Freddy the Pied Piper (8 page)

Freddy said: “Where's the key to your pad lock, Leo?”

“In the pocket of her apron. But she's right, Freddy. There's no use my leaving here.”

Freddy got the key and unfastened the collar. “Nonsense!” he said. “We'll lock her up and beat it. How can she stop us?”

“In an hour, half the population of Tallmanville will be out after us with guns,” said Leo. “With this snow on the ground we can't hide our tracks. I could have got away any time in the last two months, but what was the use? I never should have tried to come north in the wintertime in the first place. As soon as I got into snow the hunters began to find my tracks, and they'd have caught me, too, if I hadn't happened to dodge in here just before Christmas.”

Mrs. Guffin, with Leo's paws on her shoulders, had sat perfectly still—which seems like the sensible thing under the circumstances. But now she said: “If you really want this lion, Mrs. Vandertwiggen, you can have him for five dollars.”

Freddy laughed. “He isn't yours to sell,” he said. “He belongs to my friend, Mr. Boomschmidt.”

“Never heard of him!” Mrs. Guffin snapped.

Freddy wasn't going to get into an argument. He walked around the room and tried several locked doors, but at last came to one which opened on a sort of pantry. There were shelves of dishes and supplies, and one small window, very high up. Freddy doubted if Mrs. Guffin could reach it; she certainly couldn't climb out of it. He took a chair in, and then told her to go in and sit on it.

She protested bitterly, but there wasn't much she could do. “You're just getting a dose of your own medicine,” Freddy said. “How do you suppose those chickadees you trapped, like being shut up in cages?” They pushed her in and shut the door and locked it.

“Well,” said Leo, “it's good of you, Freddy, to take all this trouble for me, but what good is it? I had a pretty tough time before I got here. After the snow began, and people began to notice my tracks, word got around that there was a lion roaming around the countryside, and I'll bet there were fifty hunters looking for me. I didn't leave tracks on the roads, but I couldn't travel on the roads because they could see me for miles against the snow. And at night the cars picked me up in their headlights. If I'd had any sense I'd have turned back south and waited for spring, but I don't know, I guess I'm sort of pigheaded … oh, gosh, excuse me, Freddy.”

“Think nothing of it,” said Freddy generously. “I don't know why it's so awful to call anybody pig-headed. Pigs—well, they're firm, they're determined, they don't just give up weakly when things go against them. If that's being pig-headed, then I'm glad I'm a pig.”

Leo said: “Yeah. Well, you bear up under it well.” He went on with his story. “I got up here to Tallmanville just before Christmas. The hunters were beginning to close in on me; they had me cornered in a little patch of woods just north of town. I knew I'd have to run for it, so I gave a couple of good loud roars up on the north edge of the woods, and then streaked it right down into the town. It was early morning; there wasn't anybody much around; and as I came down this street I saw this Mrs. Guffin shoveling a path around to her side door. She'd left her front door ajar and she had her back to me.

“Well, I didn't have any plan, but here was a place maybe I could hide. I was inside in two jumps, and I hadn't left any tracks on the clean sidewalk. I smelt food, and I came out here in the diningroom and ate up a loaf of bread and part of a pound of butter and some other things she had left over from breakfast. Then I heard her come in, and I got under the table. She came to the door and looked in, and then she gave a sort of grunt and said: ‘Come out from under there.' So I came out.

“Well, she's got nerve all right. Most people, they come into the diningroom and find a lion there, and they give a yip and dive through the window. Sometimes they don't even bother about the yip. But she just said: ‘H'm. I've heard about you. Hungry, I suppose.' And she went out in the kitchen and got me some more to eat. Then she said: ‘You'd better take a nap while I think what's to be done with you.'

“I hadn't had much sleep for a week, and now with a good hot meal inside me I could hardly keep my eyes open. So I went back under the table. Next thing was, I woke up with this collar and chain on. I've been here ever since.”

“Why did she keep you, I wonder?” Freddy said.

“She thought I'd escaped from a zoo, and maybe there'd be a reward. But she didn't have to chain me. I'd have had to stay—until spring anyway. This chain business made me mad.”

“She was pretty good to you though, at that.”

“Don't you kid yourself. Sure, she was good to me, if you mean she kept me alive. She had to keep me alive if she wanted to make any money out of me. But she fed me on stale bread from the bakery and bones from the butcher's. Bones are all right; I got nothing against bones. But she always boiled them first to make soup for herself, and a bone that has been made soup out of is about as pleasant to chew on as an old doorknob. Why, singe my whiskers, Freddy, I bet I've lost fifty pounds! I'm glad there isn't a mirror in this room; I shudder to think what I must look like.”

“You look all right,” said Freddy. “You're thin, and your mane is kind of faded out—probably from being indoors so much.”

Leo said: “ 'Twouldn't take long to get it in shape. A henna rinse would fix it up. And I ought to have another permanent; there isn't hardly a crinkle left in the darn thing, except at the ends.” Then his head drooped. “But what's the use thinking about that? I can't get away from this place.”

“Listen,” Freddy said. “Mrs. Church brought Jinx and me down here in her car. She's picking us up again day after tomorrow and taking us home. Well, she picks you up too. You won't leave tracks riding in a car.”

Leo cheered up a little at this news, but he was still doubtful. What were they going to do until day after tomorrow? They couldn't keep Mrs. Guffin locked up; her friends and neighbors would begin to wonder …

“You leave it to me,” said Freddy. “We'll work it somehow. Right now I have to go back to the hotel. I'll leave Jinx with you.” And he went to the door and called the cat.

“Hi, lion,” said Jinx. He looked at Leo critically. “Boy, you certainly look like a candidate for the Old Lions' Home. You look like you've been entertaining a couple of moths. What's the matter—didn't a diet of chickadees agree with you?”

“You've heard about that, eh?” said Leo. “I didn't eat the chickadees. But I had to catch 'em for her. She dyed them and sold them for canaries. Nights I hadn't caught any I didn't get any supper. But eat 'em!” He made a face. “Oh, I was hungry enough to, but they don't pay for the trouble. You're picking feathers out of your teeth for the next hour.”

Jinx said: “Yeah. I gave up birds years ago. Feathers tickle your nose and make you sneeze so you can't tell what you're eating. Mice now—they're real tasty. But I gave them up too. I like 'em personally, you understand, and it don't seem right to eat 'em. Kind of abusing their friendship, isn't it?”

Freddy had adjusted his shawl and was moving towards the door. “You two stand guard over Mrs. G. while I'm gone,” he said. “I'll hurry back. And better lock the front door after me, so if anybody comes they'll think Mrs. G. is out shopping.”

Chapter 7

Back at the hotel Freddy went up the stairs and down the corridor towards his room. He was just fumbling in his pocket for his key when he heard a terrified scream, the door of his room was flung open, and a chambermaid came tearing out, her eyes wild, her skirts flying. She galloped past Freddy without even seeing him and made for the stairs, screaming all the while.

Freddy thought: “Oh, gosh, I forgot that the chambermaid would have a key. She's gone in to make the bed, and seen the cats.” And that, as he found later, was what had happened. If you go into a room and see one cat there you don't think anything about it. But if you go in and fourteen cats all turn around and look at you, you can be excused for screaming a little.

But Freddy realized that something had to be done, quick. Fortunately nobody looked out of any of the other doors on that corridor; the guests were evidently all out. But downstairs he could hear shouts and commotion and the chambermaid's excited voice explaining to somebody. “Send for the cat catcher,” somebody called. And another voice said: “Better take a club, Joe.”

There was an empty laundry hamper at the far end of the corridor. “Hey, you cats; come out here quick!” Freddy called through the doorway; and as they trooped out he raised the lid of the hamper. “Jump in—all of you!” And as they hesitated: “The cat catcher is coming!” That and the footsteps pounding up the stairs decided them. Freddy tucked in a couple of tails, slammed down the lid of the hamper, and leaned nonchalantly against it.

Practically everybody in the hotel—clerk, manager, cook, waitresses, chambermaids, guests—came piling up the stairs, and, all talking at once, crowded into Freddy's room. Nobody noticed the little old woman down at the end of the corridor—which was lucky, for there was a good deal of snarling going on inside the hamper, which hopped and jumped around and generally behaved as if someone was setting off fireworks inside it. And then when everybody had got into the room, Freddy quietly ran up the hall and quietly closed the door and locked them in.

Then he threw up the hamper lid. “Quietly, now—quietly!” he said. “Be quick and follow me closely, and I'll get you out of this.”

The cats were scared, and they followed without making any fuss. He led them down through the lobby and out a side door into an alley behind the hotel. They followed this down until they were opposite the street where Mrs. Guffin lived without seeing anybody. Then, when nobody was in sight, they made a dash for the pet shop.

There was some delay when Freddy knocked, for Leo was upstairs washing his mane. He came down with his head a white froth of soapsuds and unlocked the door. The cats were nervous when they saw him, but they all came in, with the exception of a scrawny brindled cat named Louis, who ran off and never came back.

Freddy was a little cross with Leo. “You ought to be keeping an eye on Mrs. Guffin,” he said, “instead of beautifying yourself. She could break down that door.”

“Oh, I suppose you're right, Freddy,” said the lion. “But my mane was in terrible shape.”

“Well, you finish washing it in the kitchen,” Freddy said. “There's a spray on the faucet there, and I'll help you. We have to hold a council of war.” He started to tell them what had happened, but Leo said: “Help me first, Freddy. I'll catch cold standing around with this soap on.”

So they went out in the kitchen. Leo held his head over the sink, and Freddy put the spray on and began rinsing out the soap. And of course got soapsuds in Leo's eye. Leo let out a roar that could have been heard half a mile. He roared and shouted and shook his head, and the soapsuds flew all over the kitchen, and the spray was knocked out of Freddy's grasp and soaked Jinx, who had been looking on with a superior grin. Jinx gave an angry screech, and the thirteen cats, who were sitting around in the shop, yowled in sympathy, the way cats do, and the puppies barked, and even the birds set up an excited twittering. Altogether there was enough noise to bring every neighbor in the block to the front door.

And, of course, got soapsuds in Leo's eye.

It took some time to get everything quieted down. The soap had made the kitchen linoleum so slippery that nobody could stand up on it, and after Leo had tried to rinse his own head and had slipped and fallen down and cracked his chin on the edge of the sink, he went back upstairs to finish. Freddy rubbed Jinx down with a dish towel, and then he wiped the suds off his shawl and hung it up to dry.