Who Won the War?

One The News It was official: they were going back. After Mrs. Malloy put down the phone, Caroline sneaked a look at her two older sisters. Was either of them going to cry? It certainly wouldn't be Eddie, the oldest. Beth? Possible, but not likely. No, if anyone was going to get emotional about leaving Buckman, it would be Caroline herself. She swallowed. "Well," said their mother. "I guess that's that." "Goodbye, West Virginia! Hello, Ohio!" said Eddie. When Mr. Malloy had taken a job at the college in Buckman on a teacher-exchange program, they'd all known that it would only be for a year. He had been offered other jobs too in Buckman, however, and the girlsand even their motherhad wondered if he might decide to stay. But now he was back in Ohio, he'd signed the contract, and the Malloys would be moving on August 24. The Bensons, whose house the Malloys had been renting, would be back on August 31. There was silence around the dinner table. The shrimp salad sat half eaten on their plates, the lemon slices undisturbed in the iced tea. "Well, at least I get to finish out summer baseball," Eddie said at last. She'd be entering middle school when they got back home. "I think I'm going to be sad," said Beth, who was a year younger. "I'll miss the librarybeing able to walk to it, I mean." "I'll miss the river and the swinging footbridge," said Caroline, age nine. She had a dark ponytail, while her two older sisters were blond. More silence. Then Eddie started to grin. "What I won't miss . . . ," she began, glancing at the others, and the three girls chimed together, "the Hatfords!" They laughed, but Caroline knew it wasn't true. They would miss the boys. "Do you remember the day we moved in here?" Eddie asked her sisters. "How could we forget?" said Beth. "We caught them up on the roof of their house, watching us from across the river." "And they dumped dead birds and squirrels on our side to make us think the river was polluted, just so we'd go back to Ohio," said Caroline. "Why, you never told me that!" said her mother. "Ha!" said Eddie. "We never told you half the stuff those stupid guys did!" Caroline knew, of course, that the Hatford brothersJake and Josh and Wally and Peterweren't stupid in the least. Annoying, disgusting, and conniving, yes, but they had outwitted the girls on several occasions and entertained them on others, and though Eddie might not admit it, the girls had never had so much fun in their lives. Later that evening, when Mrs. Malloy was packing up books in the living room and the girls were doing the dishes, Eddie said, "You know, if we've got only three more weeks here, we'd better make them count." "Doing what?" asked Beth. "Showing the Hatford boys once and for all who's in charge, what else?" "In charge of what?" asked Caroline. "We're moving back to Ohio. How can we be in charge of anything?" "In charge of us! In charge of them! What I mean is, we have to show them we won." "I didn't know we were at war," said Beth. "Of course you did," said Eddie. "War broke out the first day we got here! I just don't wanNaylor, Phyllis Reynolds is the author of 'Who Won the War?', published 2006 under ISBN 9780385901727 and ISBN 0385901720.