Who Won the War? by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Read Free Book Online

scenery rose in the air.
    And Caroline answered, “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”

Eight

Emergency
    W ally was sitting on the roof of his house when he heard the siren. Josh had taken Peter to Jake and Eddie's summer baseball game, but Wally said that if he was going to be roasted alive, he'd do it where there was a little breeze, thank you.
    Besides, shade from the beech tree fell on the widow's walk—the small fenced-in patch of roof with the trapdoor in the middle that led down to the attic. It was supposedly the place where the wives of sea captains stood, looking out to the ocean for any sight of their long-lost husbands. Except that there was no ocean in Buckman. Only the river, not more than three feet deep in most places.
    Wally had been standing perfectly still, trying to see if he could detect the direction of the wind. Actually, it was so hot and still and humid that he couldn't feelany wind at all. It must be a hundred and ten degrees up here , he thought, and he wondered if he could fry an egg on the shingles.
    Then he heard the ambulance coming down College Avenue, and he saw it turning in, farther on, at the school.
    What could have happened at the school? Wally asked himself. Nobody was there! It was vacation. Maybe the custodian had fallen off a ladder or something. Wally quickly crawled through the trapdoor and climbed down the ladder to the attic floor, then the stairs to the second floor, then the stairs all the way down to the first.
    He jumped onto his bike and was halfway up the street toward the school when he saw the ambulance pulling out of the school driveway and heading for the hospital.
    Wally pedaled as fast as he could, forgetting the heat. At last he would have something exciting to tell the family at dinner. Nobody else seemed interested in Wally's observations on mockingbirds or wind direction, but he knew he could capture the twins' attention, at least, if he could say he had chased an ambulance all the way to the hospital.
    It wasn't far, and when Wally got there, he could see the two attendants wheeling somebody in on a stretcher.
    Wally left his bike by the door and ran inside. The attendants were heading toward a glass door farther on. Wally raced after them and found Caroline
    Malloy on the stretcher with her hands crossed over her chest.
    “Caroline!” Wally gasped.
    “Wally!” she said weakly, sounding as though she might cry.
    But before they could say any more, the glass door closed in his face. All he could think was that maybe there had been an explosion at the school and that Mad Bomber Bill had got Caroline and it was all Wally's fault for not showing that shopping list with Dynamite on it to the police.
    Wally sat down on a chair in the hallway. He twisted and turned and tried to see through the glass door. He untied both shoelaces and retied them. He pulled his knees up to his chest and stretched his T-shirt over them, then dropped his feet to the floor again. He listened to the names of doctors being called over the hall speaker and wondered if any were hurrying down to take care of Caroline.
    At last a nurse came through the glass door. Wally leaped up.
    “What happened?” he asked the nurse.
    She stopped. “To whom?”
    “Caroline Malloy! I saw them bring her in!” said Wally miserably.
    “Is she a friend of yours?” asked the nurse.
    “Yes,” said Wally. “It … it wasn't dynamite, was it?”
    “Dynamite?” the nurse said. “Of course not! Something fell on her at the school, and we don't getany answer at her house. Could you contact her parents for us?”
    Something fell on her? Wally's feet felt as though they were stuck to the floor. He couldn't move! Caroline was dying and he had to go tell her mother?
    Hi, Mrs. Malloy. I just came to tell you that Caroline is dying.
    Hello, Mrs. Malloy. Your youngest daughter is dead.
    Good afternoon, Mrs. Malloy. Well, it's not a good afternoon for you, anyway. In fact, it's probably the most awful