A Winning Spirit. Valerie Tripp

asked Mrs. McIntire. “How?”

      The girls looked at each other. “By a hose,” said Susan. “Ricky—”

      “We walked into a hose. By mistake,” said Molly quickly, before Susan could finish.

      “Who would be using a hose on a windy Halloween night?” asked Mrs. McIntire.

      The girls said nothing. Finally Molly said, “Just someone.”

      Mrs. McIntire frowned. “Molly McIntire,” she said. “I have the distinct feeling that I am not being told the whole story.”

      Molly stared into her cocoa cup. Ricky pushed his chair back from the table.

      “Perhaps you can tell me what happened, Ricky,” said Mrs. McIntire.

      “Me?” squeaked Ricky. He fiddled with the handle of his pirate dagger. “I didn’t…I mean…I mean…”

      “Go on, Ricky,” said Mrs. McIntire.

      “Well, it was just a joke, Mom,” said Ricky. “Just a joke on the girls. You know, a Halloween joke? Trick or treat?”

      “A mean trick,” muttered Linda.

      “What did you do?” asked Mrs. McIntire, staring steadily at Ricky.

      “I just got a little water on their costumes,” he said.

      “A little water?” squealed Molly. “You dumped pails and pails of water all over us, Ricky!”

      “You squirted us with a hose!” Susan added.

      “You ruined our costumes and all our treats!” said Linda.

      “Is that true?” asked Mrs. McIntire.

       “Yes!” exclaimed all the girls.

      “Ricky?”

      “Yes, ma’am,” muttered Ricky. He looked down at his feet.

      Mrs. McIntire was quiet. Then she said, “Ricky, that was a very mean thing to do. I’m ashamed of you, treating your sister and her friends that way. I think I can say that your father would be ashamed of you, too. I’m going to punish you just as I think he would punish you.” Mrs. McIntire sighed. “You are to apologize to these girls. Then you are to give your bag of Halloween treats to Linda, Susan, and Molly to share. You may keep one treat, and only one, for yourself. I’m going upstairs to put Brad to bed now, and while I’m gone I want you to apologize. Is that clear?”

      “Yes, ma’am,” said Ricky.

      “Girls, after Ricky apologizes, I want you to go to bed. I’ll come in later to say good night,” said Mrs. McIntire as she left with Brad.

      After she had gone, Ricky muttered, “Sorry.” Then he shoved his bag of Halloween treats into Molly’s hand and ran out of the kitchen.

      As the girls trudged up to bed, Linda whispered, “You were right, Molly. She was way too easy on him.”

      “Yeah!” said Susan. “Except for the part about your father being ashamed.”

      “He wrecked our Halloween, and he’s hardly suffering at all!” added Linda.

      “Well,” said Molly as she flopped on her bed, “we’ll just have to think up a plan to make Ricky really suffer.”

      “Let’s let the air out of his bicycle tires,” suggested Susan.

      “Not bad enough,” said Molly.

      “We could put frogs under his pillow,” said Linda. “Dozens and dozens of frogs.”

      “Yeah, but then we’d have to catch the frogs,” Susan pointed out.

      “Eeeeeuuuuwwww!” they all shrieked.

      “We could disguise our voices and call him up on the telephone,” said Susan. “We could pretend we’re Mrs. Mobley, his teacher, and say he has to stay after school every day next week for being bad.”

      “No,” said Molly. “That’s no good. It doesn’t embarrass him in front of anybody. We have to really embarrass him in front of lots of people, or in front of someone he’d hate to be embarrassed in front of, like Mom, or…”

       “Or Dolores!” said Linda.

      “Yes, that’s it!” said Molly. “Embarrass him in front of Dolores!”

      “But how?” asked Susan.

      The girls were quiet for a minute. Molly was still mad—as mad as a wet hen, her father would say. She could remember Ricky chanting, “I see London, I see France, I can see your underpants.”

      Underpants? Dolores? Molly thought. Then she smiled to herself.

      “I think I have a plan,” she said to Linda and Susan, “but all three of us have to cooperate or it won’t work.”

      The next morning was Saturday. The breakfast table was crowded. Dolores, who had spent the night with Jill, was talking about the movie they were all going to see that afternoon. Ricky came to the table last. His hair was slicked back with water. That’s probably so Dolores will notice him, thought Molly. But she didn’t say anything to Ricky. She was still too mad about what he had done the night before.

      Susan was the first to start the plan to get back at Ricky. She asked Mrs. McIntire for three big brown bags. “We need them to hold our Halloween treats,” she said with a look at Ricky. Mrs. McIntire gave her the bags.

      Linda had a harder job to do. She had to keep Ricky out of his room for a while after breakfast. “Can I watch you shoot baskets?” she asked Ricky. “I want to learn how.”

      “Girls can’t play basketball,” answered Ricky rudely.

      “Ricky!” said Mrs. McIntire. “What an unfriendly thing to say! You march outside like a gentleman and show Linda how to shoot baskets. She is our guest.”

      “Yes, ma’am,” said Ricky.

      He and Linda went outside. Mrs. McIntire walked with Brad to the mailbox around the corner to mail a letter to Dad. Dolores followed Jill up to her room to listen to records.