But Mrs. Church laughed. “Riley will find us a parking space,” she said. And sure enough just beyond the Busy Bee, the chauffeur swung the car in over the curb and right into a store whose doorway had been widened to admit it. “I do a lot of shopping at the Busy Bee,” she explained. “But I don’t like to walk, so I bought this store and had it altered to park in. I suppose some people would think it was extravagant,” she said. “But it’s a lot more useful than a diamond necklace.”
Freddy picked up the mask and they drove out to the farm. Mrs. Church wanted to call on Mrs. Wiggins, so she went into the cow barn. The flying saucer was parked with a number of Centerboro cars at one side of the barnyard, and looking up toward the practice field, Freddy could see a row of spectators leaning on the fence, among them Mr. Anderson, and the Centerboro High coach, Mr. Finnerty. He went up to the pig pen and got into his disguise, and then went over to the field.
Today two eight-man teams were playing a regular game. Jason Brewer and Henry James and two other boys had come out from Centerboro, and Jimmy Witherspoon had come down through the Big Woods and picked up Peter, the bear, and Mac, the wildcat, on his way. Peter was pitching. Like most bears, he pitched underhand. He had just, much to his surprise, struck out Mr. Hercules. Two-clicks stepped up. The first pitch was over the plate, but too low. The Martian let it go by and Mr. Bean, who was umpiring, called a ball.
Freddy frowned and tugged at his beard. He watched the second pitch. The Martian swung at it and Freddy’s face cleared. But he walked over to Chirp-squeak, who was on deck. “Will you boys please remember what I told you!” he said sharply. “We’ve got company today.” He indicated the row of spectators.
Chirp-squeak replied that he and the other Martians had got to wondering and they thought it would be better to let the very high ones go by.
“Look,” said Freddy, “when we have company I want you to go right on swinging at everything. No matter where the pitch comes, swing at it! I don’t care if you strike out.”
But even when they picked ’em, they didn’t hit very well, any of them, said the Martian. “You like we throw this games?”
“I want you to do as you’re told,” Freddy said angrily. “I don’t care if you lose this game. I don’t care if you lose to Centerboro High, later on. I want you to win your important games, and if you do as I say, you will.”
Chirp-squeak grumbled a little, but five minutes later, when he had waved his bat ineffectively at three wild pitches and returned to the bench, Freddy heard him mutter: “I hope you satisfy, you big ape!”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, who had overheard the remark, “how quickly these Martians are picking up our good homely American talk, now that they’ve begun to play baseball! Really a fine thing for them.”
“Yeah,” said Freddy. “They sure are learning a fine American disrespect for anyone in authority.”
Mr. Boomschmidt lowered his voice. “Why do you let ’em swing at everything the way they do? You can’t teach ’em to hit that way.”
“Don’t you know why?” Freddy asked.
“No,” said Mr. Boomschmidt. “No, I can’t say I—Oh, my goodness!” he said suddenly. “Is it …?”
“Don’t say it,” Freddy cut in. “Maybe it’s kind of tricky, but I think it’s fair. Particularly when we play the Tushville town team. Because they won all their games last year, but they didn’t win fair and square. I’m pretty sure that pitcher, John Smith, was a professional. Judge Willey thought he looked an awful lot like Lefty Zingwall, who used to pitch for Rochester. And there were two others that certainly weren’t amateurs, either.”
“Tcha!” said Mr. Boomschmidt disgustedly. “Pretty poor sports. Why do you have to play them?”
“We don’t, of course. But Kurtz, their manager—he’s been over watching our practice—he’s up there now, next to Mr. Anderson—see him?—he wrote asking for a game or two. I don’t like Kurtz, or Tushville either, much, and I think we can lick them. And—well, I’ve been puzzling how we were going to get uniforms. You know ready-made uniforms won’t fit this team. Look at ’em—an elephant, a lion, four Martians with four arms each—well, you see what I mean. It will cost a fortune.”
“Goodness, I see what you mean,” said Mr. Boomschmidt. “But think what a crowd a team from Mars will bring out—at fifty cents a head. Or have you thought of that? Of course, I see you have. My gracious, Freddy, are you really as smart as that, or do I just think so because you have that long white beard on?”
At that moment a wasp lit on Freddy’s hat brim, walked down under it, and disappeared in his beard just in front of his ear. Freddy shivered. There was a wasp named Jacob who was a good friend of his, and one of the cleverest operatives in the A.B.I.; but it is hard to tell one wasp from another, and suppose this was a stranger! “Hey!” he said. “Come out of there, will you?”
A wasp lit on Freddy.
“Keep your whiskers on, pig,” said Jacob’s sharp little voice. “This is Agent W-2 reporting for Chief Pomeroy. Wanna see my credentials?” He crawled up through the whiskers and waved his sting close to Freddy’s eye.
“Hey, go on and make your report and quit that funny business,” Freddy growled. He knew of Jacob’s fondness for practical jokes, and that they were sometimes painful.
“O.K., kid, here it is,” said the wasp. “Report on Martians. Nothing suspicious observed. No connection with Mr. Anderson noted. Subjects leave home every morning in flying saucer, arrive one minute later at Bean farm; practice baseball until five thirty, then return in saucer to Centerboro. Twice, at ten P.M., subjects have left in saucer for parts unknown, returning about 2 A.M. Impossible to tail saucer, whose speed faster than that of any known bug, bird, or insect. Impossible to report conversations, as we have no operatives who speak Martian.
“Report on E. H. Anderson. Normal activity connected with business during day. Spends part of afternoons at Bean farm watching practice. Had dinner last two evenings at Dixon’s Diner, came home, stopping both times on way to buy large bag of peanuts, read until 10 P.M. when went upstairs. Light in bedroom out at 10.10. End of report.
“The chief wants to know,” Jacob added, “if there are any further instructions, or do we keep on as before?”
“And you’re absolutely certain that Anderson wasn’t out of the house last evening?” Freddy asked.
“We had an operative on the roof of his porch, right under his bedroom window, all night, and another stationed on the garbage-can cover on the back porch.”
“O.K.,” said Freddy. “Keep a close watch tonight. Now you’d better buzz off.” So Jacob did.
“Funny,” Freddy said to Mrs. Wiggins later. “I’d have sworn Anderson was up to his old tricks, haunting Mrs. Church’s house. But it can’t be him.”
“Don’t see why it has to be,” the cow replied. “Centerboro is certainly big enough to support more than one ghost. Good grief, Freddy, maybe it’s a real ghost!”
“I never heard of a ghost that stole jewelry, before,” said the pig. He tugged perplexedly at his beard.
“You’ve got to stop that yanking at your whiskers,” said the cow. “You do it when you’re disturbed about something, and sometime you’re going to pull ’em right off and make a monkey of Mr. Arquebus.”
“Make a pig of him,” said Freddy. “O.K., I’ll be careful.”
“Maybe you ought to wear that outfit tonight,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “I’d like to see that ghost when he opens the door and sees you. You’ll scare him out of seven years’ growth.”
“He’ll scare me out of eight if he does open it,” Freddy said worriedly. “Look, Mrs. W., why not come along?”
But the cow said no thanks, she’d prefer to take her ghosts second-hand. And why didn’t Freddy take Jinx?
So Freddy went off to talk to Jinx about it.
CHAPTER
8
At ten o’clock that night Freddy and Jinx were sitting in Mrs. Church’s bedroom, in the dark, waiting f
or the ghost. Mrs. Church had locked herself into the guest room. They had searched the house carefully and Jinx said he’d bet his collection of catnip mice to a saucer of sour milk that there was nothing alive in it bigger than a spider. In addition, Mr. Pomeroy had arranged to have the grounds patrolled all night by two of his most capable operatives, Rabbits No. 12 and No. 23, who would give the alarm if they saw anyone trying to get in.
Freddy, also, had made elaborate preparations for the ghost’s reception. If it came snuffling under the bedroom door tonight it would get one or two unpleasant surprises.
The first hour passed peacefully. Jinx curled up luxuriously in the middle of the bed. It wasn’t often that he had a chance to lie around on a clean counterpane. If he tried it at home, Mrs. Bean chased him out with a broom. Freddy amused himself by making up a poem. Under his breath he recited the first lines to Jinx.
“It strikes me—does it not strike you?—
That the average pig has a high I.Q.”
Jinx raised his head from his paws. He whispered crossly:
“It strikes me, and it strikes me hard,
That the pig is a big fat hunk of lard.”
Then he dropped his head and closed his eyes again.
Freddy grinned and started another poem.
“The house is dark, the house is still,
And the black bat sits on the window sill.
Silent he sits till the midnight hour
And his little red eyes, they glimmer and glower.”
“And then he goes in and takes a shower,” said Jinx. “Shut up, Freddy, will you? I want to sleep.”
But Freddy went on.
“Slinking and slithering down the hall
The old gray ghost comes hugging the wall;
He tries the knobs of each of the doors,
And listens to hear if anyone snores.
And if he thinks that somebody’s in
He gives a perfectly awful grin,
And licks his chops, and stoops to the floor,
And snuffles and whuffles under the door.
And the black bat on the window sill,
He wakes, and he cheeps both loud and shrill.
He cheepeth once, he cheepeth twice,
He cheepeth three times three;
And the ghost in the hall he begins to crawl;
Under the door he squeezes small;
And the—”
“Oh, shut up, Freddy!” Jinx whispered. “What are you trying to do—scare me?”
“I—I guess I’ve scared myself,” said the pig. “I don’t know why it is that times like this I don’t really get scared until I begin to think I ought to be. And then I try to scare myself. I guess I can scare myself worse than any old ghost can.”
At that moment there was a snuffling and whuffling under the door.
“Ugh!” said Freddy, as his tail came completely uncurled. “No I can’t either.” But he had to carry out his plan, no matter how scared he was. He tiptoed over to the bed and whispered: “Are you ready? Stand by with the pepper when I open the door.”
But there was no answer. And the whuffling under the door grew louder.
“Jinx!” Freddy whispered. He felt over the bed. No cat there. He felt farther, and way down under the covers against the footboard his bore-trotter touched a lump—a lump that squirmed and let out a screech of pure terror.
The screech was muffled under the clothes, but it must have startled the ghost, for he stopped whuffling.
Freddy realized that he could expect no help from Jinx. He picked up the teacup, which he had filled with black pepper, and went to the door. Without pausing a second—for he knew if he did he would never again get up courage to turn that key—he unlocked the door, flung it open, and threw the pepper full in the face of the dim figure he saw kneeling before the threshold.
“Tchaa!” said the ghost, and then exploded in a series of the most terrific sneezes. “Ah-aachaa! Choof! Hup, hup, hup-CHOW!” But he managed to get up and to stumble in blind haste down the hall toward the front stairs.
Freddy had been prepared for that. “Mrs. Church!” he called, and Mrs. Church, who had been waiting behind the guest-room door, came running out. She followed him to the head of the stairs.
The ghost, coughing and sneezing and reeling from side to side of the stairway, was halfway down. Now Freddy had taken all the tacks out of the stair carpet before locking himself into the room. So when he said: “Catch hold!” and they both bent and took hold of the top end of the carpet; and then said: “Pull!” and they both gave a strong yank—the carpet just straightened out and began moving upward under the feet of the ghost. Even the most weightless of ghosts could not have kept his footing on such a moving inclined plane, and Freddy judged, by the sound of the first bump as he hit the stairs, that he must weigh well over two hundred. The succeeding bumps were no gentler, and ended with a slow cartwheel, at the end of which the ghost lay for a moment flat on his face in the lower hall.
They both gave a strong yank.
“Remarkable performance,” said Mrs. Church. “Wish we’d had more light so we could have really seen it.”
Freddy had hoped to get downstairs and tie the ghost up while he was helpless, but it was slow work getting down over that loose carpet. Finally they had to pull it up before they could walk down the bare stairs. And by that time the ghost had picked himself up and stumbled off to safety through the kitchen and the back door. And all they could see was that he had a black mask on. Neither of them could swear that he was Mr. Anderson. Freddy said angrily: “I could have caught him if I’d had the sense to slide down the banisters. What’s the matter with me, anyway?”
“Just the same,” said Mrs. Church, “I don’t believe he’ll try this business again. We know he isn’t a real ghost, and he knows we know it. I’ll just let it be known that, whoever he is, he can expect a charge of buckshot next time he comes. Now come on out in the kitchen. There’s a gallon of ice cream in the refrigerator. Where’s Jinx?”
He appeared just as they were taking their first bite. “H’m,” he said jauntily, “I thought I heard dishes rattling. Well, what happened?”
“Yeah, what happened!” said Freddy scornfully. “What happened to you? Crawling down under the covers like a coward. A lot of help you were!”
“Oh now, Freddy,” Jinx protested. “You know, that whooshing sound—I could have sworn that came from the foot of the bed. Sure I was under the covers—that’s where the sound came from. I went for that ghost just like you said we ought to. Teeth and claws, Freddy—teeth and claws; didn’t you hear me give the old war cry? Well, I suppose you couldn’t, when I was under that blanket. Almost got him, too. He slugged me, and then I grabbed for him but he wasn’t there. Must have slipped out under the mattress somehow.”
“Oh, sure,” said Freddy. “He slugged you! That’s when I touched you, and you let out a screech—golly, were you scared!”
“Scared!” Jinx was indignant. “Say look, pig, any time you see this cat scare—Yow!” he yelled suddenly. “What’s that!” And he gave one bound on to the mantelpiece. For something had tapped at the window.
Even Mrs. Church had to laugh when she looked around and saw the white face and big ears of a rabbit on the other side of the pane. She opened the window and he hopped in. He saluted Freddy and said: “No. 23 reporting. Large man just came out of front door, ran off toward Main Street, sneezing. May have hay fever, or be starting a cold. I did not follow him, as my instructions were to watch the house.”
“Did you recognize him?” Freddy asked.
“No, sir. He had on a mask. I should perhaps add that neither No. 12 nor I saw him come into the house. That of course is what we were watching for.”
Freddy dismissed the rabbit and said to Mrs. Church: “I guess we didn’t get anywhere much. We may suspect that it was Anderson, but we don’t know and can’t prove it. And even if we could—well, how did he get into the house? Without being seen by the rabbits?”
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“My gracious, Freddy,” said Mrs. Church, “maybe he really is a ghost.”
Freddy shook his head. “No,” he said. “But I tell you how we can find out. You go to Anderson and tell him the house is haunted and you can’t live there any more. I think what he says will tell us whether he’s our ghost or not.”
“I’ll see him in the morning,” said Mrs. Church. “Now, for goodness sake, eat up this ice cream. And you’ll stay here tonight. I tell you I’ll feel a lot safer with you two in the house, even if our ghost did fall downstairs with his nose full of pepper.”
Jinx and Freddy spent the night in the big bed in the guest room. They had eaten so much ice cream that they had to pile on the blankets to get warm. Jinx had been rather quiet, but just as Freddy was dropping off to sleep the cat nudged him. “Hey look, Freddy,” he said. “I—now—I wish you wouldn’t say anything back home about—well, about—you know—tonight.”
“You mean about how scared you were when you hid under the covers?”
“Oh now, Freddy! Maybe it was a mouse that I heard. That was it—a mouse! He got down in the bed somehow, and I heard him and went after him. That’s why I didn’t hear whoever it was at the door. Look, Freddy, you know I don’t get scared easily. You know I’m—” He broke off as a deep humming noise sounded somewhere outside. It increased for a moment or two, then suddenly faded away and was gone.
“Hey!” Freddy exclaimed. “Did you hear that?”
But there was no reply, and when Freddy reached out to shake the cat’s shoulder, thinking perhaps he had gone to sleep, no cat was there. He sat up and looked. At the foot of the bed there was a cat-sized lump under the bedclothes.
“Oh gosh,” Freddy said, “another mouse! Well, all right, let him stay there. But what’s that flying saucer doing around here at this time of night? I’ll have to investigate that.”
Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars Page 5
