The Girls Take Over Read Online Free PDF Page B

were huge. The pole had sunk down under the surface and only the net was visible on top. The space between the net and Caroline grew wider and wider, and the boys could tell she wasn't holding on to it at all.
    Beth screamed, and at once the three Hatford boys came tumbling down the bank, running alongside the river to see if they could get to the bend where the channel narrowed, to grab Caroline there. Eddie and Beth were at their heels.
    “Hey, listen,” Jake yelled over his shoulder, “she could stand up if she really tried.”
    “Are you sure?” cried Eddie.
    “Yeah, the only deep parts are on beyond Buckman,” said Josh. “Stand up, Caroline!” he yelled.
    Out in the water Caroline suddenly seemed to come alive. She began flailing her arms, trying to grab hold of something. When a small tree limb floated by, she wrapped one arm around that.
    “Hold on, Caroline!” Eddie yelled. “We'll catch you going around the bend!”
    “Just stand up!” Josh bellowed again. “It's not that deep! Stand up!”
    Caroline, however, still holding on to the limb, simply lay back in the water and closed her eyes.
    “Look at her!” Jake said. “She's not even trying!”
    “Maybe the branch hit her on the head,” suggestedWally. Surely someone would see them, he kept telling himself. There weren't a lot of cars out around dinnertime on a Wednesday evening, but someone in a car going over the road bridge ahead would certainly glance down and see a girl in the water and five kids racing along the bank.
    But the path by the river gave way to heavy brush and brambles. Trees were closing in. Caroline was moving farther and farther away from them, and when she reached the bend, she bobbed along under the road bridge and disappeared.
    “The other side!” Eddie yelled. “We've got to cross Island Avenue and get her when she comes around over there. Oh, when I get my hands on my sister … !”

Seven

Rescue
    W hen Caroline first hit the water, the shock made her suck in her breath. She was in the river! She was being swept away! Except for the puffy jacket, which ballooned up around her neck like a life preserver, the rest of her clothes were filling with water and dragging her down. For the first sixty seconds or so, she was utterly terrified. Then one foot scraped along the bottom and she realized she could probably walk out if she really tried.
    But why try? The water was cold, but not icy, and she felt sure she could stand it for another five minutes anyway. She was fascinated to see Beth and Eddie running along the bank, screaming for her to hand them the pole. The pole? The butterfly net? She tried to turn her head, to find the pole, but only the net was visible, and even it seemed to be slowly sinking.
    Now Jake and Josh and Wally were tumbling down the bank, running toward Beth and Eddie, yelling forCaroline to stand up, but all the while she was being carried farther and farther downstream toward the road bridge, where the river turned. She would soon be out of sight. Was this the moment she had been waiting for ever since they moved to Buckman, the start of her glorious career? She summoned all her concentration on the plot that was unfolding before her and tried to adopt a look of terror and despair.
    Oh, was this the end? Would she never be on Broadway? Was the name Caroline Lenore Malloy never to be in lights on a marquee? She tried to look desperate. She tried to look pitiful. No, no, she had to live! She managed a fake sob and began to flail her arms, just as she was bonked on the forehead by a limb floating downriver beside her.
    She was able to drape one arm over the limb, and she felt her other foot scrape the bottom. Caroline was an excellent swimmer, so she had never been afraid of water. She'd just never been in water with all her clothes on.
    This could be her finest hour! Her name would be in all the papers along with her picture! On the front page of the Buckman Herald, beneath a banner headline,