Girls Rule! Read Free

stupid way to make money and try to get us to go along with it.”
    “Yeah!” said Wally. “Caroline would probably write a play and want us to be in it.”
    “They’d charge everyone a dollar just to come and watch us act like idiots,” said Josh.
    “Eddie would be the worst, though,” said Jake. “I’ll bet she’d put on a baseball exhibition and charge people to come and watch her throw. Want us to stand out there and pitch balls to her just so everyone could see how hard she can hit.”
    Peter stuffed the last bite of pizza into his mouth and said, “Why are we mad at the girls? I thought we were friends now. I thought that after you and Eddie won the baseball championship, you were going to get along better, Jake.”
    The three older boys studied their brother.
    “Who said we’re mad at anybody?” asked Jake. “It’s just time we started doing our own thing. If the Bensons move back this summer, we can’t always be doing stuff with the girls, like bottle races down the river. They better get used to entertaining themselves, ’cause we’ve got a lot of catching up to do with the guys.”
    “Right. The girls have to learn to get along without us,” said Josh.
    Wally waited. He felt sure he knew what was coming next. He was positive he knew what Jake would say. Because where the Malloy girls were concerned, Jake always said the same sort of thing.
    “Let’s see who can earn the money first, them or us,” said Jake.
    “No fair!” said Josh. “There are only three of them and four of us. We should count Peter out.”
    “Are you kidding?” said Jake. “All Peter has to do isstand outside a grocery store looking angelic, and people will be giving him money right and left.”
    “Put a halo around his head and people will be standing in line to ante up,” said Wally.
    They slugged down the last of the orange juice and sat back in their chairs, wiping their mouths on their sleeves.
    “It’ll be nice to have the Bensons back in their house again and the Malloys gone to Ohio,” said Jake.
    Peter tipped his glass back so far that it covered his nose. When the last drop of juice had trickled into his mouth, he put the glass on the table and said, “What if the Bensons come back and the girls decide to
stay
?”
    Wally looked at Josh and Josh looked at Jake.
    “That can’t happen,” said Jake, “because if Coach Benson comes back,
he’ll
be coach of the college football team again, and Mr. Malloy will be out of a job.”
    “Oh,” said Peter. The kitchen was quiet for a moment. “But what if Coach Benson doesn’t
want
his old job back? What if he wants to do something else?”
    “It doesn’t matter what job he takes, Peter,” Josh explained. “If the Bensons come back, they’ll want their house back. And even if the Malloys stay, they’ll have to move somewhere else.”
    “Yeah,” said Jake, beginning to smile. “We won’t have to see them crossing the footbridge every morning.”
    “We won’t be walking with them to school,” said Wally.
    “We won’t be wondering if they’re looking at usfrom across the river with their dad’s binoculars, trying to see us in our underwear,” said Josh.
    “If they decide to stay in Buckman, they’ll probably move clear across town,” said Jake.
    “Out in the country, even,” said Josh. “It’ll be like old times again. Just us and the Bensons. We won’t even know the Malloys are around.”
    “
If
the Bensons come back, of course,” Jake said.
    To Wally, it seemed as though the summer were one gigantic
if
.

Three

Bigger Plans
    “S o how are we going to raise money?” Beth asked her sisters after they’d crossed the bridge and started up the grassy hill to the house the Malloys were renting from the Bensons. “I think I’ll bake cookies and sell them.”
    “I’d rather do something more physical—scrub porches or something,” said Eddie. “What are
you
going to do, Caroline?”
    “I,”
said Caroline, who had been