Free A Spy Among the Girls by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Page A

pocket for the note he had written to Beth.
    “I just want you to boost me up on the porch roof, and I'll slide this note under her window.”
    “What if the window won't open?” asked Jake.
    “I already thought of that. I'll just tape it to the glass,” said Josh, and showed them a roll of tape in his pocket.
    Wally began to feel useless. “So what am I, your cheering section?” he asked. “I don't think you need me at all. I think—”
    He didn't finish. He stopped in midsentence and didn't even close his mouth. Because there, just beyond the garage, were two shining eyes, glowing like hot coals in the darkness.
    Wally could only gasp and clutch his brothers’ sleeves, but Jake and Josh had seen the eyes too, and neither of them moved a muscle. They didn't even seem to be breathing.
    For what seemed like sixty seconds the boys stood frozen, the two hot coals staring back at them.
    Then the creature took a step forward.
    “Abaguchie!” Wally croaked, and suddenly the three boys were stumbling onto the Malloys’ back porch, pounding on the door, so that when it opened at last, they tumbled inside and fell at the feet of Coach Malloy.

Thirteen

The Confrontation
    “B oys?” said Caroline's father, as though he wasn't sure whether the creatures sprawled at his feet were animal or vegetable.
    “We saw it!” Jake gasped.
    “The abaguchie!” said Wally.
    By now the girls had gathered, wide-eyed, in the kitchen, and Mrs. Malloy came up from the basement where she had been doing the laundry. The whole family was staring at the Hatford boys, who were awkwardly getting to their feet.
    “You saw something outside just now?” Coach Malloy quizzed them.
    “Standing right beside the garage! It was horrible!”
    said Wally.
    “Fiery red eyes!” said Josh.
    “Pointed ears!” said Jake.
    “A long pointed tail. Sort of like a…a devil's tail,” Josh finished uncertainly.
    And when Coach Malloy folded his arms across his chest and raised one eyebrow, Wally added, “It was coming right at us.”
    Mr. and Mrs. Malloy exchanged glances.
    “What were you guys doing over here in the first place?” the girls’ father asked.
    “We were just out walking,” Jake insisted.
    “Along the river,” said Josh.
    “And we weren't doing
any
thing!” said Wally.
    Coach Malloy took a flashlight and went out in the backyard to look around. But Mrs. Malloy said, “You were walking along the river way up here in our yard?”
    At that Josh blushed, and when that happened, Beth's face grew pink as well. A minute went by in silence. Then another. Finally the girls’ father came back inside.
    “Didn't see a thing,” he said. He put one hand on Josh's shoulder and sat down on the edge of the table. “Listen, you guys,” he said. “Let me tell you something. I think it's time you made other friends and started hanging out with other boys. Leave the girls alone.”
    “Daddy!” Beth protested, humiliated that he would say such a thing, but Coach Malloy held up one hand to stop her.
    “I don't know how it happens,” he went on. “I'm not even sure exactly
what
happens, for that matter. But whenever the seven of you get together, the roof fallsin, so to speak. Surely you boys had other friends before my daughters came to Buckman.”
    The girls were aghast. They had never heard their father talk like this. It seemed so
rude
. Caroline couldn't stand it. If her father actually forbade the Hat-ford boys to come over, what in the world would she do for fun? Where would she ever find the same excitement, the romance, the mystery, the
rev
enge
?
    But Wally was talking next. “We
did
have best friends, but they moved out when you moved in,” he explained.
    “There are other boys in this town, surely!” said Mrs. Malloy. “You don't have to spend all your time over here.”
    Caroline burst into tears. “I can't believe what you're
saying
! How can you be so rude? You're telling the Hat-fords they can't cross the river in their