Boys in Control (2 page)

Because whenever the Hatford kids and the Malloy kids got together, there was trouble. When Caroline and her sisters put their heads together, there was mischief you wouldn't believe.

It didn't help, of course, that Eddie Malloy was the alternate pitcher for the Buckman Badgers and that some people thought she was even better than Jake. It didn't help either that Beth would be in the bleachers cheering loudest of all for Eddie. And it especially didn't help that Caroline would undoubtedly discover Wally's absence from the championship game and would probably come looking for him, just to see what he was up to.

“I feel sick,” said Wally to the mirror. Still, having
Caroline there to help might be better than not having any other helper but Mrs. Larson.

“Wally!” called his mother. “You're going to be late. Your brothers have already left for school, and the Malloy girls crossed the bridge five minutes ago.”

Wally sighed and went downstairs. He pulled on his jacket and picked up his backpack. Then he went outside into the cool sunny air of a May morning, past the swinging footbridge that led across the river to the house where the Malloys were staying, and on up the street toward the school.

It used to be that his friends, the Bensons, lived in that big house on Island Avenue, where the Buckman River flowed into town on one side of the island, ran under the road bridge to the business district, then circled back out again on the other side of Island Avenue. It used to be that he and his brothers and the Benson boys spent all their time together, thinking up new things to do.

But now the Bensons had moved to Georgia for a year, the Malloys were renting their house, Jake was on the baseball team, and Wally was stuck. There was no getting around it.

Head down, shoelaces flapping, Wally trudged on up the sidewalk, reaching Buckman Elementary just as the last bell rang.

C
aroline Malloy pushed up her sleeves, settled back in her chair, and lifted her long dark ponytail to cool the back of her neck. Wally was going to be late if he didn't hurry. Miss Applebaum was already standing up with her roll book, looking over the class.

It wasn't that Caroline was especially fond of Wally Hatford. He certainly wasn't very fond of her, but could she help it if she was precocious and had been moved up to fourth grade? Could she help it if she had strong ambitions to be an actress, and Wally was so laid-back he just seemed to slide from one day to the next?

What she missed was being able to trace her name on the back of Wally's shirt with the edge of her ruler. Tickling him behind the ear with her pencil, and then watching his shoulders twitch and seeing first his neck, then his cheeks, then his ears turn red. Where
was
he?

Riiiiiiing!
went the last bell. A few seconds later there was the sound of running feet in the hallway and then Wally Hatford skidded into the room, stumbled down the row, and crumpled into the seat in front of Caroline.

“Well, I heard you coming, Wally, so we'll say you made it,” said the teacher. “You might want to hang your jacket out there in the hall.”

Wally got up, went back out the door, then came in again, a little more slowly this time.

“Good
morning
, Wally!” said Caroline softly, leaning forward and blowing on the back of his neck.

Wally didn't answer. He just moved sideways so that she couldn't poke him with her ruler and pretended he was listening to Miss Applebaum talk about book reports and when they were due.

Caroline sighed and folded her arms across her chest. May was going to be the most boring month if she didn't think of some way to liven it up. All the attention was going to Eddie these days—Eddie and baseball. The middle Malloy daughter, Beth, didn't seem to care if anyone paid attention to her or not. As long as Beth had a good book, especially a scary one, she was happy.

But Caroline needed attention. She loved being the main attraction, and why not? She was an actress, wasn't she, and all actresses liked an audience.

“…a choice,” Miss Applebaum was saying. “You may read a book of at least a hundred pages and write a
report, you may read two shorter books and compare them, or you may write a book of your own of at least ten typed pages.”

Caroline's hand shot up into the air. “Could we write a play?” she asked.

Miss Applebaum looked thoughtful.

“A play is like a book. It's just mostly talking, telling what the characters are saying to each other,” Caroline went on, as though her teacher did not know what a play was.

“Well, yes. I suppose it could be a play, Caroline, as long as it tells a complete story,” said Miss Applebaum.

Caroline began to smile. “And will we get extra credit if we act it out for the class?”

“Yes, certainly!” said the teacher. And then she asked the class to stand for the Pledge to the flag.

“Wally,” Caroline whispered, moving a little closer to the boy in front of her.

“No!” Wally whispered back. “I won't be in your play.”

“You don't even know what I'm going to write about,” said Caroline.

“Neither do you,” said Wally. “But you'll have to find someone else to do it, not me.”

Caroline sighed again. It wasn't easy being a budding actress in a boring world. Still, a lot more happened here than had ever happened when she lived in Ohio. If only her family could stay here, and her dad didn't decide to move the family back again come fall.

“… and to the Republic for which it stands,” the class was saying, “one nation…”

I know!
Caroline thought.
I'll write a mystery play, and then even Beth will read it. And if she likes it, maybe I could perform it for the whole school!

The more Caroline thought, the more excited she became. How would you ever accomplish anything if you didn't dream? She was better at dreaming than almost anyone she knew.

There would have to be a main character, of course, with a wonderful part, and this main character would naturally be her. Maybe it would be such a good play that the newspaper would send a reporter out to review it when she performed it onstage. It might be such a great play that a talent scout would read the review and invite Caroline to audition for a part on Broadway. It might be such a brilliant play that—

“You may sit down now, Caroline,” Miss Apple-baum said, and there was laughter all around her. Caroline realized that the Pledge of Allegiance was long over and she was still standing. She sheepishly took her seat.

Never mind,
she told herself. Someday she would be standing onstage on Broadway and everyone would be clapping. The ushers would come down the aisles carrying bouquets of roses, and she would bow to the audience—left, right, and center—and the name Caroline Lenore Malloy would be on everyone's lips as they left the theater.

When school was out for the day, most of the students went home. But those who were on the Buckman Badgers baseball team, and many of their brothers and sisters and friends, went right out to the ball field instead. The team would be practicing for the first big game of the season, coming up that Saturday. Many elementary schools had only a small field for baseball, and championship games had to be played at the local high school. But Buckman Elementary was one of the few that not only had an official ball diamond, it had bleachers as well, and on Sunday afternoons the field was open to men's amateur teams from the area.

There were sixteen sixth-grade teams competing for the championship, which meant there would be eight baseball games going on at once in different parts of the district the first Saturday in May. The eight winners would play each other the following week, the four winners would play the week after that, and on the last Saturday in May, the twenty-ninth, the two winners would play each other to see who would win the sixth-grade championship for the school district. Losing teams, however, still met at local schools to play each other, just for fun, with parents doing the coaching, so it wasn't as though you had one chance to play baseball and that was it.

But Caroline knew that Eddie had her heart set on the championship game. If the Badgers didn't make it to the finals, baseball season would be over as far as
Eddie was concerned. None of that Saturday-morning neighborhood baseball stuff for her.

Caroline had mixed feelings as she followed her two blond sisters out to the ball field behind the school. It seemed wrong to wish that Buckman would lose, and for Eddie's sake, Caroline hoped they wouldn't. But if the Badgers won the first game, and they played every Saturday in May, it would be hard to get anyone interested in her play till the games were over.

Beth, who was in fifth grade, crawled up on the bleachers beside Josh and Peter, but Caroline climbed up farther still and sat a couple of feet away from Wally Hatford, who was leaning his elbows on the riser behind him, studying a branch of the maple tree that hung out over the stands.

Wally moved a few more inches away from her, and Caroline decided right then and there that if ever she was to persuade Wally Hatford to be in a play with her, she would have to be nice to him, starting
now.

“Hello, Wally,” she said. “Nice day, isn't it?”

“We just saw each other two minutes ago,” said Wally.

“So, can't I say it's a nice day anyhow?” asked Caroline.

“What do you want?” asked Wally, looking at her sideways.

“Do I have to
want
something? I just like sitting up here with you because I know you don't like baseball any more than I do,” said Caroline.

“I never said I didn't like it,” said Wally.

Down on the field, the coach was yelling at one of the players. “Hey, Mike! You playing baseball or chopping wood?” he called. “Don't start swinging your bat around until the pitch. You could let a ball go right past you if you're not ready.”

Jake was on the pitcher's mound, and he threw a hard fastball. Sure enough, the boy in the batter's box wasn't ready. As he started his swing, the catcher had already caught the ball.

Eddie was playing shortstop in the practice game, and when the batter merely tapped the next ball, she leaped forward and caught it. Then the players changed sides and she and Jake were up to bat.

“I personally don't really care who wins the championship,” Caroline said to Wally, “but Eddie and Jake will be unbearable if it's not the Buckman Badgers.”

Wally shrugged. “I'm not going to be at the last game anyway, so it's no skin off my nose,” he said.

“Why aren't you going to be at the game, Wally?
Everybody
's going to that game if the Badgers make it that far.”

“Everybody but me and Mrs. Larson,” said Wally, and his voice sounded angry and disappointed.

“Where are you going with Mrs. Larson?” Caroline asked.

“I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying home. I have to be in charge of the Treats and Treasures yard sale of the Women's Auxiliary of the Buckman Fire Department
the last Saturday of the month,” Wally explained.

“Somebody goofed and scheduled the sale the same day as the championship game, and it's already on posters all over town.”

Caroline felt like laughing, but she checked herself in time and put on her most sympathetic face. “How did you get stuck with
that
?” she asked.

“Mom's making me, because everyone else in the family likes baseball more than I do. The sale's going to be in our front yard, right up on the driveway and the front porch. If the Badgers play that day, everybody will be going to that, and I have to stay home to watch over the sale stuff till the others get back.”

“
I'll
help you!” said Caroline. “I don't think Eddie will miss me. I'll just come over that morning when everyone else is at the game. I'll make change or show people around or whatever you say.”

Wally didn't seem to trust her, because he was still looking at her sideways.
When a person trusts you,
Caroline was thinking,
they look you right in the eye.

“Well, okay,” said Wally finally. “Maybe. If nobody else shows up to help.”

And
maybe,
thought Caroline, beginning to smile, Wally had just said yes to taking a part in her play.

W
hen practice was over, Wally and his brothers headed home. Wally and Peter looked somewhat alike, with round faces, brown hair, blue eyes, and thick, square hands like their father's. But the twins, Jake and Josh, had dark hair, and skin that tanned to a golden brown in summer. They were both string-bean skinny.

Usually their mother called them around three-fifteen from the hardware store where she worked to make sure they'd gotten home safely. But when they stayed for baseball practice, they called her instead.

Wally dialed the number, and as soon as his mother answered, he said, “We're all lying poisoned on the floor.”

Mrs. Hatford seemed to know that meant everyone was okay because she said, “Peter didn't get his new shoes muddy, did he?”

“No, we kept him on the bleachers during practice. We didn't let him run around any.”

“Good,” said his mother. “You can have crackers and peanut butter, but the spaghetti is for supper, so don't touch that. The applesauce either.”

“Okay,” said Wally, “bye,” and put the phone back down.

It used to be that as soon as the Hatfords got home from school, they would sit around the kitchen table with their afternoon snack and decide what kind of trick they were going to play next on the Malloy girls. It used to be that nothing was too awful for those girls, and the boys would do whatever they could to make them persuade their father to move them back to Ohio.

The Whomper, the Weirdo, and the Crazie, the boys called them. Eddie was the Whomper because she could hit a baseball so far—way out in center field sometimes; Beth was the Weirdo because she read such gross and scary books; and Caroline was the Crazie because she would do almost anything to be the center of attention.

But now, with Jake and Eddie on the same team, and with all the things they'd been through together, the boys had to admit that if they weren't quite friends with the Malloys, they weren't exactly enemies, either. The brothers had found themselves cheering every time Eddie made a really good play out on the field, and the Malloy girls cheered when Jake did something special.