Freddy and the Flying Saucer Plans (14 page)

CHAPTER

13

“Darn it,” said Freddy, “there goes our trip again. We'll have to get those plans back.”

“Well,” said Jinx, “we got farther this time. Last time we only got as far as the bank. But look, Freddy, this is a job for the F.B.I. You ought to turn it over to them.”

Freddy said: “No, if Interminable Motors, who are building the saucer, find out Uncle Ben got the plans mixed up, and has been working on the wrong ones all this time, they may just refuse to go on with it. It makes him look pretty silly. The same with the F.B.I. and the Air Force. Those people don't know Uncle Ben the way we do. They'll say he's unreliable and can't be trusted, and like as not they'll lose interest in the whole thing.”

“And I for one wouldn't blame 'em,” put in Samuel. “Anybody who'd mix up as important plans as that, I wouldn't trust him to build a little red express wagon. I say I wouldn't trust him to go down to the store for a can of beans.”

“That's why I say you don't know Uncle Ben. He isn't the kind of person you'd send for a can of beans. It's too unimportant. Unimportant things go right in one ear and out the other with him. But important things, like his atomic engine, and the saucer—well, look how he built that space ship. Even the self-filling piggy bank. His mind works on things like that, not on cans of beans. You're the one that ought to be sent to the store for beans.”

“That's right,” said Mr. Pomeroy, and Bill and Cy nodded approval.

But the mole wasn't satisfied. “Well, if he's so darn smart,” he said, “why did he mix up the plans? And if he knows all about how the saucer works, why can't he build it right out of his head? Why does he need the plans?”

Mr. Pomeroy said: “He's talked to me about that. He knows how a saucer works all right. But to build one, he had to do a lot of very complicated mathematical work, and then put it down on paper. To get the plans so he could work at them, he'd have to do that work all over again, and it would take a year or more.”

“We're wasting a lot of time here in talk,” said Bill suddenly.

“That's right,” said Jinx. “We know where those spies have holed up. It was lucky that the thief found Cy there when he got out of the jail window. You remember where you took him, don't you, Cy?”

“Sure. Go west on the back road between our woods and the Big Woods, past the Margarine place about two miles. 'Tisn't a farm; I guess it's more of a summer place with lots of lawn. An old-fashioned place, with a sort of turret at one corner.”

“We better go case the joint, Freddy,” said Jinx. “But you can't go in that cowboy outfit—they've seen you in that.”

“I know the house you mean,” said Mr. Pomeroy. “The old Lenihan place. I didn't know that was where the plans had been taken, but I knew there was something queer about it, because all the spies have stopped watching the jail. They're watching that house now. My operatives have been reporting every hour, and they're all there.”

“Exactly,” said Freddy. “And my guess is the plans will stay there for a while. They can't be got out easily while all those other spies are watching. I agree, Jinx, that we've got to watch, too. But if we want to find out anything we've got to have a first-class disguise. We've got to fool the people outside the house as well as those inside. And somehow we've got to get inside and find the plans.

“But we can't do the job alone. I've got a scheme that I think maybe will work, but we need a lot of help. And I think we'd better call a meeting. As long as we thought the spies had the false plans, and we didn't want to get them back, it was better not to tell anybody about it. But I'm supposed to be in jail; I don't want to be seen by anybody but just my friends who won't talk. You call the meeting for after dark tonight. I'll come up then.”

“You want the flag of the F.A.R. run up?” Mr. Pomeroy asked.

The F.A.R. was the First Animal Republic, which had been formed several years ago with Mrs. Wiggins as president. Its flag, with two stars for Mr. and Mrs. Bean, and thirteen stripes for the thirteen animals who had gone on that famous trip to Florida, when hoisted over the barn, was the signal for a mass meeting.

Freddy said: “No. We don't want everybody. Not for this. Just the old crowd, and—oh, you know all the old stand-bys, Jinx. So do you, J. J. If we need more later we can draft them. But have Uncle Ben there. And the Beans, if they'll come. Mr. Bean may not want to—it makes him nervous to hear us talk. But—well, do the best you can.”

“And how about me?” said Samuel, suddenly sticking his nose up over the edge of the basket. “I say how about me?”

In the shock of learning that the spies had got the correct plans for the saucer engine, Freddy had forgotten the mole. He looked hard at him. Could this animal be trusted? Of course he had lived on the farm all his life, but he was not a citizen of the F.A.R.; indeed few of the animals had seen him, he spent so much of his time underground. But that didn't mean that he wasn't a loyal American. Anyhow, he knew too much now to be just turned away.

“Why, sure you're going to the meeting,” said the pig. “And I think we can find something for you to do, too.”

Samuel thanked him. “And I want to tell you, Freddy,” he said, “I wouldn't have told anybody you were out of jail, even if you hadn't let me come on your riding trip. Honest I wouldn't. That was just a bluff to make you take me. I say that was just a bluff.”

Freddy was pleased at this. He had felt all along that the mole was probably an honest fellow. Moles in general have a name for being reliable and straightforward in their dealings, though often cranky and irritable. So he and Cy and Samuel, when the others had left, rode back into the Big Woods and spent the rest of the day in hiding, talking over and adding improvements to Freddy's plan. And when it began to grow dark, they went down to the meeting in the barn. Freddy's plan wasn't a very good one. It was pretty sketchy. But as no one had a better one to offer, it was adopted unanimously. In the Bean barn there was an old-fashioned gypsy caravan—sort of a small house on wheels—that Madame Delphine, the fortune-teller with Mr. Boomschmidt's circus, had lived in for several years on the road, until Mr. Boomschmidt had bought her a trailer. A short distance back of the Lenihan house there was a brook, and a little way down the brook was a grove where gypsies sometimes camped. Freddy's idea was that they should disguise themselves as gypsies and camp in the grove. None of the spies would suspect gypsies of having any interest in the saucer plans, and there might be an opportunity to get into the house. In any case, they would be on the spot, and Freddy was sure that he could think of some way of getting the plans back.

After the meeting Freddy went up to the pig pen and rummaged among the trunks and boxes of old costumes that he used as disguises in his detective work and pulled out several bright-colored skirts which Mrs. Bean had once shortened for him so that he could pose as a gypsy fortune-teller. It was a costume he had never worn, and he was eager to see if he could get away with it. On his head he wore a black wig with two long black braids, and he had two brass curtain rings fastened in his ears for earrings. His false hair he tied up with a red and green scarf.

The Beans had come to the meeting, and Mrs. Bean laughed until she cried as Freddy walked back and forth across the barn floor, trying to imitate the free stride of a gypsy woman. Even Mr. Bean made the fizzing sounds in his beard which meant that he was laughing too.

“'Tain't bad, Freddy,” he said: “'Tain't bad at all. But pigs are too light-complected to pass for gypsies. Gypsies are swarthy. Mrs. B., how about boiling up a few of those butternuts we got down cellar? That would dye him the right color. And we'll ink in a couple of good black eyebrows, too.”

The butternut water was a great improvement. They tinted Uncle Ben's face and hands with it too, because he was going along to drive the caravan. He wore blue jeans and a bright-striped shirt, a colored scarf around his head and brass earrings in his ears. And on his upper lip was the long rat-tail mustache which Freddy had worn when he was disguised as Snake Peters, the western bad man. He looked quite sinister.

None of the animals who were going gypsying got much sleep that night. It was midnight before all preparations were made, and an hour before sunrise Uncle Ben and Freddy were hitching Hank into the shafts of the caravan. Before Charles, the rooster, had come out of the henhouse to get things started on the farm with his justly celebrated crow, the gypsies were half a mile down the road. First came the caravan, with Uncle Ben and Freddy on the little driving seat up front. Inside the caravan were the four mice, Samuel, Sniffy Wilson, the skunk, and his family, Jinx, and rabbits Nos. 12, 13, 24, and 8.

The Gypsies were half a mile down the road.

There were so many rabbits on the farm that they had numbers instead of names. Rabbits as a rule are rather flighty and unreliable, but these four had been trained by Freddy as detectives, and they had helped crack some of his most puzzling cases.

Beside the caravan walked Mrs. Wiggins, Bill, Cy, and the two dogs.

Also in the caravan was a large carton containing five hundred of the cannibal-ant soldiers. Freddy had made a deal with the captain, whose name was Grisli. “I've got your queen,” he said. “She's safe and well cared for, but I don't propose to bring her back to the hill unless you do certain things for me. I want you to put yourself and five hundred of your soldiers under my command for a few days. I will not conceal from you that our mission is dangerous—I think it likely that a number of you will get squashed.”

“We do not mind being squashed in the line of duty,” said Grisli in his harsh voice. “But neither I nor my soldiers wish to be squashed in vain. We know that our queen was kidnapped. If you can give me assurance that Her Majesty will be returned unharmed—”

“You know me,” said the pig. “I am Freddy. I give you my word.” And as the ant still hesitated: “You haven't any choice, anyway,” he said. “I may not need your army at all. I don't yet know exactly how I am going to use them. But if I don't use them, I will still return your queen. Well, what's your answer?”

“As you say, we have no choice,” said Grisli. “We accept.” He turned and gave a short order to one of the guards, who disappeared inside the gate. And presently the soldiers came marching out. With Grisli at their head they marched—
tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp—into
the box, and Freddy tied it up with string and carried it off.

The gypsies took a roundabout route to reach their camping place. They went east for a mile down the Centerboro road, then north half a mile to the back road, on which they turned west and went on through the woods and past the Margarine property till they came to the Lenihan place. They looked at the broad lawns which swept up to the house on all sides. “Golly,” said Freddy, “that's going to be a tough place to break into.”

Uncle Ben said: “Tough to get out of, too.”

“You mean for the spies? With the plans? I don't see how they figure they can get away with it. Did you see those cars we passed a few minutes ago? My hunch is all those other spies are working together, and they've set up a road block at the only place where these men can get out. In the other direction, the road comes to a dead end half a mile on, at a deserted farmhouse. There're two men behind the stone wall across the road there, and another behind that tree. Uncle Ben, you could work out another set of plans and build your engine, months before those boys can get out of this house, much less leave the country.”

Uncle Ben shook his head. “They got it figured,” he said.

“I suppose they must have,” Freddy said. He sighed. “I wish I was as smart as they are.”

They drove on past the house. A few hundred yards farther on they turned down a rough track that led to the grove where they were going to camp. The brook widened out into a pool where it ran through the grove, and from the farther bank one could see the turret at the corner of the Lenihan house. From the near bank a path led off through the trees toward the house. Freddy thought the spies probably came down it to go swimming.

Uncle Ben unhitched Hank from the caravan and set up a tent, while Freddy started a fire and began to get breakfast. The cannibals made camp beside the water. Jinx went scouting up the path, and the rabbits and skunks and mice plunged into the underbrush to search the grove. They came back in a few minutes to report that there were no spies between the brook and the house. Jinx came back a little later. The path led to the Lenihan back gate, he said, but the only men he had seen were stationed along the road.

They were finishing breakfast and beginning to discuss plans for getting into the house, when they heard footsteps coming down the path. They looked up to see the big man with the heavy curled-up eyebrows coming toward them among the trees. He had a shotgun under his arm.