Freddy and the Flying Saucer Plans (19 page)

“No. I've got a better idea. You remember that Rendell? Tonight's Friday night; that's when he's supposed to come. I've got to go down to the fairgrounds and see him. As soon as it gets dark I'll make a break. You'd all better go out now and have Cy take you down to where the caravan's waiting in the Big Woods. Then have him come back and wait at the end of the path. And tell Uncle Ben to stay in the woods till I get there.”

The mice were curious to know what Freddy intended to do, but he refused to discuss it. “You go on,” he said. “I've got a lot of thinking to do between now and dark. Go on; don't bother me.” So they arranged the ropes to look as if Freddy was still tied up, and then they went.

It was a long day for Freddy with nothing to eat or drink. Nobody came down cellar, and the only people there were a couple of spiders who wouldn't have anything to do with him. They evidently thought he was a Communist, and they wouldn't talk to him but just sat up in their web and sneered at him. He tried to compose a few poems, but in spite of all the stories about poets writing masterpieces while starving in attics, he found that he couldn't even string two rhymes together on an empty stomach. “Of course I'm not in an attic, anyway,” he said to himself. “I'm in a cellar. But I don't see why that should make any difference.” And then he tried to make a rhyme out of that.

“
A poetic young feller

Once lived in a cellar
.

'Twas damp and rheumatic

So he moved to the attic
,

Where the verses he scribbled

Were really much sweller

Than the rather too ribald

Ones done in the cellar.
”

He had to repeat this out loud to see how it sounded, and of course the spiders heard it. One of them looked at the other and raised his eyebrows and said: “Really!” And the other just sniffed.

This irritated Freddy. “I wasn't addressing you,” he said, “and I wasn't asking for your comments.”

“I don't see that there are really any comments that we would care to make,” said one spider. And the other said: “Unfortunate that there is no attic in this house.”

No one would blame Freddy if he had gone over and squashed both those spiders. Like most poets, he was enraged to have even his weaker efforts criticized. But he controlled himself. “I don't know what you expect,” he said. “You can't make verses when you're suffering from hunger and thirst.”

“My dear fellow,” said the first spider, “we didn't expect anything.” He paused a moment. “Not anything,” he repeated.

Freddy turned his back and tried to take a nap.

The day came to an end at last. Freddy didn't wait until dark. He was afraid that if he did, it would be too late for what he had to do. He would just have to take a chance at being shot at when he ran out the cellar door. And that is what he did. As soon as the sun began to go down and the cellar windows to darken, he got up and pulled the switch so that the floodlights couldn't be turned on, and then he hurried up the stairs, flung open the door, and ran for his life down the path to the back gate.

There was a startled shout from the back window, but no shots followed. Out the gate he tore and into Cy's saddle; and then he was galloping off down the road toward the Big Woods.

The caravan was waiting by the side of the road. Freddy stopped only long enough to get from Uncle Ben the carton of ants, and the tube containing the second set of false plans; then with Jinx, mounted on the goat, beside him, galloped on toward Centerboro. In front of him on the saddle rested the carton containing the cannibal ants.

The fairgrounds were dark, and they pulled up just inside the gate and listened. Somewhere, at the far end away from the grandstand, an engine was ticking over quietly. It didn't sound like a car.

“That's our man,” said Freddy. “Keep back out of sight. I don't think he'll dare call the police. If it comes out what he's trying to do tonight, he'll be tried for treason.”

“You want me to wait here until you come back?” Jinx asked.

“Yes, you and Bill and Cy. If I have luck, I'll be back before midnight. All right, Cy.” He reined the horse forward.

There were thick woods at the far end of the fairgrounds. Just before reaching them Freddy saw the helicopter. There were no lights on the machine, but the sky was still bright enough so that Freddy could see the outline of it, and the movement of the propeller against the sky. He rode up closer, until he could make out the figure of the man at the controls.

“Mr. Rendell?” he called.

The man leaned out. “Sorry,” he said. “I never take anybody up at night.”

“I don't want to go up,” Freddy said. “Mr. Penobsky sent me here. He wants you to take this box with you tonight, along with what you are to pick up at his place.”

“Penobsky?” said Rendell. “I don't know any Penobsky. You've got the wrong man, mister.”

Freddy dismounted and came up to the machine. He shoved the carton quickly in on the floor next to Rendell's seat. “Penobsky didn't have time to get in touch with you through Paul,” he said, “or to try to get a message to you. He told me to come straight here. Look, I know what your job is, and what that basket's for,” he said, pointing to the one with a cord attached on the seat beside the pilot. “They're waiting for you now. They weren't sure when you'd start; Penobsky was afraid he'd miss you if he came himself.”

Rendell still hesitated, and Freddy decided that he'd better act at once. He reached in and lifted the cover of the carton. “O.K., Grisli,” he said. “This is the guy I want worked over. Let your boys go to work.”

The cannibal ants boiled up out of the box. Before Rendell could say any more they were in his hair and on his wrists and ankles, they were up his pant legs and coat sleeves, and walking down inside his collar. And they went right to work biting. Rendell gave a couple of yelps, his arms and legs jerked frantically, and then he was out of the helicopter, apparently doing some sort of a gymnastic dance that included rolling about and tearing off his clothes, as well as yelling at the top of his lungs.

Freddy clambered quickly into the seat. “All right, Grisli,” he called. “Good work. You can let the guy go now. Drop off the machine, all you soldiers, and rally on the carton. I'll pick you up later. Take orders from Jinx.” He tossed the carton to the ground, and taking hold of the controls, sent the helicopter straight up in the air.

Freddy had had a pilot's license for two years, but a helicopter is harder to fly than other planes, and he had had only a few hours' experience in the air in one. But Uncle Ben had given him careful instructions, and so he did not have too much difficulty making the machine go where he wanted it to. Out in the open it was still not entirely dark. It was not yet ten o'clock either—the hour at which Penobsky had said he would put out the floodlights, so that Rendell could pick up the plans without being seen. Freddy took a few turns around the fairgrounds to get the feel of the controls, and then he practiced hovering. Fortunately it was a still night; he was able to stop, hover, and drop the basket within a foot of where he wanted it nearly every time.

He waited a while after he had heard the town clock strike ten, then he started for Penobsky's. Everything went as he had planned. The house was dark, but as he flew over it, someone came down off the porch and waved a flashlight. Freddy circled round and hovered and let down the basket. When he drew it up the tube of plans was in it.

Now came the tricky part. Quickly he substituted the false plans for the real ones, then he dropped basket and rope, pretending to snatch at them and miss them as they fell at the feet of the man, who he saw was Penobsky.

The spy picked them up. “Come down, you clumsy fool!” he shouted. He held up the basket. “Come down and get it.” At the same moment he turned the beam of the flashlight momentarily on Freddy.

“Hey! It's you!” he shouted. He dropped the basket and tugged a pistol out from under his coat. And Freddy opened the throttle so that the helicopter shot up and away. A couple of bullets ripped past his head, and then the house was far below and behind him, and he grinned happily. He had got back the real plans, and at the same time he had convinced Penobsky that
he
had them. There would be no more trouble for Uncle Ben. He'd be free to build his engine without being bothered.

A
couple of bullets ripped past his head.

Back at the fairgrounds Cy came trotting out to meet the helicopter. “Jinx is rounding up ants,” he said. “They sure got spilled over a lot of territory when that guy went into his dance.”

“Did many of 'em get squashed?” Freddy asked.

“Not many. They're pretty tough. There are some busted legs and sprained feelers, but they don't seem to mind those any more than you or I would mind a stubbed toe.”

A minute later Jinx came up on Bill, and handed the carton to Freddy. He saluted. “All present or accounted for, sir,” he said.

“Where's Rendell?” Freddy asked.

“After the ants got off him he ran off yelling,” Jinx said.

So they left the helicopter and rode back home.

When they reached the barnyard the caravan was standing by the barn. Nobody was around, but there was a light in Uncle Ben's workshop.

“Look, Jinx,” said Freddy, “the plans are safe now, but we still can't tell anybody. Until the saucer is built, I'll have to keep out of sight. I'm still supposed to be in jail. Now's the chance for us to take that trip. Let's start right now. I'll take the plans up to Uncle Ben, and you take this carton and go get the cannibal queen and take them back to the ant hill. Then get your saddlebags and meet me at the pig pen in fifteen minutes.”

He dismounted and ran up the stairs to the loft and plunked the tube down on the bench in front of Uncle Ben. The old man looked up without saying anything. Then he uncapped the tube, pulled out the roll of plans, and looked them over carefully.

“Good!” he exclaimed suddenly. He beamed at Freddy, put an arm across his shoulders and clapped him on the back. Then he spread out the plans on the bench, put weights on the corners, and began to study them. He seemed to have forgotten Freddy immediately.

Uncle Ben certainly never overpraised anybody, Freddy thought. And yet he was entirely satisfied. Uncle Ben's “Good!” meant more to him than, from another man, a long oration, with flag waving and fireworks. He smiled happily as he went back down the stairs.

At the pig pen he got into his cowboy costume, and with his guitar slung over his shoulder, came out and swung into the saddle. He hadn't lit a light, and had moved very quietly, but as he sat waiting for Jinx, a small hoarse voice down near the ground said: “Hey! You promised to take me. I say you promised to take me.”

“Oh, for gosh sakes!” said Cy disgustedly. “It's that Samuel Jackson again.”

Freddy said: “Yeah.” And then he said: “We did promise to take him, Cy.”

Cy didn't say anything, but he shrugged his shoulders so violently that Freddy's hat fell over his eyes.

Freddy said: “Look, Samuel, instead of taking you on a long hard trip, wouldn't you rather we went down right now and dug up your valuables, and put them in the bank where they'll be safe?”

“No,” said the mole.

But after a minute, as nobody said anything, he said: “Yes, I'll settle for that. If you remember how to find the things. But I bet you don't—I say I bet you don't.”

“Why, let's see. No, I don't believe I do. But Jinx will know. The ants that found the stuff told Jerry Peters, and Jerry told Jinx. Don't you remember? Jinx gave you very careful directions. I remember hearing him.”

“Sure. Only you wouldn't go then, and now I've forgotten them.”

“Well, here comes Jinx now,” said Freddy, and as the cat came trotting up astride Bill, he explained the situation to him.

“Why, sure, I remember,” said Jinx. “There's a hole by the east gatepost, and you go along that tunnel for two minutes, and then you come to a fork, and you turn right—no, I guess you turn left, and then you—lemme see, now; you take the left fork—no, I guess it's the right one, after all. And then you—no, no … oh, I don't know, I can't remember. Let's ask Jerry; he's the one that told me.”

So they went into the pig pen and opened the desk drawer, and asked Jerry. And Jerry couldn't remember either. “Though there's something in it about ‘twenty paces farther on.' But I don't remember farther on from what. We'll have to ask those ants. Only—well, golly, I don't remember which hill they came from.”

“You see?” said Samuel triumphantly. “I knew you wouldn't remember. I say I knew you wouldn't remember. You'll have to take me.”

“All right,” Freddy said. “But you'll have to ride in one side of these saddlebags. The basket's no good—you'd bounce right out when Cy started to trot.”