The Boys Start the War Read Online Free PDF

on.”
    “Okay,” called Miss Applebaum, coming back to the front of the room for another box. “If you two have settled things, you may leave now.” She looked from Caroline to Wally. “Unless, of course, you are not agreed.”
    “We agree,” said Caroline emphatically. The war is definitely on.
    She could hardly wait to get home and tell her sisters.
    What she discovered when she got outside was that she wasn’t the only member of her family who had been kept after school. Eddie had stumbledover Jake’s foot in the cafeteria and, sure that he’d tripped her on purpose, brought her tray down on his head. Beth, of course, had waited for Eddie, so there they were again, the three of them coming home late on the very first day.
    Mother was dusting shelves in the hallway. “Whatever happened to your nose?” she asked, looking at Caroline.
    “She bumped into something that needs a little fixing,” said Beth.
    “Needs a lot of straightening out,” put in Eddie.
    “Well, how was school?” Mother asked.
    “Urk,” said Eddie.
    “Ugh,” said Beth.
    “It has possibilities,” said Caroline.

P eter, Josh, and Jake were waiting in the bushes when Wally came around the bend.
    “What happened?” asked Jake. “The Malloys just stomped by, mad as anything.”
    Wally was miserable. “I just declared war,” he said, and told them what had happened.
    “Hoo boy!” Josh whistled.
    “Wow!” said Peter.
    For the rest of the way home Jake and Josh talked about what they would do if the Malloys tried to get even with Wally for bumping Caroline’s nose. They were in the same class with Eddie.
    “That Eddie would try anything,” said Jake. “If she’d dump her tray on me in front of teachers and everybody, you can imagine what she’d do when no one was looking.”
    “Did you watch her pitch at recess? Whomp!The ball comes at you before you can look at it cross-eyed,” Josh went on.
    “Who’s the other sister?” Peter asked, walking fast to keep up.
    “Beth,” Josh told him. “She’s weird. Sits on the steps at recess and reads a book.”
    “A Whomper, a Weirdo, and a Crazie,” said Jake, and sighed. “I wonder how the Benson guys are doing down in Georgia. I’ll bet they miss us like anything.”
    When they reached the house, Wally took a box of crackers up to his room and sat on the floor to eat them, his back against his bed. He still couldn’t believe that he was the one who had officially declared war on the Malloys. How had it happened? Only a week before he was lying on his back in the grass, and how here he was: Number One on their Most-Wanted list. He was on bad terms already with his teacher, had almost broken Caroline’s nose, and had made everything worse by calling her sisters stupid.
    Well, they were stupid. And deep down, seven layers beneath his skin, Wally knew he was glad that he had thrust his head back and bumped Caroline. He’d just wanted her to stop bugging him, that’s all. But her nose sure looked peculiar by the end of the day—a lot redder and fatter than it had looked that morning.
    Then he had another thought: What if it really was broken, she had to have an operation, and hehad to pay for it? His hands began to sweat, and he swallowed the piece of cracker in his mouth without chewing. Was there such a thing as just a sprained nose? A bruised nose? A slightly but not completely fractured nose? A bent nose, maybe?
    Peter came into Wally’s room and sat down beside him on the rug.
    “What are we going to do next?” he asked excitedly, helping himself to a cracker. He rested one hand on Wally’s leg, looking up at his older brother.
    What Wally wanted to do, in fact, was sit on this rug for the rest of his natural life and never have to face the Malloys again.
    “You’re the general,” said Peter.
    “Huh?”
    “That’s what Josh said. He said you’re the one who declared the war, so you’ve got to call the shots. That’s what he said, all right.”
    Wally gave