by Jean Merrill
By the sixth day of the Pea Shooter Campaign, the number of trucks in the streets was reduced enough so that the traffic flowed at a brisk pace for the first time in ten years. There were occasional tie-ups caused by the pushcart peddlers shooting down more trucks, but the trucks were removed in a short time.
CHAPTER XV
The Arrest of Frank the Flower
On the ninth day of the Pea Shooter Campaign, Frank the Flower was arrested. A pea-tack spotter spotted him.
A few of the trucking companies had become dissatisfied with Mack’s theory about the pea-tacks coming from Outer Space. These companies had removed their pea-tack spotters from the hoods of their trucks and stationed them on the tailgates of the trucks—or on the rear bumpers—with orders to watch for an enemy on the ground.
One of these spotters, riding on the tailgate of a moving van, saw Frank the Flower aiming at one of the rear tires of the van. At first he thought Frank was just moistening the tip of a yellow pencil. But when the van slowed down for a red light a few blocks later, the spotter heard air escaping from one of the truck’s rear tires, and he remembered the look of concentration on Frank the Flower’s face as he had put the “pencil” to his mouth.
While the driver got out to examine his punctured tire, the spotter ran back three blocks and was just in time to catch Frank the Flower sighting at another truck. The spotter did not actually see the pea-pin leave the shooter, but when the truck Frank the Flower had been aiming at limped to the curb with a flat tire before it reached the next corner, the spotter called a policeman and demanded that he search Frank the Flower.
When the policeman found the shooter in Frank the Flower’s pocket and asked what it was, Frank said that it was a yellow plastic straw made for him by a good friend.
“In case I should order a bottle of cream soda and the restaurant should be out of straws,” Frank explained.
“Cream soda?” said the policeman. He looked a little doubtful.
“My favorite drink,” said Frank. “Some people don’t mind drinking from a bottle,” he added. “But I prefer to have a straw.”
“My wife is like that,” said the policeman, and he was about to give the shooter back to Frank the Flower when his eye fell on the half dozen pea-pins that Frank the Flower had stuck in his hatband.
Frank the Flower was about to suggest that they were imitation-pearl corsage pins that he gave out with special orders—in case a lady wanted to pin a bunch of flowers on her dress. But the spotter had already recognized them as the pea-tacks that the truckers had been finding in their tires.
Frank the Flower had no choice but to confess to shooting down the two trucks the spotter claimed he had shot down, especially after the spotter succeeded in finding the pea-pins in the tires.
The question arose then as to how many other trucks Frank the Flower might have shot down. Frank said he would have to think.
This was a difficult question for Frank. He had shot down either seventeen or eighteen trucks. But he could not be sure which.
On the second day of the Pea Shooter Campaign, one truck that was running through a red light had got away before Frank could tell whether he had scored a flat. And this one truck had been confusing his count ever since.
Some days Frank felt it was perfectly fair to count it. Other days he had to admit that he would be giving himself the benefit of the doubt.
Quite probably it was eighteen, he told himself, as the policeman waited for his answer. And while eighteen was not in the class with Harry the Hot Dog, it sounded suddenly like a very high score. Although Frank felt a certain pride in the matter, he did not want to be in any more trouble with the police than necessary. In which case, it would be better to say seventeen.
Frank considered the matter all the way to the police station. At the police station, the Police Commissioner himself took charge of the questioning.
“All right,” said the Police Commissioner, when the officer who had arrested Frank had explained the problem. “How many?”
Frank the Flower wondered how long he would have to stay in jail if he did confess to eighteen.
“I’m waiting,” said the Police Commissioner.
“Well,” said Frank cautiously, “at least seventeen.”
“At least,” said the Police Commissioner. “And at most?”
“Maybe eighteen,” Frank said uncertainly.
“Maybe?” said the Police Commissioner. “Now see here. There have been 18,991 flat tires reported in the last week, and I intend to find out who shot down every one of them. So how many did you shoot down? At most?”
It was at this moment that Frank the Flower became a hero. He looked the Police Commissioner in the eye. “Okay, I admit it,” he said. “I shot them all.”
“All of them!” said the Police Commissioner.
“All eighteen,” Frank said. “All eighteen thousand, that is. I count by thousands.”
“Eighteen thousand!” gasped the Police Commissioner.
Frank smiled apologetically. “Maybe a few more or less. I lose track.”
“But eighteen thousand—” said the astonished Commissioner.
“All of them,” Frank said firmly. “I shot them all.”
“All 18,991!” said the Police Commissioner.
Frank the Flower nodded. When the Police Commissioner mentioned the large number of flat tires that had been reported, Frank suddenly realized that if he confessed to shooting down only seventeen or eighteen, the police would go on looking for whoever had shot down the rest. If that happened, all his friends might be arrested, too, and that would be the end of the Pea Shooter Campaign.
Frank decided that as long as he had already been arrested, he might as well take the blame for everything. It was better, he reasoned, that the police had caught him than Harry the Hot Dog, who was a better aim. Not that eighteen was anything to be ashamed of.
“All 18,991?” asked the Police Commissioner as if he had not heard correctly the first time.
“I lose track of the exact number,” said Frank the Flower. Maxie Hammerman’s map at last count had had over 20,000 pea-pins in it, but Frank the Flower did not like to tell the Police Commissioner that his count was off by a thousand or more. He felt sure that would annoy the Police Commissioner.
“I cannot be sure down to the last tire,” said Frank the Flower. “But I have been at it several days now.”
The Police Commissioner could hardly believe his luck in having got a full confession so easily. The truck drivers had been giving him a great deal of trouble with their complaints, and he was tired of the whole affair.
“But what did you do it for?” asked the Police Commission. “Have you got something against the trucks?”
Frank the Flower shrugged. “I am a crackpot,” he said.
“I thought so,” said the Police Commissioner. Being a sensible man himself, he took the view that only a crackpot could have done what Frank the Flower had confessed to doing.
Besides, Frank the Flower did not look to the Police Commissioner like a criminal type. This was mainly because of the hat Frank wore. It was an old felt hat with the crown cut out of it and small flowers of different colors—mostly bachelor buttons and jonquils—tucked in the hatband. (Frank the Flower put fresh flowers in the hatband every morning.)
Frank the Flower’s hat was not really such an odd hat for someone in the flower line to wear. In a way, it was a kind of advertisement. However, the Police Commissioner had never seen a hat like this before.
The Police Commissioner felt that it definitely was not the kind of hat a true criminal type would wear. But he thought it might very well be the sort of hat that a crackpot would wear.
“But 18,991 tires!” said the Police Commissioner.
“It was nothing,” said Frank the Flower modestly.
The Police Commissioner sat studying Frank the Flower for several minutes. Then he called the policeman who had arrested Frank. “You will have to lock this man up,” he said.
“But treat him gently. He is a harmless crackpot.”
The Police Commissioner patted Frank kindly on the shoulder. He was much relieved to have solved the pea-tack problem.
Within half an hour, extras, announcing the arrest of Frank the Flower, were on the newsstands. “SPOTTER SPOTS PEA-TACKER,” said one headline. “PEA-TACKER CAPTURED,” said another. “TACK-MAN IS CRACKPOT,” said a third. Under the headlines there were pictures of Frank the Flower.
When General Anna saw the headlines, she sent out word that all peddlers should report at once to Maxie Hammerman’s. In the cellar of Maxie Hammerman’s shop, the peddlers listened to the Police Commissioner on the radio.
The Police Commissioner was assuring the public that there was no further cause for alarm. The mystery of the punctured truck tires had been solved, he said. It had all been the work of a harmless crackpot.
The Police Commissioner’s announcement brought tears to the eyes of some of Frank’s friends, They realized that he was trying to protect them by taking all the blame himself.
“For such an idea, he should be President of the U.S.A.,” said Morris the Florist.
“President!” said Papa Peretz. “How can the President be a crackpot? Not that I do not appreciate what Frank the Flower has done,” he added.
“He is a hero,” said General Anna. “May he live a hundred years.”
“A hundred years?” said Mr. Jerusalem. “So he can spend them all in jail maybe. For so many truck tires, Frank the Flower could stay in jail for the rest of his life.”
Mr. Jerusalem, who was used to sleeping under the stars, could not think of anything worse than being shut in a jail cell. He did not think it was right that Frank the Flower should take all the blame.
“We must all take our share,” he said. “We must go to the Police Commissioner and explain.”
“No,” said General Anna. “If we all confess, the war is finished, and it is the trucks who have won. By taking the blame, Frank the Flower is telling us that he wishes us to carry on. How can we let him down when he is in so much trouble to help us?”
“No, we cannot let him down,” said Harry the Hot Dog. “I, personally, will kill ten tires for Frank the Flower this afternoon.”
“Wait,” said Eddie Moroney. “As long as Frank the Flower is in jail, we cannot kill any more tires.”
“Why not?” said Harry the Hot Dog. “You do not agree with General Anna that we must carry on?”
“I always agree with General Anna,” said Eddie Moroney. “Of course, we must win the war. I am only pointing out that if there are any more flat tires, the Police Commissioner will not believe Frank the Flower’s story that he himself has killed all those trucks. The police will look again. And now that they know what to look for, how long do you think it will be before they are arresting every pushcart peddler in the city?”
“Eddie Moroney is right,” said General Anna. “Everybody will turn in his shooter and ammunition before leaving Maxie Hammerman’s shop tonight.”
“Everyone?” said Harry the Hot Dog. Harry the Hot Dog had had more fun shooting at truck tires than he had ever had before. He was proud of holding the record for the most tires killed, and he was even a little jealous that Frank the Flower (who had killed only seventeen or eighteen tires) should be getting all the credit in the newspapers.
“It is not the end of the war,” said General Anna. “It is only the end of the Pea Shooter Campaign. We must find a new weapon.”
CHAPTER XVI
Big Moe’s Attack on the Police Commissioner
It was fortunate that General Anna had called in all the pea shooters on the day of Frank the Flower’s arrest. For the day after Frank’s arrest, the newspaper headlines read: “BIG MOE CALLS POLICE COMMISSIONER BIG DOPE.”
Big Moe said that the Police Commissioner was a fool to believe Frank the Flower’s story. Big Moe pointed out that it was impossible for Frank the Flower to have been in all the places where the trucks had been shot down—even if he was a crackpot.
Big Moe gave as proof the fact that two Mammoth Moving trucks had been shot down on the first morning of the Pea Shooter Campaign. One of these trucks was shot down at 10:05 a.m. on 179th Street, and the other at 10:07 a.m. on 2nd Street.
“How could any man travel 177 blocks in two minutes?” Big Moe asked. “Especially in New York City traffic,” he added.
Big Moe claimed that there was obviously a widespread conspiracy. He demanded that the Police Commissioner appoint a special Pea-Tack Squad to search for other “pea-tackers.”
As setting up a Pea-Tack Squad would be admitting that he had been a big dope to believe Frank the Flower, the Police Commissioner told Big Moe to go sit on a pea-tack.
Big Moe did not take the Police Commissioner’s advice. Instead, he called Mayor Emmett P. Cudd.
Mayor Emmett P. Cudd was very concerned about the trouble the trucks were having. After Mayor Cudd’s famous Peanut Butter Speech, Big Moe had made the Mayor a present of 1,000 shares of stock in the Mammoth Moving Company as a token of appreciation of all Mayor Cudd was doing for big business.
The Tiger and Louis Livergreen naturally had not wished to be outdone by Big Moe. So they, too, had given Mayor Cudd tokens of their appreciation in the form of 1,000 shares in Tiger Trucking and the same number of shares in LEMA.
With all these tokens, the Mayor could not help having a real interest in the trucking business. As a result, Mayor Cudd and The Three were on the friendliest of terms. They played cards together every Friday night, and the Mayor was kept well informed about trucking problems.
“Your problems are my problems,” he frequently said to The Three.
Therefore, when Big Moe called the Mayor to say, “Speaking as a friend, I think you ought to have the Police Commissioner appoint a Pea-Tack Squad to get to the bottom of this conspiracy,” the Mayor took it as a friendly suggestion. He passed it on to the Police Commissioner.
The Police Commissioner did not take it as a friendly suggestion, but he had no choice. He organized a Pea-Tack Squad and ordered the Squad to comb the city for pea-tacks or pea-tackers.
However, thanks to General Anna’s orders, there was nothing for the Squad to find. All the ammunition was locked in Maxie Hammerman’s basement, and no trucks were shot down for three days.
“Well,” people said, “never underestimate the power of a crackpot!”
There was even a little disappointment among the general public that the excitement was over. The mysterious attack on the trucks had become a popular topic of conversation, and there had been a good deal of friendly betting on the daily tire casualties.
There were two theories to account for the 177 blocks that so disturbed Big Moe. One was that Frank the Flower had had a heliocopter. The second, and more widely-held explanation, was that Frank had shot down the truck on 2nd Street, but that the flat on 179th Street was caused by an ordinary nail.
The failure of the Pea-Tack Squad to find a widespread conspiracy made Big Moe look foolish, which cheered the Police Commissioner. The headlines now read: “POLICE COMMISSIONER SAYS BIG MOE HAS BIG IMAGINATION.”
“I always thought Frank the Flower was an honest man,” the Police Commissioner told reporters. “I can usually spot a crackpot when I see one.”
But the Police Commissioner had cheered up a little too soon. The day after he spoke his mind, new outbreaks of flat tires were reported. The reports came from three different sections of the city.
CHAPTER XVII
The Pea Shooter Campaign—Phase II
The pushcart peddlers were as surprised as the Police Commissioner by the reports of new attacks on the trucks. General Anna summoned everyone to Maxie Hammerman’s to find out whether any peddlers had not turned in their pea shooters as ordered.
Everyone had. Even Harry the Hot Dog, whom General Anna questioned privately, gave General Anna his word that—much as he had hated to do it—he had turned in his shooter and every pea-pin in his possession.
/> The mystery was solved when the Pea-Tack Squad caught several boys between the ages of eight and ten shooting down trucks near Manhattan Bridge. The boys were using shooters very much like Frank the Flower’s and the police demanded to know where they had got them and whether they knew Frank the Flower.
The children said that they had never met Frank the Flower and that they had made the shooters themselves from the description of Frank the Flower’s shooter in the newspapers. One of the boys had even made himself a hat like Frank the Flower’s, though the flowers stuck in the hatband were made of paper.
The Pea-Tack Squad confiscated the shooters from the children and asked them to please not make any more. But by that time other children had had the same idea, and there were soon children all over the city making shooters and shooting at truck tires. Frank-the-Flower Clubs sprang up in several neighborhoods.
The Pea-Tack Squad no sooner caught one gang of children than they received a call about another. And since there were in the city many more children between the ages of eight and ten than there were pushcart peddlers, there were at the height of the children’s campaign even more flat tires than there had been before Frank the Flower’s arrest.
One day Big Moe reported that 36 out of his 72 trucks were laid up. The whole thing was a scandal, he said.
“Any minute,” he warned, “these hoodlums will start shooting innocent people. Then perhaps the Police Commissioner will do something.”
Curiously, the children never did start shooting at people—or cars—or taxis—or bicycles. There seemed to be a clear understanding among the children that this was a war against the trucks, and that it was more fun to keep it that way.
During this phase of the Pea Shooter Campaign, all of the Five & Ten’s in the city did a brisk business in tacks and pins. (The children found that both worked equally well.) Grocery stores had a great many calls for dried peas, and florists reported a surprising increase in business from customers between the ages of eight and ten. Morris the Florist began making up small bunches of day-old flowers suitable for hatbands and selling them at a special low price to anyone under the age of ten.
