Boys in Control (11 page)

“Act one, scene two,” read Caroline. “Twelve o'clock at night, Jim and Nancy's bedroom.” Then she and Wally had their conversation, and when Wally went offstage with a golf club to investigate the noise (Peter again, with his balloon), and a horrible scream came from behind the file cabinet, some of the girls even jumped.

By the time Wally reappeared as the amoeba, his clothes, his arms, his ears, his hair—everything but his face—were covered in green slime, and the class gave a loud
ohhhhh.
When it was her turn to scream, Caroline did it dramatically and fell to the floor in a faint so convincing that the principal, who was going by, stopped and looked in the door.

Peter tried to miss Wally and just make it look as though he had hit him with the ice bucket, but actually managed to bonk his head. Immediately, of course, he was swept up into the creature's slimy arms. And then the monster from the netherworld, dragging Peter in one hand and Caroline by her ponytail in the other, intoned, “There is only night and dark and waves and caves, and you, my darling, Queen of the Deep.”

“Ouch!” said Caroline softly.

Wally looked and sounded so evil at that point, and seemed to be having such a good time dragging Caroline, bumping and thumping, across the floor, that everyone clapped and cheered him on, and when it was over, everyone wanted to feel the green slime for themselves. Wally grinned. He would never have believed he could enjoy performing as much as this.

Miss Applebaum clapped too. “Well,” she said. “That was quite a story, Caroline. Thank you, Peter, for taking part. You may go back to your room now, though I think you'll want to wash up first. Wally, I do hope you brought a change of clothes.”

He had indeed. When he and Caroline went out into the hall to head for the rest rooms, she said, “You didn't have to be so rough, Wally! But weren't we great? Did you hear how everyone clapped?”

“They really liked the green slime,” said Wally, grinning a little.

“
I'd
like to think they liked the whole play! It had
everything—romance, suspense, mystery, terror, science fiction…”

“Whatever,” said Wally, and went into the boys’ rest room to clean up. He didn't even mention getting the pictures back now that he had kept his part of the bargain. He was having too much fun.

When Wally and his brothers got home from baseball practice that afternoon, they hardly recognized their house. There were women going in and out the front door. A woman sat at a card table just inside the door writing down each item as it arrived.

The living room looked like an antique store. There were lampshades and trunks and lawn chairs and books; there were coats and platters and galoshes and figurines. An accordion perched on the back of Mr. Hatford's favorite armchair; the couch was covered with dishes. The dining room table was stacked high with clothes to be sorted, and one end of the room was heaped with children's toys.

Mr. Hatford went out to buy Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner, which he and the boys ate upstairs in Wally's near-empty bedroom, and afterward Peter went out into the hall and stared forlornly down at the women who were still coming and going.

“I liked us better before,” he said.

Mr. Hatford laughed. “So did I, Peter, but after tomorrow, it will all be over. All the stuff is going to be
moved outside, and we won't have to look at it any longer.”

“Why do people buy so much if they just give it away?” asked Peter, coming back into the bedroom.

“A very good question, Peter. Very good. We'll have to ask your mother sometime. But right now we're all focused on tomorrow. Jake plays the championship game and your mom runs the sale. How are you feeling, Jake? Did you have a final practice after school today?”

“Yep. We're playing the toughest team, though—the Grafton Grangers.”

“Well,
they're
playing the toughest team too, so don't let that discourage you.”

“Hey, hey!” said Jake. “I'm ready.”

When all the women had gone at last, Mrs. Hatford came upstairs and fell across her bed.

“Think you'll make it?” Mr. Hatford asked as he sat down beside her and rubbed her back, the boys gathering in the doorway.

“I've never been so tired in my whole life,” she said. “Even my fingernails ache.”

“Who's setting up tomorrow?” Wally asked.

“The men. All the husbands are going to come over at seven, set up the tables on the porch and lawn and driveway, and put out all the stuff. We've color-coded every item, so that the things that sell for between one and five dollars will go on one table, things going for
five to ten dollars will be on another, and…so… on….” Her voice dropped off as she sank into sleep. Mr. Hatford put one finger to his lips and sent the boys back to their rooms.

After Wally went to bed that night, he realized he had forgotten to demand those pictures back from Caroline now that the play was over. Well, when she came the next day to help with the sale, she'd just better have them with her, or perhaps
that
was when he'd tell her about Eddie's LET'S PLAY BALL! underpants that they were going to run up the flagpole if they didn't get their album back.

He turned on his side and smoothed out his pillow. With his ear off the pillow momentarily, however, he thought he heard a noise. Footsteps. He had thought that the rest of the family was in bed, but then the sound came again. It almost sounded as though it was coming from the front porch.

Wally sat up and listened. Then he got up and went to the door of his bedroom. All the other bedroom doors were closed, and there was no light shining from under any of them.

Wally felt his way along the dark hall and slowly descended the stairs, being careful to avoid the next to the last step because it squeaked. If there was a robber in the house, Wally didn't want to be heard.

At the bottom of the stairs, he looked all about him—the living room, the dining room… There was
certainly no one there that he could see. Wally went over to the front door. For a minute he thought of turning on the light to see if anyone was out there. Then he saw a circle of light—the beam of a flashlight—moving across the grass in the front yard and disappearing at last in the trees.

I
t seemed as though everyone in Upshur County was at the Buckman Elementary school baseball field on Saturday. Shortly after the Malloys were seated on the bleachers and the game with the Grafton Grangers began, Caroline whispered in her mother's ear, “I'm going over to the Hatfords’ and help Wally with the sale.”

“You're not going to watch the rest of the game?” Mrs. Malloy asked in surprise.

“I can't!” Caroline wailed softly. “I've got butterflies in my stomach. But I don't want Eddie to know I've left, so I'm just going to slide through the bleachers. You'll have to tell me about it afterwards.”

Her mother understood. “All right,” she said. “I don't want you fainting dramatically if Eddie misses a ball. I'm sure Wally can use you.” She helped Caroline slip down to the ground below. Beth and Coach Malloy didn't even notice that she had gone.

It was very warm for a day in May, and instead of her usual jeans and T-shirt, Caroline had put on a sundress that morning. If she was going to be a security guard at the Hatfords', people were going to see her. And if people were going to be noticing her, she wanted to look her best. She hurried down the sidewalk toward the Hatfords’ house but hardly recognized it when she got there.

It looked like a junkyard. An organized junkyard. Every square inch of ground, it seemed, had a table on it with a sign listing prices for those items. There were aprons and axes, teddy bears and ties. A hand-lettered sign at the bottom of the driveway said SALE BEGINS AT NOON.

Already, however, there were a few browsers wandering among the tables, fingering the embroidered bedspreads, checking the price on a cake pan, measuring the width of a plant stand, or trying on a raincoat. Mrs. Larson hovered over the cash box and tried to keep an eye on everyone at once.

“Hi,” said Wally, and followed that up with, “Where are the pictures?”

“I couldn't bring them now, Wally, because I came from the game. I didn't think you'd want me taking them
there,
” said Caroline.

“If you don't give them to me, Caroline…,” Wally said threateningly.

“I
will
! I
promise
!” Caroline said.

Mrs. Larson called them over and handed Wally a Polaroid camera. “I want you to take a picture of every table before we start the sale,” she said, half shouting because she could hardly hear herself. “We want to put them in our auxiliary newsletter so the women can see what wonderful donations we had this year. The people of Buckman have never been more generous.”

Caroline and Wally wandered up and down the rows of folding tables, checking to see that all was well and pausing while Wally took pictures of table after table. As the photos came out of the camera and began to develop, it appeared that Caroline had somehow managed to be in each one, looking directly into the camera and smiling.

The sugar bowl and creamer from Susan Kemp, the framed photograph from Jenny Bloomer, the copper lamp from Edna Ballinger, the ceramic figurines from the Wheelers…a place for everything, and everything in its place. All the while Mrs. Larson, whose voice carried all over the yard, chattered away with neighbors who had come by to check out the sale.

A woman in a blue jacket came up to a display and smiled at Caroline. She smiled at Wally. Then she began walking around the tables, not stopping to look at much of anything until she saw the framed photograph from Jenny Bloomer, showing two stern-looking elderly people in rocking chairs. She picked it up and examined the back.

Over she came to Wally and took a twenty-dollar bill from her purse. “I'll take this, please,” she said. “The price says fifteen dollars.”

“The sale doesn't start till noon,” Wally said. “We're just letting people look.”

“But I can't come back at noon,” the woman said. She put the twenty-dollar bill on the table where the framed photograph had been.

“I can't sell it now. I can't give you change,” Wally said, reaching for the photograph. “It's against the rules.” He looked over at Mrs. Larson, hoping she would come and talk to the woman. But Mrs. Larson had her back to them and was chatting with someone else. When Wally turned toward the woman in the blue jacket again, she was walking down the driveway, the framed photo in her arms, the twenty-dollar bill left behind.

Caroline saw, and shrugged. “What can we do, Wally? She wanted it, she got it. She paid for it, after all, and the auxiliary gets to keep the change.”

“I suppose so,” said Wally. He picked up the twenty-dollar bill and walked beside Caroline to Mrs. Larson. They waited politely while Mrs. Larson said goodbye to the woman she'd been talking with and that woman turned to go.

Caroline nudged Wally. “Get a look at those bright red toenails,” she giggled.

Wally turned and stared at the woman who had been talking with Mrs. Larson. Then he turned some more
and saw her catch up farther down the sidewalk with the woman who had taken the framed photo.

Suddenly Wally grabbed Caroline's arm. “Caroline!” he gasped. “It's them!”

“Who?” asked Caroline.

“The women who tried to get in our house. The last time I saw them, the one with the photograph was wearing a pink jacket. And I'd recognize the red toe-nails on the other one anywhere.”

“They must want that framed picture really bad,” said Caroline.

“Yeah, but why? They must know something about it that Jenny Bloomer didn't know. Follow them!” Wally said.

“What?”
said Caroline.

“You've got to follow them and see where they go! We might have to get that picture back.”

“Are you serious?” Caroline asked. She had come over to be a security guard and now she was a detective?

“Go!”
Wally said. “I can't leave here till Mom gets back.”

“I'm going!” said Caroline. “What am I supposed to do if I catch up with them? Bring the picture back?”

Wally wasn't sure. His mother had said no one was to buy anything before the sale opened. “I guess so,” he said. “At least find out where they live.”

Caroline took off. This, she decided, was a lot more exciting than watching a baseball game. Even a championship game. Far off on the school ball field, she
could hear the crowd cheer, then cheer again. Did that mean a hit for the Badgers? Or was it the fans for the Grafton Grangers who were doing the cheering?

No matter,
she told herself.
Keep your eyes on that blue jacket, but don't let them know you're following them.
If she was ever given the part of a girl detective, she'd know what it felt like. They turned, Caroline turned. They went up an alley, Caroline went up an alley. At last they went around a corner and up the steps of Mrs. Ritter's Bed and Breakfast. As soon as they were inside, Caroline, too, bounded up the front steps.

Flattening herself against the wall just outside the screen door, she heard a woman's voice call from far inside the house, “Did you have a nice walk, ladies?”

“It was lovely, Mrs. Ritter,” one of the women answered, and when Caroline peered around the corner, she saw them going up the big oak staircase to the second floor.

Her heart was thumping hard inside her chest. She softly opened the screen door and slipped inside. She heard an electric mixer back in the kitchen, and she smelled cinnamon as something baked in the oven.

Caroline crossed the oriental rug in the hallway and made her way upstairs, keeping her feet close to the wall, where the steps were less likely to creak.

Even before she reached the top, she could hear the women's excited voices from one of the guest rooms.

“We're in luck, Dorothy. If we'd waited for the sale
to begin, who knows who could have walked off with this!” said one.

“By the time Jenny finds out—”

“Why does she have to know? We're the ones who found the letter in Mother's things. What our cousin doesn't know won't hurt her. That's what she gets for giving away family pictures.”