Freddy the Pilot

“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—”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.

“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.”

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!”

“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.

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

“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.