Freddy and the Men from Mars Page 8

  Mr. Weezer did know that Mr. Margarine had sold the Big Woods to Mr. Garble. He was not at liberty, of course, to reveal the exact sum which Mr. Garble had paid, but confidentially it was in the neighborhood—the near neighborhood—of three hundred dollars. Of any subsequent transaction with the rats, however, he knew nothing. “Wouldn’t the payment have been made through the Animal Bank, rather than through mine?” he asked.

  “No rat has ever been allowed to open an account in the First Animal,” Freddy said. “No doubt they paid cash.” He didn’t tell Mr. Weezer what he suspected—that the rats had been given the house in return for pretending to be Martians.

  They had just finished supper when there was a knock on the front door. Mrs. Weezer went. There was no one there, but on the floor was a soiled slip of paper. She brought it in. “This seems to be for you,” she said, and handed it to Freddy. Written on it in pencil, in a very shaky hand, was this message: “Freddy. As long as Marshans are Marshans chickins will be chickins, when Marshans are not Marshans chickins will be et, so kepe your big mouth shut brother.” There was no signature.

  There was no signature.

  Freddy knew what it meant, but he couldn’t tell the Weezers, so he pretended to puzzle over it and then put it in his pocket. “Probably from one of the rabbits who do detective work for me,” he said, and quickly turned the conversation to some of his recent cases.

  As soon as he could, he got away. He had rather expected something like this note. It was plain now that the rats had Chiquita and Little Broiler. The threat to eat them if Freddy didn’t keep his mouth shut about who the Martians really were was plain. Freddy could have laughed at it, for he was just as unwilling to unmask the Martians as Mr. Garble was. But he had worried a lot about the chickens. And now the chances seemed to be that they were held captive either at the Grimby house, or at the mansion of Mr. Garble’s sister, Mrs. Underdunk, where Mr. Garble was staying while the circus was in Centerboro.

  So first Freddy went to see his friend the sheriff, who ran the jail. The sheriff knew all about the law, and Freddy asked him if there would be trouble if the Bean animals went in force and threw the rats out of the Grimby house.

  The sheriff looked in a lot of his law books, but he couldn’t find anything about rats owning property. “And as long as it don’t say they can’t,” he said, “why, that’s the same as sayin’ they can, ain’t it? It’s like if you wanted, say, to climb a telegraph pole. As long as there ain’t any law that says: ‘it is hereby declared illegal for pigs to climb telegraph poles,’ well then, you got a perfect right to climb one whenever you feel like it.

  “Of course,” the sheriff went on, “there may be some law I don’t know about. Lots of times there’s little unimportant laws get passed, and my goodness, you can’t even find ’em in the index. And you go along, thinking you’re minding your own business, and then bang! you trip over one of ’em, and you’re in a peck of trouble.

  “So then you got those rats owning the Grimby house, and if you go in there and throw ’em out, they can have you arrested for assault and battery, burglary, snooping, and I don’t know what all.”

  After this, it didn’t seem to Freddy that it would be a very good idea to try to get the rats out of the Grimby house now. For even if it turned out that rats weren’t allowed to own property, Mr. Garble, who had sold them the house, would be the owner in the eyes of the law, and he would be just as pleased to have Freddy arrested as Simon would. So Freddy said: “Is Red Mike still in jail? Could I borrow him for a while this evening?”

  Red Mike was an ex-burglar—at least he was an ex-burglar as long as he was in jail—because, although the prisoners were allowed to go out calling in the evening, or to the movies, Mike had promised not to do any burgling in Centerboro until his jail sentence had expired.

  “Mike’s giving a little talk over in the assembly hall right now,” the sheriff said. “It’s one of a series of lectures we’ve arranged.”

  “That’s something new, isn’t it?” Freddy asked.

  “Yes, some of the folks in town thought the prisoners were having too much fun, playing games and going to movies and so on; they thought they ought to be getting some education. Most of ’em ain’t had much schoolin’. I haven’t, myself, and I must say these talks are real instructive.”

  “What’s Mike talking about?”

  “Practical burgling. How to get in doors and windows from the outside. And if he has time, he’s going to talk about going upstairs without waking folks up. We’ve had some real good lectures. Only one wasn’t so successful was Looey’s talk on safe-cracking. I let him use my office safe to demonstrate with, and he blew the door off the hinges. No place where I can lock up my records now. Though, as a matter of fact, I’ve always kept ’em in my head. And I dunno as you’d find much if you blew the door off that. Well, let’s go over and hear the rest of his talk.”

  There were ten or fifteen prisoners and a sprinkling of townspeople in the assembly hall, and Red Mike was up on the platform. He was showing them his kit of burglar tools and explaining how each one worked. “Though a good burglar,” he said, “he don’t need no fancy tools. Take this here padlock.” He held it up. “You don’t need no key to open it; hit it a crack right here with a hammer, and she flies right open.” He demonstrated. “And there’s other locks you can open the same way. Only I don’t recommend no such method, unless the folks in the house is deaf. You can’t go banging on the front door with a hammer if you’re plannin’ to steal the table silver.” He glanced at his wrist watch. “Well, I see my time’s nearly up. Any questions?”

  “Is it your opinion, Mr.—Mr. Mike,” asked an elderly lady, “that it is true what they say—that crime does not pay?”

  “Ma’am,” said Mike, “I am very happy to express myself on that topic. No ma’am, crime does not pay, unless you get caught. And I will enlarge on that statement, ma’am. I never had three square meals a day when I was burgling. And I was so nervous that I couldn’ta et ’em if I had. ’Twasn’t till I got caught and sent to jail that I could eat good and enjoy myself. Now the county pays for my food, and the sheriff here sees to my entertainment. Of course I can’t stay here forever. But when my time’s up—well, maybe I’ll try to pry the door off the bank and get sent back again. It sure is a nice jail, ma’am. You ought to put a rock through somebody’s front window and try it for a day or two.”

  “Now, now, Mike,” said the sheriff reprovingly, “the jail don’t need any free advertising. It’s full up,—not an empty room for another month. Come down, here’s Freddy wants a word with you.”

  Freddy didn’t have much trouble persuading Mike to help him burgle the Underdunk house. The burglar had no use for Mr. Garble, who had once tried to do the sheriff out of his job, and he had even less use for Mrs. Underdunk, who a year or so before had headed a committee of citizens who had investigated the jail. Their report, published in the paper, stated, among other things, that Mike’s room was untidy. This had made Mike sore. Of course, his room really was untidy. If it hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have minded.

  Fortunately, Mike didn’t have to hammer on any of the Underdunk locks or smash any of the Underdunk windows. A pantry window was unlocked, and they got in without any trouble, though Mike knocked a small pitcher off the shelf and fell over a chair as they were going through the kitchen. However, there were no sounds from upstairs, so, having found the cellar door, they started down the stairs, because the cellar seemed the likeliest place to look for the kidnapped chickens.

  “Didn’t get to the part in my lecture about stairs,” Mike whispered. “But I’ll show you about ’em, now. Thing to avoid is squeaks. And if you step on the inside, like this, close to the wall, you hardly ever get squeaks. Squeaks is mostly in the middle of a step. Squeaks—”

  But Freddy never found out what more there was to say about squeaks, for at this point Mike slipped, his flashlight flew out of his hand, his feet flew out from under him, he grabbed at Fredd
y, and the two of them went crashing and banging, over and over each other, down the whole flight to the hard concrete cellar floor. And as they lay there trying to sort out their arms and legs from the tangle, there was a shout and a pounding of heavy feet upstairs, and before they could even get up, the light flashed on, and Mr. Garble, with a large pistol in his hand, was looking down at them from the top of the stairs.

  CHAPTER

  13

  It was that same day that a real flying saucer, with real Martians in it, landed. A strange coincidence, some thought, that it should land on the outskirts of Centerboro. For here, within a radius of a few miles, were the Martian side show, Uncle Ben’s space ship, and a flying saucer from Mars. But it really was no coincidence, as it turned out.

  The saucer landed, without any fuss, in a vacant lot not far from the circus grounds. There was no roaring sound and no flare of light; it came in, rotating slowly, and settled gently on the grass; then a hatch in the top opened and four or five spidery little creatures climbed out.

  Uncle Ben was taking Mrs. Peppercorn home after her day’s work on the rocket, and they were the only witnesses—which was perhaps fortunate. Uncle Ben stopped the station wagon, and they stared for a moment. “Well!” said Mrs. Peppercorn. “Wonder where they’re from! Not from Mars, if those critters Garble’s showing are Martians—which I beg leave to doubt.”

  Uncle Ben just grunted.

  “Well, don’t just sit there!” said the old lady crossly, starting to climb out. “Let’s see what they’ve got to say for themselves. I guess they ain’t Rooshians, anyway. Leastways, ain’t any Rooshians I ever heard of that had four arms.”

  Rather unwillingly, Uncle Ben followed her. The strangers were certainly queer looking. They were black, with round bodies and four black spindly arms; they were about two feet high and had long feelers on their heads. Seen by the watery light of a sliver of new moon, they were not reassuring as they turned and came to meet the humans. For they took some getting used to, as Mrs. Peppercorn later remarked.

  “I’d have to get used t’ em

  Before I’d troost ’em,”

  she said.

  But she went straight towards them. A little thing like a group of visitors from outer space never bothered Mrs. Peppercorn.

  But she went straight towards them.

  Seen closer, they were even more queer looking. They had three round, lidless eyes, two of which looked at you, while the third and middle one rolled around independently as if keeping watch for possible enemies. They had no necks; their heads were pear-shaped and set close to their bodies. They walked upright; they were not exactly spidery, and yet they reminded you more of spiders than of anything else.

  She went forward, holding out her hand. “How de do,” she said. “And where might you be from?”

  While they didn’t understand her speech, they must have known what an earth-person’s first question would be, for the one who was apparently the leader pointed to the sky with one hand. Then he took her hand in two of his and looked at it carefully. The other crowded round him, talking some sort of language which was all clicks and squeaks. Then he passed her hand around and they all examined it.

  She looked at Uncle Ben. “Think likely they’re going to tell my fortune?” she asked. “Great on holdin’ hands, these little fellers.”

  Uncle Ben squatted down on the ground and began drawing with a stick. He drew the sun, then around it the orbits of the planets. The spider-men watched intently. When he drew the orbit of Mars and put that planet in with a jab of the stick, they clicked and squeaked excitedly, and the leader’s gesture was unmistakable—pointing first to Uncle Ben’s picture of Mars, then to himself, then to the sky.

  “Martians,” said Uncle Ben. “Real ones,” he added. “Garble—phooey!”

  Then he pointed to himself, to Mrs. Peppercorn, and to his picture of the earth. Whereupon the Martians waved their feelers rapidly backward and forward—which was evidently equivalent to a vigorous nod of assent. For, as Mrs. Peppercorn said:

  “When your head and your neck

  Are so closely connected, you can’t nod or shake,

  It’s a serious defeck.”

  This, she admitted frankly, was not one of her best efforts, but she was, of course, pretty excited at the time.

  Uncle Ben pointed to himself and said: “Benjamin Bean”; then to Mrs. Peppercorn, and named her. The head Martian pointed to himself and gave what sounded like two clicks. Then he pointed to the others and named them in succession. Of course, without a Martian alphabet, and without the ability to pronounce it even if they had it, the two humans could only speak of their visitors as Two-clicks, Squeak-click, Three-squeaks, and so on.

  Then Two-clicks took the stick and drew on the ground a picture which Uncle Ben recognized as his rocket ship. It would take too long to describe all the drawings and gestures by which Uncle Ben and Two-clicks managed to understand each other. Perhaps nobody but Uncle Ben could have understood the Martian, or have made him understand. As a person who never said more than one word when anybody else would have needed a hundred, Uncle Ben was pretty good at sign language. And when he learned that they wanted to see the space ship, which they apparently knew about, he invited them to visit it; and the upshot was that he and Mrs. Peppercorn got into the saucer with them and whirled up to the Big Woods. Two-clicks even let Mrs. Peppercorn steer it part of the way.

  So the Martians inspected the space ship, and Uncle Ben and Mrs. Peppercorn inspected the flying saucer, and by the time that was over, the sun stood a good foot above the horizon. Neither of the two was sleepy, and the Martians apparently weren’t interested in sleep either, so Uncle Ben invited them down to meet Mr. and Mrs. Bean. They accepted—probably without much idea of what they were going to see, but of course everything on earth was of interest to them.

  Mrs. Bean was up and just taking the coffee off the stove when she looked out the window and saw Uncle Ben and Mrs. Peppercorn coming through the barnyard, accompanied by some of the strangest creatures she had ever seen. Two-clicks, who seemed to have taken a great fancy to Mrs. Peppercorn, was walking hand in hand with her—at least three of his hands were holding onto one of hers. What Mrs. Bean thought, goodness only knows, but all she said was: “Come here, Mr. B. Company coming. Suppose we’ll have to ask ’em to breakfast.”

  Mr. Bean came and looked out. “By cracky,” he said, “I always thought Uncle Ben had some pretty queer friends, but these beat ’em all! They’re kind of spidery looking; think I’d better catch a few flies?”

  Breakfast, however, went off pretty well, although Mr. Bean had to fetch nearly all the books in the bookcase for the guests to sit upon, so they could get up to the table. Squeak-squeak burned himself on the coffee, and Mr. Bean had a hard time not to laugh when he put all four hands up and waved them in front of his mouth. But Mrs. Bean quickly poured him some cold water, and he rolled his third eye at her gratefully.

  Now what they would have done with their guests after this I don’t know, but fortunately Mr. and Mrs. Webb came into the kitchen. They were elderly spiders who had been with the Beans for a long time, in charge of flies. The morning was chilly in the parlor, and they walked in across the ceiling to stand upside down above the coal range and warm themselves. And Two-clicks caught sight of them.

  Instantly he jumped up, and the other Martians jumped up, too, and there was a great clicking and squeaking; and then, to the humans’ amazement, the Webbs came spinning down on a strand of cobweb and landed on Two-click’s shoulder. The Martian put his feelers down and touched them, and then began talking very fast in his queer language. He would talk for a bit, and then wait, as if for a reply, while the other Martians crowded closer. This went on for some time. The humans couldn’t hear the Webbs’ voices, but apparently they were talking, and being understood.

  After a while Mrs. Webb jumped down onto the table and ran up Mrs. Bean’s sleeve to her shoulder, and spoke into her ear. She was a little afra
id of Mr. Bean, but she was fond of Mrs. Bean—partly because they looked a little alike—being round and plump, with a merry expression, though Mrs. Webb wore a bang and Mrs. Bean’s hair was pulled straight back.

  “We can understand ’em,” the spider said. “They’re from Mars all right, and somehow they heard that some circus had captured some Martians and was showing them in a cage, for money. Naturally they didn’t like this, and that’s why they’re here—they came to rescue them. I told them what Mr. Garble’s Martians looked like, and they didn’t understand it, but they want to go see them.”

  “But how on earth can you talk to them?” Mrs. Bean asked.

  “It’s a little too long to tell you now,” Mrs. Webb said, “and I don’t know that I understand it exactly, either. They’ve really developed from the same kind of people that we spiders developed from. Just the way you people developed from monkeys. They developed one way and we developed another. I don’t know how they got to Mars. But it’s the old spider language we’re talking—Webb and I learned it when we were little. It’s like Latin in your schools. All educated spiders understand it.”

  “Gracious,” said Mrs. Bean, “I had Latin in school, but I don’t remember a word of it now.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Webb said, “these people still talk it. I suppose it sounds queer to you, but it’s wonderful to us to hear it again. My, my, how it takes me back!”

  When all this had been explained to the other humans, the Martians, who were anxious to get to the circus grounds, invited the Beans to ride with them in the flying saucer. Rather to Mr. Bean’s surprise, Mrs. Bean accepted at once.