Who Won the War? (5 page)

“If he had rope, then he was probably going to lower
himself down a cliff or into a hole or something,” said Beth.

“Or hide the dynamite somewhere,” said Caroline.

“What is this? A game?” asked Eddie.

“I don't know,” said Jake. “Show her the list, Wally.”

Wally pulled the small slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Eddie.

‘Eggs, Rope, Tomato sauce, Flashlight, Dynamite,’ ” she read aloud. She studied it for a moment. “Nothing in code? No map? No ‘X marks the spot’?”

“I didn't say it meant anything,” Jake said quickly. “It just seems sort of unusual, that's all. Wally found it in one of the empty boxes.”

Wally took the paper back and put it in his pocket again.

“Of course,” said Eddie, “if they
were
connected somehow—the rope, the flashlight, and the dynamite—we're probably the first ones to find out. So if anything happens …”

“We're just going to sit around and wait until it happens?” asked Josh.

“So what do you suggest?” said Beth. “Taking it to the police and telling them we've found a suspicious shopping list?”

“Just keeping our eyes open, that's all,” said Jake.

“If somebody
was
going to blow up something, and somebody
was
going to lower himself down into a hole somewhere, where would that somewhere be?” said Eddie.

“It could be anywhere at all,” said Josh, reaching for
a cookie. “Somebody's basement. The riverbank. The old coal mine.”

Caroline's mind was already alive with possibilities. What an exciting movie that would make! A story! A play! What if
she
were being lowered on a rope into a gravel pit? A mine? What if
she
had to blow up a dam to prevent the enemy from taking over a town?

Maybe her job would be to
stop
an explosion, to reach the fuse in time. The clock would be ticking, and Caroline would be lowered into the hole to stomp on the lit fuse before the bomb went off. Her eyes glazed over. Her pulse began to race.
Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen …
, she counted down to herself.

Eddie snapped her fingers in front of Caroline's face. “Hey!” she said. “Get a grip.”

Caroline blinked. “It
could be
serious,” she said.

“Yeah, well, if we hear of anything suspicious, we'll let you know,” said Jake.

“About that old coal mine …,” said Eddie, and Caroline could tell that Jake was uncomfortable. “You and the Benson guys used to go in there, right?”

“Well, not exactly, because it's been fenced in,” said Jake. “There's just the tunnel into the mountain.”

Eddie's eyes narrowed. “So you've only been over the fence?”

“Um … not exactly,” said Jake.

“You guys haven't even been
near
that old coal mine!” Eddie scoffed. “It's all hot air! It's all talk!”

“We have so been near it!” said Jake. “I've looked in there a thousand times!”

“Well,
I'm
going to go
in
it!” said Eddie. “I'm not
going to leave Buckman until I've seen inside that old coal mine.”

Caroline and Beth looked at their sister in horror. Every so often Eddie did that. She just went out on a limb and said she was going to do things she never could. Or never should.

“Is there barbed wire on the top of the fence?” Eddie asked.

“No,” said Josh, “but it's a tall fence. Ten feet tall.”

“Is there a guard on duty?”

“No, but the sheriff drives by once in a while.”

“Is there a guard dog inside the fence?”

“Not that I've seen,” said Jake, “but—”

“Then I'm going in,” said Eddie.

“When?” asked Wally, looking astonished.

“I don't know. I'll have to case the place first. Anybody going in with me?”

“Not me,” said Beth. “You're nuts, Eddie.”

“Not me,” said Caroline.

Eddie looked at the Hatfords.

“I'm not going in any coal mine!” said Peter. “You're really going to get in trouble, Eddie. My dad said never, ever,
ever
go there!”

“I'm not going either,” said Wally.

“Count me out,” said Josh.

Eddie looked at Jake. There was a long pause.

“Okay,” Jake said. “If you find a way, I'm in.”

Caroline and Beth exchanged glances. They were not going to move out of Buckman. They were going to be
kicked out
of Buckman, Caroline was sure.

Six
Shadows

“W
hy didn't you tell her no?” Wally asked Jake as they went back across the swinging bridge in the near-darkness. “You'll only get in trouble, and you know it!”

“And have her call me chicken?” said Jake. “Relax. There's no way she can get in. The joke's on her. I'll go along like I'm ready to go in, and it'll be up to her to find a way to open the gate, which she won't be able to do.”

“I don't like it,” said Josh. “Eddie's going to keep pushing the limits until she makes us do something we don't want to.”

“Who says I don't want to?” Jake asked. “If she finds a way to get in, I'll go too.”

Wally didn't like this. Why couldn't the Malloys go? Just
go! Now!
Before anything happened.

“Don't say anything to Mom,” Jake warned Peter as they approached their house.

“I
won't
! What do you think I am? A tattletale?” Peter asked.

As Wally lay in bed that night, he decided he was in the clear. Their parents would not let them go out at midnight, so he could stop worrying about the old Indian burial ground. He had told Jake and Eddie he would not go with them inside the old coal mine, so he wouldn't get in trouble there. They had already been to Smuggler's Cove, and nothing much had happened, so he was home free. Let Jake get in trouble. He was just asking for it.

Wally began to relax. He didn't have to show up at the Malloys' ever again if he didn't want to. He could spend the rest of the summer doing exactly what he wanted, which was … well, nothing.

Not exactly nothing, though. Because what was nothing to someone else might be something to Wally. For example, he was looking forward to spending one whole day trying to figure out how many different calls a mockingbird could make. He wanted to sit out on the porch and listen when a mockingbird perched on top of a telephone pole and began to sing. Usually the bird repeated each song twice, which would give Wally a chance to write down the call:
robin, cardinal, wren, blue jay …
But of course he didn't recognize all birdcalls, so maybe he should take a recorder….

Or maybe he would like to go a whole morning with his hand over his right eye, and all afternoon with his hand over his left, just to see which eye was stronger.

Or maybe he would climb through the trapdoor in
the attic leading to the widow's walk on the roof, and sit up there on that little balcony and see if he could tell whenever the wind changed direction.

There was no end to the things Wally Hatford could think of to do on his own. Sometimes he just liked to get on his bike and ride around town. He'd try to memorize the streets going east from the library, and then the streets going west. Or he'd go to the Dairy Store and ask for a cup of “Today's Flavor” without knowing what it was, and then he would taste it and see if he could guess. Some people might think that Wally's life was boring, he knew, but there were so many things going on in his head, he didn't have a chance to be bored.

It was hot outside, though, even at night. Peter was right; during the day you couldn't step on the sidewalk barefoot. It was one of the hottest summers the East had ever had, the newspaper said—over a hundred degrees for five days in a row, even here in West Virginia. Maybe what Wally
ought
to do was wait until about two o'clock in the afternoon someday and then see if he really could fry an egg on the sidewalk.

Finally, hot and sweaty, Wally fell asleep, and he woke up even warmer than he'd been when he'd gone to bed. He rolled over and sat up, waiting to see if he could smell pancakes or anything. He couldn't. That meant it wasn't Sunday. He'd almost lost track of the days of the week.

He listened for any clink or clunk of spoons and bowls in the kitchen to tell him whether the twins were awake. He didn't hear any. But he did think he heard
voices coming from somewhere, so he pulled on his shorts and T-shirt and went downstairs.

Not again! There were the Malloy girls sitting out on his front porch, and there was Peter with a fistful of chocolate chip cookies.

Wally's first thought was to ignore them and go to the kitchen for cereal. But he went upstairs instead and stuck his head into the twins' bedroom. “They're here again,” he said.

For a moment nothing happened. Then Jake rolled over and opened one eye. “What are you talking about?” he asked crossly.

“I just thought you'd want to know: the Malloys are sitting out on the front porch, feeding Peter chocolate chip cookies,” Wally said. Then he went back downstairs, through the hall, and into the kitchen, poured himself some Cap'n Crunch cereal, and mixed it with Cocoa Puffs.

Down the stairs came Jake and Josh. Wally could hear them whispering together in the hall. They crept into the kitchen.

“I'm not going out there,” said Josh.

“Me neither,” said Jake. “Peter can sit out there in his Donald Duck pajamas all day if he wants. But we didn't invite the girls over.” He took a bowl out of the cupboard, filled it to the top with Cocoa Puffs, and got the milk from the fridge.

The twins had just sat down at the table when they heard the front door open and Peter say, “Come on out to the kitchen. You want some cereal?”

Jake was still in his boxer shorts and Josh was in his
pajama bottoms. Upsetting the milk carton, Jake leaped from his chair and flew out the back door, Josh behind him. When the Malloy girls got to the kitchen, there was nothing to see but Wally calmly eating his Cocoa Puffs, and milk dripping onto the floor.

“Well!” said Eddie. “What have we here?”

“I invited them in for breakfast,” Peter told Wally, smiling broadly.

“It's okay, Peter. We've already had breakfast,” said Beth. “Where are Jake and Josh?”

There was the soft sound of the front door opening, then of footsteps on the hall stairs.

“They'll be down in a minute,” Wally said, and went on reading the comics.

Beth got a sponge from the sink and cleaned up the milk on the table and the floor. Then the girls sat down—like they owned the place, Wally thought.

When Jake and Josh entered the kitchen, dressed, they tried to act as though they'd just got up. It was too ridiculous.

“We've decided we want to see Knob Hill even if we have to go in daylight,” Eddie said. “So, we're ready.”

“Sure, why not?” Jake said, and poured himself another bowl of cereal.

“I found something really interesting,” said Beth. “I went to the Internet to look up Knob Hill and found out all sorts of fascinating things about it. Want to hear?”

“Sure,” said Josh. He put the milk back in the fridge.

“ ‘Knob Hill, Buckman, West Virginia,’ ” Beth read
from a piece of paper she'd pulled out of her pocket. “ ‘This rounded hill west of the city was once the burial ground for a little-known tribe of Native Americans, known as the Shanatee. They were both admired and feared by neighboring tribes, due to a superstition regarding their shadows. It was said that if, on Knob Hill, the shadow of any person were to fall on the shadow of another, they would be the next two persons to die. When the tribes fought, therefore, neighboring warriors were reluctant go up the hill, for fear their shadows would touch. For this reason, the Shanatee had full possession of Knob Hill for many years, until the tribe mysteriously disappeared. It is generally believed that an epidemic wiped out this short-lived tribe, but legend has it that when the chief warrior died, the tribe committed mass suicide by walking across the face of the land and allowing their shadows to commingle.’ ”

Beth stopped and looked around. “Well! What do you think of that?”

The Hatford boys sat speechless. They had never bothered to look up Knob Hill on the Internet. They hadn't known about the shadows.