Read The Boys Start the War for Free Online Page B

and … plunge. Caroline went tail up like a duck, diving beneath the surface, her arms outstretched, feeling for a box or a china plate. Once she thought she touched it, but it was only the slimy moss of a rock.
    “There it goes!” shouted Beth, pointing farther downstream as Caroline surfaced. “Oh, m’gosh, it’s headed for the rocks!”
    Her baby! Her poor baby! The cameras still rolling in her head, Caroline plunged forward again, arms battling the water as she stroked. Faster, faster … her only child! In another minute he would be dashed against the rocks.
    Out of the corner of her eye she could see the Hatford boys going home. They weren’t even going to stay till the end! No matter. A good actress played her part whether or not the entire theater was empty. On she swam.
    The box came apart just before the largest rock in the river came into view. She could see the plate spilling out, sinking, and she lunged. She had it!She’d found him! She’d rescued her little baby, her heart’s delight!
    Holding the plate against her chest, Caroline crawled up on the rock and swooned.
    “For corn’s sake, Caroline, cut the comedy!” Eddie yelled, swimming toward her. She and Beth reached the rock and climbed up beside Caroline, who collapsed dramatically against them, going limp in their arms.
    “Caroline, knock it off!” Eddie said sternly. “Is the plate okay?”
    The mood was broken; the show was over. Caroline blinked, her hair streaming water into her eyes, and examined the plate. It still had a sticker on. the bottom, as though it were new, and there was a dainty scalloped design around the edge—the kind of plate her mother used for cookies at Christinas, or served little sandwiches on when she entertained the faculty wives. Miraculously it was not broken, but there was a fine hairline crack in the surface. “It’s okay, I guess,” she told Eddie.
    Eddie and Beth slipped into the water again, and Caroline reluctantly followed, swimming back to the bank behind her sisters.
    “What are we going to tell Mom?” Beth asked as they put on their socks and sneakers. “What will we say about the cake?”
    “Never mind the cake, what will we tell her about us,” said Eddie. “Look at us! Soaked to the skin!”

    Dinner at the Malloys was almost never before seven, because Coach Malloy had football practice until six-thirty every evening in the fall. The girls had just time enough to rush upstairs to shower and change before they saw his car making its way down Island Avenue, to park at last in the clearing between the house and garage.
    He slid into his chair at the table. “You girls look as though you’d been swimming” was the first thing out of his mouth.
    “In that river?” asked Mother, placing a roast before them.
    “I just took a shower,” said Beth, which was the honest truth.
    “Me too,” said Eddie.
    “Well, that’s where I’m headed after dinner,” their father said. “I don’t know if I’ve got a team or not, Jean, they all seem pretty green to me. But I’ll tell you one thing, I’m going to make them one by the first of October.”
    “Of course you will,” said Mrs. Malloy. “You know, I sort of like living in a small town like this.”
    “I think it stinks,” said Eddie, reaching for the pepper.
    Her mother looked up. “Why, Edith Ann?”
    “It’s a town full of dumb boys, is what it is, and I pitched better than any boy at recess today, but I still have to try out for the baseball team.”
    “It’s only fair,” said her father. “Have you met any of the neighbors?”
    “I have,” said Mrs. Malloy. “The people next door are friendly. And I met our mailman for the first time, a Mr. Hatford. He says he lives across the river, and his wife works at Grady’s Hardware. By and by, I imagine, we’ll meet them all.”
    Caroline looked at Beth and Eddie and said nothing. But after dinner, when Mother went upstairs to write some letters and the girls were on kitchen