Read Online The Girls Get Even by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor - Free Book Online Page B

made that pie yourself, I would have sworn it came from Ethel’s Bakery. Thank you so much. It was delicious.
Ellen Hatford’
    Is that an insult or a compliment? I can’t even tell.”
    “She thinks you bought the pie?” asked Eddie.
    “It certainly sounds that way to me.”
    “So isn’t that a compliment?” asked Caroline.
    “Not to me it’s not. Not when it was Great-Aunt Minna’s recipe. Maybe she’s just trying to take me down a peg—my bragging on about that recipe as I did. Oh, dear heaven¡ People were so much easier to get along with back in Ohio!”
    After Mother went back in the house, Beth whispered, “What do you think happened to the pie? You don’t think they threw it in the river, do you?
    “Well, something happened to it, or they wouldn’t have bought a store pie and tried to pass it off as homemade. I’m sure that’s exactly what happened too,” Eddie said.
    “Maybe it was just so good that once they took a taste, they kept eating and couldn’t stop,” Caroline suggested.
    “I doubt it,” said Eddie.
    •
    At school on Monday, Caroline leaned forward and whispered, “Wally. Mom wants her pie back.”
    Miss Applebaum was over in one corner helping a group with a geography assignment.
    Wally turned around. “What?”
    “She says that since you didn’t give it to your mother, she wants it back.”
    Wally stared.
    “Well?” said Caroline.
    “Well, nothing¡ We ate it!”
    “Your mother didn’t,”
    “How do you know?”
    “The Goblin Queen knows all.”
    “Drop dead,” said Wally.
    “If we win the costume contest, you’ll have to say, I hear, my Queen, and obey/ for a whole month. Did you ever think of that?”
    “And if we win … ?”
    Miss Applebaum turned around. “I hear people talking. Is that you, Caroline? Caroline and Wally? Suppose you share it with the class.”
    “Just practicing our lines, Miss Applebaum,” Caroline said sweetly.

•   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •
Ten
•
The Grand Finale
    T he buffalo costumes were not working out. Even Josh, the artist in the family, could not make brown grocery sacks look like the shaggy heads of buffalo, no matter how much stuff he glued on them. Every time he changed them still again and showed them to Mother, she’d say, “Is that a goat? No, wait. I’ve got it—a sheepdog.”
    “Why don’t we just forget the girls and do something we think will win?” said Wally.
    But Jake had other ideas. “What we need is a costume the teachers will like and the principal will love, that can still destroy anything in its path. Then no matter what the Malloys come up with, we can devour it.”
    “Think , Wally!” said Josh. “Think of something that can sort of suck up everything in its path.”
    “A vacuum cleaner,” said Wally.
    “Naw. What else?”
    “A tidal wave.”
    “Yeah, what else?”
    “A tornado.”
    “Keep thinking.”
    “An amoeba,” said Wally.
    “C’mon, Wally, think!”
    Wally closed his eyes tight and thought so hard, his eyebrows hurt. “An alien spaceship,” he said at last.
    “That’s it!” cried Jake. “We’ll be aliens!”
    “They can do anything!” said Josh. “We could get one of those huge truck inner tubes, and all of us could stand inside the middle, holding it up around our waists, and we’d knock over everything we bumped into¡ I’ll design our helmets….” He reached for his sketch pad and began. All you had to do was give Josh an idea, and he was already drawing a picture of it in his head.
    “Wow,” said Peter softly, as he watched the alien spaceship appearing right at the end of Josh’s pencil.
    When they asked their dad if he could get a giant inner tube for them, Mr. Hatford answered, “Why, I think that could be arranged.”
    At last everything seemed to be working out. The Halloween parade was only four days off, butmeanwhile Wally had another worry. The