Free The Girls Take Over by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

of their misfortune.
    They put Caroline to work in the rest room, of course, while the others did the windows at ground level, inside and out. As she bent over the dirty toilet, holding the brush in both hands and scrubbing as hard as she could, Caroline muttered, “They want this placeclean and beautiful, huh? Well, I'll give them beautiful. I'll make this place so beautiful they'll hardly know it's a police station.”
    And her lips began to curl at the corners with just a hint of a smile.

Fourteen

The Fatal Word
    I t was the day of the classroom spelling contest, and before Wally was fully awake, he found himself scratching all over. He scratched one arm, then the other, and then his stomach.
    His eyes opened wide. No! It couldn't be. Not chicken pox! He had to go to school. He had to keep Caroline from winning the contest for their room.
    He got out of bed and waited till everyone was out of the bathroom. Then he hurried inside and shut the door. In the mirror his face looked okay, though his ears were a little red. But when he took off his T-shirt and checked his arms and stomach, he saw the beginning of a faint red rash and knew without a doubt that he had chicken pox. He hadn't caught it from Peter. He must have been near someone else at school who wasn't showing a rash yet.
    Even though the day was warm, Wally put on a long-sleeved shirt and buttoned it to the top. Hewaited till most of the others had eaten breakfast, then gulped down a glass of juice.
    “Hey, Wally,” Josh said as he packed his lunch at the counter. “Somebody must be talking about you. Your ears are red.”
    “Probably old Car-o-line,” said Jake. “Figuring how she can get Wally to clean that toilet for her at the police station. Get us in even more trouble than we are.”
    Peter came into the kitchen just then. “Guess what, Wally?” he said. “My pox is almost gone. And guess what else? Mom thought maybe I could clean out my closet while I was home, but she didn't make me do it after all.”
    “Lucky you,” said Wally. “When are you going back to school?”
    “Soon, Mom says,” Peter told him.
    All the way to school, Wally lagged behind the others so that no one else would notice his ears. Not until he took off his jacket, that is, and took his seat in front of Caroline.
    “Wal-ly,” she whispered from behind. “You must have done something really, really embarrassing, because your ears are red.”
    Wally said nothing.
    “You're not running a fever, are you?” Caroline continued.
    Wally shook his head.
    Caroline poked him in the back with her ruler. “You're not sick, are you, Wally?” she asked. And then,before he could answer, she said, “You don't have chicken pox, do you?”
    Wally turned his head to one side. “Shut up,” he whispered over his shoulder.
    And she did. Wally was afraid that Caroline would raise her voice and tell the teacher that he should be home in bed, but sometimes even Caroline was known to do the right thing. Or perhaps she didn't want anyone to be angrier with her than Wally and his brothers were already.
    Miss Applebaum's face looked like Christmas. There seemed to be nothing she liked as much as a good test or a pop quiz or a multiplication contest or a spelling bee.
    “All right, class,” she said. “This is the day we've all been waiting for!” Was she nuts? Wally thought. “This morning we will have a spelling contest in this room to see which of you gets to represent our class in the county contest. For months now we have been checking our spelling, learning new words, circling words in our readers, and increasing our vocabularies. Today we will find out who has been working the hardest.”
    Miss Applebaum was even wearing a new shirt for the occasion, Wally noticed, as the teacher went on: “I want you all to line up around the room—one long line, please. I'm going to read the words in the order that they appear on the standard list, so whatever word you get will be entirely by