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sniffles.
    “Yikes!” said Beth. “Major, major embarrassment!”
    “It was a stupid, stupid assignment, and Miss Applebaum wasn't fair!” Caroline sobbed. “How can I tell Dad and Mom I'm repeating fourth grade? What if we move back to Ohio and I have to tell all my friends, ‘Goodbye. I'm going back to fourth grade’?”
    “You'll just have to talk to the teacher and ask what you can do for extra credit,” said Eddie. “Tell her how sorry you are.”
    “But what if she wants me to apologize to Wally?”
    “That's a tough one,” said Eddie.
    The girls got to the swinging bridge, but as they started across, they saw that the bridge was already jiggling. The Hatford boys were just walking off theother side, and going right up the hill toward the Malloys' backyard, heading for the garage.
    “Oooh, they think they're so smart!” Caroline breathed, anger getting the best of her again. “They're just doing this to bother us.”
    “What do you suppose they want the loft for?” said Beth. “It's not June, after all. It's December. It's cold in there.”
    “There's only one way to find out,” said Eddie, smiling slightly.
    Beth turned to her sister. “Spy on them?”
    “Exactly.”
    Caroline began to feel all warm inside again, though not, she knew, with the Christmas spirit. Eddie and Beth were back in her corner again, making plans, and that was right where she wanted them to be.

Eight

Peter on the Hot Seat
    J ake, Josh, Wally, and Peter trooped into the Bensons' old garage and over to the ladder. It was nailed to the wall and led up through the opening in the floor above.
    “Ladder still squeaks,” Jake said as he put his foot on the dusty rung and started up, hand over hand.
    One by one the boys emerged into the loft. Half the space held window screens and picture frames, and in the other Wally saw an empty box of fireworks, old soda cans, thumbtacks, a mitten, a candy-bar wrapper, string, wire, and a Chinese checkers game. There was not enough room to stand up, but it didn't matter.
    “We used to have a lot of fun up here,” said Josh.
    They looked around some more, crawling over to the loft window, which directly faced the girls' house.
    “Remember the time we strung up that pulley betweenthe loft window and Tony Benson's room?” said Jake. “It worked too.”
    “Yeah, we used to clip notes to the pulley and pass them back and forth.”
    It was time, however, for the club meeting, and when Jake and Josh and Wally and Peter were sitting in a sort of circle on the floor, Jake said, “Peter, take the hot seat.”
    Peter, who had been running a little red double-decker Matchbox bus along the floor, quickly looked up. “Why?” he said. And then he saw the sober looks on his brothers' faces. “ What?” he said.
    “Go ahead, take the hot seat,” said Wally.
    Peter reluctantly crawled into the center of the circle and looked from one brother to the next.
    “Okay, how did she get them?” asked Jake, who always seemed to take over.
    “I don't know !” said Peter, examining the little bus in his hands. “I don't know how Caroline got his clothes.”
    The boys looked at each other.
    “Then how did you even know we were talking about Caroline?” asked Josh.
    “How did you know we were talking about clothes ?” Wally demanded.
    Peter was confused. “Well, what were you talking about, then?”
    “Caroline and my clothes!” said Wally angrily. “You gave them to her, didn't you?”
    “Well, she asked, ” said Peter.
    “Whose side are you on, anyway?” Wally bellowed.“If she'd asked you to cut off our heads, would you have done that too?”
    “No,” Peter whispered.
    “What did she pay you, Peter?” asked Josh.
    Silence.
    “C'mon, what did she give you to steal Wally's clothes?” Josh insisted.
    “I didn't steal them, I borrowed them.”
    “What did she pay you?” Wally yelled.
    Wordlessly Peter held out his Matchbox bus.
    “A Matchbox car,” said Wally disgustedly. “You