Freddy the Pilot

by Walter R. Brooks

  “I can fix it,” said Sniffy. He put his head down in the hole. “Petey!” he said. “Hey, Pete! Come here a minute.”

  Presently a brown centipede crawled up over the edge of the hole. “Hi, skunk. What’s on your mind?” he said. He had a harsh, rather unpleasant voice—though of course quite small.

  “We want this guy to lie quiet under here for a while,” Sniffy said. “So if he starts to yell or make any noise, maybe you and the boys would warn him to shut up. Walk around on his face, maybe, or crawl up his pant leg.”

  “Sure, sure,” said Pete. “Give him the old pincers, eh?”

  “Oh, no rough stuff. No, just a warning.”

  “O.K.,” said the centipede. “He won’t give you any trouble. But I’ll just drop him a hint. A stitch in time, you know.” He went down and walked up Mr. Condiment to his shoulder and whispered something in his ear. “Ugh!” said Mr. Condiment and shuddered.

  Freddy leaned over the opening. “I don’t like doing this, Mr. Condiment,” he said, “But I warn you, we’ll do much worse things if you don’t quit picking on Mademoiselle Rose.”

  “Yah!” Mr. Condiment jeered. But it was a weak jeer; his heart wasn’t in it.

  So they put back the board and Freddy found a hammer and nails and nailed it down.

  “How’d you ever manage to get friendly with that thousand-legger, Sniffy?” he asked. “They’re usually sort of stand-offish.”

  “Sniffy has a great talent for making friends,” said Aroma admiringly.

  “Don’t I know it! That no-good sneak, Lyman, is one of ’em. And by the way, if Lyman came up with Newsome, he must be around somewhere. And so must Jinx. We’d better find them both before the plane gets back.”

  CHAPTER

  15

  “Talk about dilemmas!” said Freddy. “We’re in a dandy. We’ve got Condiment, but what can we do with him? If my plane was here—”

  “Which it isn’t,” put in Sniffy.

  “No, and when it comes back those men will come with it, and they’ve got guns. And we can’t keep Condiment there under the floor more than a few hours. Oh, sure—he did it to me. I’ll put him in jail if I can, but we mustn’t be cruel.”

  “Can’t we go down to West Nineveh and get the state troopers to arrest him?” 18 asked.

  “What for? Locking up a pig in a closet? Burning down a barn? It’s probably his own barn. Trying to marry Mademoiselle Rose? That’s no crime.”

  “We can prove he tried to ruin Mr. Boom,” said 18.

  “How?” Freddy asked. “I don’t believe we could prove anything against him now that his plane’s burned up. No, the police can’t help us; we’ve got to do it all ourselves.”

  “Like Robin Hood,” Sniffy said.

  “That’s right. We’ve got to get rid of these two, Jackson and Felix, and then we’ve got to get rid of Condiment. Darn it, you know I almost did get rid of him; if I could have worked that Leopard Woman stuff on him a few more times, I think he would have quit. Now that’s all spoiled by my own carelessness.” He sighed and covered his eyes with his right fore trotter, but he peeked out to see if anybody was going to say: “Oh, no, no! You’ve done wonders!” But nobody did.

  Two of the Horribles came hopping in the door. “No. 11 reporting,” said one of them. “No sign of either Jinx or Lyman, Your Dreadfulness. We’ve covered the whole farm and the woods. Muskrat tracks where the car was parked; we think he went back with Mr. Newsome.”

  “Well, that’s that,” said Freddy. “I suppose the plane may be back any time now. Hope they don’t crash it, landing. But that Jackson must know all his landmarks, and my plane has got landing lights. Oh, golly, maybe it would be better if they did crash. We could handle Condiment if we had him alone. Hey, wait a minute!” he said suddenly. “I wonder if they know Condiment’s hand-writing. Oh well, I can fix that.”

  He went over to the table and took a pencil and wrote on a sheet of paper:

  “Jackson: Hope you can read this. I fell and hurt my right hand. Newsome has driven me down to see a doctor. We have disposed of the pig. As soon as you get back, take Felix with you and go up into the woods at the north of the house and see if you can find out what is going on. We saw lights and heard voices.

  Condiment.”

  “There,” Freddy said as he pinned his note to the front door; “now when they come back we ought to have a chance to get Condiment into the plane and I can fly him down to the farm. After that, we’ll see.”

  There was nothing the matter with the scheme except, as Sniffy said later, that it didn’t work. It was after midnight when the plane came back. Freddy had hidden in one of the upstairs rooms, so that when the men left to explore the woods, he would lose no time in getting Mr. Condiment out from under the floor and hustling him down to the plane. There was nothing in the room but twenty or thirty big sacks of flour—evidently for Jackson to use in bombing the circus—and Freddy had tried to make a sort of bed of them but he had only been able to doze uncomfortably.

  Freddy heard the plane land, then the men came into the house. He could hear them talking for a minute or so, arguing about something, then the voices grew louder, and he knew that they had come into the kitchen, which was directly below the room he was in.

  “Well, if you want to go out and stumble around in the woods, go on,” Jackson was saying. “I’m going to make some coffee.”

  “Yeah, I guess the woods can wait,” Felix said. “Say, do you suppose this gadget really works?”

  Condiment says it flickers when it goes over metal,” Jackson replied. “Here, let me try. I’ll try with this quarter.” There was a rattle as the coin hit the floor, then after a minute: “Hey, look!” said Jackson. “Sure, it flickers every time I move over the money.—But hold on; it flickers over here, too. A lot brighter than over the quarter. But there’s no metal here.”

  “Let’s see,” said Felix. And then: “Must be something there. Must be under the floor. Let’s pull up this board.”

  “Oh, golly!” said Freddy.

  There was the harsh squeak of nails being pulled out, then: “The boss!” Felix exclaimed. “Why, it’s the boss!”

  “Of course it’s me,” said Mr. Condiment’s voice. “Get me out of here, you idiots!”

  “Sure, sure. But why didn’t you holler?” Jackson asked.

  “These insects, these thousand-leggers—I mean, these centipedes. They attacked me. Even my nose! Look at it; is the skin broken?”

  “Looks the same as usual,” said Jackson, and Felix muttered under his breath: “Centipedes punchin’ him in the nose! He’s gone goofy on us!”

  But Mr. Condiment overheard him. “Be quiet, you nincompoop, you blatherskite—I mean, you ninnyhammer! As long as you work for me, you’ll—”

  “Yeah, I’ll what?” Felix interrupted. “Don’t know as I want to work for a man that fights centipedes. I’ll—”

  “Oh, shut up, Felix,” said Jackson. “Look, boss, this note you wrote—”

  “I didn’t write any note. Let’s see it.… That pig must have written it. He wanted to get you out of the house. Well, he’s upstairs somewhere. We’ll go up and get him.”

  The footsteps clattered up the stairs. Freddy pulled one of the sacks of flour into the middle of the room and ripped it open. When the three men came in and turned a flashlight on him, he was bending over the open sack with both fore trotters buried deep in the flour, as if hastily trying to hide something.

  “Hold it!” said Jackson. “Don’t move. What have you got there?”

  “Nothing,” said Freddy. “Er … nothing. I was just—well, I was just seeing what was in this sack.”

  They closed in around him, bending over to look.

  “He’s got something there,” said Mr. Condiment. “Careful, it may be a gun. Felix, you—”

  It was at that moment, when the three faces were close to the open sack, that Freddy closed his eyes, held his breath, and brought his fore trotters up with a rush through the
flour, so that the fine white powder went into the eyes and noses and mouths of the men, blinding them and making them cough and sneeze. Three times he dipped into the sack and threw out flour, until the room was filled with a choking white cloud through which nothing could be seen but a faint glow from the flashlight. Then as he could hold his breath no longer, Freddy dove for the door. He tripped one man, kicked another, and punched the third—he thought it was Mr. Condiment—and then he found the door and got out, slamming it behind him.

  It was dark out in the hall, but there was clean air there. He drew some long breaths and then started down the stairs. He would have liked to stay and listen, for now the men were fighting among themselves. Blinded and half choked, they supposed at first that Freddy was still in the room, for they had tried to return his blows and had hit one another. They blundered about, swinging wildly at anyone who came near them, but with every breath they drew in more flour, so that they coughed and wheezed, and at last had to stop fighting and groped feebly for the door. But by the time they were outside, Freddy was running for his plane.

  But he heard them stumbling down the stairs, and he knew he wouldn’t have time to start the engine and climb in and get away. So he stopped and hid behind a tree, and when they came pounding past him, he doubled back, went into the house again, and closed and locked the door.

  A few minutes later Sniffy and No. 18 came in through the hole under the house. “What do we do now, Freddy?” Sniffy asked. “Golly, they scared us into fits when they came out the front door. All covered with white—we thought they were ghosts. But how did they find old Condiment? We didn’t hear him bang on the floor or yell or anything.”

  “They scared us into fits—all covered with white.”

  “The Piggy Bank,” Freddy said. “They were trying it, and of course when it went over him, it lit up.”

  “I don’t see why,” 18 said. “He certainly isn’t solid gold. Or even nickel.”

  “Probably has some change in his pocket,” said Freddy. “That’s what did it. Well now, look, 18. Send in enough of your Horribles to give us a sentry at each window. Because Condiment will try to get in and get the bank. We’ll be in a state of siege all right, but we only need enough garrison to keep watch; we can’t do much fighting. If the rest of you stay outside, maybe you can discourage them, if they attack.”

  Freddy didn’t have much hope that they could beat off a determined attack. There were two guns left in the house but he couldn’t find any ammunition. There were of course the two guns, and shells, in the hollow tree beyond the barn, but they couldn’t get them across and into the house without being caught. Freddy was scared. “Golly,” he said, “here I am trying to get Mr. Boom out of a dilemma, and I get into a worse one myself. If the Frederick & Wiggins Dilemma Service can’t do any better than this, it ought to go out of business.”

  “You’ll be out of business quick if Condiment gets in here,” said Sniffy. He looked sharply at Freddy. “Nay, look not so downcast, lad,” he said. “Hast ever known a Wilson to flinch from the fight? We’ll stand by thee to the last skunk.”

  As Sniffy had intended it made Freddy grin. “Oh, sure,” he said. “And I’ll fight to the last pig. Only I am the last pig. That’s not so good.”

  “They’re coming to the front door,” No. 6 called from the window. And at once there was a heavy knock.

  “Open up, pig!” Jackson shouted.

  CHAPTER

  16

  Freddy’s tail had come uncurled; it always did when he was scared. When Jackson shouted the second time for him to open up, he tried to think of something to say in reply, something defiant, and insulting without being vulgar. But he was afraid that his voice might squeak, as it sometimes did when he was excited and also he couldn’t think of anything. So he kept still and peered out through the little window at the side of the door.

  Jackson and Felix were close to the door and Mr. Condiment stood behind them—a poor place to be, as it turned out. They were still white with flour. Freddy saw Jackson hold the lantern higher, and Felix raised a short axe and drove it in to split the door panel. At the same moment three little clouds of flour dust puffed out from the back of Mr. Condiment’s coat and with a loud screech he turned and ran. Felix and Jackson swung round. “I don’t like this,” said Felix. “First he claims centipedes are chasin’ him, and now this! Guy’s gone nuts.”

  “Maybe so,” said Jackson. “But we want that gadget.” And he raised the axe again.

  And three little puffs of dust came out of his coat, and he said: “Ouch!” and whirled around and followed Mr. Condiment.

  “Well for gosh sakes!” said Felix. He held up the lantern and looked after his friend. Then evidently he caught sight of the two arrows sticking in Jackson’s back. He dropped the lantern and began beating on the door. “Hey, pig!” he shouted. “Let me in! Save me! My gosh, if I’d known there was Indians up in this country I’d never have left Philadelphia. Hey, don’t leave us out here to be murdered! Let me in!”

  Freddy didn’t answer. But some of the Horribles hiding out in the grass had heard, and they lifted up their voices in a pretty good imitation of a war whoop. Felix dropped the lantern and ran. They could hear him crashing through the brush on the south side of the field. Slowly the sound died away. “He’ll be back in Philadelphia by morning at that rate,” Freddy said. And perhaps he was. At any rate, he was never seen again in that part of the country.

  But Jackson was made of sterner stuff. Half an hour later he came back. He had on a heavy leather jacket which the little arrows could not pierce and he had tied newspapers around his legs and arms. Condiment was with him, but stayed well in the background while he again attacked the door. But this time Freddy was ready for him. For the window over the front door had been opened and a sack of flour balanced on the sill. And at the first blow of the axe Freddy dumped the contents of the sack on his head. Blinded and choking, he stumbled down from the steps and Mr. Condiment led him away.

  One more attempt however the enemy made that night to force an entrance into the house. They attacked the back door. They came with a rush, down through the woods which grew close to the house on that side, carrying between them a length of two by four with which they hoped to smash in the lock at the first impact. And perhaps they would have succeeded. But just before they reached the house there was a flash and a tremendous bang among the trees behind them, and shot rattled on the clapboards. Somebody had fired a shotgun at them. They dropped the two by four and ran.

  It was the Horribles who had had the honor of repelling this last charge. Eight of them had taken one of the guns from the hollow tree and had dragged it across the field and up back of the house, where they had got it up on to an old stump so that the muzzle was pointing at the door. It was 23 who had pulled the trigger. Some time later his comrades brought him into the house on an improvised litter. The gun of course had kicked him so hard that he had turned two complete somersaults, and he had a badly sprained shoulder and was suffering from shock. It was for this brave deed that he later got the Benjamin Bean Distinguished Service Medal.

  It was 23 who had pulled the trigger.

  After this there were no further attacks on the house and presently No. 4 came in to report that the men had climbed into the plane and gone to sleep. “Condiment wanted Jackson to fly him back to Philadelphia to get reinforcements,” he said, “but Jackson said he’d been up all night and was too tired—he had to sleep first. And anyway, he said, he didn’t need any reinforcements. He said no pig could put anything over on him. He said, wait till morning, he’d get into the house all right.”

  “He can, too,” said Freddy. “They’ve got pistols. I guess we’ll have to abandon the house. If we hide in the woods—”

  “Rabbit No. 4 reporting,” said a voice from the doorway. “There’s a car coming up the old road. Jackson’s gone out to stop it. He took a pistol.”

  “Come on,” said Freddy. He unlocked the front door cautiously and
went out. It was beginning to get light. In the fringe of trees at the edge of the field he stopped. A car started somewhere, and then a station wagon came slowly across to the plane. Jackson walked beside it. It drew up beside the plane, but Freddy couldn’t hear what was being said. After a few minutes Jackson got into the wagon and it drove off.

  Pretty soon No. 4 came back. “They were lost,” he said. “Got on the wrong road. Mr. Condiment asked them to take Jackson down to West Nineveh so he could phone to Mr. Mandible, in Philadelphia. He is to tell Mandible to charter a plane and come at once. He said to bring guns.”

  “Well, he’s alone in the plane,” Freddy said, “but we can’t do anything when he’s armed. I guess we’re stuck. Who were those people, 4?”

  “Little man with a black beard was driving. And there was a great big woman in the back. She had on a hat—gosh, I never saw such a big hat. She did all the talking. Very deep voice, she had. Funny thing, it sounded familiar, too. Reminded me of somebody I know, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell who.”

  Freddy went back in and got the Benjamin Bean Improved Self-filling Piggy Bank and they took it up in the woods and hid it. Then he moved down to a position near the burned-out barn, where he could watch the plane. It was daylight now. Mr. Condiment’s head was sticking up out of the rear cockpit, peering around in all directions like a hen in a crate. There was nothing to be done, so Freddy lay down on the ground and went to sleep.

  Perhaps an hour later Sniffy woke him. “Car’s coming.” He got up and went to the edge of the road and watched from behind a tree. The car crawled along over the ruts. “They haven’t got Jackson,” said Sniffy.

  Freddy could see the people in the car now. The woman in the back seat was enormous; he couldn’t figure how she had ever managed to get in. She was wrapped and swathed in shawls and she had on a hat which reminded him of the White Queen in Alice, only it was bigger. It stuck way out at the sides and a veil was draped over it and over her big white face—the kind of voluminous veil that women used to wear in the early days of automobiles, when there weren’t any windshields.