The Girls Take Over (10 page)

The kids quietly set to work. Anytime a look was directed at Caroline, she noticed, it was a scowl, not a smile. Wally purposely bumped into her every time he passed, Beth turned the other way, and Jake muttered, “Well, are you happy now?” as though she were the sole cause of their misfortune.

They put Caroline to work in the rest room, of course, while the others did the windows at ground level, inside and out. As she bent over the dirty toilet, holding the brush in both hands and scrubbing as hard as she could, Caroline muttered, “They want this place
clean and beautiful, huh? Well,
I'll
give them beautiful. I'll make this place so beautiful they'll hardly know it's a police station.”

And her lips began to curl at the corners with just a hint of a smile.

Fourteen
The Fatal Word

I
t was the day of the classroom spelling contest, and before Wally was fully awake, he found himself scratching all over. He scratched one arm, then the other, and then his stomach.

His eyes opened wide. No! It couldn't be. Not chicken pox! He
had
to go to school. He
had
to keep Caroline from winning the contest for their room.

He got out of bed and waited till everyone was out of the bathroom. Then he hurried inside and shut the door. In the mirror his face looked okay, though his ears were a little red. But when he took off his T-shirt and checked his arms and stomach, he saw the beginning of a faint red rash and knew without a doubt that he had chicken pox. He
hadn't
caught it from Peter. He must have been near someone else at school who wasn't showing a rash yet.

Even though the day was warm, Wally put on a long-sleeved shirt and buttoned it to the top. He
waited till most of the others had eaten breakfast, then gulped down a glass of juice.

“Hey, Wally,” Josh said as he packed his lunch at the counter. “Somebody must be talking about you. Your ears are red.”

“Probably old Car-o-line,” said Jake. “Figuring how she can get Wally to clean that toilet for her at the police station. Get us in even
more
trouble than we are.”

Peter came into the kitchen just then. “Guess what, Wally?” he said. “My pox is almost gone. And guess what else? Mom thought maybe I could clean out my closet while I was home, but she didn't make me do it after all.”

“Lucky you,” said Wally. “When are you going back to school?”

“Soon, Mom says,” Peter told him.

All the way to school, Wally lagged behind the others so that no one else would notice his ears. Not until he took off his jacket, that is, and took his seat in front of Caroline.

“Wal-ly,” she whispered from behind. “You must have done something really, really embarrassing, because your ears are red.”

Wally said nothing.

“You're not running a fever, are you?” Caroline continued.

Wally shook his head.

Caroline poked him in the back with her ruler. “You're not sick, are you, Wally?” she asked. And then,
before he could answer, she said, “You don't have chicken pox, do you?”

Wally turned his head to one side. “Shut up,” he whispered over his shoulder.

And she did. Wally was afraid that Caroline would raise her voice and tell the teacher that he should be home in bed, but sometimes even Caroline was known to do the right thing. Or perhaps she didn't want anyone to be angrier with her than Wally and his brothers were already.

Miss Applebaum's face looked like Christmas. There seemed to be nothing she liked as much as a good test or a pop quiz or a multiplication contest or a spelling bee.

“All right, class,” she said. “This is the day we've all been waiting for!” Was she nuts? Wally thought. “This morning we will have a spelling contest in this room to see which of you gets to represent our class in the county contest. For months now we have been checking our spelling, learning new words, circling words in our readers, and increasing our vocabularies. Today we will find out who has been working the hardest.”

Miss Applebaum was even wearing a new shirt for the occasion, Wally noticed, as the teacher went on: “I want you all to line up around the room—one long line, please. I'm going to read the words in the order that they appear on the standard list, so whatever word you get will be entirely by chance.”

As everyone got into line, Wally felt a wild urge to scratch his neck, but he didn't dare. He chose a place
by the doorway and slowly scraped his back against the door frame.

“Are you ready?” Miss Applebaum called from her desk. She sounded like the hostess on a game show.

“Ready,” answered a few of the students, Caroline among them.

“Not ready,” a few of the kids said, and the others laughed.

“All right, I'll start on my left. You will each get a different word. If you don't spell it correctly the first time, you are out of the contest and may take your seat.”

Several students laughingly tried to slip into their seats before the contest even began, but the teacher made them get back in line.

“Now, take your time,” Miss Applebaum said. “Listen carefully to the word. Try to visualize it in your mind. You may ask to have it repeated, and you may ask to have it used in a sentence. Here we go.”

Wally itched all over. Even the bottoms of his feet itched. He wanted to scratch parts of his body he would never scratch in public.

The teacher turned to the large girl at the front of the line. “Okay, Emily, you seem to be first. The word is
squirrel.
”

The girl blinked. Then she took a deep breath, her arms straight down at her sides.
“S-q-u-e-r-r …, ”
she said.

A low gasp went around the room.

“I'm sorry, Emily, but
squirrel
has an
i
before the
r
's,
not an
e,
” Miss Applebaum said, and, looking chagrined, Emily took her seat.

How easy it would be to misspell a word and be done with it,
Wally thought. How comforting it would be to go back to his seat and, with everyone's attention on the people up front, scratch to his heart's content.

“Joanne, you're next,” said Miss Applebaum.
“Obstruct.”

Each time the teacher said a new spelling word, Caroline whispered a soft “I know it!” even though it wasn't her turn. She made Wally sick.

“Would you use it in a sentence, please?” the girl named Joanne said.

“Certainly: It is against the law to obstruct justice.”

Joanne cleared her throat.
“O-b-s-t-r-u-c-t.”

“That's correct. Go to the end of the line for your second turn,” said Miss Applebaum. “Kenny, your word is
substantial.
”

Kenny spelled his word correctly and took his place behind Joanne.

As the words went on, the line moved forward slowly. A student either took his place at the end or sat down. There were two students in front of Wally. His neck itched. His toes itched. Even his eyelids seemed to itch. When the two girls in front of him missed their words, Wally was next.

Miss Applebaum smiled at him. “Wally, your word is
anonymous
.”

Anonymous?
thought Wally.
How come one kid gets
squirrel
and I get anonymous?
When would he ever
use a word like that? Still, he was sure he'd seen it on paper.

“Would you use it in a sentence, please?” he asked.

“Of course. The man who gave the donation wishes to remain anonymous.”

The first and last parts were easy, Wally thought, but what was the letter in the middle? He closed his eyes and tried to see the word.
E?
he wondered, his head feverish. No,
e
wasn't right.

“A-n-o-n …, ”
he began,
“y-m-o-u-s.”

“Correct. You may go to the end of the line.”

Wally didn't know whether he was glad or disappointed. He wanted so much to scratch. His head throbbed and his cheeks felt on fire. He went to the end of the line and stood against the bookcase this time. He rubbed his arm against the sharp corner of an encyclopedia.

Three more students took a turn, and then Caroline was next. She smiled at the teacher. Then she turned and smiled at the class. Wally couldn't stand it. It was as though she were onstage. As though she expected everyone to clap and throw roses at her if she got her word right, and how could she miss? She was Little Miss Perfect!

“Ready?” asked the teacher.

“Ready,” said Caroline in her queen-of-the-world voice.

Miss Applebaum looked at the list before her. “Your word is
precocious.
”

Wally closed his eyes. He knew it. Of course
Caroline would get a word like that. Of course she would get it right. Miss Applebaum might as well have asked her to spell her own name. He opened his eyes.

Caroline was so confident that she did not ask to have the word repeated. She did not ask to have it used in a sentence. She smiled again at the teacher. Smiled at the class. Then she opened her mouth and said,
“P-r-e-c-o-s-i-o-u-s.”

Wally snapped to attention. It was wrong! She had spelled it wrong! Caroline Malloy's first word in the spelling contest, and she'd blown it!

And just as suddenly, Caroline, too, realized that she had it wrong.

“C,”
she cried. “I meant
p-r-e-c-o-c-i-o-u-s
!”

Miss Applebaum looked at her sadly.

“Miss Applebaum, I knew that word! I knew it all along!” Caroline gasped. “I was just so excited that I got a word I knew that I spelled it too fast. It's
p-r-e
—”

“I'm sorry, Caroline, but the rule is that you have to spell it right the first time.”

Caroline stared at the teacher without moving. Then she faced the class. “But I
knew
it!” she wailed. “I knew it, I knew it!”

“Sit down,” somebody said.

“But I knew it!” Caroline kept repeating, tears forming in her eyes.

“Take your seat, Caroline,” Miss Applebaum said.

The next girl correctly spelled
sergeant,
accompanied by soft wails from Caroline in the second row.

Wally stuck it out to the end. He correctly spelled
abruptly
and
beneficial,
and then he was the last one left.

“Class, let's have a big round of applause for our fourth-grade winner,” said Miss Applebaum. “Wally Hatford will go to the county spelling contest for our grade.”

Everyone clapped. All but Caroline. She had her face buried in her arms, and every now and then her shoulders gave a little shudder.

Wally raised his hand. “May I go to the rest room?” he asked.

“Of course,” said the teacher.

Wally walked stiffly from the room, feeling really sick. He went down the hall to the boys' rest room and shut himself in a stall. Then he scratched and he scratched and he scratched.

Fifteen
Clean and Beautiful

“W
hen the going gets tough, the tough get going.

That was what Coach Malloy would tell his football team when they were behind in a game. It hung on a plaque in the Malloys' kitchen, and now, the day after the school spelling contest, Caroline was looking up at it on the wall.

Maybe that was meant for her. The going had certainly been tough for
her
lately. It wasn't enough that she had fallen in the river and almost been swept away. Not enough that everyone was mad at her because of the note she had put in her bottle. Now she had blown the spelling bee as well, and it was Wally Hatford, not she, who would represent their fourth grade in the county contest. What a lousy April!

What she felt worst about, however, was that Beth and Eddie were hardly talking to her. Caroline couldn't bear being ignored. The next day after school, when
the Hatford boys had gone on home, leaving the Malloy girls to walk alone, Caroline trailed woefully behind her sisters, who acted as though she weren't there.

Finally she said in a small sad voice, “So what am I? Just another leg, trailing along behind you?”