The Girls Get Even by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Author:Phyllis Reynolds Naylor [Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-52803-2
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 1993-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

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Eight

•

Pumpkin Chiffon

“Look!” said Josh.

Wally looked where his brother was pointing. On the bank, across the river, Caroline and her sisters were down by the water gathering sticks.

The boys moved behind some wild rhododendron and watched.

“What do you suppose they’re up to?” asked Jake.

Josh turned to Wally. “Your class isn’t doing a project with sticks, is it?”

Wally shook his head.

“Maybe they’re going to have a fire in their fireplace,” suggested Peter.

“The Bensons left them stacks and stacks of wood,” Jake told him. “This has got to be something else. What do you think, Wally?”

Wally watched the girls without answering. He watched them holding the sticks up in the air, sort of like poles for a tepee.

“A tepee/’ he said.

“That’s it!” cried Jake. “Wally, you’re a genius¡ They’re going to come to the Halloween parade as a tepee and Indians¡ Eddie will probably be the tepee and Beth and Caroline will be the chief and squaw.”

“Wow!” said Peter admiringly.

Wally felt sick. The Malloys would win for sure. Nobody had ever entered the parade before as a tepee and Indians. How could they ever top that?

“How can we top that?” asked Josh.

“We don’t have to top it!” Jake answered. “All we have to do is stop it. All we have to do is dress up like something that would naturally knock down a tepee. Think, everybody!”

“A train?” said Peter.

“Not a train, dum-dum.” A car?

“Peter, we’re talking Old West here, way back before there were any cars. C’mon, Wally. What could it be?”

Wally tried to remember pictures he’d seen in his history book, in the chapter called “Westward, Ho!”

“Buffalo,” he said.

“That’s it!” cried Jake. “We’re buffalo. We don’t have to be vultures after all. Josh, you’ve got to design some new costumes.”

The boys went on home and made milk shakes in the kitchen to celebrate.

“I didn’t think they’d be a centipede,” Josh said. “I’ll bet they whispered that just loud enough for Peter to hear so it would throw us off. They probably knew already they were going to be a tepee and Indians.”

“All this time they’ve probably been working on their costumes—the chief’s headdress and everything—while we were trying to find something that looked like vultures’ claws,” said Josh.

Ding dong.

Jake had just turned off the blender and was pouring the thick shake into glasses when the doorbell rang.

“Don’t anybody take a drink of mine,” Wally warned as he went to the door and opened it.

There stood Caroline and her sisters holding a hatbox.

“Mom sent this over,” Caroline said, holding out the box. “It’s a pumpkin pie.”

Wally could not believe this was happening. The girls didn’t look as though they liked this any more than he did, but Wally couldn’t be sure.

“Who is it, Wally?” called Jake.

“A pie,” said Wally.

“Who?”

Peter came running to the doorway and stared down through the cellophane top of the hatbox. “It’s a pumpkin pie!” he said.

“Enjoy,” said Eddie, and the girls turned and walked away.

“Don’t forget to return the plate,” Beth called over her shoulder.

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