Their mother went on reading, directing her comments to Caroline, who was eight. Caroline was precocious, however, so she was a year ahead in school and in the very same fourth-grade class as Wally Hatford.

“It
says,”
Mrs. Malloy continued, “that in addition to a concert by the high-school band and speeches by county officials, the Buckman Community Players are going to perform a little play about the founding of the town. Last week somebody came across an old story about Buckman at the library, and the Players want to use it as part of the celebration. Tryouts are tomorrow. Because they have only two weeks to rehearse, they're looking for actors and actresses who will be available for practice several nights a week.”

Caroline's spoon clattered down into her bowl, making a splash of milk and cornflakes.

“Can
anyone
try out?” she asked.

“That's what it says. They're looking for a tall man to play the sheriff, a short man to play the mayor, five women, two boys, and three girls.”

“I'll be one of the girls!” cried Caroline, deliriously happy. She leaped from her chair and went dancing about the room. “I don't care what kind of girls they are, I want to be in the play! Does it say how old they have to be, Mother?”

Mrs. Malloy scanned the paper again and took a bite of toast. “No. Just ‘three girls.’ That's all it says.”

“Maybe one will be horribly, horribly wicked!” Caroline said in delight. Her great ambition in life
was to be an actress on Broadway, and she knew that starting out small was better than not starting out at all. This would be better than a class play at school. This was for the whole town to enjoy, and some of the actors were grown-ups. It would be her very first role in a grown-up play, if only she could get a part.

“Maybe one of the girls will be a singer or dancer,” she went on. “Maybe she'll be such a beautiful girl that everybody hates her, or maybe she's always rescuing little lost animals, and—”

“Or maybe she's sickly and gets to die onstage,” said Beth, who had her nose stuck in a cookbook. “Caroline, muffle it, please.”

“I'm going to try out! I've got to try out! Oh, Beth, why don't you and Eddie try out too! Maybe the three of us will get the parts!” Caroline continued excitedly.

“No way!” said Eddie. “I'd rather have all my teeth pulled than stand up onstage and act stupid.”

“Beth?” Caroline pleaded. “Oh, please! We've never been in a play together, ever!”

“I don't know, I'd have to read the script first. If it's just a bunch of people talking about how wonderful Buckman is, then no. It has to have character and plot and suspense!”

“But
maybe
you'll do it?” Caroline said. “Please?
Please?”

“I'll think about it,” Beth told her, and at that exact moment the doorbell rang.

Caroline, who was dressed in a pink robe with rosebuds on it, got up immediately to answer. She thought she looked like a beautiful princess in the robe, and the more people who saw her, the better.

But Beth, who had started baking that morning in a pair of pajamas that looked like a tiger's skin, yelled, “Don't let anyone in!” The tops and bottoms were yellow with black stripes and were the ugliest pajamas she had ever seen. They even had footpads that looked like claws. The only reason she was wearing them at all was that her grandmother had given them to her for Christmas, and Mrs. Malloy insisted that Beth wear them at least once before she wrote a thank-you note.

Caroline went out in the hall and opened the front door. There stood Peter Hatford smiling up at her, another tooth missing.

“It's only Peter,” Caroline called over her shoulder to Beth. Then she opened the door wide and said, “Hi, Peter. Come on in.”

“Hello, Peter,” Mrs. Malloy called from the living room, where she had taken her toast and coffee. “How are you?”

“I'm hungry!” Peter said, grinning, and headed straight for the kitchen, where the cookies were kept.

Mr. Malloy, who was coach of the football team at the college, watched the young boy disappearing down the hall toward the kitchen. “Did you have a nice Christmas?” he called after him.

“Yeah, it was great!” Peter said. “Especially all the cookies and stuff!”

Out in the kitchen, he sat right down at the table.

“Hi, Peter,” said Beth. “Bet I know what you want.”

“Yeah! Chocolate, if you have them,” said Peter.

“You know what I've decided, Peter?” Beth told
him. “I want to be a pastry chef. Someday I'm going to enter the Pillsbury Bake-Off and win a million dollars. If I do, I'll start my own bakery. This morning I'm making chocolate surprise cookies, with Her-shey's Kisses inside.”

“Wow!” said Peter.

Eddie got herself some more orange juice from the refrigerator and studied Peter skeptically. “You guys were sure making a lot of noise at your place on New Year's Eve,” she said. “Sounded like you were banging together every pot and pan in your house. And who was playing that awful trumpet?”

“That was Jake!” Peter grinned. “We each got to blow it once, though. We brought in the new year, right?”

“Right. You brought it in with a bang,” Eddie told him.

Beth put some cookies in front of Peter and got a glass for his milk.

“Guess what
I'm
going to do,” said Caroline. “I'm going to start out the new year by being in a play. I'm going to try out for it, anyway.”

“We're going to do something too!” Peter told her. “Jake and Josh and Wally and me. We're going to do a revolution!”

“A revolution?” asked Eddie.

“Yeah. Mom said we each had to make a revolution, so we all made one together.”

“You mean
resolution!”
asked Beth.

Peter stuffed half a cookie in his mouth and happily swung his legs beneath the table. “Yeah,” he said.

“Your mom said you each had to make a New Year's resolution, but you all made one together?”

“Yep. We're all going to do it,” said Peter.

“What's the resolution?” asked Eddie.

Peter thought for a moment. “Is it supposed to be a secret?” he asked.

Eddie, Beth, and Caroline exchanged glances.

“Why, I don't think so, do you, Beth?” asked Eddie. “Is there a rule that you have to keep a New Year's resolution secret?”

“I never heard that before,” said Beth.

“Me either,” said Caroline. “So what was it, Peter? What are you going to do?”

“Be nice to you,” said Peter.

Caroline and her sisters stared.

“Be nice to
usi”
Beth choked.

He nodded. “Yep!” He popped the rest of the cookie in his mouth, and little crumbs fell from his lips onto the table. “We said we were going to let you stay in Buckman if you wanted, but Mom said we have to be nice and polite and friendly
forever.”

Slowly, Eddie in her baseball uniform, Beth in her tiger pj's, and Caroline in her rosebud robe turned to grin at each other and then at Peter. The three of them sat down and crowded around him.

“What exactly will your resolution mean?” asked Eddie. “What does it mean you will or won't do?”

“Well,” said Peter, “we can't ever drop dead squirrels on your side of the river again, and we can't lock Caroline in the toolshed, and if you ever give us another pie, we can't mess it up looking for dog doo.”

Caroline tried not to laugh.

“But what are you going to do
for
us?” asked Eddie. “What are you going to do that's nice and polite and friendly?”

Peter bit into another cookie and chewed. Finally he took a swallow of milk, then shrugged.

“Treat you like sisters,” he said.

Three
A Little Conversation

Wally
woke up the next morning to cold. The air was cold, the pillow was cold, his nose—the only thing sticking out of the covers—was cold. But the space under the blankets was toasty warm, and Wally did not want to get up again ever.

With one finger he pulled the covers down a little so he could peek out. The window was coated with frost. In fact, it made a pattern that looked like the continent of Africa, except that it had a rather large lump where a lump shouldn't be.

Wally loved to study things. He could easily stay under the blankets the rest of the day, he thought, just looking at the frost on the window or the crack in the ceiling or the spiderweb that was strung from—

“Wally, I won't tell you again!” came his mother's voice from the doorway. “Get up and get dressed. There's oatmeal on the stove if you want it.”

Wally closed his eyes, counted to twenty, then
threw off the covers and, like a soldier going into battle, grabbed his clothes and headed for the warmth of the bathroom. Josh was already in there, however, taking a shower.

“Arrrggghhh!” howled Wally.

“For goodness’ sake, he'll be out in a few minutes,” said Mrs. Hatford. “For once in my life, I'd like to see four boys get themselves off in the morning without any uproar whatsoever.”

Mornings in the Hatford household were always hectic because Mr. Hatford was a mail carrier who had to be at work by eight-thirty, the boys had to be at school by nine, and Mrs. Hatford had to be at her job at the hardware store by nine-thirty. So the family showered in shifts, and the part of the morning that Mrs. Hatford liked best, she said, was when everyone else was gone and she could enjoy a cup of coffee in peace.

“Well, maybe by now things will have settled down some at the P.O.,” Mr. Hatford said as he put his blue sweater on over his blue shirt, his blue jacket over his blue sweater. He put on a blue cap with blue ear muffs, and finally, with a “Have a good day, Ellen,” and then, “You too, guys,” he went out the door.

At last the boys were bundled up, ready to go. Teeth were brushed, homework collected, lunches packed, and they set off out the door.

“Let's get to school before we run into the girls,” Jake said. “I don't feel like being nice to anyone this morning.”

“We
have
to be nice,” said Peter. “Mom
said.”

“Just come on,” Jake grumbled, but no sooner had they got to the end of the driveway than they saw the three Malloy girls coming over the swinging bridge that crossed the Buckman River.

The river came into town from one direction, circled around the end of Island Avenue, and flowed back out again on the other side. A road bridge at the end of Island Avenue connected the few houses there to the business district only two blocks away, but the narrow swinging footbridge furnished a shortcut over to College Avenue, where the Hatfords lived.

The girls were headed for school.

“Hi,” said Josh, trying his best to be friendly, as he'd promised. He and his twin brother were as different as salt and pepper, but they really got along well. Jake was usually the ringleader of the bunch, full of energy and ideas. Josh had ideas too, but he liked to draw almost more than he liked eating or sleeping. He could draw pictures of anything, but he especially liked drawing airplanes, aliens, race cars, and horses.

“Hi,” said Beth, smiling back.

No one frowned at anybody, and Peter looked from one to another, happy that finally, it seemed, his brothers, whom he loved, and the Malloy girls, whom he liked very much, appeared as though they might possibly get along.

When they had gone another half block and nobody had said anything particularly mean, Peter chirped, “Isn't it nice that we're all being friendly?”

“Shut up, Peter,” muttered Jake.

But Caroline said, “Well, I think January's going to be wonderful, because guess what? Buckman is celebrating
its two hundredth anniversary. The Buckman Community Players are putting on a play, and
I'm
going to be in it.”

“You?” said Wally. “What are you going to be? The dog?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized that this did not sound friendly or nice at all, so he added quickly, “I mean, is this a play about people or animals?” He tried to make it sound as polite as possible.

“People, of course!” said Caroline. “About the founding of the town of Buckman.”