Freddy the Pilot

by Walter R. Brooks

  But Freddy had suspected that there might be trouble, and he had followed the skunks at some distance. When he heard the shrill little voices shouting their war cries, and the rattle and click of the sticks as the two parties joined battle, he hurried up to the wall and climbed over. “Hey, stop it! Quit!” he shouted. “Sniffy, get back over that wall. And you, 18, get your—Ouch!” he squealed, as Sniffy, Junior’s, quarter-staff rapped him smartly on the nose. And immediately squealed again as a stick wielded by Rabbit No. 4 jabbed him in the ribs. He backed quickly out of the danger zone.

  Fortunately some of the other animals had heard the row. Jinx and Robert, the collie, and Georgie, the little brown dog, came over the wall and they all waded into the fight, slapping right and left, until presently the two parties drew away from each other.

  “Drop those sticks, all of you,” said Robert. He was a very quiet and dignified dog who never said much, but when he took charge of things, the animals did what he told them to. The rabbits dropped their sticks at once, and then the skunks followed suit. “Now what’s this all about?” Robert demanded.

  “Maybe you can tell me,” said Sniffy. “We were going home to bed when we were set upon by this armed band of scurvy rascals—”

  “We did not set on you,” said 18. “You started shooting at us—”

  “You came at us with sticks,” said Sniffy.

  “You hit me with a stick first,” 18 retorted.

  “Not till you swung at me with one, in the barn,” Sniffy said.

  “Oh, shut up, both of you,” said Jinx. “Look, Robert, you’ll never find out who started it. And what’s it matter? Nobody’s hurt.”

  “Well,” said Robert slowly. “Maybe. If they’ll just go home peaceably. But fighting, you know, among ourselves, here on the farm—that’s one thing Mr. Bean won’t stand for. If he’d heard this disturbance tonight, you know what he’d do: he’d fire every last rabbit on the place. And you, Sniffy, he’d give you and your family notice to move.”

  “Hey!” said Sniffy. “I never thought of that! Then we’d really be outlaws! Golly, Robert, do you suppose you could get him to do it anyway?”

  Robert stared at the skunk. “Are you crazy?” he demanded.

  Freddy said: “Look, Sniffy, Robin Hood was made an outlaw unjustly, by people in power who were wicked. But Mr. Bean isn’t wicked, and if he outlawed you for fighting rabbits, it wouldn’t be unjust. Robin Hood knew he was right, but you’d know you were wrong.”

  “Oh,” said Sniffy. “Yes, I guess so. Anyway, if we were really outlaws we wouldn’t be able to help Mr. Boom.”

  “Help Mr. Boom—you?” No. 18 jeered. “Golly, Brother Horribles, is that a laugh!”

  “It sure is, Your Dreadfulness,” replied the Horribles, and they all gave a sarcastic laugh—“Haw, haw, haw!”

  This made the skunks mad again, and Petunia, Sniffy’s second daughter, picked up her quarterstaff and swung at the nearest rabbit. Luckily Jinx had been watching her; he pounced and knocked the stick from her paws.

  “You can haw-haw all you want to,” said Sniffy angrily, “but we are going to help Mr. Boom, and that’s more than any rabbits could do.”

  “Oh, is that sol” said 35.

  “Yes, that’s so,” said Aroma. “What could a rabbit do?”

  “What could a rabbit do!” 18 repeated. “Sister, are you kidding? Haven’t we worked with Freddy on a dozen detective cases? Haven’t we—”

  “Oh, shut up! Shut up!” Freddy shouted. “We’ll be yawping here all night at this rate. Look, Sniffy, I gave you the Robin Hood idea, didn’t I, in the first place? And you Horribles, do you remember last year you made me a member of your society—an Honorary Horrible? All right, that gives me a right to speak for both sides here, doesn’t it?”

  There was some hesitation, but Jinx said, “O.K., you kids; anybody that don’t agree will just step aside with me for a few minutes. Yes sir, kindly old Uncle Jinx—he’ll take you on his knee and pat your little heads—like this!” he yelled suddenly, and a black paw shot out like lightning and smacked a rabbit who had been furtively trying to pick up his stick.

  “We agree, we agree,” they said hurriedly.

  “Well,” said Freddy, “you most of you know that the Wilsons are going to be dropped by parachute near the field where that plane takes off to break up the circus performances. I’m sure they’ll do a good job at gathering information. I think the Horribles would do a good job too, since most of them have done detective work.”

  “Then why didn’t you ask us, instead of Sniffy, who has never done any such work before?” 18 asked.

  “That’s a fair question,” Freddy said. “I guess the only answer is, you didn’t happen to be around.” He thought for a minute. “However,” he said, “if we had twice as many spies at the field, we’d get twice as much information, and if you rabbits want to go, I’ll drop you off at the same time. Wait, wait!” he said, as the Horribles began whacking one another on the back and shouting “Hurray!” “There are two conditions: one, that you forget this quarrel—and that goes for you Wilsons, too. You can work as separate outfits, but there’s to be no rivalry, and you must share all the information you get. Agreed?”

  They agreed readily enough, and Sniffy went up and clasped paws with the Head Horrible, and the others shook paws all around. Then Freddy told them the other condition. It was that the Horribles supply their own parachutes.

  This wasn’t so easy, but Freddy was sure that since it was something that was going to help Mr. Boomschmidt, Uncle Ben would be willing to drive around the neighborhood and collect old umbrellas. And if he couldn’t find enough, Mrs. Bean would run up a few chutes on her sewing machine.

  So then the outlaws and the Horribles formed up in two lines, facing each other, and Sniffy and No. 18 stepped out in front and put their paws on each other’s shoulders and kissed each other on both cheeks, like French generals, and then both sides joined in a cheer, and turned Right face! and marched off in different directions.

  So then the Outlaws and the Horribles formed two lines and kissed each other.

  When Freddy came down to the barnyard next morning, Mr. Bean was harnessing Hank up to the buggy, to drive in to Centerboro. Freddy hesitated a minute. He knew that although Mr. Bean was very proud of his talking animals he really didn’t like to hear them talk. He was the same way about the telephone. It embarrassed him somehow to hear a voice coming out of the wall, and it made him nervous to know that he was expected to give some kind of an answer. And so when his phone rang he always pretended not to hear it. In the same way, it was easier to pretend that an animal had not spoken, than to admit that a horse or a pig had opened its mouth and given out perfectly good English words.

  But Mr. Bean had got so he didn’t object so much to hearing Freddy speak as he did when wild animals, like squirrels and woodchucks, who had picked up the habit from farm animals, said things in his hearing. So Freddy said: “Want me to take you in the plane?”

  Mr. Bean looked at him a minute, then he jerked his head towards the corner of the barn, and when Freddy had followed him around out of sight of Hank, he put his hand on the pig’s shoulder and bent down. “Like to,” he whispered. “But can’t. Hurt Hank’s feelings.”

  Hank was the one who always took Mr. Bean in to Centerboro. He might feel bad if Mr. Bean went with Freddy in his new plane. “That’s right,” Freddy said. “But how about a ride before you go into town. Only half an hour or so.”

  “Good!” said Mr. Bean, and when he’d told Hank to wait for him at the front gate, they went out and got in the plane. Then Mr. Wogus swung the propeller for them and they were off.

  Freddy went up first to five thousand feet and swung in a circle so that Mr. Bean could get a good general view of his part of the state. Then he came down and flew low over the farm and the Big Woods, the Macy and Witherspoon farms, and Centerboro. At first Freddy had heard, above the noise of the engine, a queer wailing sound. It worried him. He lo
oked at his instruments, and then he looked up and down the sideways, but everything seemed in order. And then he turned and looked back at his passenger. Mr. Bean’s mouth was wide open and his Adam’s apple was sliding up and down, and Freddy realized that something unheard of was happening. Mr. Bean was singing.

  Mr. Bean was pretty conservative. That is, he didn’t like what he called new-fangled things-automobiles and telephones and radios and such. In Centerboro, when he walked past Beller & Rohr’s, he turned his head away so that he wouldn’t see the television set in the window. But somehow he had seemed to feel that an airplane was all right. And now Freddy was delighted to see that he was really enjoying the ride. The next time Freddy turned around he winked at him and went right on singing.

  When they came down Mrs. Bean was waiting at the edge of the pasture. “Land sakes, Mr. B.,” she said, “you scared the wits out of me. Tearing around the sky, at your age!”

  “Now, now, Mrs. B.,” he said, “take it easy. With the best pilot in the state, I’m safe in that plane as I’d be in church. Safer, maybe. Might fall off to sleep in church and bump my nose on a pew back.”

  “That’s no way to talk,” she said severely. “I suppose you’ll tell me next you enjoyed it.”

  “So I did,” he replied. “Saw Macy, putting a new roof on his barn. Witherspoon’s awful late with his work, as usual. Mrs. W., she’s trying to clean up her garden, pullin’ and cat-haulin’ at it with a busted rake. Couple of Schermerhorn’s cows got over the wall into our daisy lot, and both Witherspoon’s and Schermerhorn’s fences could do with a little work.”

  Mrs. Bean sniffed. “Trust you to see nothing from the sky that you don’t see every day on the ground. Send you around the world and all you’d have to tell would be how some Fiji Islander couldn’t plough a straight furrow.”

  “Oh, I dunno,” said Mr. Bean. “There was the lake all blue and sparklin’ like millions of sapphires, and beyond it the woods like a soft green velvet carpet, and down on this side of it the little fields all different colors and cut up every which way, and the roads sneaking through and past them and sliding between the hills and through the villages with their little doll house. Eleven steeples I counted.”

  “Like me to take you up, Mrs. Bean?” Freddy asked.

  “No, sir!” she said. “You’ll never get me into one of those contraptions.” But Freddy saw how her black eyes were snapping with excitement, and he wasn’t surprised when she said: “Besides I just put a cake in the oven.”

  “Guess you could trust me to take it out, Mrs. B.,” Mr. Bean said.

  She looked at him a minute. “Guess I’ll have to,” she said. “If I’m not back by ten-fifteen, take it out. How do you get into this thing, Freddy?”

  So they helped her into her seat and saw that her safety belt was fastened. Then Freddy got in. Mr. Bean called, “Switch off?” and when Freddy called back, “Switch off!” he went up to the propeller, and swung it a few times, then called “Contact!” “Contact!” Freddy shouted, and Mr. Bean swung again and the engine started with a roar.

  They had circled twice at different altitudes when Mrs. Bean tapped Freddy on the shoulder. Freddy said into his microphone: “Everything all right?” but then he turned and saw that she didn’t have her head phones on. He pointed to them, but she shook her head. Evidently she didn’t want to put them on. She raised one hand and slid it around, imitating a plane doing stunts. “For goodness’ sake!” Freddy thought, and he imitated her movement, looking at her inquiringly. She nodded vigorously.

  So after seeing that Mrs. Bean’s safety belt was securely fastened, Freddy went up to four thousand and did a wing over. He looked around; she smiled at him and made the motion of clapping her hands. “Golly, she likes it,” he thought. So then he went on and did loops and rolls and Immelmanns—all the stunts that he was sure he could do skillfully, and every time he turned to see how Mrs. Bean was taking it, she was laughing happily.

  At last they came down, and Mr. Bean ran out to meet them. “Freddy,” he said, “what in tarnation do you mean by taking Mrs. Bean up there and bouncing her all over the sky! You remember, I gave you this plane and I can take it back again.”

  “Oh, now, calm yourself, Mr. B.,” Mrs. Bean said. “Freddy was just doing what I told him to.”

  “Well, you hadn’t ought to have told him. My heart was in my mouth the whole endurin’ time.”

  “You won’t have any of that cake in your mouth, if you don’t take it out of the oven,” Mrs. Bean said. “So you put your heart back in your chest and go in and—no, I can smell it; it’s too late. You’ve let it burn. If you’d done as I told you to—”

  Mr. Bean started to say something, and then he stopped and just shook his head. He knew it was no use arguing with Mrs. Bean, particularly as she had Freddy to back her up. And he hadn’t really been scared on her account anyway. He just thought that it didn’t do any harm to let her think that he had worried about her. And maybe he was a little put out that Freddy hadn’t done any stunts when he had gone up with him. Mrs. Bean had got ahead of him again. She usually did. He smiled to himself as she hurried back to the house to take the burnt cake out of the oven.

  CHAPTER

  11

  That night Freddy dropped twenty-four spies on the secret airfield—nine skunks and fifteen rabbits. It was not an easy operation. Of course they didn’t weigh much, and so could be dropped from as low as a hundred feet. But to get the umbrellas up and manage to have them jump so that they would clear the tail of the plane was a slow job, and he had to make three runs across the field before they were all out.

  He knew that whoever was with the plane would certainly come out to see what was going on, and would notice the umbrellas floating down; so he waited until one in the morning before starting. As it happened, someone did come running out of the house, which stood a hundred yards back of the barn, and turned a spotlight on and swept it across the sky. But by that time all the spies were down, and as there were trees between him and the field, he couldn’t have seen the rabbits and skunks putting down their umbrellas and running for cover even if he’d turned the light that way.

  “I’ll give you two days,” Freddy had told them. “Then I’ll either come, or send somebody, to get your report. Keep watch for me by the big elm at the northeast corner of the field.”

  Mr. Condiment did not return to Centerboro, but his lawyer, Mr. Newsome did. He took a room at the hotel and went out to see Mr. Boomschmidt and Mademoiselle Rose.

  “My client, Mr. Watson P. Condiment,” he said, “wishes me to tell you that he is not, and never has been, engaged to this Miss Del Pardo. He does not know, and has never before in his life even seen Miss Del Pardo.”

  “Gracious me,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, “that is very strange, Since he has written a whole series of comic books about her.”

  “My client did not write the books,” said Mr. Newsome. “A Mr. Gizling wrote them.”

  “Funny name, Gizling,” Mr. Boomschmidt said. “But so’s Boomschmidt, for that matter. Newsome, now—that’s a nice name. Too bad it’s so like Nuisance, though. Must make you very sad when you think of it.”

  “My client,” said Mr. Newsome, “feels that he has been very patient with Mademoiselle Rose and with you. But he has reached the end of his patience. He wishes me to warn you that if within three days Mademoiselle Rose does not agree to marry him, he intends to take much more drastic measures.”

  “Drastic, drastic?” said Mr. Boomschmidt thoughtfully. “I’m afraid I don’t know what kind of a measure that is. You see, I just learned in school the ordinary measures, like four cups one pint, two pints one gallon, and so on.”

  “That’s wrong,” said Mr. Newsome irritably. “It’s two cups one pint, two pints one quart.”

  “Really?” said Mr. Boomschmidt doubtfully. “Are you sure? We’d better ask Leo. Leo!” he called, and when the lion came over to where they were standing, he said: “Look, Leo, how many quarts to a pint, do you
remember?”

  “It’s not quarts to a pint!” Mr. Newsome snapped. “It’s two pints to a quart.”

  “Don’t ask me, chief,” Leo said. “I’ve got no head for figures.”

  “Well, I have,” Mr. Boomschmidt said. “I’ve a very good head for ’em. It’s just that I can’t always remember ’em. They’re in my head, you understand, but I can’t always get ’em out. Like—”

  “Look, Mr. Boomschmidt,” Mr. Newsome interrupted. “Mr. Condiment wants—”

  “Like twelve inches one yard,” Mr. Boomschmidt went right on; “three yards one foot—”

  “It is twelve inches one foot!” Mr. Newsome fairly shouted. It evidently irritated him so much to hear Mr. Boomschmidt get everything wrong that until he had set him right he couldn’t go on with what he wanted to say. “And it’s three feet one yard.”

  “No!” said Mr. Boomschmidt wonderingly. “Are you sure? Dear me, I’ve got all those things down in a little book somewhere. Not that I doubt you, Mr. Newsome. But take miles now,—there are quite a lot of inches in them, and goodness knows how many feet. And then I’d like to look up that drastic measurement, too. I tell you what—you stay to supper, and—”

  Nobody could talk to Mr. Boomschmidt and keep his temper if Mr. Boomschmidt wanted him to lose it. Mr. Newsome lost his completely at this point. He turned very red and jumped up and down with anger. “If you’ll just let me I wish to tell you what Mr. Condiment said,” he yelled.

  “Oh, does Mr. Condiment know about miles and inches?” Mr. Boomschmidt asked mildly. “Well, that’s very kind of him to help us out, but as I told you, I have it all down in a little book, and—”

  “A-a-a-ach!” said Mr. Newsome disgustedly, and he turned around and started for the gate. Mr. Boomschmidt winked and nodded at Leo, and the lion walked slowly after him. Mr. Newsome looked over his shoulder and walked a little faster, and Leo walked a little faster too. Then Mr. Newsome started to run. Leo broke into a canter. The gate was closed, and by the time Mr. Newsome reached it he was running much too fast to be able to stop and open it. Leo didn’t think he could jump it, either, for it was five feet high. “Guess I’d better help him,” he thought, and when Mr. Newsome was a few yards from the gate the lion opened his jaws and let out a full-throated roar. Mr. Newsome sailed into the air and cleared the gate by a good foot.