Freddy and the Flying Saucer Plans (15 page)

CHAPTER

14

Freddy had a pair of gloves in his pocket. The fingers were stuffed with sand. When he pulled them on over his fore-trotters they looked enough like regular hands so that nobody would know he was a pig—as long as they didn't shake hands with him. He put them on now.

As the man came toward them, Jinx, who had been sitting by the fire, jumped up and ran across in front of him. He scowled and half lifted the gun, then lowered it again. “This your cat?” he asked Uncle Ben.

Instead of replying, Uncle Ben turned to Freddy. “Eena meena hippery dick?” he asked.

“Atcha patcha dominick,” Freddy said, then turned to the spy. “It is our cat,” he said.

“Is bad luck—black cat,” said the man. He eyed Jinx with a sort of glowering uncertainty. Then he shrugged his heavy shoulders and jerked his thumb at Uncle Ben. “These man is not speaking English?” he asked.

“He speaks only Romany—our gypsy language,” Freddy said. “Oh, yes, he knows much English, but he does not like to speak it, because he does not like American people who speak it.”

“He is not liking America? He is citizen?” The man looked at Uncle Ben thoughtfully.

Uncle Ben scowled at Freddy. “Atcha patcha dominatcha,” he said sharply. “Tee taw tush! Uggly buggly boo!”

Freddy hung his head as if he had been reprimanded, but it was really to hide his grin as he replied: “Ut guzoo.” Then getting rid of the grin he looked up again. “He says I talk too much.”

“Maybe so, maybe so,” said the other. He looked around, at the caravan, at the animals. “You have permit to camping here?” he asked.

Freddy said: “We do not need a permit. We camp here every year—a week, a month—for many years. The sheriff knows us. You ask him about Jasper Field—that is my husband.” He nodded toward Uncle Ben.

“Field?” The man looked puzzled. “Is gypsy name? Is American, no?”

Uncle Ben said angrily: “Intery mintery cutery corn!” Then, turning his back, he walked away.

Freddy said: “He says the name is
not
American. You have made him angry. He does not like Americans.”

The man narrowed his eyes and looked speculatively at Uncle Ben. Then he turned back to Freddy. “You are fortune-teller?” he asked.

“I can tell your fortune, gentleman,” said the pig. “The past, the future—if you wish to know it. Sometimes it is not wise to ask.”

The man held out his hand. “Tell me what you see in these hand.”

But Freddy shook his head. “Not today. Zelda will not tell your fortune today. The black cat has crossed your path today; it is not a good time.

“No,” he said firmly, as the man persisted, “I would not see the good things, only the bad, when the black cat has warned you. Come tomorrow. Just before sundown is the best time. Zelda will tell you then.”

“Very good.” As the man turned to go, he scowled at Jinx, and the cat got up and trotted deliberately across in front of him again. But this time he didn't raise the gun. He said something under his breath and disappeared up the path.

“Those counting-out rhymes make good gypsy talk,” Freddy said. “But there aren't enough of them. Maybe we could use hog Latin.”

“Rytay ityay extnay imetay,” said Uncle Ben.

“We will,” said Freddy. “We must send word to the sheriff to tell him we're real gypsies. He's sure to go ask. And that was smart of you, Jinx, to run in front of him. We know now he's superstitious, and he won't try to make us move until he has had his fortune told. I was afraid he might complain about us to the state troopers, and they'd order us to leave.”

“Why didn't you tell him one?” Mrs. Wiggins asked. “You could have given him a good one.”

“I can give him a better one when I know more about the inside of the house,” Freddy said. “How about it, mice; want to go up and have a try at getting in?”

The four mice jumped.

“What?” said Eeny. “
Now?
”

“Walk across that lawn in broad daylight?” Quik exclaimed.

“What do you want us to do,” said Eek, “charge up that hill with probably guns trained on us from every window? You're crazy, Freddy.”

“Yeah,” said Cousin Augustus, “what do you think we are—a bunch of lions or something? Us mice don't operate that way.”

Samuel gave a comtemptuous sniff. “Far as I can see they don't operate at all. I say they don't operate at all. Want me to go, Freddy? I can get into the house and scout around. Jinx says there's a hole to get in by, next to the cellar door.”

Freddy shook his head. “You aren't used to houses, Samuel. You'd get caught.”

“You're too nearsighted, anyway,” said Quik. “You couldn't find out anything, and they'd see you crawling around and you wouldn't even know what hit you.”

“Is that so—I say is that so? Well,
you
won't find out anything, that's a cinch. Big cowards!”

The mice all began yelling at him at once. “Who says we're cowards? At least we aren't afraid to stay on top of the ground. Come on, Freddy, we'll go—we'll go right now.” And they started up the path toward the house.

Freddy said: “No. Wait a minute. You'd really better wait until night.” And as he followed along, trying to persuade them, their pace gradually slowed, and presently they stopped.

“Well, maybe you're right,” said Eek. “No sense getting knocked off just to show some beetle-brained mole that we're not afraid. We'll go in tonight, as you suggest, Freddy.”

Samuel snickered, but Freddy shook his head at him; and just then Jinx called: “Hey! Here comes J. J. Maybe he has some news.”

The robin planed down and lit on a low branch. There was no news from the farm, he said; he just came up to see what was going on. They told him of the their encounter with the big man, and then Freddy said:

“Let me take your glasses a minute, J. J.”

Mr. Pomeroy lifted the loop of ribbon over his head and handed them over. They were the kind that pinch on the nose—or rather, in Mr. Pomeroy's case, the beak.

“I thought you wore spectacles,” Freddy said.

“I used to,” said the robin. “The kind that hook behind your ears. Only I haven't got any ears, and I was always losing them. So I got these. Mrs. Pomeroy likes them. She says it makes me look distinguished.” He stuck out his chest and looked noble.

“They do give you a sort of scholarly look,” said Freddy. “Come here, Samuel; I want you to try these—see if you don't see better with them on.” He perched the glasses astride the mole's nose.

Samuel swung his head slowly from side to side, then looked up at Freddy and backed off. “Goodness!” he exclaimed.

“
Goodness!” he exclaimed.

As he continued to stare, Freddy said: “Well, what's the matter?”

“Is
that
what you look like!” said the mole. “I never should have believed it—never!”

“So what?” said Freddy crossly. “Is anything the matter with me?”

“No, no,” said Samuel. “No, of course not. That is … No, nothing at all, really. It's just—maybe it's the gypsy costume. I say maybe it's the gypsy costume. You do look fat.”

“Fat! Well, I'm not skinny like—like Jinx here,” Freddy said. “Pigs are—well, they're more rounded, more elegantly curved, than some animals. They—”

“I'll say they are,” interrupted the mole. “Why kid yourself, Freddy? You're fat. And what's the harm in that? I say what's the harm in that?”

“Well,” said Freddy, “it's not very tactful to—” But at that moment the mole looked around and saw the mice.

“Good grief!” he exclaimed. “What are those dreadful little creatures? Can those be mice? Those chinless, snake-tailed, bug-shaped things? Oh, take them away. I say take them away.” He snatched off the glasses and held them out to Freddy; with the other forepaw he covered his eyes. “I've seen enough. I'm glad my eyes are bad; I don't want to see any better. I like you, Freddy. But up to today you've been just a large white blur to me, and that's the way I can feel kindly toward you.”

The mice had left in a huff, and were chattering angrily together down by the water. Freddy said: “I do suppose that things look queer when you see them for the first time clearly. Mr. Pomeroy here had the same experience. Didn't you, J.J.?”

“Oh, yes,” said the robin. “But after a short time you get used to your friends' faces, and they don't make you jump any more. Why even Mrs. Pomeroy, when I first saw her through my glasses—well, I tell her now that she really startled me. But of course that's an exaggeration. But she did look different—not at all as I had imagined her.”

“Yeah?” said Samuel. “Well, I like my friends to look like friends, not like something I dream about when I've eaten too many angleworms.”

“I've got an extra pair home—the spectacles that hook over your ears,” said Mr. Pomeroy. “You're welcome to them if you can use them.”

“Thanks. I guess not. They wouldn't be much use to me underground, and on top of the ground—well, I get along all right. What's the use of scaring myself?”

Freddy looked at Mr. Pomeroy and shrugged his shoulders. “Is that the way you felt when you first got glasses, J.J.?”

“I guess I did at first. I know what he means. But flying around, you have to see clearly. You can run into a wire and bust your beak. Or,” he added with a smile, “you can try to pull a friend's tail off, thinking it's an angleworm.”

“Good thing it was fastened on tight,” said Freddy.

“You could have had an artificial one,” the robin said. “A long one, that you could wag. You've always wanted a waggable tail.”

Freddy said: “I asked Uncle Ben if he could make me one. He said he could, but he wouldn't guarantee it would stay on. I'd look pretty silly if it fell off just when I was wagging it hard to greet the sheriff or Mrs. Peppercorn or somebody.”

“Sort of undignified,” said Mr. Pomeroy. “Well, I must get back. By the way, I've got a report on the men who have got that road block east of the house. They talk English part of the time, and they've been keeping watch for a helicopter. I won't give you all the details, but the way I piece it out is this: these people in the house are spies—or working for foreign agents. They are part of a larger gang, which has a secret air base in Canada—somewhere in northern Ontario. There they have long-distance planes that can fly over the pole to any country in Europe. If they can get the plans up to this air base, they can fly them to their government without interference. The trick is to get them from this house to the air base without being stopped by all these other spies that are watching the house.

“These road-block guys think that they'll try to pick up the plans with a helicopter. They think it'll come at night, and they've got guns—no big stuff, just small arms—to try to shoot it down. If that fails, they have a plane of their own at the Centerboro airfield, and they'll chase the copter and try to knock it down and grab the plans.” Mr. Pomeroy took his glasses in one claw and tapped the branch thoughtfully. “I don't know how the pick-up will be made,” he said, “and I don't know whether the road-block people, or the other gangs of spies, can stop it. But don't you think, Freddy, that it's too big a job for us? Don't you think we ought to call in the F.B.I.?”

“We might have to, later,” said Freddy. “But I don't want to yet. For two reasons. One: the only way the F.B.I. could capture these people would be to surround the house and drive 'em out with guns and tear gas. And what would the spies do? They'd burn the plans and swear they hadn't stolen them. Then Uncle Ben would be in a nice hole. Or, two: if the automobile company and the government found that Uncle Ben was so careless as to mix up the plans, they'd think he was too silly to build the engine, and they'd call the whole thing off. Let's wait a few days and see how we make out. I've got some ideas.”