The Boys Return by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Read Free Book Online Page B

tap.
    Eddie, Beth, and Caroline grabbed each other in the dark. Now the tapping wasn't just in the wall any longer. It was on the bedroom door!
    “A-A-Annabelle?” whispered Beth.
    Creeeaak!
    The door swung open and there stood Mr. Malloy in his robe, holding a flashlight.
    “Caroline, are you having a nightmare, or just talking to yourself?” he asked.
    “I was just … just rehearsing for a play,” Carolinesaid. “I mean…a play I might possibly be in sometime in the distant future….”
    “Well, it's getting close to midnight, and time you girls were asleep, vacation or no vacation,” their father said. “If you're going to chatter all night, perhaps you should sleep downstairs.”
    “We're going to sleep right now,” Beth said, knowing she wouldn't sleep on the floor downstairs for anything in the world.
    “What woke you up, Dad?” Eddie asked. “We weren't talking that loud.”
    “Actually, I thought I heard a sort of knocking sound,” Mr. Malloy said.
    “You did ?” Beth asked. “You mean you heard it too?”
    “Yes. It sounded as though it was coming from the bathroom. Could just be air in the pipes or something. Well, you girls pack it in now. Cut the chatter and get some shut-eye, okay?”
    “Sure,” said Eddie.
    The door closed again, and the girls could hear their father's footsteps going back down the hall.
    “He heard it too!” said Beth. “Whatever it was, he heard it, so we didn't just imagine things.”
    “But it's stopped. It must have heard Dad's voice and gone away,” said Caroline.
    “And it won't come back for a whole year,” said Beth, looking at her watch in the dark. “It's now March twenty-third.”
    “Oh, I wish we could have talked to her!” Caroline said. “How do we know she won't be back? Maybe she didn't come back before because she found a boy in her room. Maybe because it's me, she'll be here again tomorrow night.”
    “We'll see. I've got some thinking to do,” said Eddie.
    When Caroline woke up the next morning, there was only one sister in bed with her. Beth, snoring softly, was sprawled on her stomach, one leg over Caroline, but the other side of the bed was empty. Eddie was gone.
    Caroline blinked and looked at the clock. Two minutes after ten! She'd slept away half the morning!
    She carefully disentangled herself from Beth and padded downstairs in her pajamas and slippers. Mrs. Malloy was making pancakes.
    “I guess I'm making breakfast this morning in shifts,” she said. “First your father, then Eddie, now you….I suppose Beth's still sleeping?”
    “Yes. Where's Eddie?” Caroline asked.
    “She was up and out a half hour ago. Said something about going to the library. What are you girls going to do today? It's raining again, so I'm afraid you're going to be stuck inside. I have a meeting of the Faculty Wives' Club this morning.”
    “I don't know yet,” Caroline told her. “Did Eddie say when she'd be back?”
    “No. Do you want maple or raspberry syrup, Caroline?”
    “Raspberry,” said Caroline, and she sat with her head in her hands, trying to figure things out.
    Eddie came back around ten-thirty. By that time Beth was up, eating the last of the pancakes. Eddie motioned for her and Caroline to follow and took them both upstairs. When they were in Eddie's room, she closed the door and sat on the edge of her bed.
    “It's a fake,” she said.
    “Annabelle?” asked Beth.
    Eddie nodded. “The whole kit and caboodle. Fake! Fake! Fake!”
    “How do you know? What about the page from the diary and the tapping?”
    “I don't know how Tony got that page, but it's a fraud. And I don't know what made the tapping, but listen to this: The date of the diary entry was March twenty-third. Right? In 1867? And it said that Annabelle had drowned the day before, on March twenty-second. That her sister ran along the bank as far as the road bridge, okay? And then the sister heard Annabelle's ghost singing ‘I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.'