Boys in Control Read Online Free PDF Page A

“For you. It's Jake.”
    “I don't want to talk to him,” said Eddie. “Tell him I'm sick or something.”
    “I guess she's too tired,” said Caroline into the phone.
    There was a pause at the end of the line. “Well, tell her I'm going over to the school this afternoon and get in some practice, and I wondered if she wanted to come along,” said Jake.
    “Just a minute,” said Caroline. She walked to the door of Eddie's bedroom and told her what Jake had said.
    Eddie was quiet for a moment. “Yes,” she said finally.
    “Tell him I'd like that.”

Five
Act One
    W hen Jake set off for the school ball field that afternoon, he told his brothers to stay home.
    “Eddie doesn't need to have people staring at her,” he said. “She feels bad enough already.”
    Wally could only stare at Jake. It seemed to Wally that while Eddie had lost her self-confidence, Jake seemed to have found his. Now that Eddie had proved she wasn't so hot, wasn't superhuman, Jake could shine. And once he shone, he didn't have to dislike Eddie so much.
    “We need her on the team,” Jake said to his brothers. “If she doesn't play any better than she did this morning, we'll lose.” He went outside and down the street toward the school.
    Wally decided to spend the afternoon reading
Wringer
for his book report, but he was almost afraid to go in his bedroom anymore. It seemed as though every time he left, the bags and boxes along the wall hadbabies. All he had to do was leave the house for an hour or two and when he came back there would be another lampshade or Crock-Pot or toaster.
    “Just hold on till the end of the month, Wally, and you'll have your room back the way it was,” said his mother.
    “What if some of this stuff doesn't sell?” he asked.
    “Mrs. Larson's son has promised to haul away to the Goodwill store anything that's left,” his mother said.
    It was a beautiful spring day, so Wally decided he would rather read outside than in his room anyway. He went out on the back steps with a glass of lemonade and his book and tried to think how much lemon juice and water it took to make a pitcher of lemonade. And once he started thinking about water, he thought about how much rain they had had that spring. Once he started thinking about what a rainy spring it had been, he started to remember the year before, when it had hardly rained at all and farmers had worried about drought. The newspaper had asked people to take fewer baths and shorter showers. They were told not to water their lawns and to make sure their dishwashers were full before they turned them on.
    Here's what Wally could not understand: If the water from your sink and your bathtub went into the sewer, and the sewers flowed into rivers, and the water you drank came from the river, through filtration plants, and then back on into your house, what difference did it make if you used too much bathwater ornot? Didn't it just end up in the river again? He knew there must be a good reason, but no one had ever explained it to him.
    He had taken another sip of lemonade when he saw Caroline coming up his driveway. He tried to pull his feet out of the way so that she wouldn't know he was out back, but it was too late. Around the house she came. She was holding a writing tablet and pencil.
    “Hi, Wally,” she said. “I guess Jake and Eddie are over at the school practicing, aren't they?”
    “I guess so,” said Wally.
    “Eddie was pretty upset over the way she played this morning. Jake was nice to offer to practice with her.”
    “I guess so,” said Wally again, studying the slice of lemon in his glass.
    “I brought over the first act of my play, Wally. Can I read it to you for your frank and honest opinion?”
    “I guess so,” said Wally.
    Caroline studied him. “You have to be one hundred percent honest or it won't help,” she said. “When I get to be an actress on Broadway, critics will come to see me perform and the newspapers will publish their reviews. I have to