New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club (19 page)

       
"What's that?" asked Freddy.

       
"That's a dog whistle."

       
"Whatta ya gonna do with it?"

       
"I'm gonna blow on it," said Dinky. And he did.

        Freddy
Muldoon squinted his eyes up into narrow slits. "I don't hear nothin'.
Nothin' at all."

       
"You're not supposed to," said Dinky. "But a dog can hear it.
Dogs have real good ears."

       
"Oh, you're. real smart," said Freddy. "But there's just one
thing wrong. I don't see no dogs around here."

       
"Wait and see!" said Dinky. And he kept blowing on the whistle until
Freddy thought he had gone daft.

        Back at
Zeke Boniface's junkyard, on the edge of town, there was the usual assortment
of Saturday morning lookers and scavengers trying to find whatever it was they
were looking for. Zeke was lying flat on his back in a hammock, under the shade
of a corrugated tin roof, puffing on the stub of a cigar. His battered black
bowler hat was tilted over his eyes just far enough so it would keep the glare
out and still let him see Kaiser Bill, his German shepherd dog. Zeke didn't
have to watch the customers. Kaiser Bill took care of that, and Zeke just
watched Kaiser Bill.

        Kaiser
Bill was stretched out flat on his belly in the hot sun, with his jet black muzzle
resting on his paws. The golden brown fur above his eyes was wrinkled into a
soft frown, and his keen brown eyes shifted tirelessly back and forth, tracking
the movements of every two-legged creature on the lot. Nobody ever left Zeke's
junkyard without checking in at the hammock to haggle over the price of what he
wanted to take with him, or at least to say good-bye.

        It was a
normal Saturday morning. Or, so it seemed -- until Zeke noticed a peculiar
change in Kaiser Bill's behavior. The dog hadn't moved a muscle for fifteen
minutes; but suddenly the coarse whiskers on his jowls fanned outwards and
stood erect, pointing slightly forward. Then the magnificent ears perked up and
rotated to the front. The wrinkles on his brow deepened into a frown of real
concern, and he lifted his head from his paws and arched his neck. Then, like a
shot, he was off across the junkyard; and with one great scrambling leap he was
over the seven foot fence and off into the woods.

        Zeke sat
bolt upright and the hammock flipped violently, plopping him face-down into the
dust. He picked himself up, beating the dust off his trousers with his black
derby and spitting out the fragments of the cigar stub he had almost swallowed.

       
"What in tarnation got into him?" he sputtered, while a chorus of
raucous laughter fell on his ears.

       
"Maybe he just remembered an important date!" one of the customers
cried.

       
"Maybe he just heard Lassie was in town!"

       
"I'll bet he just wanted to get a manicure before the barber shop
closed!" said another wiseacre.

        Zeke got
a lot of screamingly funny comments, but no offers of help to find out where
Kaiser Bill went. He flopped his huge bulk into the hammock again, and lighted
up a fresh cigar stub.

        It was
only fifteen minutes later that Dinky saw the dog plunge into the water from a
point on the lake shore opposite the island. "C'mon, Kaiser! C'mon!"
he shouted, clapping his hands as loudly as he could.

       
"Hey! That looks like Kaiser Bill!" said Freddy, jumping up and down.

        "As
usual, you take the cake," said Dinky. "What did you think I was
blowing that whistle for?"

        Soon
Kaiser Bill galloped ashore on the tiny beach, spread his four feet far apart,
and shook a spray of water twenty feet in both directions. Then he bounded
toward Dinky, rose up on his rear legs and thumped his forepaws on Dinky's
chest. Dinky ruffled his ears and kissed him on his black snout.

       
"Boy, am I glad to see you!" he said.

        Kaiser
Bill spun around twice, then flopped on his belly in the sand and lay there
panting heavily, with his tongue hanging out of the left side of his mouth.

        "I
gotta admit you pulled a good one with that whistle," said Freddy,
"but what do we do now? Now we got three of us marooned on this
island."

        "I
didn't call him out here just for nothin'," said Dinky.

       
"Well, whatta we gonna do? Get on his back and ride him to shore?"

       
"Nope! He's gonna carry a message for us."

        "Good
idea! I suppose you got a pencil and a piece of paper?"

        Dinky
looked flustered for a moment. "No, I don't have a pencil," he
admitted. "But if you'll lend me your knife I can carve out a message on a
piece of bark."

       
"You flunked out again," said Freddy. "I don't have a
knife."

       
"You mean you came all the way out here without your knife?"

        "I
didn't know I was coming!" Freddy retorted. "Besides, where is
your
knife?"

       
"None of your business!" said Dinky. And he kicked a few stones into
the water.

        Freddy
perched himself on a flat rock in the shade of a young maple and pulled a
bologna sandwich out of his shirt. He was just unwrapping the wax paper from it
when Dinky spun around at the sound and pointed a finger right at him.

       
"That's just what we need!" he cried.

       
"Whadda ya mean? This here hunk of paper?"

       
"No! I mean the whole sandwich. Paper and all."

       
"Nothin' doin'. If you want some lunch, you gotta bring your own."

        "I
don't want any lunch," said Dinky, "but we can use that sandwich to
send a message."

       
"You must be nuts!"

       
"Listen! We could send that sandwich with Kaiser Bill, and Zeke would know
it was one of your sandwiches and come looking for us."

       
"Now I know you're nuts!" said Freddy, biting a corner off the
sandwich. "That big ball of fur would swallow it in one gulp before he got
across the lake."

        "He
can't eat it if we tie it around his neck," Dinky reasoned.

        "Too
risky," said Freddy, taking another bite. "Besides, I need my
lunch."

       
"You and your lunch!" Dinky fumed. "What would you rather be, a
dead fat boy, or a live skinny one?"

       
"I'll have to think that over," Freddy answered, licking the mustard
off his lips.

       
"Gimme that sandwich!" Dinky shouted, and he lunged straight at
Freddy with all the fury his seventy pounds could muster. Freddy met him with a
stiff-arm right in the chest and he bounced back ten feet, sprawling full-length
in the sand. But he was up in a flash and threw a handful of sand at Freddy.
Freddy grabbed a handful of the stuff himself, and poised to throw it -- but it
never left his hand. A deep-throated snarl stopped his hand in midair, and he
found himself looking into the menacing eyes of Kaiser Bill.

        Freddy
retreated a step, holding the half eaten sandwich high above his head. Kaiser
Bill moved forward an equal distance, with the hair on his black saddle
standing erect.

       
"Get outta here!" Freddy blustered, but his voice quavered and Kaiser
Bill moved a step closer with his lips curled in another snarl.

       
"Call him off! Call him off!" Freddy pleaded.

       
"Give me the sandwich first!"

       
"Okay! Okay! Come and get it. Quick!"

        Dinky
stepped between the two and took the remains of the sandwich from Freddy's
hand. Kaiser Bill relaxed and trotted after Dinky, wagging his tail, as Dinky
ran to retrieve the wax paper Freddy had tossed into the water.

       
"Now, let me have your shoelaces," Dinky said, as he started unlacing
his own.

       
"What for?" Freddy wailed.

        "So
I can tie this sandwich around Kaiser's neck."

       
"What about that fishline you got in your pocket? Use that!"

        "We
might need that to catch fish with," Dinky said. "Now, give me your
shoelaces."

        "Go
fish for 'em!" Freddy taunted.

        Dinky
snapped his fingers twice and Kaiser Bill trotted over to stand straddle-legged
in front of Freddy.

       
"Okay! Okay!" Freddy grunted. "Call off your man-eater."
And he started unlacing his shoes.

        Dinky
wrapped the remains of the bologna sandwich carefully, threaded the laces twice
through the wax paper, and tied it securely around Kaiser Bill's neck.

        "Go
home, boy! Go!" Dinky commanded, with a firm pat on the dog's saddle.
Kaiser Bill took a step toward the water, then looked back with a questioning
frown. "Go, boy! Go!" Dinky shouted, with a clap of his hands.
"Go home!" Kaiser Bill bolted for the water and plunged into it,
cutting a wake that pointed straight for the mainland shore. Nothing was
visible from the island but a black snout, two ears folded to the rear, and a
bologna sandwich. "Go, boy, go!" Dinky shouted, clapping his hands
again.

       
"Yeah! Go, boy, go!" shouted Freddy, as he threw a stick that plopped
into the water about ten feet from shore. Then he pulled another bologna
sandwich from his shirt and sat down to eat it.

        Back at
the clubhouse in Jeff Crocker's barn, the rest of us were gathered around the
big map of the county that hangs on one wall. Jeff and Henry were trying to lay
out a search pattern for us that would cover the most likely places that
Harmon's gang might be holding Freddy and Dinky. We had already been through a
lot of arguments about how to proceed with the search; and Mortimer Dalrymple's
suggestion that we simply make a frontal assault on Harmon's clubhouse in
Egan's Alley had been voted down by a count of three to two. I was in favor of
Mortimer's proposal; but Homer Snodgrass had sided with Jeff and Henry, who
figured the clubhouse was too obvious a hiding place. Mortimer is always in
favor of action, and Homer is always in favor of thinking things over a little
longer.

       
"Maybe one of them has a transceiver with him," I suggested. "We
ought to be monitoring the radio."

        Jeff
shook his head. "I'm sure Harmon would be smart enough to take it away
from them," he observed.

        Just
then the buzzer on our intercom sounded. It was Zeke Boniface calling.
"Let me talk to Freddy," he asked, when Henry answered the box.

       
"Freddy isn't here, and we don't know where he is," Henry explained.
"Have you seen him?"

       
"Nope! But I think Kaiser Bill has."

       
"What do you mean?"

       
"Well, this big baboon took off cross-country about an hour ago, and I
couldn't stop him. He just came back, soaking wet, and he's got a bologna
sandwich tied around his neck. I figured it might belong to Freddy. You know
how he likes bologna."

       
"What kind of bread is it?"

       
"It's rye bread, with a lot of them black seeds in it."

       
"That's Freddy's all right! Boy, Zeke, you might have saved the day. We'll
be down there in ten minutes."

       
"Okay! But is something wrong with Freddy?"

        Henry
ignored the question. "Hey, Zeke! You say this was tied around Kaiser
Bill's neck?"

       
"Yeah!"

       
"What was it tied with?"

       
"Some old shoelaces, looks like."

       
"Hold onto them! We'll be at your place as quick as we can get there."

        Ten
minutes later we were all at Zeke's junkyard where everything looked like
"business as usual," except for Kaiser Bill. Instead of lying quietly
in the sun, he was pacing restlessly up and down, now and then nuzzling the
seat of Zeke's pants as he passed him. We looked at the bologna sandwich, and
it was Freddy's all right.

       
"Let me see the shoelaces," said Henry. Zeke pulled them out of his
pocket, and Henry examined them carefully.

       
"Looks like you were right," said Jeff Crocker, looking over Henry's
shoulder. "They sent us a message."

        Sure
enough, the shoelaces had been tied together in a series of knots, some double
knots and some single. Henry stretched the string of knots out on the ground
while he and Jeff decoded the message, scratching the letters in the dirt.

       
"This is Morse code," Henry explained to Zeke. "The double knots
are dashes and the single ones are dots."

        Jeff had
scratched the letters I-S-L in the dirt. "You sure that's Freddy's
handwriting?" quipped Mortimer.

       
"No! It looks more like Dinky's," Jeff shot right back. "Freddy
makes fatter knots." After Henry had called out the last letter the word
I-S-L-A-N-D appeared on the ground.