Freddy and the Perilous Adventure (11 page)

“I can explain it, chief,” said Leo.

“Well, don't. You'll get me off again, and I want to finish. Now where was … Oh, yes. Well, I did get some small volunteers. Five young blackbirds. I hired 'em and we had all the arrangements made. We were going to shoot 'em into that big tree over there. Load 'em into the gun, point it at that empty tree, bang!—tree's full of birds. Instead of shooting birds
out
of trees, we'd shoot 'em
into
trees. Wasn't that a good idea? Eh, Leo, you tell 'em what a good idea it was.”

“You tell 'em, boss,” said the lion. “It was your idea.”

“Well,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, “it was, anyway. But just as we were all ready, the birds' mother came over, and my, my, what a rumpus she made about it! She said I had no business to hire young innocent birds hardly out of the nest for such dangerous work, and she said she was going to have the law on me because they were miners.” He stopped and thought a minute. “Now that was a funny thing to say, wasn't it? I never thought of that until this minute. Miners, indeed! I guess I know a miner when I see one. He has a little lamp in his hat and a pickaxe and a dirty face. Now what did she mean—”

“She meant ‘minors,' chief. With an o. Meaning they were too young to work.”

“With an o?” said Mr. Boomschmidt. “Oh.—That is, I mean: Oh, exclamation point. Why yes, of course. Well, I'm glad to have that cleared up. It bothered me. But anyway, then we couldn't use 'em, could we, Leo? So there we were. I don't suppose either of you two would like to be shot out of a gun?”

“No,” said Jinx and Freddy together.

“Well, I thought maybe you wouldn't. Dear me, it's very annoying. If that man Golcher hadn't gone and lost his balloon. Said a pig stole it—can you imagine that? I can't. Even Leo can't, and he's got a wonderful imagination.”

“Yes I can too, chief,” said Leo. “You remember Golcher said it was a special kind of pig?”

“My goodness, of course I remember. He said it was a
talking
pig. He said it … came … from …” Mr. Boomschmidt's mouth stayed open, although his voice stopped coming out of it as he stared at Freddy, and then suddenly he said in a loud voice: “No!”

Freddy nodded. “Yes,” he said, “it was me. But I didn't steal it.”

“Maybe you didn't,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, “but if the police catch you you'll have a hard time proving it.”

“That's why I came to see you,” said Freddy, and he told them about his adventure, and about the two hundred dollars that Mr. Bean had paid Mr. Golcher. “Now,” he said, “if I could get the balloon over here in time for Mr. Golcher to go up in it tomorrow, you'd pay him his two hundred for it, and he would give back Mr. Bean's two hundred, and everybody would be satisfied. I don't believe he'd keep on trying to have me arrested after that.”

Mr. Boomschmidt thought that would work all right, but how was Freddy to get the balloon over to South Pharisee?

“I thought maybe you'd lend me a couple of the elephants, and we could go over for it after dark, and they could tow it back.”

“Why, we'd be glad to, Freddy. Wouldn't we, Leo? I don't usually like to have the elephants on the road after dark, because they're so careless about remembering to carry lights. The last time Louise was out at night, a big truck ran into her.”

“Was she badly hurt?” asked Jinx.

“Oh, it didn't hurt Louise, but it broke one of the truck wheels and I had to pay for it. But if you see that they keep their lights on, it'll be all right.”

“Look, boss,” said Leo. “Golcher's around somewhere. Suppose I go and see if he'll agree to this.”

“Don't tell him I'm here,” said Freddy. “Oh, and there's another thing: you can tell him that as an added feature to make the ascension a success, I can lend him four mice who are parachute jumpers. I brought them along because I thought he'd like the idea.”

“You leave it to me,” said the lion. “And, boss,” he added; “you'll have to get out of here. The evening show's going to start, and you have to lead the parade.”

Jinx and the mice thought they would go in and see the show, but Freddy felt that he ought to keep out of sight until things were settled, so Mr. Boomschmidt took him into his private office. This was just one of the houses on wheels that the circus people lived in, and all it contained was a very large and comfortable bed in which Mr. Boomschmidt slept, and a very small and uncomfortable chair before the desk at which Mr. Boomschmidt worked. The chair didn't look as if it was used very much. At one end of the room was an oil painting of Mr. Boomschmidt's mother, and at the other end, an oil painting of Mr. Boomschmidt himself. Except that Mr. Boomschmidt had on a silk hat and Mrs. Boomschmidt had on a bonnet, you couldn't tell them apart.

Freddy was pretty tired after his long hot walk, and so he took off his silk hat and lay down on the bed, and Mr. Boomschmidt covered him up with an afghan. Over in the big tent he could hear the hurrahs and the hand-clapping, and the
ta-ra, ra-ra, oompah, oompah
of the band. It was all very pleasantly far away and soothing … and the next thing he knew, somebody was shaking his shoulder and Leo's voice was saying: “Hey, Freddy, wake up! You've got to get out of here!”

Chapter 11

Freddy made one bound off the bed and into the middle of the floor, as if he had been set on springs. “Don't you touch me!” he said. “I didn't do it. I didn't have anything to do with it. Send for my lawyer. Send for Mr. Bean. Send for—Oh,” he said, sinking down into the chair, “it's you, Leo!”

“My! my! You certainly come out fighting, Freddy,” said the lion.

“Dreamt somebody stole the dome off the Capitol at Washington, and the police arrested me for it,” said the pig.

“Well, you better dream some more. You don't gain much by waking up. Because old Golcher is going to send for the police and have them search the circus grounds for you.”

“You mean—you mean he wouldn't play ball with us?”

“No. I made him your proposition, and at first I thought everything was all right, because he said if you got the balloon back in time for you to go up tomorrow, he'd tell the police you didn't steal it. But when I said of course he'd give the two hundred back to Mr. Bean, he said: ‘Of course, nothing! Bean didn't pay me to make an ascension.'

“‘He paid you what you thought you'd lost by not being able to make it,' I said.

“But he didn't see it that way. The two hundred Mr. Bean paid him, he said, was for—how was it?—‘mental anguish and laceration of feelings,'—that was it. Meaning, I suppose, the worry he had over thinking the balloon was lost. Anyway, he's going to keep both two hundreds.

“Well I said to him—I said: ‘Some folks would call that dishonest, Mr. Golcher.' He just laughed. ‘Golcher dishonest?' he said. ‘Well, now, that's a matter of opinion, and such opinions are usually settled in a court of law. If Mr. Bean, or that smart pig, thinks I'm dishonest, why all they got to do is argue it out before a judge and jury. 'Tain't any good talking about dishonesty; you got to prove it, or it isn't so.'”

“We couldn't go to law about it,” said Freddy. “It's too complicated a case, and besides, I'd be in jail.”

“You'll be in jail anyway if you don't get away from here,” said Leo. “Because after I'd argued with him for a while, he said: ‘Say, you seem to know a lot about this pig; where is he?' and I said: ‘Wouldn't you like to know?' and he said: ‘I would, and I think I'll have the police come search the circus and find out.'”

“Pooh,” said Freddy, “they'd never recognize me in this disguise.”

“Yeah? Well, listen to this. You remember Leslie?—he's that young alligator that can turn cartwheels—well, he hangs out down at state police headquarters a lot, because he likes to play checkers. He's good at it, too. Well, he just got back in time for his act, and he told me before he went on that the police got a complaint from a farmer that his scarecrow's clothes had been stolen.”

“Oh,” said Freddy. “So they'll be looking for somebody in those clothes?”

“Worse than that. Wes and Bill remembered that they'd seen clothes like that twice, and they put two and two together and decided that the scarecrow and the mouse trainer were the same person, and that they were probably a pig named Freddy who stole a balloon. Because, they said, why look for two thieves when one will do?”

“Oh, golly,” said Freddy wearily. “I ought to beat it right now, but I can't go with a disguise and I certainly can't go without one. If I could get to that balloon, I guess I'd just like to sail off into the sky and never be heard of again.”

“Well, dye my hair!” exclaimed Leo perplexedly. “I never thought to hear you give up as easy as that. Just because the cops are beginning to close in on you. A pig that's done what you've done and seen what you've seen. Why, you haven't even
begun
to fight, Freddy.”

“Eh?” said Freddy. “Maybe you're right.” He frowned. At first his frown was thoughtful, but gradually it grew fierce. “You
are
right!” he said, and began stripping off the scarecrow's clothes. “I'm not licked yet—not by a long shot. I'm going out there, just like this, a pig and proud of it, and let 'em come take me if they can! Just let 'em try it! Just—”

“Hey, hold on,” said the lion; “you can't fight the whole police force. You certainly do change quick.”

“I expect it's my poetic temperament,” said Freddy, “always flying from one extreme to the other. But I suppose you're right. Fighting's no good; we've got to use guile.”

“Is that some kind of disguise?” inquired the lion.

Freddy was about to explain, when there was a tap at the door. Leo motioned him to stay out of sight, and opened the door a crack. “Oh, it's only you, Abdullah,” and he opened the door wider. “Come in.”

The man who came in was very dark, and he had a big turban on his head and wore a white robe. He was one of the elephant drivers, and his name was really Ed Peabody, but he was called Abdullah and dressed like an East Indian because he had to ride on the head of Hannibal, the biggest elephant, in the parade.

“Why aren't you with Hannibal?” asked Leo. “The elephant act will go on in a few minutes.”

“I came over to tell the boss,” said Abdullah. “I can't go on with 'em tonight. I feel all sort of sick and dizzy.”

“You've been eating Hannibal's peanuts again,” said Leo.

“Well, I can't help it,” said Abdullah. “The kids give 'em to him, and you know Mr. Boomschmidt says they aren't good for him and I mustn't let him eat them. And my old mother always said: Never throw away good food. So—”

“All right, all right,” said Leo. “Tell that to the chief, not to me. But somebody's got to ride Hannibal … Hey, wait a minute!” he exclaimed. “This will fix the whole thing. Give your turban and robe to Freddy, Abdullah. He'll take your place. Look, Freddy: if there's once place the cops won't expect to find you, it's on top of an elephant. Then when the show's over, and it's dark, you can go with Hannibal and Louise for the balloon.” He looked sharply at the pig. “Only we'll have to put something on your face to darken it. Gracious, I never realized how blonde pigs were. I'll touch you up with some of Bill Wonks' hair dye, that he uses on his moustache.”

“Well, dye my face!” murmured Freddy unhappily.

And so when the animals marched into the big tent to go through their drill and do all their tricks, it was Freddy, in robe and turban, and with a complexion as swarthy as a Moor's, who sat cross-legged on the back of Hannibal's neck and bowed graciously right and left to the thunder of applause. And it was Freddy who giggled so that he nearly fell off when, as he marched by one of the front benches, he saw Jinx and the four mice clapping their paws enthusiastically. “Wait until they know who they've been applauding!” he said to himself.