Freddy the Pied Piper (7 page)

“
He watches for the birds and grabs 'em.
”

“H'm,” said Freddy. “I don't get it. Any of you cats know anything about this lion?”

But none of them did. Most of them had caught glimpses at various times of some large person or animal with tawny yellow hair sitting in that window, but they hadn't cared to investigate.

“Well, we can't do anything about it tonight,” Freddy said. “If this lion is who I think he is, I've got to get him out of there. Of course he may be some lion that really belongs to Mrs. Guffin. I'll have to figure some way to find out—”

“Well, what are you going to do about me?” the chickadee demanded. “Keep me here with all these cannibals? You think you've been so noble and rescued me—well, let me tell you I was safe in that cage, and I wish I was back there now.”

“Oh, good gracious,” said Freddy, “you're the most cantankerous bird, even for a chickadee, I ever saw. You can go home if you want to.” He started to put up the window. “If you've got a home to go to.”

“Of course I've got a home,” said the bird, “but how can I go back there like this? All yellow! Why, my folks won't even recognize me!” And he burst into tears.

“Oh, come on,” said Freddy. “Come on into the bathroom, and I'll see if we can't scrub some of that dye off. Then you can sleep over the radiator tonight. I'll shut the door so the cats won't bother you. And in the morning when you're dry, you can go on home.”

“And a good riddance,” growled Jinx.

Chapter 6

The fourteen cats were pretty sleepy after the first good meal they had had in months, and they curled up in corners and on the dresser and in chairs and under the bed and slept peacefully all night. The chickadee, wet, but in his natural colors again, slept peacefully on the bathroom window sill over the radiator. And Freddy and Jinx slept peacefully in the big bed. It was the last bit of peacefulness any of them had for quite a while.

In the morning the waiter brought up a big breakfast. The cats hid under the bed again until he had left the room. After they had all eaten, and the chickadee had been sent off home, Freddy said: “Now you boys stay quietly here until Jinx and I get back. We're going over to have a look at that lion. I'm going to lock the door, but it's not to keep you in, it's to keep other people from coming in and finding you here.”

There were quite a few people in the streets, but it was cold out, and nobody paid much attention to the little old woman and her black cat. They went around to Mrs. Guffin's, but when Freddy tried the shop door it was locked, and there was no answer to his knock. Then Jinx walked around to the side of the house and came back to report that there were fresh footprints leading from the back door out to the sidewalk. “She's probably gone downtown to do her shopping,” he said. “I tried to get a peek in that window where she feeds the birds, but the shade is down. Look, Freddy, how do we know it's Leo she's got in there? We don't even know that it's a lion; it might be a lynx, or just a bobcat. My goodness, she tintexed the birds; she might have tintexed an old sheep and put him in the window. It doesn't seem to me that a big lion like Leo would be fooling around chasing a lot of chickadees.”

“Well, there's one way to find out,” Freddy said. “The way Richard Coeur de Lion's minstrel found out where Richard was imprisoned—remember?”

“How should I remember? I wasn't there.”

“Well, you might have read about it.”

“Pooh!” said Jinx scornfully. “I've got better things to do than read a lot of musty old books.”

This was an old argument between them, but Freddy didn't want to start it up now. “All right,” he said. “I'll just point out that here's one more example of something I read in a book that comes in handy. This minstrel didn't know where Richard was imprisoned, and he wanted to find out, so he visited castle after castle, and under the windows he'd sing a song that Richard would recognize. And at last one day Richard's voice answered him. He'd found him.”

Jinx wasn't impressed. “I expect this minstrel had a good voice,” he said. “But if you start singing, this lion or whatever he is will just think it's a fire engine siren, or maybe somebody having a fit, and he'll just put his fingers in his ears.”

But Freddy went around and stood under the window and sang the first few lines of a song that he knew Leo would recognize. His voice wasn't as bad as Jinx had pretended. It was a light tenor which had a tendency to squeak on the high notes, and he sang part of the Boomschmidt Marching Song which the circus animals used to sing when they were on the road. He sang:

“Red and gold wagons are coming down the street,

With a Boomschmidt, Boomschmidt, boom, boom, boom!”

He stopped, and for a minute there wasn't any sound. And then inside the house a husky voice took up the song:

“With shouting and music and tramp of marching feet,

And a Boomschmidt, Boomschmidt, boom, boom, boom!”

The voice broke off, there was some thumping, and then the window shade flew up, a large tawny form was seen struggling with the window sash, and then it too flew up and the head of a big lion came out.

“Leo!” Freddy exclaimed. “It
is
you then!”

“Why yes, ma'am,” said Leo. “This is me. But—” He looked doubtfully at Freddy—“I don't think I've had the pleasure … Yet the voice is familiar …” And then as Freddy pulled the shawl away from his face, Leo let out a roar of delight. “Well, dye my hair if it isn't Freddy! And Jinx! Boy, am I glad to see you!” Then his voice dropped. “But you'd better get out of here. If that Guffin woman catches you—”

“Listen, Leo,” Freddy interrupted. “You're the one that's got to get away from here. Can you climb out of the window?”

Leo shook his head. “I'm chained up. Big chain around my neck, and it goes down through the floor and around a big post in the cellar.”

“Can't you pull it loose?”

“I might. But it would pull the insides right out of the house, and then how could I get away? Wherever I go I leave tracks in this snow, and the hunters would be after me again. I'm better off here, Freddy. And you're better off anywhere else. That Guffin woman—well, she isn't a, nice person, Freddy.”

“I talked to her yesterday,” Freddy said. “She thinks I want to buy you.”

Leo said: “Yeah. She's been dickering with a couple of zoos. She wants at least a hundred dollars for me.”

“Oh, my land!” Freddy said. “I only brought a dollar and a quarter with me and I've spent fifty cents of that.”

“There's nothing you can do,” said Leo. “Thanks just the same. It was awful nice of you boys to come, and I appreciate—” He broke off. “Psst! Here she comes!” And he slammed down the window.

Freddy and Jinx got back to the sidewalk before Mrs. Guffin came along, but of course their tracks were visible under the side window, and when Freddy said good morning she looked at him suspiciously. “What were you doing out back?” she asked.

“W-well,” Freddy said, “we—that is—I knocked, and then I thought you might be out in the garden so I went around back.''

“Out in the garden in February?” she said. “What did you think I was doing—picking roses?”

Freddy pulled himself together and put on the haughty air that had gone over so well yesterday. “My good woman,” he said, “I'm not interested in your rose garden. I do not care for roses, and I did not come here to purchase any. I want—”

“I haven't
got
a rose garden!” shouted the woman, and her big face got very red and angry. “You said—”

“Please!” Freddy interrupted. “No need of getting excited. I know what I said. I said I was looking for you; it was you who began talking about your roses. If you haven't any, so much the better. I came to see if you were able to show me the animal you spoke of yesterday.”

The woman gulped and glared, but Freddy had got her so mixed up about the roses that she couldn't think of anything to say.

“I told you,” Freddy reminded her, “that I was looking for something unusual in the animal line. Of course if you haven't anything, and are just wasting my time—”

“I've got something all right.” she said. “If you've got the money to pay for it.”

“I shouldn't worry about that if I were you,” Freddy retorted loftily. “The name of Vandertwiggen is a sufficient guarantee of any amount up to fifty million dollars.”

Mrs. Guffin's features smoothed out. The mere mention of any sum in the millions is often enough to smooth out even tougher features than hers.

But though he had advised her not to worry, Freddy was worrying some. He had started from home with just a dollar and a quarter in his pocket. He had spent fifty cents of it for the fake canary. He worked it out quickly in his head—he was rather slow at arithmetic, though—and as close as he could figure it he had somewhere around seventy cents left.

“What would you say,” said Mrs. Guffin, dropping her voice, “if I told you I had a full-grown lion for sale? Ha, that's something unusual, I guess! That's something you don't just walk into a department store and pick up off the notion counter! That's—”

“Look,” said Freddy, “suppose you show me your lion, and don't keep on telling me what he isn't.”

“He'll cost you a hundred dollars,” said Mrs. Guffin.

“All right, all right,” Freddy said. “Show him to me.”

So Mrs. Guffin took him into the shop. As he went in he bent down as if to pat Jinx, and whispered to him to stay outside to give warning if anybody came. “Now keep back,” Mrs. Guffin said. “He's pretty fierce.” And she opened the door into what seemed to be her diningroom. There was a big table, and a sideboard and chairs, and under the table on a blanket lay Leo. There was a brass collar around his neck, into which was padlocked a heavy chain.

Freddy sniffed. “Hmf! Pretty poor specimen. Where'd you get him?”

“Do you want him or don't you?” she said.

Freddy was thinking hard. If he had a hundred dollars … but he only had seventy-some cents. Yet if he said he didn't want to buy, he would have no excuse for coming back again. He hadn't planned his rescue very well.

He said: “I suppose you have a cage for him? I can't take him home like this.”

“You'll have to provide your own cage,” said Mrs. Guffin. “If you haven't got one, you can call up Johnson's hardware store. They may have a lion cage in stock; they have most everything.” And she pointed to the telephone, which stood on a little table on the other side of the diningroom.

Freddy looked at Leo's chain. He saw that it was just about long enough to reach the little table. He wondered if Mrs. Guffin realized that.

“I never use the telephone,” he said.

“You never
what
?” She stared at him. “You mean you—you don't know how? I never heard of such a thing!”

“I came here to buy a lion,” said Freddy, “not to discuss my personal habits. If you'll kindly call the hardware store—”

Mrs. Guffin shrugged and went over to the phone. As soon as her back was turned Freddy winked at Leo, pointed at her, and made grabbing motions. Leo nodded, and when she had seated herself before the instrument he got up. He came out from under the table so quietly that not a link of the chain rattled. And then as Mrs. Guffin put the receiver to her ear, one huge paw came down on her right shoulder, and another huge paw came down on her left shoulder, and right at the back of her neck there was a deep rumbling growl.

Mrs. Guffin had nerve, all right. For a minute she didn't move, then she shuddered a little, and very slowly put the receiver back on the hook. She said quietly: “This won't get you any where.”

She said quietly, “This won't get you anywhere.
”