Read The Boys Start the War for Free Online

in the box. This can’t be happening, he said to himself, but it was. After half breaking Caroline’s nose, this would look as though he were saying he was sorry. He was not sorry, and now he was mad as anything.
    “If Caroline comes to the door, Wally, let her have it,” said Jake. “Swoosh! Right in the schnozz. It’ll be worth the whipping we get when we go home.”
    “Uh-uh,” said Josh. “Dad’ll march us back over there and make us apologize, and that would be worse.”
    “You take it,” Wally said, holding the box out toward Jake. “Eddie dropped her tray on you in the cafeteria, and you could drop this on her. We’d just say we were getting even.”
    “No way. I’d still have to apologize, and I’m not about to apologize to Eddie Malloy if someone burned my feet with hot irons.”
    “Wow!” said Peter, impressed.
    They walked down the sidewalk, crossed the road, and started along the bank toward the swinging footbridge.
    “I know what we can do,” Wally said at last. “We could creep over to their front porch, set the cake in front of the door, then ring the bell and run. That way we wouldn’t have to say anything at all.”
    “If we can get over there without their seeing us,” said Josh.
    “Here’s what we’ll do,” Jake told them. “Once we get across the bridge, we’ll stay off Island Avenue and keep to the bushes along the river. When we get opposite their house, well put the cake on the porch when no one’s watching,”
    “This isn’t any fun,” grumbled Peter. “I thought this was a war.”
    “Just a temporary cease-fire,” Jake assured him.
    The boys had just stepped onto the swinging bridge and started across when Wally’s heart almost stopped beating, for coming down the hill on theother side were the three Malloy sisters, and a moment later they, too, were on the bridge.
    For a moment everybody stopped, the Hatfords at one end, the Malloys at the other.
    “Now what?” whispered Wally.
    “They’re trying to block us,” said Jake. “Just keep going. If they want a fight, they’ll get it.”
    The boys started forward again. The girls moved forward too.
    The swinging bridge bounced and jiggled as the two groups came toward each other, Wally held on to the cable with one hand, the cake with the other. He’d never fought a girl in his life. None of his brothers had, either, and he knew that for all of Jake’s talk, they wouldn’t begin now. This was a different kind of battle—a war of the wits.
    But what if the girls didn’t see it that way? What if the Malloys got out in the middle of the bridge and trashed them? Could they fight back then?
    The Hatford brothers had fallen into single file as they approached the middle of the bridge. You always did that when you met someone coming toward you; always said hello and moved over to make room. The Malloy girls, however, came in a row.
    “The first one who tries anything gets the cake right in the puss,” Jake whispered in Wally’s ear.
    The next thing Wally knew, he was face to face with Caroline Malloy—face to nose, anyway, for herswollen nose seemed to take up half her face. It had also turned black and blue. He realized suddenly that if he just gave the girls the cake, he wouldn’t have to walk all the way over to their house. He wouldn’t have to ring the doorbell and say nice things to the parents. He wouldn’t have to fight the girls to get on across either.
    “Here,” he said, holding the box out in front of him. “It’s a cake.”
    Caroline stared at him, then at her sisters.
    “It’s a cake!” Wally said again. “It’s for you.”
    “Yeah?” said Eddie.
    “I’ll just bet!” said Beth. “What dead animal did you dream up this time?”
    Suddenly Caroline grabbed the box out of Wally’s hands and, in one swift toss, flung it over the side of the bridge.
    Wally and his brothers stared in astonishment as Mother’s three-layer chocolate chiffon spilled out into the water, the two top