A Spy Among the Girls Read Online Free PDF Page A

trapped it in their garage and Caroline was going to let Wally and Kevin have a first look at it because she liked them so much.
    He stared at the note again. Why couldn't he tell anyone? he wondered. And how would they knowwhether he had or not? That was easy. Everyone he told would want to come too, and a whole crowd would show up at the Malloys’. No, he had to keep this secret and go alone. But if this was a trick…
    He went into the kitchen, where Jake and Josh were getting down the crackers and peanut butter. Peter was on the phone talking to their mother. She always called to see if things were okay.
    “We're all here and we're not murdered or anything,” Peter told her.
    When he hung up, they sat down at the table and passed around the crackers and orange juice, the peanut butter, and some cheese. But they all seemed unusually quiet to Wally. Jake and Josh would normally be jabbering away or quarreling about something, but now each of his brothers seemed to have something on his mind. Peter, in fact, was holding something tightly clasped in his left hand, and finally, when all the cheese was gone, he opened his fist, unfolded a little slip of paper, and asked, “What does
a-b-a-g-u-c-h-i-e
spell?”
    Jake and Josh and Wally all paused with crackers in their hands and stared at Peter.
    “Did
you
get one too?” asked Jake.
    Josh turned to Jake. “What do you mean? Did
you
get one?”
    “Then you got one, too?” Jake asked.
    “We all must have got them,” said Wally, relieved. “I'll bet Crazy Caroline was putting them in our pockets.”
    “What does it spell?” Peter asked again.
    “Abaguchie,”
Wally told him. “But it's probably a big fat trick, Peter. She just wants us to make fools of ourselves.”
    “What if they really did catch something?” asked Josh.
    “There's only one way to find out, and you're the official spy,” Jake told him.
    “Right!” Josh said quickly. “Leave it to me. I'll call Beth and say I'm coming over.” He dialed the Malloys’ three times, however, and each time the line was busy. Jake got tired of waiting and ambled upstairs. Then Peter left, and finally Wally.
    Josh continued dialing.
    Wally stretched out on his bed and played a few games with his Game Boy, but when he came back down, Josh was still there.
    “I thought you were going over to the Malloys’,” Wally said.
    “I am. Her mom said Beth stopped by the library on her way home and should be back in half an hour. Why don't you walk over there with me, Wally? I mean, you don't have to come in or anything. But we could sneak around the garage first and see if they've got anything trapped in there. Look in their basement window, maybe, and see if the abaguchie's down there.”
    “Okay,” Wally agreed. He didn't mind as long as he didn't run into Crazy Caroline.
    And so, with Jake upstairs listening to CDs and Peter playing with his Matchbox car collection, Josh and Wally put on their coats and crossed the swinging bridge. They circled around the garage first, so that the girls couldn't see them coming, and tried to look inside. The door was closed, however. The windows of the basement were dark as well.
    “If there
was
an animal over here, I'll bet it would be making a powerful lot of noise,” said Wally.
    “Yeah,” Josh said. “I'll bet Caroline thought up this whole stupid thing herself. I'll bet Beth doesn't even know about it.”
    “Well, good luck,” Wally told him.
    “You don't want to…uh… wait out here or anything?” Josh asked.
    “Why should I wait? You might be in there a long time,” said Wally.
    “Right,” said Josh. He walked toward the back door of the house, and Wally went on down the hill to the swinging bridge.
    Wally couldn't figure out whether Josh really was a spy, or whether he was in love with Beth, or neither. As he crossed the river, he decided that if he ever
did
fall in love with a girl, he'd get a friend to like her too, and then they could both go see her