Who Won the War? (13 page)

The next morning was even worse. When Wally woke, it was as though the sun had not set all night—as though it was just gathering energy to fry the whole state of West Virginia.

Mrs. Malloy offered to make French toast and bacon, but no one wanted anything hot. The seven kids sat listlessly at the kitchen table, pushing their cereal around in their bowls. Arms stuck to sides, thighs stuck to chairs, bare feet stuck to the floor, and the air conditioner was cooling only half as well as usual, because the power company was having a brownout to save fuel.

By noon, the heat outside had become almost unbearable. There was no breeze at all, and leaves hung lifelessly from the trees.

“I'm so hot, I could ignite,” said Josh from the rocker.

Wally lay on his stomach on the porch floor and thought about that. He wondered if all the food he had eaten the night before could ever get so hot inside him that there would be spontaneous combustion. If he would just
go poof and
flare up from inside.

“I'm so hot, I could jump in the river with all my clothes on,” said Beth.

“I dare you!” said Eddie.

“Me too!” said Caroline, standing up and kicking off her sandals.

And suddenly everyone was untying sneakers and leaving them in a pile on the porch. Jake jumped off the steps and led the way, and the seven kids swarmed down the bank below the swinging footbridge and sprawled belly first into the water.

It was the only place to be on a day like this. Wally felt his T-shirt cling to his chest, his shorts grow heavy over his hips. He flopped onto his back and let the slow current carry him a little downstream before he swam back.

Mrs. Malloy appeared at the top of the bank. “Who's watching Peter?” she called.

“I am,” Josh answered. The rule was that nobody ever, ever went swimming without deciding first which twin—Jake or Josh—was lifeguarding Peter. Even though the water was scarcely waist deep in most places, except in the spring, that was the rule.

“I hope you girls realize you have only one set of clothes left. We didn't think we would be staying here,” Mrs. Malloy said, laughing at the way they had jumped into the river wearing all but their shoes.

“We're too hot to care, Mom,” Eddie called back.

“I know what you mean,” Mrs. Malloy said. “I almost feel like jumping in myself.”

When she went back into the house, Peter said, “I
don't need anyone to watch me. I'll be in third grade this fall.”

“Yeah? I'll be going to middle school and I'll hardly know
anyone,”
said Eddie, swimming alongside him.

“Too bad you're not going into middle school here,” Jake said. “We'd keep you company.”

“Sure, you and your bag of tricks!” said Eddie.

“Hey!” said Wally, grabbing Josh's shoulder. “Look up there.”

Going slowly along the road above was a rusty old pickup truck. The driver was looking down at the Hatfords and the Malloys splashing in the water.

“It's
him!”
breathed Eddie. “The man at the mine!”

“It's … it's like he's been looking for us!” said Wally.

The truck moved more and more slowly, until finally it came to a complete stop. The door opened. The driver got out. Six heads, all but Peter's, dived beneath the water.

Wally stayed under until he had no breath left. Gasping, he popped up to the surface, only to see the man standing up on the road beside his truck, arms folded across his chest. Under the water Wally went again.

The second time he and his brothers emerged, along with the Malloy girls, the man was getting back into his truck. He drove slowly away. But his face was turned toward the river.

“It
was
him!” said Caroline.

“And now he can guess where we live!” said Wally.

“Did he
say
anything to you, Peter, just now?” asked Jake.

“Huh-uh,” said Peter.

“Did
you
say anything?” asked Josh.

Peter shook his head.

“You just stared at each other?” asked Eddie.

“We waved,” said Peter. “Then he got back in his truck.”

They didn't feel much like swimming anymore after that. They climbed back up the bank and stood wringing out their sopping wet clothes, then slogged their way across the road and up onto the Hatfords' porch.

Mrs. Malloy was reading the morning paper in the living room.

“Go change your clothes, and I'll wash the ones you were wearing,” she told them. “And when you come back down, there's something in the paper you ought to see.”

Jake stared at Eddie. Josh stared at Beth. Wally stared at Caroline.

But Peter trotted blissfully on upstairs, leaving wet footprints behind him.

“We're in for it now,” Jake said when the boys were in Wally's room changing clothes, dropping their wet shorts and T-shirts on a towel on the floor. “I'll bet that guy reported us the other day—said he saw some kids at the mine. And now that he knows who we are, he's probably at the police station telling them where we live.”

“What are you going to tell Dad when he finds out?” asked Wally. “He'll probably ground us for the rest of the summer.”

“I don't know,” said Jake. “The truth, I guess. Every time we lie, it only makes things worse.”

They could hear Peter singing to himself in the next room as he changed clothes, then the Malloy girls going downstairs. Finally Jake and Josh and Wally went down to see what was in the newspaper.

“It's here on page three,” Mrs. Malloy said, smiling.

And there it was—a picture of Wally Hatford frying an egg on the sidewalk.

Seventeen
Once Upon a Midnight Dreary …

A
breeze blew in that afternoon, and by five o'clock, the wind had picked up, and great rolling clouds came rushing from the west.

As Mrs. Malloy and Mrs. Hatford set to work making dinner, the boys' mother said, “I certainly hope this is a break in the heat and doesn't just pass us by. Sometimes after a rain, things are just stickier than they were before.”

“Here, Caroline,” Mrs. Malloy called. “You girls take this basket of corn out on the back porch and husk it so we can get it cooked before the power goes off.”

“The power's going to go out here, too?” Caroline cried, a squeak in her voice.

“You never can tell,” Mrs. Hatford said, turning over pieces of chicken that she was frying in the skillet.

“This summer has been a real drain on the power companies, and sometimes we're without power for a while.”

Caroline could tell by the look on Wally's face that he was almost as horrified by the thought as she was. The Hatfords and the Malloys' sharing a house and a bathroom when the power was on was bad enough. The Hatfords and the Malloys with no power at all was too awful to contemplate.

Dinner went by without incident, however. The crunchy chicken and the mashed potatoes and gravy were devoured. The green beans and the sliced tomatoes and the steaming ears of yellow corn all disappeared in a hurry. There was even rhubarb pie for dessert, warm from the oven, with large dollops of vanilla ice cream melting on top of the sugary crust. Caroline would never tell her mother this, but she thought that Mrs. Hatford was about the most wonderful cook there was.

Toward the end of the meal, thunder rolled in like a freight train. Lightning preceded each boom, the crashes closer and closer together. The rain came in sheets, slashing hard against the windowpane.

About seven-thirty, when the plates had been stacked in the dishwasher, the refrigerator suddenly stopped humming and the lights went out.

“Oh, no!” came Mrs. Malloys voice from the hall.

“Don't tell me!” said Mrs. Hatford.

The lights flickered on again, then went off. Everyone waited. They did not come back on.

“Better get the candles, Ellen,” Mr. Hatford called. “I'll go light that kerosene lantern for the living room.”

There was just enough evening light in the sky to maneuver around the house as the Hatford boys set candles here and there, making sure they were secure in their holders.

“You boys get some flashlights for the girls,” said their dad.

“What about us?” asked Jake.

“You know this house better than they do. I think you can find your way around all right,” said his father.

The boys grumbled a little, but they found small flashlights for all three girls, and soon candles flickered in the rooms downstairs, and moving circles of light traveled from room to room.

It was sort of exciting at first, but after an hour went by, then two, everything anyone wanted to do seemed to take twice as long—brushing teeth, working a puzzle, reading the comics. Without the air conditioner, the humidity seeped back into the house and the temperature rose.

“What we need is some entertainment,” Mrs. Hatford said. “Tom, did anything exciting happen on your mail route today that you can tell us about?”

“Almost ran over a cow. Not much more than that,” Mr. Hatford said from his recliner. “If Mr. Foster doesn't keep those cows penned, he's going to lose one, and somebody's going to have himself a steak dinner.”

Though the worst of the rain had passed, the
lightning continued from time to time, and the thunder was like the low growl of a dog.

“Well, I think we need a little more to entertain us than a cow,” Mrs. Hatford said. “Does anyone know a poem or something to recite for us?”

“Caroline knows some of ‘The Raven,’ by Poe,” said Mrs. Malloy.

“By all means, let's hear it, Caroline!” Mrs. Hatford said. “It's been years since I've heard that poem.”

“I remember reading it in high school,” said Mr. Hatford.

Caroline looked around. This was for real. This was better than the boys asking for a poem.
She
, Caroline Lenore Malloy, was being called upon to give a presentation.

The boys started to clap. “Car-o-line! Car-o-line!” they chanted, even though she knew they didn't mean it.

Caroline stood up and went to stand by the kerosene lamp on the coffee table. She cleared her throat and then began in her best and spookiest voice:

“Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume
of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping
at my chamber door.
‘ ’Tis some visitor,' I muttered,
‘tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.’ ”

Caroline used her hands to gesture toward the front door, and their movements made shadows dance on the walls. She continued:

“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in
the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought
its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;
vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—
sorrow for the lost Lenore …”

Caroline pronounced the name clearly and distinctly, because she felt that Edgar Allan Poe had written this poem just for her. She placed her hand over her heart as she went on.

“For the rare and radiant maiden
whom the angels named Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore….”

She saw Josh and Jake nudge each other and smirk. She stopped reciting, but not for that reason. “I'm sorry, but that's all I memorized,” she said. “It's a really long poem.”

“Why, Caroline, we've got that in a book,” said Mrs. Hatford. “It belonged to my grandmother. Let me find it for you.”

She walked across the room and reached high on a shelf for the book of poetry. Caroline was pleased that none of the boys groaned. They might have been making fun of her because of her name, but down deep, Caroline felt sure they were enjoying her performance.