Free The Boys Start the War by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Page A

road.
    “Once we get Dad’s stuff back, we’ll be even,” Wally said, thinking that this would be a good time to forget about the Malloys once and for all.
    “But we can’t stop now!” said Jake. “If we’re not bugging the girls, what will we do?”
    That was something Wally hadn’t thought about. “Mom will enroll us in violin lessons,” he said worriedly.
    “She’ll make us get a paper route,” said Josh.
    “She’ll send us to camp next summer,” said Peter.
    Jake grinned, “So we’ve got to stay busy, right?”
    “Right,” said Wally.
    The boys looked at each other and smiled.
    “Tell you what,” said Josh. “We won’t start anything if they don’t.”
    “Yeah,” said Jake. “But they will.”
    Caroline and her sisters were coming across the bridge. Wally knew that his dad was back on the porch watching, and he wasn’t about to do anything dumb like float Caroline’s paper over the edge of the cable railing.
    Caroline’s face was red. He had never seen her embarrassed before, but he was looking at it now.
    “Here’s your paper.” he muttered.
    “Here’s your stuff,” said Caroline, and handed him a sack.
    Eddie and Beth looked daggers at all four boys together.
    “You better check that sack,” whispered Josh as the boys turned and started back again. “They probably took the batteries out of the flashlight.”
    Wally looked in the sack. Everything was there. He checked the flashlight. Two batteries, one bulb. He took out the briefs and turned them over. No writing on the seat of the pants.
    “Thank you,” said their father when they reached the porch. “Now, do you think it’s possible that you boys can stay out of trouble for a couple of days? If you want something to do, you could wash our windows, not to mention my car or the dishes or the kitchen floor.”
    “I’ve got homework.” said Jake.
    “Me too,” said Wally, and all four boys went upstairs.
    There was always a “Back-to-School” night in Buckman the second week of September. No matter what, every parent who had a child in school was supposed to go to his or her classroom that night, meet the teacher, sit in the kid’s seat, and listen to a talk about what the students would be learning that year. Afterward there were cookies and coffee in the gym, and the principal went around shaking hands. You no more missed Back-to-School night in Buckman than you missed your grandmother’s funeral.
    Mr. Hatford was going to spend the evening in Josh and Jake’s classroom, while Mrs. Hatford would divide the evening between Miss Applebaum and Peter’s teacher. The boys, of course, would stay at home.
    Always before, on Back-to-School night, the Hatfords went to the Bensons’, or the Bensons came to the Hatfords’, and the boys wrestled on the rug, made popcorn, ate candy, enjoying the fact that for once they were free and their folks were in school.
    But this time there were no Bensons to come over, and to make matters worse, it rained.
    “We could go through the kitchen and eat all the chocolate chips,” said Wally.
    “There aren’t any, I already looked,” Jake told him.
    “We could call up some of the guys at school to come over,” said Josh.
    “Who do we like at school?” Jake asked. There were friends, of course, but none they liked as well as the Bensons.
    “We could wrap up in blankets and roll down the stairs,” said Peter.
    “Negative,” said Josh.
    They decided at last to turn out all the lights and play hide and seek. Wally was it.
    He sat down on the couch in the living room and counted to fifty.
    “Here I come, ready or not.” he yelled, and groped his way to the hall.
    It was one of the most exciting games the boys played, and they reserved it for moments of incredible boredom. When you were “it” in the dark you never knew when a hand was going to reach out and grab you, whether you would crawl under the bed and find a body, whether you would collide with someone on the stairs.
    He