Freddy and the Flying Saucer Plans (11 page)

With his fore-trotters held out in front of him.

So far the spy hadn't moved or raised an eyelid. So Freddy went on muttering, only louder. Holding the tube out in front of him, he wandered about the room, saying: “Oh, dear, where shall I hide it?—What shall I do with it?—Oh, dear, oh dear, someone will find it. What can I do?—What will Uncle Ben say?—Oh, dear, if these spies get it …” He gabbled faster and faster and louder and louder, but the spy's eyes remained tight shut and he breathed evenly and deeply.

So then Freddy tried one last thing. He put the tube behind a picture on the wall, so that the ends stuck out in plain sight beyond the frame. “There, I guess it's safe now,” he said in his gabbling voice. “Nobody'll find it there—none of those spies will get it now.” He walked around Penobsy's bed twice, saying this, and then got into bed again. And began to snore.

And nothing happened. Freddy snored for half an hour, until it hurt his nose and he had to stop. But Penobsky never moved. Freddy said to himself: “The darn spy has really been asleep all the time!”

Well, there was no use going through the performance again. If the man was to witness it, he had to be awake. But how could he be waked up? Freddy couldn't do it, and then start right in sleepwalking.

He was trying to figure out some plan, when with a high, thin whine something flew past his ear, and then landed between his eyes, and walked on tiny feet down toward the end of his nose.

“Hey, mosquito!” Freddy whispered.

“Thought you were asleep,” said the mosquito. His voice was so small that Freddy could hardly hear it. “Not that it matters much. You couldn't hit me if you tried.”

“I don't intend to try,” said Freddy, although he couldn't keep his nose from twitching nervously as he felt the mosquito shift his feet. “But don't start drilling yet. I need your help. I want to make a deal with you.”

“O.K., state your proposition. But while you're talking, mind if I take a little sip?”

“You're darn right I do! Quit it!” As he felt the tip of the stinger press his skin he spoke louder than he had intended, and Penobsky stirred uneasily. “I've got something to do,” he said in a lower tone, “and I don't want to have to scratch my nose in the middle of it.”

“O.K.,” said the mosquito resignedly. “But hurry up. I'm thirsty.”

“Well,” said Freddy, “I suppose you're a good patriotic American?”

“You bet your chin whiskers I am!” said the mosquito warmly. “A hundred per cent. Why, the blood of governors runs in my veins.”

“The blood of … What are you talking about?” Freddy demanded.

“It's gospel truth,” the mosquito replied. “My home is in Albany. That's the state capitol. The governor lives there.”

“I suppose you're related to him, hey?” Freddy asked derisively.

“You might say I am. I called on him one evening. I bet he paid more attention to me than he does to most of his callers.”

“You bit him?”

“Once on the wrist and once on the neck. If that doesn't make us blood relations I don't know what would.”

“Guess you're right, at that,” Freddy said. “But let's get back on the subject. Look, I want to wake up this guy in the other bed.”

“Well, go ahead. What's stopping you?”

“I want you to do it, because …” And Freddy explained.

The mosquito shook his head—at least Freddy thought he did, because he had to look cross-eyed to see the end of his nose, and the light was so dim that he really could hardly see the insect. “Uh-uh. You say this man's a spy? It takes away my appetite just to look at him. Anyway, do you think it is right to ask me to mix my blood with that of a foreign agent? I'm a good American. How do I know that won't turn me into a Communist?”

“I realize that I'm asking you to make a sacrifice,” Freddy said soberly. “But is even so great a sacrifice too great to make for your country?”

“Maybe—maybe not,” said the mosquito. “Come right down to it, what has my country ever done for me except try to squash me? Deny me the right to make a living? Try to slap me whenever I sit down to a meal?”

“It has supplied you with a lot of well-nourished, full-blooded subjects,” said Freddy. “Suppose you'd tried to make a living in a Communist country. They don't get enough to eat—miserable, thin-blooded creatures. You wouldn't have the plump, graceful figure you have now if you lived there.”

“Really?” said the mosquito in a pleased voice. “You think I look nice? Nobody ever said that to me before. Except Sanford, of course. And he don't count.”

“Sanford?” Freddy asked.

“My fiancé. Goodness, I wonder if I'll ever see him again!”

Freddy said: “Your fiancé! Oh, sure.” He had forgotten what of course he knew perfectly well—that it is only the female mosquitoes that bite. He had laid on the flattery just on the general principle that most insects are pretty vain. It worked better than he had hoped.

“He's still in Albany,” the mosquito said. “I got shut in a truck that was coming up to Centerboro. If Sanford had been with me it would have been all right, because it doesn't matter much where we live. But he was late for our date that night—as usual—and we weren't out hunting together, and when they opened the truck doors here I was in Centerboro. So I thought maybe the jail would be a good place to get a bite.”

“Very sound idea. Well now—what's your name, by the way?”

“Sybil.”

“Well now, Sybil, I'll tell you what I'll do. If you want to wake this fellow up, I'll try to get you back to Albany. Is that fair enough?”

Sybil said she thought it was, but she wasn't sure she wanted to go back. “Albany's all right,” she said, “but—well, I like the country. You know how it is—you live in a city about so long and then it's enough.”

“I'm afraid I don't know,” said Freddy. “I've never lived in a city. But how about Sanford?” He thought it was too bad that these two loving hearts—though small—should be separated by an unsympathetic truckman.

“Oh, Sanford!” said the mosquito. “I don't think I was ever really in love with him. Oh, well, of course if Sanford was to come up here … But anyway you probably wouldn't be willing to go up to Albany and get him.”

“I wish you knew your own mind better,” Freddy said. “But anyway, yes—if you'll wake this fellow up, and if I succeed in what I want to do, I'll go up to Albany. But how I'm to find one mosquito in a city that size—”

“I can tell you how to find him,” said Sybil.

“All right, then; do your stuff.”

But the mosquito now wasn't sure she could wake Penobsky up. “Most people that sleep as sound as he does,” she said, “they scratch the bites in their sleep. They don't wake up at all.”

“Then bite him where he can't reach it,” said Freddy. “Look, his back isn't under the covers. Bite him between the shoulder blades. He'll have to wake up to reach that.”

So Sybil flew over. But in a minute she was back. “He's got on pajamas that are too thick. I can't get through the cloth.”

“They're some the sheriff lent him,” said Freddy. “Let's see; how about his nose—just inside where it's good and sensitive? That ought to do it.”

“Oh, fine!” said the mosquito. “And suppose he sneezes?”

“Oh, for goodness' sake,” said Freddy; “a fine patriot you are! If he sneezes he wakes up, doesn't he? You want to do a fine patriotic act only you don't want to risk anything. O.K., go on, fly out the window, beat it! A big help you are to your country!”

“Oh, shut up!” said Sybil crossly. “I'm going.” And with a shrill whine she rose from the pig's nose and flew toward the other bed.

There was silence for perhaps twenty seconds. Then Penobsky gave a terrific sneeze, following which he sat up in bed and began furiously scrubbing the end of his nose.

“There goes Sybil!” Freddy said to himself.

He waited for a few minutes while the spy attended to his itching nose, then when Penobsky lay down again, and before he could get to sleep, Freddy got up. With fore-trotters outstretched and eyes shut he made for the tube. He took it from behind the picture, and muttering: “I must find a safer place for the plans—I must put them where the spies can never find them—oh dear, oh dear, where shall I hide them?” he went again through his sleep-walking routine, wandering about the room, while through slitted eyelids he watched the spy.

And this time Penobsky got up. Evidently he knew how to deal with sleepwalkers. He got quietly out of bed and came close to Freddy, without touching him. “There, there,” he said soothingly, “I'll take care of them for you. I'll find a safe hiding place where the spies can't get them. Just give them to me and go back to bed and to sleep.”

So Freddy handed over the tube, and then he got back into bed and pulled the covers up about his ears. But he watched. Penobsky dressed hurriedly, and with one backward glance at his apparently sleeping roommate, went to the window, swung open the frame with the iron bars set in it, and dropped quietly to the ground. And then Freddy turned over and really went to sleep.

CHAPTER

11

In case he got the plans, Penobsky had made careful arrangements for his getaway some time before. Passing himself off as an artist named Smith, he had rented a house not far from the small farm where Freddy had taken refuge from the state trooper. The huge lawn sloped away gradually on all sides from the house, and there was a clear view for a hundred yards in all directions—not a tree or bush stood anywhere within the high iron fence that surrounded it. There were three other men living there—one of them was the big fierce man with curled-up eyebrows. One always stayed with the house while the others were out spying.

Penobsky knew that even if he got the plans, it was going to be hard to get them out of the country. Not only because the spies of the seventeen other nations who were after them would be on his trail, but because the U. S. Government would be watching all the seaports and airfields as soon as it was known that he had them. But the main thing was to get them, and to keep them afterwards. Then he could wait until a good opportunity came to get away. He had plans for that, too.

The only thing he hadn't been able to plan for was how to get away from the jail unseen by the other spies. And he didn't. Cautious and quiet as he was, dozens of eyes, peering from behind trees and peeping through bushes, spotted him at once, and there was a general rush for the gate, which was the only exit from the grounds.

With the plans actually there, there would probably have been a terrible free-for-all fight, in which indeed the plans might have been destroyed. Cy, saddled and bridled, was drowsing under a tree near Freddy's window, as Freddy had asked him to. Realizing what had probably happened, and fearing that this man might not be able to escape, he trotted out. Penobsky ran to him, jumped into the saddle, and with a rattle of hoofs they were through the gate, scattering the spies like a bunch of chickens and knocking two of them endways. And then they were galloping up the empty steet while the spies ran for their cars.

Once outside the town, Penobsky made crosscountry for his house, and the lights of the cars died away behind them. He kept on steadily for an hour, crossing several roads, even cantering for a mile or so along one stretch, until pursuing car lights made them take to the fields again. When finally they came to the house, Penobsky pulled up in the gateway and gave a peculiar whistle. At once a searchlight on the porch was turned full on him. Cy blinked in the glare. Then the light went off and somebody called out something in a strange language. Penobsky dismounted, gave Cy a whack on the flank and said “Go home,” and started up the drive. So Cy went back to the jail.