Boys in Control

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  NANCY: No, no, no! I shall die if I leave my earthly home.

  JIM: You shall die if you don't.

  NANCY: Help! Help! Will no one come and save me? The door opens and a fisherman comes in, an ice bucket in one hand, a fishing rod in the other.

  FISHERMAN: What's the matter? Say, what's this? A giant amoeba?

  NANCY: Help! He wants to take me down under the water and make me Queen of the Deep.

  The fisherman lifts his ice bucket and hits the amoeba over the head, but he is only sucked into the amoeba and finds himself covered with green slime.

  FISHERMAN: No! He's got me!

  NANCY: There is no hope.

  JIM: There is only night and dark and waves and caves, and you, my darling, Queen of the Deep.

  The blob oozes back out of the room, dragging Nancy and the fisherman with him, and all that is left onstage is the fisherman's ice bucket and rod, Nancy's shoes, and Jim's tie.

  The End

  Wally didn't say a word. He was still thinking about the story.

  “Well?” said Caroline, clutching her tablet, her eyes dancing with excitement and anticipation.

  “If Jim was an amoeba all along, why did he yell when he left the bedroom that first time? And who was making the sloshing sound when he was with Nancy?”

  Caroline didn't seem too sure. “Well, he'd sort of brought the netherworld with him. And the yell was just to trick his wife,” said Caroline.

  “It's a horrible, sickening play with a bad ending,” said Wally.

  “But you have to admit there's suspense! People like suspense!” said Caroline.

  “Are you sure I get extra credit for being in this play?” asked Wally.

  “Yes,” said Caroline. “I checked.”

  “And if I read this play with you, I get to be the amoeba?” Wally asked.

  “Yes,” said Caroline.

  “Then I like it,” said Wally. Suddenly things began to look very bright indeed. Maybe Wally did want to be in the play after all. Where else could he cover himself with green slime and drag Caroline Malloy around?

  “Really? That's wonderful! I knew you would!” said Caroline. “Who can we get to play the fisherman?”

  “What about Peter?” Wally suggested, knowing the twins would never do it.

  “Perfect. He'll do it, he's such a sweetie!” said Caroline. “All we need are a few props—a tie, some shoes, an ice bucket, a fishing rod, some golf clubs, dishes…”

  “What do we do for the green slime?”

  “We've got some left from Halloween,” said Caroline “I'll tell Miss Applebaum that we'll perform my play on Friday, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Wally. Oh, yeah! He was going to like playing an amoeba just fine.

  He went into the house, where Peter was working a puzzle on the floor in the living room.

  “Hey, Peter,” Wally said. “You want to be in a play?”

  “What play?”

  “A play Caroline's written. We have to put it on in front of our class.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Hit me over the head with an ice bucket and let me cover you with green slime.”

  “Cool!” said Peter.

  Sixteen

  Getting Ready

  Thursday after dinner, Caroline went to the Hatfords’ carrying some props for the play. She handed one of her father's old ties to Wally.

  “You'll want to wear this, because it's the only thing left of Jim after he turns into the giant amoeba,” she said.

  She handed a fishing rod and a Styrofoam ice bucket to Peter. “When you swing at Wally, you only pretend to hit him,” she said.

  She held out an old pair of her mother's high-heeled shoes. “And these will be all that's left of me after the amoeba carries me off,” she said.

  They went through a brief rehearsal in the Hatfords’ living room, and would have run through it again—all but the green slime, which they were saving for the real performance—if Mrs. Hatford hadn't called down from upstairs.

  “Wally? The twins went shopping with your father, and I could use some help up here.”

  Wally went upstairs, Caroline behind him.

  Mrs. Hatford was seated on a folding chair in the middle of Wally's bedroom, surrounded by bags and boxes and baskets.

  “Everything that people bring tomorrow night for Saturday's sale will go downstairs,” she explained. “The auxiliary women are coming over then to check it all in and put price tags on it. But meanwhile, there's all this stuff people donated in advance. I have to list everything we've stored in your room. Maybe Caroline could help too while she's up here.”

  “Sure,” said Caroline. “What should I do?”

  “As each of you picks up an item and tells me who it's from, I'll write it down on this clipboard. The women will price them tomorrow. After we've listed something, set it over there by the door.”

  Caroline sat down on the floor beside a bushel basket, and Wally chose a box crammed between his computer and a couple of paper bags.

  “This basket is from Susan Kemp,” said Caroline. “One sugar bowl… one cream pitcher… two candy dishes…”

  “Wait a minute, don't go too fast,” said Mrs. Hatford, writing on her clipboard. “Susan's grandfather started the Kemp Real Estate business, you know. She's been such a help to the auxiliary….”

  “One silver serving spoon,” Caroline continued. “Four sets of salt and pepper shakers…”

  When the basket of dishes had been cataloged, Mrs. Hatford turned to Wally. He dug down in the box beside him and took out an old photograph with a thick backing and frame. “A picture of somebody's grandparents, I guess,” he said.

  “Who donated it, Wally?”

  Wally checked the box. “Jenny Bloomer.”

  Mrs. Hatford wrote it down. “Oh, yes. Jenny. She's descended, you know, from Amelia Bloomer, the famous suffragette of the eighteen hundreds.”

  “What's a suffragette?” asked Caroline. “Like a martyr? Somebody who suffers?”

  “No, it's someone who stood up for a woman's right to vote and hold office and do the things women weren't allowed to do back then.”

  “Oh,” said Wally. “One pen and pencil set…one leather dictionary…”

  On it went. Everything in the bags and boxes and baskets in Wally's room had to be taken out and listed, until finally Wally's room looked positively naked and it was the hall beyond his door that was crowded.

  “Can you imagine what our house is going to look like tomorrow night when all the women bring their things over?” asked Mrs. Hatford. “We'll hardly be able to walk through the rooms!” She looked at Wally. “Don't worry,” she said. “As soon as the game is over Saturday, the women will all come back here to take over, and you can leave. We'll have everything in place before we go, and all you and Mrs. Larson will have to do is guard the tables and not let anyone buy anything before we get back.”

  “What if it rains?” asked Wally.

  “It's not supposed to rain. If it does, we have large sheets of plastic you can use to cover the tables.”

  “What if there's a big crowd and I can't watch everybody at once?”

  “There won't be. Most of Buckman will be at the game. The championship game's being played here, you know, right at your school.”

  “I'll be here to help too, Wally,” said Caroline. “I'd be too nervous to watch Eddie play the last game. Just hearing them cheer will be enough excitement for me.”

  “Really? You'll be here? Hey, Mom. What about if we leave Caroline in charge and I go to the game?” Wally asked.

  “We'll do no such thing,” said his mother. “I need someone besides Mrs. Larson to keep an eye on the tables. People can look, but they can't buy, and three sets of eyes watching over the place are better than two.”

  “It'll be sort of fun, Wally,” said Caroline. “We'll be like security guards at the mall.”

  When they had checked the last of the bags out of Wally's room, they found
more boxes in his closet. There were even some under his bed.

  “One toy tea set…,” began Caroline. “One child's dress, size four… one blue umbrella…”

  “Who's the donor?” asked Mrs. Hatford.

  “Catherine Collier,” said Caroline.

  “Catherine's great-great-grandfather opened the second bank here in Buckman,” said Mrs. Hatford. “She herself helped found the Women's Auxiliary. We couldn't do half the things we do if it weren't for Catherine Collier.” It seemed to Caroline as though every woman in Buckman had a history behind her.

  Wally's room began to look so empty that Caroline began to wonder if they were carting half his own belongings downstairs with the rest. But Wally sure looked happy about having his room to himself again.

  “Mom,” he said. “Promise me you won't ever take on the job of running the Treats and Treasures yard sale again. Not at our house.”

  “If I ever do,” said his mother, “it will not be for a long, long time, and you'll be off at college by then, I imagine.”

  “Okay,” Caroline said at the front door. “I'll bring all the props to school tomorrow: golf clubs, ice bucket, fishing rod, green slime, tie, shoes, dishes, and special effects.”

  “I think a book report would be easier,” said Wally.

  “Of course it would be easier, Wally, but would it be better? No! Did you know that great actresses have plays written especially for them? When you're really famous, movies are made for you alone. People beg you to be in their plays or their movies. If I could write my own plays and star in them, I'd be a huge success.”

  “Don't forget the pictures,” said Wally. “You know what you promised.”

  “Oh. Right!” said Caroline. “The pictures.” Did she only imagine it, she wondered, or was Wally trying not to smile?

  She started down the walk to the road and the swinging bridge beyond, and then she turned around suddenly to look at Wally again, up on the porch. He was smiling, but not at her. He was smiling to himself. He did not look like a boy who had to do something he hated. He looked like a boy who had a secret, and Caroline had a strange feeling that the secret had to do with her and her sisters.

  Seventeen

  “A Night to Forget”

  When it came time for Caroline to read her play to the class, she got permission to borrow Peter from his second-grade classroom and led him back to Miss Applebaum's room. Peter smiled shyly at the fourth graders, obviously feeling very important to be there.

  Wally did not feel as embarrassed as he had thought he would. In fact, knowing how the play would end, he couldn't wait to get started. For too long the Malloy sisters had seemed to get the upper hand in their arguments with the Hatford brothers, but this time, unknown to the girls, it was the boys who were in control.

  So when Caroline stood up and announced that she was going to read an original play, “A Night to Forget,” Wally stood behind a file cabinet off to one side with Peter and did not come out until Caroline read, “Act one, scene one: A cottage on the beach in a faraway town. Ten o'clock at night. A couple on their honeymoon.”

  The kids burst into laughter.

  “Ha, Wally!” one boy yelled.

  “Your honeymoon!” crooned another.

  Wally ignored them.

  “Class, let's be quiet now and listen,” said Miss Apple-baum, and the dialogue began. But as soon as Wally said, “Wasn't that a nice walk on the beach … honey?” the class giggled again.

  Peter, however, had been assigned to make the sound effects, and as soon as the class heard the sloshing and sliding, which was the noise a balloon half filled with water made as Peter dragged it around the floor behind the file cabinet, the class gave the play its full attention.

  “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 s
etting 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.

  Eighteen

  Mystery

  It 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.”