Wow, it’s been a while hasn’t it? WITHOUT FURTHER ADO. The saga of the extremely immature and occasionally idiotic Malloys and Hatfords continues! When we last left our protagonists, the boys had one-upped the girls by roping them into peeling apples with the Hatford parents. Fair enough. According to the back of the book, Still smarting from the boys’ latest trick on them, the girls are determined to get even. OMINOUS. An interesting fact about the cover! On my copy, the little “Yearling” sign is missing (it’s on the back) and the “E” in Even has been ‘shopped so that it’s behind Caroline’s head, not in front of it. Clearly the publishers don’t want us to miss the (sort of fake) look of terror on her face. I’m assuming that’s Jake holding her legs? I’d ship it.
Anyway, the last book left off at the beginning of the school year. We have since sped forward to October — a few weeks before Halloween, specifically. The boys and the girls are snarking at each other to “Wait till Halloween!”, although the girls don’t really know what, exactly, is going to be so special about Halloween. I sense some wacky hijinks coming up. Caroline recaps the end of the last book for us, which is nice of her, although I have already considerately done so. But whatever. Caroline then thinks about telling her parents that the Hatford boys locked her in their shed, but then decides against it: if they knew about these wacky shenanigans (or “such nonsense”, as the book puts it), they would never let the girls within a mile of the boys again! And then living in Buckman wouldn’t be fun anymore. (Though I’ve read most of this series, and can I just say, Caroline is severely overestimating her parents’ abilities.) Anyway, Caroline hops off to go put on a silly hat and pretend that she’s the wife of a drowned sea captain. God, I love Caroline. She’s insane. Her dramatics are interrupted, however, by Eddie, who busts in and tells them that the Hatfords are going camping!
Uh. Okay. (How does Eddie know this, you may ask? She was in the hardware store buying a wrench for her bike. I…will take her word for it, I guess.)
Anyway, the boys are going camping at Smuggler’s Cove. Caroline thinks the name sounds ~dramatic~. Eddie wants to crash their campout. Beth, hilariously, is like, “But we weren’t invited!” Eddie is like, “Duh, that’s why we’re going. Keep up.” I usually waffle between loving Eddie and thinking she’s annoying, but I’m definitely loving her in this book.
So: game plan! They’re going to follow the Hatfords and when they fall asleep, they’re going to steal their clothes! Oh ho ho! ‘Tis brilliant. Except for the part where…how do they know where the boys are going to put their clothes? Are the girls just going to sneak into their tents? Their tiny, tiny tents? Without waking them up? Well, whatever.
A description of Beth: Beth was fair-haired and pale skinned and tended to list to one side in a strong wind. I remember not being able to parse that sentence at all at the age of ten.
“They’ll have to come home in their PJs!” Beth crows. “What if they don’t wear PJs?” asks Caroline. “They’ll have to walk home in their underwear!” Eddie cackles. “What if they don’t wear underwear?” My God, Caroline is filthy. Although admittedly, that’s why she’s my favorite.
The girls tell their mother that they’re going camping alone out in a place called Smuggler’s Cove, and the Malloy parents’ reaction is basically, “Well, I don’t know…eh, fuck it, have fun.” Why is nobody in this town worried about serial killers? Or, you know, that giant beast that runs around town and kills animals every now and then? Caroline, as per usual, gets carried away and imagines herself as “Agent XOX”, stealthily crawling around, on an urgent mission to…steal a bunch of boys’ clothes. Oh, Caroline. And then, awesomely, she decides she needs a cape. But the Malloys don’t have a cape, so she decides to make do with “a large orange poncho that her father wore for college football games when it rained.” (See cover.)
God, I love Caroline.
Wally. He and Peter are watching ants climb up an anthill. There’s a nice character-exposing paragraph where Wally thinks about how the ants don’t even realize that he and Peter are sitting there and how their struggle up the anthill is a metaphor for their fight with the Malloys, blah blah blah (I swear it makes more sense in context). I do think it’s nice because it’s a nice set-up for Wally’s character — of all the kids, he’s probably the quietest, not because he’s dumb, but because he’s always thinking. And that makes him the brains of the operation, even moreso than Jake (who, I think we can all tell, fancies himself the ~leader). It also makes him the one that gets stepped on a lot and — well, you’ll see. I bring this up because Wally gets quite fleshed out as the series goes on — especially considering that this series, being written for really young kids, suffers from Status Quo Is God. The other kids remain pretty static in their personalities and motives while Wally and Caroline slowly (and I do mean slowly) undergo character development.
And then Peter smashes the anthill.
Alright, so! Tent? Check! Flashlight? Check! Doughnuts? Check, but don’t let Peter carry them. And so the boys set off. Wally in particular is thrilled be going to Smugglers’ Cove, the one place in Buckman that is girl-free! Ah, yes. Except this is ruined in like one page, when Wally bends over to tie his shoe, and what does he see behind him?
I know. You’re shocked.
(Damn, the girls suck at this being-subtle thing.)
Wally catches up to his brothers and one of the best exchanges in the book ensues:
Wally: …don’t stop or turn around or anything–but we’re being followed.
Peter: O_____O WHO IS IT?
Wally: Who’s the worst you can think of?
Peter: A gorilla? (WTF, Peter?)
Josh: A motorcycle gang with chains wrapped around their fists. (Why are all these kids so obsessed with motorcycle gangs?)
Jake: THEM? (ILU Jake)
Hee. Peter, hilariously, still does not get it, and is like, “ROBBERS?!” and Wally is like, “No, LAS CHICAS QUE NO NOS GUSTAN” and Peter’s like, “Oh, them! Are they coming with us?”
Okay, look. I know Peter’s dumb. I know he’s a seven-year-old. But seriously. They’ve only spent a whole book trying to run the girls out of town. You’d think the kid would pick up on it.
Anyway, the boys decide to get the girls so hopelessly lost in the woods that they’ll never find their way back, and then they’ll sneak down to Smugglers’ Cove and have it to themselves. Again: wild animals? Serial killers? The general pitfalls of being lost in an unknown area and no one knowing where you are? Am I the only one thinking of these things? Of all the people to give voice to my thoughts, Peter is like, “How are they going to find their way home?” Jake is like, “Their problem” because he is heartless. (I mean, next to Wally he’s my favorite Hatford, but dude, Jake is such a jerk. Probably why I ship him and Eddie so much.)
Anyhoodle, the boys set up their tent and crawl inside and do…boy things, I guess. Basically they sit around and eat and…talk about the Bensons. It’s a bit weird, actually, that all the boys ever talk about (besides getting revenge on the girls) is the Bensons. I mean, they go back and forth between, “You know who I hate? The girls” and “You know who was awesome? The Bensons” and then, “Yeah, doesn’t it suck that the girls are here instead of the Bensons?” And on and on till infinity.
(Hilariously, Wally is like, “What did people do who had no brothers?” And I shrieked, “Have peace and quiet!” at the book. Just kidding, I love my brother. Sometimes.)
So, sleeping time! Jake and Josh sing “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” until they pass out (of course they would), Peter’s been asleep since forever, and finally Wally drifts off. Except not, because five minutes later he wakes up to see a human hand inside the tent! Shock! Horror!
(It’s totally Caroline.)
We skip back a few hours earlier. The girls are wandering around, totally lost. Caroline’s freaking out all, “We’re going to die out here!” and Eddie is like five minutes away from snapping her neck when what’s that they hear? Why, it’s none other than the musical stylings of the Hatford twins, singing “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall”! (Yeah, that’s what they get. I hate that song.) So the girls follow the voices and set up camp. And by “camp” I mean they spread out their sleeping bags under the trees and get in.
…are the girls getting dumber? SIGH.
Eddie’s all, “I’ll steal their clothes as soon as they’re asleep!” and then proceeds to fall asleep in about five minutes. Beth is boring so she falls asleep too. Caroline decides that it’s up to her to ~save the mission~ because she’s Agent XOX. Oh, Caroline. God love you. So she goes to the boys’ tent and the scene from last chapter occurs, only from Caroline’s point of view. The boys grab Caroline, who tries to run, except she trips over her secret agent poncho. Hee. Caroline is my favorite, but that was funny.
Anyway Beth and Eddie come to Caroline’s rescue, and then the boys taunt them and are generally dicks, as middle school boys are wont to be. And then! The boys ask them what they’re going to be in the Halloween parade! Oh, now it is on. They make a bet: whichever group wins first prize will be the “masters” and the losing group has to be their slaves. What is with these kids and servitude? I bet if these books were bigger, there’d be a shitton of S&M pornfic. (…aged up, obviously.)
And then it starts raining. So…yeah. It sucks to be the girls right now.
The morning after. Wally is torn between hoping the girls are okay to hoping that they’re dead so they don’t have to go through these Halloween shenanigans. Oh, Wally. None of the boys can think of a decent costume, so they decide (as always) that they need to spy on the Malloys. And as always, they decide the best person for the job is Peter.
Oh, boys. It’s just…it’s really hard to root for you when you are so consistently dumb. The girls deserve to win this one, seriously.
Anyway, the game plan: Peter will go over with the sock Caroline left behind in the woods (yeah, that part was boring so I skipped it), tell the girls that the Hatfords won’t let Peter be in the parade with them, and ask if he can be in the girls’ group. Yeah, I don’t even need to read the book to know that this will backfire hysterically. And it does: the girls use peanut butter cookies to trick Peter into telling them that the boys are planning to go as “punkin heads” (what? basically they’re wearing pumpkins on their heads and that’s witty…or something) — oh, wait, pirates! They’re totally going as pirates! Yeah, that’s not fooling anyone. The girls go into the kitchen and are all, “Punkin’ heads will beat a centipede any day!” and Eddie’s like, “Not if I smash their pumpkins myself!” Eddie’s a bit of a sociopath, isn’t she?
Oh, wait, but Peter overheard them say that they were going to be a centipede so both sides know what the other is going to be. Great.
Okay, I am going to be straight here: this is one of my least favorite books in the series. I mean, there’s some fun stuff that happens later (the school play and the graveyard in particular), but all this back-and-forth about what each group is going to be for Halloween is boring as all get-out and it doesn’t even end in an exciting manner. Not to mention all the kids suddenly develop a weird obsession with poop. So like…I’m trying to make it exciting but I’m also tempted to just skip it and get to the good stuff.
Anyway, the boys decide that if the girls are going to be a centipede, they’re going to have to be something that eats centipedes. Or something. So they decide to be vultures. And their plan is…gross. Like…really gross. (I mean, okay, what did you expect from a bunch of fifth grade boys, but still.) I won’t go into the gory details, but suffice to say, it involves rotting fish, vomit, and defecation. Yeah.
Oh wait, but Eddie saw Josh’s math paper where he wrote down their plan. So both the vulture and the centipede are shot. SIGH.
The girls decide to be a tree, because the principal likes trees and the principal is the judge of the costume competition.
Finally something exciting happens! The fourth grade is putting on a play! Those of you who have ever read even one page of these books will know that Caroline is a (hilariously) wannabe actress, and therefore know that this can only end in hilarity. The class is putting on a play called The Goblin Queen and Caroline naturally wants to be the queen. During lunch, as she puts it, “Caroline wonderfully, gloriously, deliriously outdid the other girls.” You know, sometimes I forget that Phyllis Reynolds-Naylor is actually a good writer — in the midst of lines like”Peter does the doo-doo”, descriptions like the former sort of come out of nowhere. But somehow she manages to nail Caroline’s character with just one line and that’s pretty awesome, in my opinion.
ANYWAY. The girls go down to the river and collect sticks for their shrubbery costume. The boys mistakenly think that they’re going to be “a tepee and Indians” and scrap the vulture idea in favor of…buffalo. These costumes get worse by the chapter. The boy don’t seem to think so, however, and go inside the house to celebrate. Then the doorbell rings and it’s the girls! With a pie! You may recall the last time these children were involved with baked goods. The pie was made by the Malloys’ mother, but the boys don’t believe that and end up picking the pie apart “looking for dog doo.” For fuck’s sake! Enough with the poop! And then they see the note from Mrs. Malloy. Oy.
So they buy a pie from the local bakery and try to pass it off as Mrs. Malloy’s. Really, though? In this tiny-ass town? Mrs. Hatford figures it out right away and then is sort of bitchy about it, all, “If this is the way they do things in Ohio, I’m glad I don’t live in Ohio!” Uh. Okay. I kind of don’t like Mrs. Hatford. She’s always making these really weird passive-aggressive comments about the Malloys and…it’s really weird.
The next day the Hatfords return the pie plate. This doesn’t have anything to do with anything, with the exception of this exchange between Caroline and her mom:
Mrs. Malloy: Good grief! Have some bread with your peanut butter, Caroline!
Caroline: Dost thou talk to thy queen in such a manner?
Mrs. Malloy: I dost. And don’t forget to pack some carrots and celery, m’lady.
Mrs. Malloy, on the other hand, is kind of awesome.
The next day in school, Mrs. Applebaum makes Wally be Caroline’s footman in the play, and his line is, “I hear, my Queen, and obey.” Hee.
Mrs. Hatford saids a note to Mrs. Malloy that basically says, “The pie was delicious, PS I think you bought it, you non-baking ho.” Or something to that effect.
The boys decide to be aliens instead of buffalo.
Wally has a hilarious inner monologue about how much he hates being in the play. It contains such gems as “He did not want to make primary children happy. The primary children were happy enough as it is. Wally wanted his recesses back.” Hee! Love Wally.
The next day is the day of the play. Wally and Caroline wait together backstage and Caroline’s like, “I’m a real actress at last! Do you know where you’ll see my name someday, Wally?” and Wally says, “On a tombstone?” Ha. Wally and Caroline have really good banter for a children’s book, honestly. Caroline, as always, makes the play much more dramatic than it needs to be. Wally is fed up with her shenanigans and pulls her chair out when it’s time for her to sit down and Caroline falls on her ass. But of course, Caroline, being Caroline, just makes Wally carry her offstage. That was awesome.
The girls decide to be a lizard instead of a tree. Whatever.
The Halloween parade finally happens and all this costume drama comes to a (very anticlimactic) head. The boys smash the girls’ lizard costume. Caroline stabs the boys’ alien inner tubes with scissors. Both groups are disqualified, and a group of kids dressed like orchestra instruments win.
Anyway, the Hatfords are disappointed but ready to give it up. Except Jake, who wants to trap them in the cemetery. Admittedly this is the (slightly more) fun part of the book, but really, Jake? You have nothing better to do? Obviously he is trying to get Eddie’s attention~ Wally agrees with me all, “Are we going to be fighting with the Malloys even when we’re all old and gray?” It is interesting, actually, that it’s mostly just Jake that wants to fight with the girls — Josh, Wally, and Peter are fairly ambivalent about them and mostly want to ignore them. Whereas Caroline, Beth, and Eddie all want to fight with the boys. The odds, they are not on the boys’ side.
Anyway, the plan! (This is what, the third plan in this book?) They’re going to send the Malloys a card inviting them to a party at some girl’s house, and then trap them in the graveyard on the way there. Oh. Kay. And then they’re going to dump worms on their heads.
Yeah, I lied, this part of the book is pretty boring too.
The girls fall for the invitation and get dressed up to go out — Eddie as a baseball player (of course), Beth as an alien (of course), and Caroline as the Goblin Queen (…of course). Caroline thinks about the boys and interestingly thinks that Wally “might have turned out all right if he hadn’t had Josh and Jake for brothers.” Caroline/Wally OTP, y’all! So Caroline goes out to check which street the cemetery is on, and while she’s there…she sees the boys setting up their worm trap.
Oh boys. You so dumb. Eddie’s all, “Didn’t they think we might have called [that girl] to check it out?” Except you didn’t, Eddie, so…yeah.
The girls enact their revenge, which involves leaving a note pretending to be Mrs. Hatford telling the boys to come home. The boys wait for about an hour before checking the pan of worms. They see the note and almost fall for it. Except they don’t. So they run around trying to get candy, except most people have stopped giving it out.
And then they get back to their house and the girls are there, having a party. So Mrs. Hatford makes the boys give the girls what little candy they managed to collect.
THE END.
(Yeah, this book sucked. I recall the next one being kind of lame too. But the winter books are pretty good. Maybe I’ll get around to those next year. JAY KAY. By the way, d’you like how I managed to get this up on Halloween? Aw, yeah. And it only took me a year and a half to finish!)
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