Who Won the War? by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Page A

felt sure they were enjoying her performance.
    So she continued reading the poem about a lonely man grieving for his lost love, Lenore, and when he went to the door to see who was tapping, he found “Darkness there and nothing more.” But the tapping continued, and just as Caroline read the line “ Tis the wind and nothing more,” there actually did come a tap, tap, tap ping at the back door of the Hatford house. Everyone jumped.
    “A ghost!” said Peter.
    “I think maybe we imagined it, Caroline is reading so well,” said Mrs. Hatford.
    But no, it came again, and—taking the lantern— Mr. Hatford went to answer. It was the next-door neighbor, asking if she could borrow a flashlight until the power came back on.
    “Only that and nothing more,” Mr. Hatford said, grinning, when he came back to join the circle.
    Caroline went on. She felt she had never read so well, with such expression, in her entire life. When she came to the part where the man opened the shutter to the tapping, and in flew a raven, which “Perched, and sat, and nothing more,” Peter listened with openmouth. And no matter how much the man tried to get the bird to tell him what it had come for or when it would leave, all the raven would say was “Nevermore.”
    “Quoth the Raven,” Caroline said, and the others joined in the refrain: “Nevermore.”
    When she had finished at last, for the poem was several pages long, everyone clapped, and Caroline gave a little bow. And just as though she had performed in a theater, the power came back on. Lights blazed in every room, and the refrigerator began to hum.
    “Oh, I'm so glad to see those lights,” said Mrs. Hatford. “It wouldn't be easy getting this whole crew to bed in the dark.”
    “With that, I think I'll head for bed,” said Mrs. Malloy. “I'm hoping that perhaps they'll have some power back on in Ohio tomorrow too. Maybe the storm broke the heat wave there.” She went upstairs and into the bathroom.
    Caroline wanted to linger, for an actress always liked people to come up after a performance and tell her how well she'd done. Indeed, both Mr. and Mrs. Hatford congratulated her on her expressiveness and interpretation of the poem.
    Beth went on upstairs too, and it was only a few seconds later that Caroline saw the light come on in the girls' bedroom and heard her sister scream.

Eighteen

Ka-boom!
    W ally had started up the stairs when the second scream came, this time from Caroline. He couldn't imagine what the girls could be screaming about, unless someone had been found murdered on the floor.
    The next voice he heard was Mrs. Malloy's. “Girls, now stop!”
    Wally reached the doorway first, his family close at his heels. The girls and their mother were staring at the ceiling, so Wally looked up too. There were dozens and dozens of ladybugs. The ceiling looked like it had measles.
    “Now what?” said Mr. Hatford.
    “Oh, no!” said Wally's mother. “I've seen a few in the last couple of days, but this is an invasion!”
    “What else?” said Jake, grinning at Josh. “Ladybugs , girls. Get it?”
    A ladybug dropped from the ceiling and landed onCaroline's arm. She screamed again, and when another landed on the back of her neck, she shrieked and jumped up and down.
    Jake and Josh started to laugh, but Wally was fascinated by the ladybugs.
    “The weather must have done it,” said Mr. Hatford. “But how they're coming in, I don't know. Through the attic, maybe.”
    “Get the flyswatter,” said Mrs. Hatford.
    “Never mind the swatter,” said her husband. “Get the vacuum cleaner.”
    With the Hatford boys and the Malloy girls watching from below, Mr. Hatford climbed up on a step stool, and holding the wand of the vacuum in one hand, he ran it over the ceiling.
    Zing, zing, zing went the vacuum as one ladybug after another—sometimes three or four at a time—was sucked into the machine.
    “I'm so sorry all this is happening while we're here,” Mrs. Malloy said. “As