Freddy and the Space Ship

by Walter R. Brooks

  At this thought Freddy got mad. “Cap’n Neptune take your room,” he said and pushed his ferociously grinning face close to Carl’s.

  A pig’s grin is almost as terrifying as an alligator’s, and when the pig’s face is painted blue, and he wears a queer wig and eight-inch eyebrows, it is pretty horrible. Carl was too scared to yell; he just gave a sort of peep and flung his arms around his mother. Bella followed suit, although she yelled some; and Mrs. Bismuth yelled some too; and the kitchen was full of yells and weeping.

  Just then Mr. Bismuth came in. He saw Freddy and said: “Whampo!” and fell back against the door. But he recovered quickly, and when he had stopped the noise by kissing Mrs. Bismuth and cuffing the children, he came over and shook hands with Freddy. “Heard about you,” he said. “Happy to welcome you to the home of Bean and Bismuth.”

  “Bismut’?” said Freddy. “These house belong Bismut’?”

  “Well, only in a manner of speaking, ha, ha,” said the other. “But where a Bismuth lives is the Bismuth home. The Bean home, of course, too,” he said tolerantly.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” said Mrs. Bean tartly.

  “Pa,” said Carl; “he can’t have my room, can he?”

  “You mean while he’s staying here with us?” Mr. Bismuth asked. “Why, it’s very kind of you to offer it, my boy. Spoken like a true Bismuth.”

  Carl started to protest: “But pa, I didn’t off—” when Mr. Bismuth’s large hand, which had been patting the boy’s head, slid down and covered his mouth.

  “Very generous of you,” his father went on. “But the Cap’n wouldn’t want that room. Rattling windows, even when there’s no wind-keep him awake. And the spiders! Oh, my, my, the great black spiders up in the southeast corner. Fangs just a-drip with poison as they come creep, creep down the wall, after you’re asleep. And then they jump!—”

  “Spider?” said Freddy. “What is spider?-Like peeg?” He got up. “Show me room.”

  “Sure,” said Mr. Bismuth. “I’ll take you up. Carl’ll be glad to let you have it if you want it—ha, ha! But I guess you won’t when you see it.”

  There really were spiders in Mr. and Mrs. Bean’s old room, which had been taken over by Carl because his mother said he was delicate. And those spiders were old friends of Freddy’s, a Mr. and Mrs. Webb. They usually lived in the house in the winter and the cow barn in the summer, but when the Bismuths had been at the Beans’ for a while, a lot of flies heard about the cookie crumbs and jam that had got around on the furniture, and they sneaked down the chimney. They were pretty fresh, even for flies, and they buzzed around and lit on Mr. Bean’s nose and fell in the milk and generally behaved very badly. So Mrs. Bean asked the Webbs to come back into the house. They had caught a lot of the flies and beaten them up, but there were still a good many, and it kept the spiders busy. “It’s terrible hard work at our age,” Mr. Webb said, “but there ain’t anything we wouldn’t do for Mrs. Bean. Ain’t that so, mother?” And his wife said: “That’s how it is, Webb.”

  When Freddy and Mr. Bismuth, followed by Mrs. Bismuth and the children, went up into Carl’s room, Mr. Webb was having his after-breakfast nap on the back of a framed picture of Mr. and Mrs. Bean, taken on their wedding day, and Mrs. Webb was stalking a fly who had eaten too much chocolate cake and gone to sleep on the ceiling.

  Mr. Bismuth pointed at her. “There’s one of ’em. Terrible creature! One bite from those fangs and you begin to shake all over, and then you turn blue—Oh, excuse me,” he said; “wouldn’t work in your case, Captain, ha, ha!”

  “Poison, eh?” said Freddy. “I kill ’em for you.” He reached in a pocket and pulled out a little flashlight about as big as a pencil. “Death ray,” he explained. “Kill fly, kill elephump. Very strong ray. Kill Bismut’ too.” He grinned and pointed it at Carl, who shrank back, squealing: “Pa! Make him quit!”

  “There, there, my boy,” said Mr. Bismuth. “He’s just joking. Death ray, indeed! Ha, ha—why it’s only a flashlight.”

  “You tink so?” said Freddy. “I show you. You see spider?” He pointed the flashlight at Mrs. Webb, waving it about to make her look down at him. For spiders as a rule don’t pay any attention to people; they consider it a waste of time. People seldom talk about anything that would interest a spider, and as Mrs. Webb put it: “They’re certainly not pretty to look at.” And she would look admiringly at Mr. Webb, whom she considered very handsome and even rather dashing.

  Although Mrs. Webb had been informed that Freddy was disguised as a Neptunian, she was startled when she saw him. She abandoned her pursuit of the fly and ran quickly across to the picture frame to wake up her husband. After a minute they both came out on the ceiling and waited to see what Freddy wanted. They laughed until they were almost in hysterics when they saw him, but Freddy didn’t know it, for spiders’ laughter is on a small scale and unless you’re within an inch of them you can’t hear it at all. And of course their expressions are pretty dead pan.

  They wanted to show him, though, that they recognized him, so they stood up on their last pair of legs and waved all the others at him. That was what he wanted to know. He leveled the flashlight at them and said: “O you spiders! Now I shoot you with death ray.” Then he snapped on the flashlight.

  He leveled the flashlight at them.…

  “All right, mother; let’s go!” said Mr. Webb. And the two spiders let go of the ceiling and dropped down on to the carpet. Spiders are so light that it doesn’t hurt them to drop like that. Then Freddy went over and picked them up and they played dead while he showed them to the Bismuths.

  “You like I turn ray on you?” he said, pointing the flashlight at them.

  The two children and their mother began crying again, but Mr. Bismuth said in a shaky voice: “Well, sir, Captain; that was quite a demonstration, ha, ha; yes indeed! And of course now that the room is quite safe, I am sure that Carl will want to let you have it while you are here. Eh, my boy? you’ll show the old hospitable Bismuth spirit, I’m sure.” And when Carl opened his mouth to protest, Mr. Bismuth caught him a backhand swipe on the ear, and before he could recover: “That’s my fine generous lad,” said his father. “There you are, Captain. Room’s yours as long as you want it.”

  Freddy dropped the spiders carefully into a small vase and tucked the flashlight back in his pocket. Then he grinned his ferocious grin. “I thank,” he said. “Maybe not use death ray on boy today.”

  But by this time Mrs. Bismuth, weeping loudly, had hustled Carl and Bella out of the room.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Freddy had a good deal of fun all the rest of the day. At dinner, when Mr. Bismuth tried to spear the last slice of meat off the platter before anybody else could reach it, Freddy rapped him over the knuckles with the flashlight and then pointed it at him; and Mr. Bismuth turned pale and said: “Thank you, I think I won’t have any more.” So Mr. Bean got the slice, which was the first one he had had.

  After dinner Mr. Bean said: “Captain, I’m busy today, got to get that brook back in its old bed and see if I can save some of my garden. But maybe Mr. Bismuth will show you over the farm. Maybe you’d like to see how we handle things here on earth. Ed,” he said, “be sure to show him the pig pen.”

  “Oh, why do you want to show him that dusty, cluttered up old place?” said Mrs. Bean.

  “Show place,” said Mr. Bean. “Homes of famous pigs. Typewriter on which deathless poems composed. Disguises worn by distinguished detective.”

  Mrs. Bean laughed. “Those disguises were probably the worst disguises ever put on. They never fooled anybody. Freddy was never a cowboy, he was a pig in a cowboy suit; he was never an old woman, he was just a pig in a bonnet and shawl.”

  “I wonder why she keeps trying to belittle me?” Freddy thought, as he went out with Mr. Bismuth. “I thought she liked me better than that.” It made him sort of unhappy.

  As soon as he had Mr. Bismuth alone he began pumping him full of stories about the vast riches to be f
ound on Neptune. Did Mr. Bismuth like diamonds and rubies and emeralds? They were so plentiful that Neptunian boys played marbles with them. Gold? There was a hill of solid gold right back of Captain Neptune’s house. Pearls? The Neptunian oysters produced pearls six inches in diameter. The end of Mr. Bismuth’s nose quivered with eagerness as he asked questions, and presently he said: “I would like to visit your beautiful country. A great honor, even for a Bismuth, ha, ha! to be the first man to set foot on that planet. Perhaps you would take me in your flying saucer.”

  Freddy nodded. “Maybe I take. Byemby. But if so you come, you no steal from my peoples, eh?”

  “Steal!” Mr. Bismuth drew himself up. “No Bismuth would so lower himself as to steal.” He delivered quite a speech about the honor of the Bismuths.

  “Last night you steal,” said Freddy. “Dig up joolery, belong ducklings. I watch. I see. Where you hide him, hey?”

  “You saw—?” Mr. Bismuth looked startled. “I don’t know how you know about this, Captain. You must be a mind reader, ha, ha!—well, I was not stealing that stuff.” And he went on to explain. He told about the jewelry, and said that Uncle Wesley had come to him in great distress. The duck had been afraid that when the pond was drained, the mud would crack, thus exposing the jewels, which would then be anybody’s for the taking. Would Mr. Bismuth dig them up and help Uncle Wesley hide them in some safe place? Mr. Bismuth would and did. And Uncle Wesley took them and went away with them. Did Mr. Bismuth know where? No, he did not.

  That was Mr. Bismuth’s story. Freddy didn’t believe it. He didn’t think Uncle Wesley had been with Mr. Bismuth at all last night. But there was no way of proving it. And where was Uncle Wesley? None of the other animals could remember having seen him for several days.

  Not all of the animals had been entrusted with the secret of Freddy’s disguise. They were all, of course, devoted to the Beans, but some, who were not very bright, like Mrs. Wogus, and others who were pretty gossipy, like many of the birds and some of the rabbits, hadn’t been told. It was a risky business, letting so many animals know who Captain Neptune really was, but Freddy had an idea that he was going to need a lot of help before he got through.

  As he went around the farm with Mr. Bismuth, some of them managed to be always near by. It might be Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Pomeroy, the robins, swooping in slow circles overhead, or Bill, the goat, walking sedately behind them, but ready at a sign from Freddy to lower his head and butt Mr. Bismuth right over the fence. Freddy was a little nervous about Bill, who was inclined to act on impulse and be sorry later. But Bill behaved well, and pretty soon gave place to Robert, the collie, who caught up with them at the pig pen, and went inside after them.

  While Mr. Bismuth was telling Captain Neptune about Freddy, Robert walked around sniffing at this and that, and looking under things and on top of things, as dogs do. But suddenly he gave a louder sniff. Mr. Bismuth didn’t notice that it was any different, but Freddy did, and he turned to see that the collie was looking into the closet where all the disguises that he used in his detective work were hanging on a long pole. Robert didn’t go into the closet, but he gave Freddy a hard look and jerked his head to show that there was something inside that was not in order. Then he wandered out of the pig pen and sat down on the grass.

  Mr. Bismuth evidently hoped that he could talk Captain Neptune into taking him for a trip in the flying saucer, for he stuck tight to Freddy all the rest of the afternoon. Freddy got pretty sick of talking in the terrible broken English that he had decided Captain Neptune ought to use, but he had to keep it up. He had to concentrate on it so hard that he didn’t get a chance to think up any kind of a plan. And when they went in to supper he still didn’t have any idea of how he was to go about it to get rid of the Bismuths.

  Just before supper however he had a word with Robert, who asked him if he’d had a chance to investigate his clothes closet. “Well,” said the dog, “I didn’t want to do anything about it myself. You know, your first report when you thought you were on Mars, spoke of a little two-legged Martian with big yellow shoes. Of course you weren’t on Mars, and what it was you saw, and Charles tried to catch, we’ve none of us been able to figure out. Well anyhow, I’d sort of had those big yellow shoes on my mind, and—well, it was kind of dark in that closet, but when I saw what looked like yellow shoes, back in, just under the edge of all those clothes—”

  “You saw yellow shoes?” Freddy exclaimed. “Was there anybody in them?”

  “Golly, I don’t know. Could have been, I suppose. They didn’t move. But I only saw the lower part, and not very well at that. They were sort of between a couple pairs of other shoes. You got any yellow ones?”

  Freddy said: “No. Come on, let’s run up and look.”

  But there were no yellow shoes in the closet when they got up there.

  “Guess there was someone in ’em all right,” Freddy said. “Wish you’d grabbed him.”

  “Wish I had,” said Robert. “But I thought you’d want to see—”

  Freddy said: “Oh, sure. That was all right. Well, keep your eyes open. I’m going in to supper.”

  Freddy kept his flashlight beside his plate during supper, lifting it occasionally to point it at any Bismuth who gobbled, slurped, took too large mouthfuls, or tried to get more than his or her share. The result was that the Beans had their first full meal in a week, and the Bismuth table manners were almost acceptable.

  Carl was the only one who didn’t seem very much afraid of the flashlight. After it had been pointed at him two or three times he said: “Aw, that old death ray—it’s nothin’ but a little old flashlight, I bet. Go on, shoot it at me, I dare you.—Ouch!” he yelled, for his father had kicked his shin under the table.

  “There, there, my boy,” said Mr. Bismuth; “don’t tease the Captain. Though that’s a fine courageous spirit you show. Eh, Captain? That’s the Bismuth for you—fearless, intrepid, reckless. Did I ever tell you about old Hendrik van Bismuth, captured by the Indians at Oriskany? Laughed fit to kill while they was scalpin’ him. ‘Quit ticklin’ me!’ he says. They let him go, naturally. Half scalped. Mrs. van B., she sewed it on again when he got home.”

  But Carl went right on grinning every time he looked at the flashlight, so Freddy thought he’d better put in a little demonstration which he had arranged with Cousin Augustus.

  The four mice lived in a cigar box under the stove. Their job was to tidy up the kitchen floor after meals, which they did by eating up crumbs and making a pile of any non-edible things which Mrs. Bean could sweep up easily in a dust pan. Freddy had arranged a signal by tapping on his chair rung; he gave it now, and the mice came out and lined up on the floor in front of the stove.

  “You, boy!” Freddy said, pointing at Carl. “You tink dis deat’ ray no good, hey? OK, I show.” He pointed the flashlight at the mice and clicked it on, and all four of them fell over on their backs with their feet in the air.

  Freddy got out of his chair and picked one up—it was Eeny—and brought him over to the table. “You see? He limp; he no wiggle.” He held Eeny up by the tail, ignoring the dirty look that the mouse shot at him. Then he got the cigar box out and put the four mice in it and shoved it back under the stove. “You like I shoot you now?” he said to Carl.

  And of course Carl began to cry, and then Bella began, and Mrs. Bismuth chimed in. But Mr. Bismuth quieted them down, and when he could be heard, he said: “You haven’t got a spare one of those things, have you, Captain? I’d like to buy it if you have.”

  All this time Mrs. Bean hadn’t said anything, although as Freddy well knew, she was very fond of the mice. She looked at him with an expression which he couldn’t make out, and then she went and got the cigar box. “I think you knew that these mice were pets, Captain,” she said. “And so I don’t think you’d kill them. For you have a kind face, even if it is blue. I’m going to try to revive them.” And she took the box into the other room.

  After supper Freddy managed to get off by himself, and he
went up to the pig pen. There were no yellow shoes in the disguise closet, nor any sign that anybody had been there. He sat down in his own big dusty chair and he thought: “My, it’s nice to be home again! Guess I’ll sit here a while quietly.” But he hadn’t been sitting there more than five minutes when through the window his eye caught a flicker of movement up along the fence. As usual, the dirt and the wavy glass in the window pane distorted whatever it was, so that it changed shape as it went slowly along. But what didn’t change was the color of its feet, which were yellow. “The yellow shoes!” Freddy exclaimed, and dashed out of the door.

  Sure enough, there was the little creature with the black bathrobe and the yellow shoes, walking up towards the pasture. “Hey, you!” Freddy called. It didn’t turn its head, but it moved more quickly, waddled fast for a few steps, then tried to duck under the lowest strand of barbed wire to the other side of the fence. And the covering or bathrobe or whatever it was caught on the wire and was pulled off. And under it was a white figure … “Uncle Wesley!” Freddy yelled. Of course; why hadn’t he figured it out; those yellow shoes were only the duck’s yellow webbed feet.

  It was a white figure—Uncle Wesley.

  Uncle Wesley wasn’t a fast runner. Freddy caught him in a matter of seconds. He was good and mad, too. “Oh, let me alone, can’t you?” he quacked. “I’m minding my own business, and I will brook no interference from any officious upstart like you.”

  “Oh, pooh!” said Freddy. “You’re going to brook plenty, Wes. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do. In the first place, how did you know me in this disguise?”

  “You appear to think,” said the duck, “that you are the only animal skilled in detective work on this farm. Let me tell you, sir, that if I turn my mind to it—”