Freddy and the Men from Mars Page 6

  “Sure, they’ll say ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish.’”

  “Oh, no, Freddy; my gracious, no! Garble’ll claim my circus is overrun with rats. He’ll write to the newspapers, saying they’re attacking the performers, and pretty soon they’ll be attacking the customers. He’ll warn people against coming to my show. No, my boy, we’ve got to get that Martian back. Or at least round up those rats.”

  “Garble won’t work with me,” Freddy said.

  “He’ll have to. It won’t look very good if he refuses the help of the best detective in the state. Dear me, I can write to the newspapers too, can’t I?”

  They were silent for a minute, and from outside came the heavy voice of Mr. Hercules: “Moosiludge! Uh, uh!” Freddy glanced sharply at the little bottle with a brush in it which Mr. Boomschmidt had been using. He bent and sniffed of it. “So that’s mucilage, eh?” he said. After a second’s thought he brushed a lot of it on a blank sheet of paper which he folded several times. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Would you have Herc drive right back to the farm and give this to Robert and ask him what it reminds him of?”

  CHAPTER

  9

  Freddy had got to thinking what it would be like if he ever got to Mars. He wondered if he’d be homesick, and just in case he was, he composed a homesick song. He was humming it now as he went to look for Leo.

  Way down upon the old home planet,

  Million miles away;

  I’m so homesick I can hardly stan’ it;

  There’s where the old pigs stay.

  Oh, my heart is weak as Jello

  Everywhere I fly;

  Oh golly, how I sob and bellow,

  Far from the old home sty.

  He found the lion over by the big tent, and asked him if he had heard about the rats.

  Leo said: “Yeah. Gang of ’em pitched into those Martians when they were out taking a walk last night and kidnapped the head man. Or so they say.”

  “What do you mean?” Freddy asked.

  “Why, nobody heard any fighting. Unless the Martians were taking the heck of a long walk. But they claim it was right by their wagon. Of course, they’ve got in the habit of wandering around a lot at night, and—”

  “Hey, excuse me,” said Freddy, jumping up. “Hi, Robert,” he said, as the collie came trotting over to them. “What’s the verdict?”

  “I had Herc bring me back,” Robert said. “Thought since the message was about mucilage, he might get it mixed up with his joke. Well, that’s the same smell there was around that car. I guess you spotted it, didn’t you—the smell of mucilage? And if Garble smells of mucilage when it’s damp—like at night…”

  “Yes. That was Garble up there on the back road, with his lights out, all right. Garble and Simon—they’re in something together. My guess is, Garble was back of this kidnapping of Chiquita and Little Broiler. But how does that tie up with the Martian kidnapping?”

  It was at this moment that Mr. Garble came up. “You—Freddy—whatever you call yourself,” he said. “I have something I want you to give Mr. Benjamin Bean.” He took a paper from his pocket and held it out. “I want him to get it today.” He turned to the lion. “Leo,” he said, “you can tell Mr. Boomschmidt that I’m taking my Martians and pulling out of here tonight.” Then he walked quickly away.

  Freddy glanced at the paper. He said: “Oh golly!”

  “What’s the matter?” Leo asked.

  “I think it’s a summons or something. To come into court and show cause why he should not within three days remove the ship or rocket from the premises known as the Big Woods, now the property of Mr. Herbert Garble.

  “Oh golly,” said Freddy again. “Garble must have bought the Big Woods and the Grimby house. Mr. Margarine owned that property. Oh golly, what will Uncle Ben do? He can’t move the ship inside of a month.”

  He thought for a minute. Then he said: “The thing is perfectly plain, and why I didn’t see it before I can’t imagine. Garble was up on the back road last night. So was Simon. I’ve no doubt that they had something to do with the kidnapping of the two chickens. That hooks up Garble with the rats. But Garble is also hooked up with the Martians. Martians that we don’t think are Martians. Martians, Leo, that I think are—”

  “Rats!” Leo exclaimed. “Well, tint my eyebrows! Of course. They’re the right size, and all covered up in those red clothes … And that head guy that is missing—the one they claim was kidnapped by rats—is Simon. They had to make up some story when he didn’t get back. My gracious, Freddy, we ought to have tumbled to that long ago.”

  “We sure ought. But it’s as well that we didn’t. Because we’d have told Mr. Boom, and it’s better if he doesn’t know.”

  “Better!” Leo exclaimed. “I don’t get it. Now that we know—why, come on, let’s go down there and take Garble and his rats apart. Boy, will I shuck ’em out of those little red suits—”

  But Freddy interrupted. “No, no, Leo! Anything like that is just out! We can’t tell Mr. Boom—we can’t tell anybody! Not anybody! Because if people find out that the circus has been putting on a fake Martian show—”

  “I get it,” said the lion. “Yeah, it would ruin the chief’s reputation, wouldn’t it? But Freddy, we have to do something!”

  Freddy got up. “We’re going to see Garble,” he said. “We’ll tell him Simon has confessed. Come on.”

  Just inside the entrance to the Martian tent, Mr. Garble was taking in the half-dollars. He was on his third barrel of the day. He wore a broad smile, as he always did when money was passing through his hands into his pocket—which of course was what the barrel really was. Every now and then he would put an arm into the barrel and move his hand among the crackling, jingling contents, smiling more broadly, as if it were some particularly delicious soup he was stirring.

  It wasn’t a work that he liked to be interrupted in, and he scowled and shook his head at Freddy when the pig beckoned to him. So Freddy pushed in past the crowd in the doorway. “Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Garble,” he said politely, “but I thought you’d want to know. We caught a rat last night up in the Big Woods. Funny thing about him is, he claims he knows you. Says you hired him to play the part of a Martian in your show. Says all the other Martians are rats, too. Queer story, isn’t it? I bet after all this nationwide hullabaloo there’s been over the Martians, some newspaper would be pretty glad to print it, don’t you?”

  Mr. Garble turned pale, and for a moment he glared speechlessly at the pig. Then he pulled himself together. “Pooh,” he said, “nobody’d believe a ridiculous story like that!”

  “No? Maybe Mr. Boom would,” Freddy said. “Maybe he’d pull the red suits off a couple of your Martians. Maybe he’d find rats, eh? What do you think he’d do?”

  But Mr. Garble had now recovered enough to smile nastily. “Maybe he’d kick you off the circus grounds, pig—had that idea occurred to you?” he asked.

  “Look, Mr. Garble,” Freddy said patiently, “we’ve got the rat. We can prove that your Martians are fakes. But we’ll make a deal with you. We’ll promise to say nothing about that. In return you’ll quit talking about pulling out and starting your own show. And you will promise to allow Uncle Ben’s space ship to stay in the Big Woods until he is ready to start for Mars.”

  Well, Mr. Garble put up a lot of argument, and he hollered and stamped and pulled out some more hair, which wasn’t easy to do when he was trying to count money, and he was so upset that he let six people go into the tent free. But he knew that he was licked. Once it got out that the Martians were nothing but rats dressed up, not another half-dollar would tinkle into the barrel.

  At last he said: “The Big Woods belong to me now, of course; I bought it from Mr. Margarine. But I haven’t any wish to inconvenience Mr. Benjamin Bean, and I am willing to allow him to keep his ship there another month. However, I am not doing it because I take any stock in your ridiculous story. These Martians are Martians, that I can prove. But I admit that if you spread
the story that they are rats, you could do my show some temporary harm. Therefore I am forced to agree to your terms.”

  “No you aren’t,” Freddy said. “If I told that story, and you could prove that it wasn’t so, you could put me in jail and you’d make more money than ever.”

  “I don’t want any trouble,” said Mr. Garble. “No, ma’am,” he said to a woman who wore a pink hat with poinsettias on it. “Children under fifteen are not free.” Then to Freddy: “Now you get out of here, and take that big lummox with you.”

  “But I thought you didn’t want to tell the chief that they’re rats,” said Leo as they walked away.

  “I don’t,” Freddy said. “I can’t. But Garble doesn’t know that. So that’s one thing settled; he won’t dare try to make Uncle Ben move the ship. But it doesn’t settle our main problem; how we’re going to get rid of those rats without making a monkey out of Mr. Boom. And it doesn’t find Chiquita and Little Broiler for Henrietta.”

  “Seems to me we’re stuck,” said Leo. “We can’t get rid of the rats, and yet we can’t let ’em stay. Whatever we do is wrong.”

  Freddy said: “No. What’s wrong is not to do anything. When everything seems like a hopeless mess, the thing to do is stir it up good. Then something always comes to the top that you can use. I’m going to give it a stir. Want to come back to the farm with me?”

  Mr. Hercules drove them back to the farm. Jinx came into the barnyard as they drove up. “Just been up to the Grimby house,” he said. “You were right about the rats. Must be a dozen or more of Simon’s family living there. And boy, are they fresh! They claim the house belongs to them—say they’ve got a paper to prove it. I didn’t argue with them—there’s more than I could tackle alone. But now Leo is here, what do you say we go up and have a look at their paper?”

  So they went, up across the pasture and into the woods, across the brook on the prob’ly-wobbly stone, past the rocket ship, from which came the sounds of hammering, and to the charred ruins of the Grimby house, where the terrible Ignormus had once had his headquarters. The chimney was still standing amid a tangle of blackened beams and partly burned boards, and against it leaned a sign which said: NO TRESPASSING. This Means You! H. Garble, Owner.

  They looked at the sign for a moment, then Jinx shouted: “Hey, rats! Come out here. We want to talk to you.”

  They looked at the sign.

  But nobody answered. When he had called three times without result, he said: “Well, let’s go down cellar. That’s where they’re living, I think.” And he went towards the cellar door, whose wooden flaps had been laid back to reveal a flight of stone steps going down into darkness.

  The three animals paused at the head of the steps. “Well, lead the way, lead the way, Jinx,” Freddy said. “You know where they are.”

  “It’s dark down there,” Leo said. “What’s the use going down if we can’t see ’em when we get there?”

  “Are you sure that floor is safe?” Freddy asked. “We don’t want it coming down on us when we’re in there.”

  “Look, are you coming or aren’t you?” Jinx demanded. “I’m not going down alone; there are too many of them.”

  “Sure we’re coming,” said Leo. “We aren’t afraid of rats. But—well, how about goblins? My Uncle Ajax said you always wanted to look out for goblins in damp cellars.”

  “Pooh!” said Jinx. “There’s no such thing as goblins, outside of fairy tales. Your Uncle Ajax was an old sissy.”

  “Oh, yeah?” replied the lion angrily. “My Uncle Ajax was a tough old fighter. But he said to me, he said: ‘There’s only two things, Leo, a lion ought to run from: one is spring housecleaning, and the other is goblins.’”

  “You ever seen a goblin?” Freddy asked.

  “No, but my Uncle Ajax said they were little round-faced things, with big mouths and spindly legs, and they wore red-tasseled caps, and they sneak up behind in the dark and pinch you. He said if you ain’t ever been pinched by goblins you ain’t ever been really scared.”

  Freddy had walked away for a few steps and was looking up at the sky as if trying to decide if they might expect rain. Leo had sat down and appeared to be quite ready to go on reminiscing about his Uncle Ajax for another hour. Even Jinx had backed away a little from the cellar steps and had gathered his hind legs under him as if prepared to leap into flight in a red-tasseled cap was poked around the edge of the dark doorway. Of course none of them believed in goblins. But you don’t have to believe in a thing to be scared of it.

  Freddy was probably more scared than the other two. But he knew, too, more about why he was scared. He was scared because he was imagining how scary it would be to go down into that dark cellar and see, out of the corner of your eye, three or four little round, spindly-legged figures scampering out of sight. And he knew that the only way to get over being scared was to go right down there and search that cellar for goblins, until you were certain—or at least, until your imagination was certain—that there were no goblins there.

  So he went to the edge of the steps, and then he hesitated, and then he went down halfway and called: “Hey, goblins, watch yourselves! We’re coming in!”

  And then what really scared him, as well as his two friends, so that they were right on the edge of turning and making a beeline for home, was a voice that came out of the cellar. “Come along, pig,” it called in a sort of harsh pipe. “Come right down into our parlor. Don’t be scared. Nobody here but us goblins.” And then there was laughter, peals of laughter from a dozen little goblin throats—or what sounded like goblin throats to Leo. Of course he knew the goblins couldn’t be real, because he had made them up in the first place. But maybe that is what scared him most. He began backing slowly away.

  But Freddy had recognized one voice among the laughters. “Hey, Ez,” he called. “I hear you. Come on out. I want to talk to you.” He went back up the steps, and a second or two later a rat came hopping up out of the cellar and sat up with his forepaws clasped in front of him. He bowed. “I believe—yes, it is Gentleman Freddy, the educated pig. And slinker Jinx. And—well, darn my union suit, if it isn’t old frizzle-mane from the circus! Well, well, gentleman, to what happy circumstance do we owe the honor of this call?”

  CHAPTER

  10

  The rat was Ezra, one of Simon’s sons, and the interview with him was not very successful. It became almost immediately an exchange of more or less polite insults. Ezra said that he hoped that that stingy old Mr. Bean was well. “I wouldn’t suppose, knowing what I do about him,” the rat said to Freddy, “that he’d ever give you enough to eat, but I can see that you’re still managing to—if I may use the expression—make a pig of yourself. You sure do bulge everywhere; I bet there isn’t a lean strip of bacon on you.”

  Freddy said: “Thank you, you’re very kind. Mr. Bean is quite well. And I trust that that frowzy old thief, your father, is in good health? And all his disgusting children? Including, of course, your estimable self? I’m most happy to hear it. Because it will be easier for you, when you’re driven out of this house, to stay alive until you can find a new home—a long way from here.”

  “You’re very good to say so,” Ezra replied. “But of course we don’t plan to leave here. We think it much more likely that the Beans—and of course you and the other animals—will find it—shall we say, pleasanter?—to look for a new home yourselves. After we have lived here for a while.” He grinned wickedly. “You see my father has bought the Big Woods. He owns it. Mr. Garble bought it from Mr. Margarine, and my father bought it from Mr. Garble.”

  Freddy didn’t believe a word of it. “How unfortunate for your father,” he said. “I hope he didn’t pay a big price for the woods. Because when he’s kicked out Mr. Garble will certainly never give him back the money.”

  At last Ezra lost his temper. “Oh, shut up!” he snarled. “And get out of here! Can’t you see that sign? You’re trespassing and we can have you arrested for it.”

  “Not if we don’t d
o any damage, you can’t,” Freddy replied. “That’s what the law says.”

  “Shucks,” said Leo, “let’s do a little damage and see what they do about it.” His big paw shot out like lightning and pinned the rat to the stone. “Don’t wiggle or I’ll have to put my weight on you, and boy, if I do they’ll have to scrape you off this step with a pancake turner.”

  The big paw shot out like lightning.

  Ezra squealed angrily.

  “You’ll be sorry for this!” he said. “If you think you can walk right in on someone’s property and assault ’em and slam ’em around like this, you wait till we complain to the state troopers. We bought this property, and we paid for it out of our own money that we earned at—well, we earned it all fair and square—”

  “You never earned a penny in your lives, said Freddy. “Everything you’ve ever had you’ve stolen. You said you’d bought this property with the money you earned. Expect us to believe that?”

  “Well, we did. You get this big bully to let me up and I’ll show you the paper we’ve got to prove it. Then maybe you’ll get out of here.”

  Leo glanced at Freddy, who nodded, and then he released Ezra. The rat hurried down the stairs and was back in a minute with a paper which he spread out on the ground. “This is the deed to this property,” he said, “and it wouldn’t do you any good to steal it or tear it up, because it is copied and recorded in Centerboro.”

  “H’m,” said Freddy, as he read. “‘This indenture … H. Garble, party of the first part, and one Simon, a rat, party of the second part, witnesseth’ … m’m, yes … ‘in consideration of one dollar, paid by the party of the second part, and other good and lawful’ … yes, seems to be correct … ‘all that lot and parcel of land known as the Big Woods’ … yes, and here’s Garble’s signature, properly witnessed, at the bottom. Well, I must say,” Freddy remarked, turning to his friends, “that it seems in order.” He nodded his head thoughtfully. “Yes, we’ll have to think this over. Because,” he continued, looking hard at Ezra, “if you think for one minute that Mr. Bean is going to allow a robber band to live right across the road from his farm, you’re mistaken. Personally, I don’t think the New York state law will allow a rat to own property. But even if it does—well, let’s just say that I don’t think you’ll be very happy here.”