Freddy and the Dragon (14 page)

No. 17 was unlocked. Inside, on the bed, were the suitcase and the bag. Freddy snapped back the fastener on the bag and pulled it open. Inside, the snake was curled up on a small cushion. Freddy put his head in and seized him by the neck and dragged him out on the floor. Then Jinx grabbed his tail, and working fast they tied him quickly into a double square knot.

When Freddy had been with Boomschmidt's Circus there had been a trained snake who had a very amusing stunt. He would allow the spectators to tie him into knots, and then he would get out of them again. The only knot he couldn't get out of was this one. So Freddy put his sailor hat on again and hooked the snake over one arm like a large black pretzel and they went down and out the front door and nobody saw them at all.

Of course the snake wriggled a lot, and he kept calling: “Help! Help!” But when a snake raises his voice above a whisper it usually turns into a hiss, so all anybody could hear was a sort of “Hssp! Hssp!” Nobody but Jinx and Freddy heard it.

Freddy didn't think Mrs. Peppercorn would want a snake in the house, so he rode his bicycle out to the farm, with Jinx on the handlebars and the snake still struggling hopelessly to get out of the knot.

“Hey look, kid,” he said to Freddy, “loosen up this knot a little, will you? It makes my stomach ache. And what's it all about anyway? Where are you taking me?”

“Your stomach will just have to make the best of it till we get where we're going,” Freddy said. “You're a burglar. We're going to lock you up. Then we're going to catch your friend Gimpy and lock him up.”

The snake gave a wiggle which would have been a shrug of the shoulders, if he had had any shoulders, and if he hadn't been tied in a knot. “I couldn't care less,” he said. “You know what Gimpy gave me for supper last night? Stale bread pudding! Me that was brought up on frogs and centipedes and caterpillars—”

“Hey,” cut in Jinx, “shut up that talk about eating centipedes, will you? You want to spoil my supper?”

“That reminds me,” said the snake. “If you lock me up, what are you going to give me for supper? How about a nice fat mouse, hey?” And he winked at Freddy.

Freddy grinned at him suddenly, showing all his teeth. “How'd you like to
be
supper?” he asked.

The snake gave him an astonished and terrified look. “Oh-oh!” he said. “I thought you were a kid in a sailor suit. You're not a little boy—you're a pig!”

Pigs have been known to eat snakes, and snakes are naturally afraid of them. Nobody said anything till they reached the farm.

They hung the snake on a peg in the barn.

“What are you going to do with him?” Jinx asked as they walked across the barnyard.

“I'm not going to eat him for supper, if that's what you're thinking,” said the pig. “If we shut him up in that old rattrap, it seems kind of mean, and we'll have to feed him. Buy hamburger, I suppose. I'm not going to run around catching centipedes at my age. And yet if we release him, he'll just go back to that Jones man and more burglaries.”

“He didn't seem very crazy about Jones,” said Jinx.

Freddy said: “If we could get him to join us, the way Percy did.… That Samuel Jackson is clever; maybe he could work on him.”

“I don't suppose a snake has a conscience,” said the cat. “If he has, it's a pretty sluggish one.”

“Maybe Samuel will have an angle,” said Freddy. “Let's talk to him.”

An hour or so later Jinx and Freddy were hiding behind a corner of the barn, listening. Samuel came trotting along. He gave them a wink and went into the barn. They heard him say:

“Hey, what are you doing up there?”

“Starving,” the snake whispered.

“H'm,” said the mole, “I thought snakes only had to eat once every two months or something.”

“Not when they're fed on stale bread pudding,” said the snake. “This guy I work for, he doesn't feed me good any more. Just stale leftovers.”

“Ah, yes,” said Samuel. “Jones—isn't that the fellow? I know him. He's a burglar. I say he's a burglar.”

“You know him, eh? Then you know it's me does all the burgling and him that gets the cash. 'T wasn't that way at first. It used to be steak most every day, and mice on Sundays and holidays. I haven't had even a teensy-weensy frog for six months.”

“I take it then you don't specially relish your present occupation?” said Samuel.

“Come again?” said the snake.

It occurred to Samuel that snakes don't have much education. “You don't like your job?” he said.

“Well, yes and no,” said the snake. “You always like something you can do well. And I tell you, I'm good. Say there's an upstairs window open. If I can't climb to it, Gimpy lifts me on a pole. I crawl in and up on the dresser and feel around. I can pick a diamond bracelet out of a bunch of costume junk just by feel. Boy, do I know diamonds!”

“Yeah,” said the mole, “but what does all this skill get you?”

“You got me there,” the snake said. “Say, you wouldn't have a few beetles about you, would you? I'm starved.”

“Sorry,” Samuel said. “I couldn't get 'em up to you if I did.”

“No, I suppose not. There used to be some little green beetles when I was a little fellow. What fun my brothers and I had hunting them! Tasty too. Ah, that was the life—hunting bugs through the long grass, and then sleeping on a sun-warmed rock.”

“Better than spending nine tenths of your life in a dark, musty old bag, eh?” said the mole. “Mister, I think you're kind of a sucker.”

The snake didn't say anything for a while. Then he said slowly: “Yeah, I suppose I am.… Sure, I am! … You know we snakes are neat people. And he hasn't dusted that old bag out for me in six months.… Well, what do you think I should do?”

“'T ain't for me to advise you,” said Samuel. “But there are some nice residential sites for snakes up on Margarine's land, beyond the woods. Plenty of bugs of all kinds. That is, if you can persuade Freddy that you'd like to give up the burglary business and live as a private citizen. Only, let the mice and rabbits alone. They've got a protective association up there. And while one rabbit is no trouble, fifty rabbits together can be a bad headache for a snake.”

“It would be nice,” said the snake reflectively, “to have a real home of my own—go in and out when I felt like it.… O.K., go get that pig. I'll talk to him.”

CHAPTER 13

When Gimpy got up to the cave and found it full of state troopers, he decided not to try to find Jack. He drove back to the hotel. There, finding the bag open and the snake gone, he didn't stay long either. The maid hadn't been in to make his bed yet, so he could only think it was the police who had searched his room and let the snake out. He didn't even bother to hunt for him. He had been thinking of retiring from business anyway, and this seemed like the right time. He got in his car and drove out of the story.

After Samuel left, Freddy had a talk with the snake. He seemed sincere in his desire to have a real home and live a normal snake's life. But it is very hard to tell when a snake is sincere. Freddy could size up animals and people pretty well, but he admitted that snakes were beyond him. He said they always looked as if they were lying, even when they were telling the truth, because even in repose their faces always had a kind of sly smile. So Freddy untied him and gave him some grasshoppers and then put him in the old rattrap.

“I've got to think about it awhile before I let you go,” he said. “You just sit quiet and think about your sins.”

That night Freddy slept in the box stall next to Hank. He didn't dare go home to the pig pen, for the police had visited it several times, and if they came again and found a boy in a sailor suit in Freddy's bed, it would certainly make them suspicious. In the morning, hearing voices in the cow barn, he went in and found Percy chatting with a number of field mice who had become so enchanted with his polished manners that they called on him three or four times a day. Field mice are very impressionable, and although they haven't any better manners than anyone else, they appreciate the social graces.

Later more and more mice came, until Freddy was afraid that Percy's polish would crack under the strain, and so he had Jinx chase them away. Mrs. Wiggins had just had a report from Mr. Pomeroy. No new outrages had taken place in Centerboro during the night, and the hunt for Freddy was still on. A man had been knocked down and robbed by a pig on the Centerboro road, and armed men were searching the countryside for him.

Mrs. Wiggins said: “Haven't you been kind of forgetting Jimmy Wiggs? He was here yesterday looking for you. Said he couldn't find you anywhere, and you'd promised to help with his circus. The circus is day after tomorrow, and I'm afraid he thinks you've run off and forgotten him. He was almost crying about it.”

“Gee whiz!” Freddy exclaimed. “I've been so busy.… I'll ride over to South Pharisee and see him right away.”

He didn't take Jinx with him, because he knew the police would recognize the cat, but he took Samuel Jackson, for he had an idea that the mole could be useful at the circus. He had a long talk with Jimmy, who was delighted to see him, and arrangements were made for the dragon's appearance. They went to the local printer and gave an order for some posters. Jimmy said he'd see that they were put up in Centerboro, Tushville, Clamville, Upper Cattawampus and Gomorrah Center, as well as South Pharisee.… Samuel's suggestions were a great help. Then Freddy rode back to the farm.

When he got there, Mr. and Mrs. Bean were on the back porch, and around them on the grass were most of the farm animals, with Lieutenant Sparrow of the state police. Freddy got his handkerchief up to his nose and went up to them.

Of course, the sailor suit was pretty conspicuous and the Lieutenant caught sight of him at once. “Hey, you!” he called. “Come here a minute.”

Freddy went slowly, wiping his nose and dragging his feet. The Lieutenant sat down on the edge of the porch and he grabbed Freddy under the arms and lifted him up beside him. But he didn't let go.

“Golly, you're too fat, boy,” he said. “Ticklish, are you?” And he wiggled his fingers.

Freddy was indeed ticklish. But the knowledge of the warrant for his arrest probably even now in the Lieutenant's pocket kept him from squirming and giggling. He managed to summon up a tremendous sneeze that broke the trooper's hold on him.

“You let be be!” he whined. “You ought to be ashabed to pick od little boys! I'll sdeeze od you ad give you by cold!”

The Lieutenant drew back. “Why I know you, just like I know everybody in Centerboro. You're Peppercorn Talcum, staying at old Mrs. Peppercorn's with your grandmother. And you've got hay fever. Just like she told me, it runs in the family.”

“Sure, I got hay fever, ad a cold od top of it, too,” Freddy said. “You wadda catch by cold, I dod't care.” And he sneezed again at the trooper.'

The latter moved back a little more, but he reached out and stuck a finger into Freddy's ribs. “Tickely-tickely!” he said.

Freddy forgot he was a little boy for a minute. “Oh, don't be so silly!” he said. Then he remembered. “You stop it!” he whined. “I'll tell by gradbother, you big bully, you!”

The Lieutenant gave his big roaring laugh. “And I suppose she'd come sneeze at me and blow me away, hey? Well, well, I'd better not pester you. Just wanted to ask if you'd seen that smart pig, Freddy, anywhere today.”

“Do, I have'dt, ad if I had I would't tell you,” said Freddy crossly. He was afraid that if the Lieutenant liked children, he might pick him up and take him on his lap, and then he would certainly discover what he was; so he acted as mean and whiney as possible.

The Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and turned to Mr. Bean. “Well, as I told you, six of my men went in that cave last night, and only two have come out. There's dozens of rooms and big halls and passages winding every which way; the whole hill must be hollow. There's four men lost in there, and even when you hear one of 'em yell a long way off, you don't dare go in after him for fear of getting lost yourself. Their flashlights must be dead by this time, too, so they're in the dark. That's why I want a map. Your pig said there was one, made by spiders, but of course I don't believe that. But whoever made it, I've got to see it and get my boys out of there before they starve to death.”