The Great Confrontation
The Great Confrontation
© 1968 by Bertrand R. Brinley
Illustrations by Charles Geer
I
T WAS WAR! Total war! Harmon Muldoon's gang had
invaded practically every secret haunt of the Mad Scientists' Club.
We didn't mind so much when they started using the council ring on Indian
Hill for their so-called
secret meetings, because we could spy on them
whenever we wanted to. And we really didn't care about them trying to
rig up the old Harkness mansion with a lot of hoked-up gimmicks that
were supposed to scare people. We had already gotten our laughs out
of that one, and we knew that nobody in town really believed the place
was haunted.
"They're just a buncha cheap copycats!" Dinky Poore had sneered, when
we first heard about what they were doing.
But we began to get worried when we discovered they had taken the rusty
old handcar out of the zinc mine and dumped it into the river where the
big bend curves eastward about eight miles down the track. And finally,
we knew they were bent on deliberate harassment when they raided our
clubhouse in Jeff Crocker's barn early one Saturday morning and kidnapped
Dinky and Harmon's cousin, Freddy Muldoon.
Jeff was the first one to learn of it, when he went out to the barn to do
some work on a chemistry experiment he and Henry Mulligan were smelling
the place up with. He didn't exactly find a ransom note, but you could
call it the same thing. It was a message Harmon Muldoon had taped on
one of our recorders, and then tapped into the circuit for opening our
clubhouse door. The volume was turned on full blast.
To get into our clubhouse you have to know the diabolical system Henry
Mulligan devised for springing the lock. First, you have to know where
the photoelectric beam is located, and then you have to trigger it by
intercepting the beam with your hand in the proper code sequence. Henry
could set it up for any combination of Morse code signals, but this
particular week we were using the SOS signal (... --- ...). For a dash,
you held your hand in the beam for almost a full second. For a dot,
you just flicked it through the beam as fast as you could. After you
had given the proper code signal, you could hear the lock snap, and then
you could push the door open.
But instead of the lock snapping open when Jeff triggered the beam, all he
heard was the loud raspberry that Harmon Muldoon opened his message with:
PFFFFFFFFRRRRRMMMMPPPPH! IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE DINKY AND FREDDY ARE,
YOU'LL HAVE TO GIVE US THE MIDGET SUBMARINE AND THE RIGHT TO USE THE COOL
CAVERN. MAKE UP YOUR MINDS, CHUMS, CAUSE FREDDY WON'T HAVE NOTHING TO
EAT WHERE HE'S GOING. LEAVE YOUR ANSWER UNDER A ROCK BEHIND THE CANNON
AT MEMORIAL POINT.
Jeff kicked the door open, which wasn't locked at all, and hooked up
the tape recorder properly again, so he could rerun the tape. There
were two things Harmon Muldoon didn't understand, he figured. One was
that the Cool Cavern had been blocked off ever since a big piece of the
ledge had broken off Mammoth Falls, and the only way to get in there was
through the underwater passage. The other thing was that Freddy Muldoon
never went anywhere without two bologna sandwiches hidden somewhere in
his clothing. He'd even been known to keep one in his shoe. This made
a pretty flat sandwich, but with Freddy it was the calories that counted.
Jeff sat for a long while on Henry Mulligan's old piano stool, with
one hand propped under his chin, just thinking. Every time he shifted
position and spun the seat of the stool around, he made a mental note
to tell Henry to oil the thing. It squeaked like the lid of a used coffin.
Finally, Jeff got up off the stool and threw the switch that activates
the panic buzzer in the house of every member of the Mad Scientists'
Club. As president, Jeff Crocker has authority to call an emergency
meeting without pushing the panic button like the rest of us have to;
but this time he felt it was important to get us all together as fast
as possible.
While the members of the Mad Scientists' Club were scrambling to their
bicycles to head for Jeff Crocker's barn, Dinky and Freddy were standing
on the shore of a small island way out in Strawberry Lake, shouting
insults at a retreating rowboat. Harmon Muldoon and Stony Martin were
waving farewell to the two figures on the shore from the rear seat of
the boat, while Buzzy McCauliffe pulled a steady oar toward a cove in
the northwest corner of the lake. Dinky and Freddy were still hurling
abuses into the wind when the rowboat disappeared around a rocky point
a good mile away.
"Whatta we do now?" Dinky wailed, as the tail end of the rowboat went
out of sight.
"Wait'll I get my hands on that Harmon," Freddy muttered, shaking his
pudgy fist in the direction of the shoreline. "Just let me get my hands
around his neck just once, and I'll sure make his ears pop!"
"Seems to me like you had plenty of chance just now," Dinky observed.
"Yeah? Well, I just wasn't ready," Freddy grunted, as he took a sidewise
swipe at a small rock and kicked it thirty feet into the water. "Oh
boy!" he chortled, "When I get through with him, even Daphne won't
recognize him."
|
Daphne is Harmon Muldoon's sister, and she's pretty sleek. She's even
prettier than Stony Martin's girl friend, Melissa Plunkett. And her
teeth don't stick out in front, like Melissa's do.
"Oh boy! Oh boy!" Freddy muttered again through tightly pressed lips,
as he ran up the narrow beach and took another vicious swipe at a larger
rock. The rock didn't move, and Freddy hopped around in the sand holding
his right foot in one hand and bellowing like a mad bull.
"Let's knock off the comedy and figure out what we're gonna do," Dinky
said impatiently, as he plunked himself down in the sand and adopted the
pose of The Thinker. "We're marooned, and nobody knows where we are,"
he added dramatically.
Both Freddy and Dinky can swim, but not very far; and the closest point of
the shoreline was more than a half mile away. Of course, Freddy can float
forever, but he doesn't make much progress unless somebody pushes him.
"Maybe we could built a raft," Dinky mused.
"With what?" Freddy sneered. "We ain't even got an axe, and no nails
or nothin'."
"We could build one if we had enough ingenuity," said Dinky.
"Injun what?"
"In-gen-oo-it-tee, stupid!"
"I never heard a' that stuff. Will it float real good?"
"You fat dummy!" Dinky snorted, as he threw a handful of sand at
Freddy's head. Freddy threw a handful right back and caught Dinky with
his mouth open.
"Well, you're always such a big Indian expert, I thought maybe you
had something real good in your noodle -- like a birch bark canoe or
somethin'."
"How we gonna make a canoe, when we can't even make a raft?" Dinky
sputtered, as he tried to get the sand out of his teeth. "Sometimes you
make me sick!"
"Well, we can't stay here forever," said Freddy. "Pretty soon it'll be
lunch time, and I gotta eat."
"Whew!" said Dinky. "Is that all you ever think about? I can see you
risin' up in your coffin and askin' for a sandwich before they bury you."
"At least I ain't skinny as you!" Freddy replied.
"C'mon. Let's take a walk around the island," said Dinky. "Maybe we can
find an old log that'll float, and we can drag it out into the water."
Half an hour later they flopped down on the sand again on the same
stretch of beach where the rowboat had left them. There just wasn't
anything loose on that island that would float.
Freddy took his shoes off and worked his bare toes into the sand.
"Boy, that feels good. Hey! Why don't we build a fire and send up smoke
signals. Somebody'll see 'em and come out and rescue us."
"Nuts!" said Dinky.
"Why not? I've seen you start a fire with nothin' at all. And you know
all them Indian smoke signals too."
"Nobody'll pay any attention to any smoke signals," said Dinky. "People
are building campfires on these islands all the time, for picnics. We'd
have to set the whole island on fire before it would attract attention."
"Maybe somebody would notice it if we built a big fire at night."
"I don't figure on spending the night here," said Dinky, as he jumped
to his feet. "I just had an idea!"
From his pocket Dinky pulled a scuffed-up leather marble pouch, pulled
the thong loose, and spilled the contents on the ground. Three beautiful
agates, two steelies, and a small red-eye rolled into a crevice in the
sand. A little shaking brought out two fish hooks, a ball of line, a GI
can opener, and a bright metal object with a hole in it that looked like
it might be some kind of whistle.
"What's that?" asked Freddy.
"That's a dog whistle."
"Whatta ya gonna do with it?"
"I'm gonna blow on it," said Dinky. And he did.
Freddy Muldoon squinted his eyes up into narrow slits. "I don't hear
nothin'. Nothin' at all."
"You're not supposed to," said Dinky. "But a dog can hear it. Dogs have
real good ears."
"Oh, you're. real smart," said Freddy. "But there's just one thing
wrong. I don't see no dogs around here."
"Wait and see!" said Dinky. And he kept blowing on the whistle until
Freddy thought he had gone daft.
Back at Zeke Boniface's junkyard, on the edge of town, there was the
usual assortment of Saturday morning lookers and scavengers trying to
find whatever it was they were looking for. Zeke was lying flat on his
back in a hammock, under the shade of a corrugated tin roof, puffing on
the stub of a cigar. His battered black bowler hat was tilted over his
eyes just far enough so it would keep the glare out and still let him
see Kaiser Bill, his German shepherd dog. Zeke didn't have to watch
the customers. Kaiser Bill took care of that, and Zeke just watched
Kaiser Bill.
Kaiser Bill was stretched out flat on his belly in the hot sun, with his
jet black muzzle resting on his paws. The golden brown fur above his
eyes was wrinkled into a soft frown, and his keen brown eyes shifted
tirelessly back and forth, tracking the movements of every two-legged
creature on the lot. Nobody ever left Zeke's junkyard without checking
in at the hammock to haggle over the price of what he wanted to take
with him, or at least to say good-bye.
It was a normal Saturday morning. Or, so it seemed -- until Zeke noticed
a peculiar change in Kaiser Bill's behavior. The dog hadn't moved a
muscle for fifteen minutes; but suddenly the coarse whiskers on his
jowls fanned outwards and stood erect, pointing slightly forward. Then
the magnificent ears perked up and rotated to the front. The wrinkles on
his brow deepened into a frown of real concern, and he lifted his head
from his paws and arched his neck. Then, like a shot, he was off across
the junkyard; and with one great scrambling leap he was over the seven
foot fence and off into the woods.
Zeke sat bolt upright and the hammock flipped violently, plopping him
face-down into the dust. He picked himself up, beating the dust off
his trousers with his black derby and spitting out the fragments of the
cigar stub he had almost swallowed.
"What in tarnation got into him?" he sputtered, while a chorus of raucous
laughter fell on his ears.
"Maybe he just remembered an important date!" one of the customers cried.
"Maybe he just heard Lassie was in town!"
"I'll bet he just wanted to get a manicure before the barber shop closed!"
said another wiseacre.
Zeke got a lot of screamingly funny comments, but no offers of help
to find out where Kaiser Bill went. He flopped his huge bulk into the
hammock again, and lighted up a fresh cigar stub.
It was only fifteen minutes later that Dinky saw the dog plunge into
the water from a point on the lake shore opposite the island. "C'mon,
Kaiser! C'mon!" he shouted, clapping his hands as loudly as he could.
"Hey! That looks like Kaiser Bill!" said Freddy, jumping up and down.
"As usual, you take the cake," said Dinky. "What did you think I was
blowing that whistle for?"
Soon Kaiser Bill galloped ashore on the tiny beach, spread his
four feet far apart, and shook a spray of water twenty feet in both
directions. Then he bounded toward Dinky, rose up on his rear legs and
thumped his forepaws on Dinky's chest. Dinky ruffled his ears and kissed
him on his black snout.
"Boy, am I glad to see you!" he said.
Kaiser Bill spun around twice, then flopped on his belly in the sand and
lay there panting heavily, with his tongue hanging out of the left side
of his mouth.
"I gotta admit you pulled a good one with that whistle," said Freddy,
"but what do we do now? Now we got three of us marooned on this island."
"I didn't call him out here just for nothin'," said Dinky.
"Well, whatta we gonna do? Get on his back and ride him to shore?"
"Nope! He's gonna carry a message for us."
"Good idea! I suppose you got a pencil and a piece of paper?"
Dinky looked flustered for a moment. "No, I don't have a pencil," he
admitted. "But if you'll lend me your knife I can carve out a message
on a piece of bark."
"You flunked out again," said Freddy. "I don't have a knife."
"You mean you came all the way out here without your knife?"
"I didn't know I was coming!" Freddy retorted. "Besides, where is
your knife?"
"None of your business!" said Dinky. And he kicked a few stones into
the water.
Freddy perched himself on a flat rock in the shade of a young maple
and pulled a bologna sandwich out of his shirt. He was just unwrapping
the wax paper from it when Dinky spun around at the sound and pointed
a finger right at him.
"That's just what we need!" he cried.
"Whadda ya mean? This here hunk of paper?"
"No! I mean the whole sandwich. Paper and all."
"Nothin' doin'. If you want some lunch, you gotta bring your own."
"I don't want any lunch," said Dinky, "but we can use that sandwich to
send a message."
"You must be nuts!"
"Listen! We could send that sandwich with Kaiser Bill, and Zeke would
know it was one of your sandwiches and come looking for us."
"Now I know you're nuts!" said Freddy, biting a corner off the
sandwich. "That big ball of fur would swallow it in one gulp before he
got across the lake."
"He can't eat it if we tie it around his neck," Dinky reasoned.
"Too risky," said Freddy, taking another bite. "Besides, I need my lunch."
"You and your lunch!" Dinky fumed. "What would you rather be, a dead
fat boy, or a live skinny one?"
"I'll have to think that over," Freddy answered, licking the mustard
off his lips.
"Gimme that sandwich!" Dinky shouted, and he lunged straight at Freddy
with all the fury his seventy pounds could muster. Freddy met him with
a stiff-arm right in the chest and he bounced back ten feet, sprawling
full-length in the sand. But he was up in a flash and threw a handful of
sand at Freddy. Freddy grabbed a handful of the stuff himself, and poised
to throw it -- but it never left his hand. A deep-throated snarl stopped
his hand in midair, and he found himself looking into the menacing eyes
of Kaiser Bill.
Freddy retreated a step, holding the half eaten sandwich high above
his head. Kaiser Bill moved forward an equal distance, with the hair
on his black saddle standing erect.
"Get outta here!" Freddy blustered, but his voice quavered and Kaiser
Bill moved a step closer with his lips curled in another snarl.
"Call him off! Call him off!" Freddy pleaded.
"Give me the sandwich first!"
"Okay! Okay! Come and get it. Quick!"
Dinky stepped between the two and took the remains of the sandwich from
Freddy's hand. Kaiser Bill relaxed and trotted after Dinky, wagging
his tail, as Dinky ran to retrieve the wax paper Freddy had tossed into
the water.
"Now, let me have your shoelaces," Dinky said, as he started unlacing
his own.
"What for?" Freddy wailed.
"So I can tie this sandwich around Kaiser's neck."
"What about that fishline you got in your pocket? Use that!"
"We might need that to catch fish with," Dinky said. "Now, give me
your shoelaces."
"Go fish for 'em!" Freddy taunted.
Dinky snapped his fingers twice and Kaiser Bill trotted over to stand
straddle-legged in front of Freddy.
"Okay! Okay!" Freddy grunted. "Call off your man-eater." And he started
unlacing his shoes.
Dinky wrapped the remains of the bologna sandwich carefully, threaded
the laces twice through the wax paper, and tied it securely around Kaiser
Bill's neck.
"Go home, boy! Go!" Dinky commanded, with a firm pat on the dog's saddle.
Kaiser Bill took a step toward the water, then looked back with a
questioning frown. "Go, boy! Go!" Dinky shouted, with a clap of his
hands. "Go home!" Kaiser Bill bolted for the water and plunged into it,
cutting a wake that pointed straight for the mainland shore. Nothing
was visible from the island but a black snout, two ears folded to the
rear, and a bologna sandwich. "Go, boy, go!" Dinky shouted, clapping
his hands again.
"Yeah! Go, boy, go!" shouted Freddy, as he threw a stick that plopped
into the water about ten feet from shore. Then he pulled another bologna
sandwich from his shirt and sat down to eat it.
Back at the clubhouse in Jeff Crocker's barn, the rest of us were gathered
around the big map of the county that hangs on one wall. Jeff and Henry
were trying to lay out a search pattern for us that would cover the most
likely places that Harmon's gang might be holding Freddy and Dinky. We
had already been through a lot of arguments about how to proceed with
the search; and Mortimer Dalrymple's suggestion that we simply make a
frontal assault on Harmon's clubhouse in Egan's Alley had been voted down
by a count of three to two. I was in favor of Mortimer's proposal; but
Homer Snodgrass had sided with Jeff and Henry, who figured the clubhouse
was too obvious a hiding place. Mortimer is always in favor of action,
and Homer is always in favor of thinking things over a little longer.
"Maybe one of them has a transceiver with him," I suggested. "We ought
to be monitoring the radio."
Jeff shook his head. "I'm sure Harmon would be smart enough to take it
away from them," he observed.
Just then the buzzer on our intercom sounded. It was Zeke Boniface
calling. "Let me talk to Freddy," he asked, when Henry answered the box.
"Freddy isn't here, and we don't know where he is," Henry explained. "Have
you seen him?"
"Nope! But I think Kaiser Bill has."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, this big baboon took off cross-country about an hour ago, and I
couldn't stop him. He just came back, soaking wet, and he's got a bologna
sandwich tied around his neck. I figured it might belong to Freddy. You
know how he likes bologna."
"What kind of bread is it?"
"It's rye bread, with a lot of them black seeds in it."
"That's Freddy's all right! Boy, Zeke, you might have saved the day. We'll
be down there in ten minutes."
"Okay! But is something wrong with Freddy?"
Henry ignored the question. "Hey, Zeke! You say this was tied around
Kaiser Bill's neck?"
"Yeah!"
"What was it tied with?"
"Some old shoelaces, looks like."
"Hold onto them! We'll be at your place as quick as we can get there."
Ten minutes later we were all at Zeke's junkyard where everything looked
like "business as usual," except for Kaiser Bill. Instead of lying
quietly in the sun, he was pacing restlessly up and down, now and then
nuzzling the seat of Zeke's pants as he passed him. We looked at the
bologna sandwich, and it was Freddy's all right.
"Let me see the shoelaces," said Henry. Zeke pulled them out of his
pocket, and Henry examined them carefully.
"Looks like you were right," said Jeff Crocker, looking over Henry's
shoulder. "They sent us a message."
Sure enough, the shoelaces had been tied together in a series of knots,
some double knots and some single. Henry stretched the string of knots
out on the ground while he and Jeff decoded the message, scratching the
letters in the dirt.
"This is Morse code," Henry explained to Zeke. "The double knots are
dashes and the single ones are dots."
Jeff had scratched the letters I-S-L in the dirt. "You sure that's
Freddy's handwriting?" quipped Mortimer.
"No! It looks more like Dinky's," Jeff shot right back. "Freddy makes
fatter knots." After Henry had called out the last letter the word
I-S-L-A-N-D appeared on the ground.
"They must be on an island somewhere," said Homer.
"Great deduction, Snodgrass! Great deduction!" said Mortimer caustically.
"The only question is
where," Jeff observed. "
What island
are they on?"
"Probably Strawberry Lake," I ventured.
"But there's plenty of islands in the river too. How we gonna search
them all?" said Homer.
"We don't have to search them all," said Henry, in his usual
matter-of-fact manner. "We have the answer right here."
"Oh, oh!" said Mortimer. "The great Mulligan has the magic answer,
as usual."
"There's no magic to it at all," said Henry, pointing at Kaiser
Bill. "Kaiser knows which island they're on. All we have to do is
follow him."
And follow him we did. Zeke waved the bologna sandwich in front of
Kaiser's nose and said, "Go, boy, go!" and off he went. Jeff and I
had the job of following him cross-country, because we're both pretty
good runners, and the rest of them piled into Zeke's old junk truck,
Richard the Deep Breather. My job was to run like blazes and keep Kaiser
Bill in sight so he wouldn't outdistance us. Jeff is bigger than I am,
and can't run quite as fast; so it was up to him to keep up as best he
could, and act as a radio relay to the truck so Henry could know where
we were heading. Our two-way radios are pretty good; but you never can
tell when a hill or some dense woods or a freak atmospheric disturbance
is going to mask your transmission. So it's best to use a relay whenever
you can to make sure your messages get through.
We needed it all right, because Kaiser Bill led me through everything
you can imagine as he raced through swamps, woods, gullies, and over
the crests of hills on a beeline toward the point on the lakeshore
opposite the island where he had left Freddy and Dinky. Every time we'd
pass some prominent landmark like a hill, or a big tree, or a rockpile,
or an old tumbledown sheep shelter, I'd stop for a few seconds and pant
out directions to Jeff on the radio. Sometimes he'd make me repeat them
three or four times because I was so out of breath he couldn't understand
me, and I'd get mad and shout things I shouldn't say on the air. But,
somehow we managed to keep in communication, and Jeff scrambled on after
me, and Zeke kept maneuvering Richard the Deep Breather through a network
of back roads and old logging trails, trying to keep close to us.
At the lakeshore, Kaiser Bill scampered over pile after pile of huge
boulders and fallen tree trunks lining the water's edge, and came to a
stop in the middle of a small stretch of sandy beach. He stood poised
like a pointer for a moment, with one foreleg crooked under his chest,
and the black button of his nose sniffing the air in the direction of
a rocky island. Then he pranced up the beach and back again, in a sort
of stiff-legged canter, looking out toward the island, and then back at
me. Then he planted both forepaws in the water and started lapping up
huge gulps of the stuff. Then he went through the prancing act again.
I got the message, all right. He wanted me to swim out to the island with
him, but I was too out of breath to move another inch. I slapped my thigh
and called him over to me, and I petted him and ruffled the scruff of
his neck. Then I flopped down in the sand and called Jeff on the radio.
"Hey, Jeff, I think we found the island," I gasped, without bothering
about all that corny radio procedure you're supposed to use. "Roger! I
read you. Stand by, Green One," Jeff answered. He can be so formal
sometimes, it makes you sick.
In a few minutes Jeff was back on the air again, after checking with
Henry. "Red One says to pull back off that beach and keep out of
sight!" he told me.
"Keep out of sight? What's going on? Aren't we going to rescue Dinky
and Freddy?"
"This is Red One. You have your orders, Green One! Do as you're told,
and keep the messenger with you. And you better brush up on your radio
procedure too! You're giving away vital information. This is not a
secure net. Over and out."
After all the running I had done, this hit me in the face like a wet
towel. I pressed the "talk" button on my handset and cut loose with a
big fat raspberry: "Pfffffrrrrrttttt! How do you like that information,
oh Big Red Raspberry!" I shouted. "This is Green Apples signing off!" And
I shut my radio off.
But I knew better than to disregard Henry's instructions. Henry sometimes
moves in mysterious ways, but he almost always knows what he's doing. So I
called Kaiser Bill back from the water's edge, and the two of us climbed
a little way up the steep slope of the hill behind the beach and hid
among the trees. It seemed like an hour, but it was probably only about
fifteen minutes before I heard A rock crash through the trees and plop
into the water about a hundred feet to our left. Kaiser Bill sprang
to his feet and an explosive growl burst from his throat. I threw my
arms around his neck and held him, and whispered in his ear to calm
him down. Every muscle in his body was tensed, and I could feel him
trembling under my grip. Suddenly he relaxed and I saw the figures of
Henry and Jeff scrambling over the pile of boulders at one end of the
little beach. They kept close to the tree line, and once they had gotten
past the barrier of the rocks they darted into the cover of overhanging
branches and ran toward Kaiser and me in a crouch, as though somebody
was looking down the backs of their necks.
"Have you guys gone nuts?" I asked. "What's with all the Commando stuff?"
"Henry figures if Freddy and Dinky are on that island, Harmon's gang
must have it under surveillance," Jeff explained. "We don't want them
to know that we've found out where they are."
"Why not? Is this a war, or somethin'?"
"You might call it that," said Henry, when he had caught his breath,
"and we've got to teach Harmon and his gang a lesson."
I just sat there and watched as Henry and Jeff tied a plastic bag
around Kaiser Bill's neck. It contained one of our two-way radios,
a tiny signal transmitter like the ones used to track birds and small
animals, a roll of tape, a knife, matches, and a note. The note told
Dinky to tape the little transmitter somewhere in his huge mop of hair,
so we would always know where they were if Harmon's gang took them off
the island. If Harmon's gang did come back, they were to hide the radio
somewhere on the island. Meanwhile, they were to stay where they were,
and if they had to stay on the island all night we would send food and
blankets to them after it got dark.
"I betcha Freddy will swim to shore before he waits that long for
something to eat," I said.
"You might be right," Henry answered, "but it ought to be interesting
to find out how much the love of food dominates his psychology." Henry
is always the complete scientist. He looks at everything in life as just
another experiment.
When the bag had been tied securely, I pointed to the island and said,
"Go!" to Kaiser Bill. That was all he needed. He shot down the slope of
the hill and plunged into the water. All you could see of him was the
smooth brown part of his head between his folded ears, and his black
snout sticking out of the water as he paddled toward the island.
But Henry had been right. Kaiser Bill was no more than halfway to the
island when we saw two figures in a small rowboat putting out from a
small cove some distance to the south of us. Jeff trained his binoculars
on the boat.
"That's Buzzy McCauliffe and Joe Turner," he said. "I guess they're
going out to investigate."
They were heading for the island all right, but Kaiser Bill was there far
ahead of them. We decided to wait where we were and see what happened;
but we couldn't see too much, because the boat went around to the far
side of the island where Kaiser Bill had gone. In a few minutes we saw
it come back into view, however, and Jeff trained the glasses on it again.
"Well, I wonder what all that was about?" he mused. "There's still two
guys in the boat, but Kaiser Bill is sitting up in the bow! Hey! It's
Freddy and Dinky! What gives?"
We found out in a few minutes. Freddy and Dinky pulled the boat in among
the rocks below us, laughing their heads off. When Buzzy and Joe Turner
had nosed up to the beach where Freddy and Dinky were sitting in the
shade of a tree reading Henry's note, Kaiser Bill had dashed to the
water's edge with his hair standing on end and bared his teeth.
"What's that dog doing here?" Buzzy shouted.
"He lives here!" Dinky shouted back.
"Will he bite?"
"Why don't you come on in and find out."
Joe Turner pulled the boat a little closer in, and Buzzy stood up in
the bow as if to jump onto the beach. Fortunately he only pretended to,
because Kaiser Bill let the boat get within about ten feet of shore,
then lunged through the air straight at Buzzy. Buzzy toppled over
backwards and splashed into the water with his arms flailing. Kaiser
Bill's momentum carried him right into the boat, where he ended up with
his wet nose sliding right up the back of Joe Turner's neck. Joe didn't
even turn around to find out what had happened. He just dove over the
stern of the boat and swam for dear life. His dive propelled the boat
into shore with Kaiser Bill in complete command, a piece of Joe's shirt
dangling from his jaws.
Dinky grabbed Kaiser Bill by the collar and held the boat. He and Freddy
clambered into it, with Freddy at the oars and Dinky standing up in the
prow with a growling Kaiser Bill under a firm grip.
"We just wanted to take you back to shore," Buzzy sputtered, standing
waist-deep in the water.
"Tell it to the marines!" Freddy taunted.
"Thanks, but we can make it OK," Dinky added. They were still shouting
wisecracks and laughing as Freddy pulled out of sight around the end of
the island.
When Dinky had finished describing what had happened, we pulled the
rowboat back in among the trees, slipped it in between two huge boulders,
and covered it with brush. Then we took off to where Zeke was waiting
with the truck.
We all went back to the clubhouse, where Henry spent fifteen minutes
leaning back against the wall on his piano stool, gazing up into the roof
rafters, while the rest of us played mumbletypeg on the barn floor. Kaiser
Bill was stretched out on his stomach right in front of the door, gnawing
on a huge bone from Mrs. Crocker's kitchen. Mortimer is usually the
champ at mumbletypeg, but this time I won three games from him before the
front legs of Henry's stool hit the floor and we all turned to find out
what brilliant idea the great mind had come up with this time. But Henry
didn't say anything for a while. He just sat there wiping the lenses of
his horn-rimmed glasses clean. Finally he put them back on his nose and
looked at all of us as though he hadn't realized we were there.
"What do we do now, O High Mogul?" I asked him.
"We've got to get a message to Harmon," he answered, "and you're going
to take it, Charlie."
"We're gonna scare the pants off them," said Henry. "At last, I have
Harmon right where I want him. He fell into this beautifully."
"Fell into what?" I asked.
"Never mind," said Henry, "but it wasn't any accident that Freddy and
Dinky were here in the clubhouse this morning with the door unlocked."
Henry wrote out a note for me to take up to Memorial Point. It said:
IF FREDDY AND DINKY AREN'T BACK AT OUR CLUBHOUSE BY FOUR O'CLOCK THIS
AFTERNOON, WE WILL REPORT THEIR DISAPPEARANCE TO THE POLICE. THANKS FOR
LEAVING THE TAPE WITH YOUR VOICE ON IT.
MULLIGAN
"Why didn't we tell the police in the first place?" Homer asked.
"You know I wouldn't do a thing like that," Henry replied. "It would
spoil all the fun. But Harmon doesn't know that."
Then Henry pulled Dinky and Freddy aside and gave them some secret
instructions, and sent them packing with Kaiser Bill trotting
alongside. Homer and I got on our bicycles and pedaled out to Memorial
Point, where we put Henry's note under a rock behind the old Civil War
cannon. We rode back down the trail a bit, then hid our bicycles and
circled back through the brush to hide in the bushes behind the clearing
where the cannon and the statues stand. Pretty soon we saw Speedie Brown,
one of the best tree climbers in Harmon's gang, come swinging down out
of a big oak tree. He got the note from under the rock, read it, and
stuffed it in his pocket. Then he pulled his bicycle out of the bushes
and took off down the road.
"I'm sure he's heading for Harmon's clubhouse," Henry said, when we
reported in on the radio. "We've got that covered. You go out to the lake
and see if he shows up there, where Buzzy and Joe Turner were supposed
to be watching the island."
Harmon was in for a hectic afternoon. Henry's note must have scared him,
because he and Stony Martin did show up at the cove on the lakeshore
about thirty minutes later. Harmon looked worried. He kept looking at
his watch while he stumbled around through the trees and bushes hollering
for Buzzy and Joe.
"Hey! Here's their radio and their lunches!" Stony cried. "They must be
around here somewhere."
"I told those fatheads to keep that radio with them at all times,"
Harmon blustered. "No wonder we couldn't get any answer from them."
"You know what?" said Stony.
"What?" said Harmon.
"I don't see no boat!"
"Yeah! You know what?"
"What?"
"I don't see one neither!" said Harmon.
They both walked down to the water's edge with their hands on their hips
and rubbernecked around the shoreline.
"I bet those lunkheads are out there on that island fat-cattin' with
them other kids," said Harmon.
"If they are, we ought to cut their hair off!" said Stony.
Harmon cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted as loud as he
could. The echo came back across the lake, but nothing else. Then Stony
tried it. It was easy to see Harmon was getting madder and madder,
and soon they were both hollering at the top of their lungs.
Finally, two figures appeared on the near side of the island, waving
their arms. Harmon swung his arm in a wide arc toward the lakeshore,
and pumped his right arm up and down. But the two figures on the island
just shook their heads and waved back.
"What are those ninnies doing, waving their arms like that?"
"I think they're trying to tell you something," said Stony.
"Brilliant, Martin, brilliant!" said Harmon. "Now, hand me your shirt."
With Stony's shirt, Harmon started making wig-wag signals toward the
island. Soon the shirts of Buzzy McCauliffe and Joe Turner were sending
signals in reply.
"They say they don't have a boat, and they want us to come get them,"
Harmon snorted.
"What happened to the boat?" Stony asked.
"I don't know, knucklehead. When we get 'em in here we'll find out."
"Great," said Stony. "I'll just take my shoes off, so they don't get wet,
and walk over there."
"Look! We gotta find out what's going on," said Harmon, "and we gotta
get those guys off that island. Now use your noodle!"
"What about that old tree trunk over there? We could push that into the
water and paddle out to the island with it."
"Good idea!" said Harmon. "I'll help you push it in."
"Thanks a whole bunch!" said Stony.
The two of them grunted and struggled with the tree trunk while Homer and
I sat in our hiding place in the bushes and tried to keep from laughing
out loud. When they finally had it in the water, Stony stripped down to
his shorts and waded out to the log.
"Come on! Get your duds off," he said. "You're the one that's in a hurry!"
"Look, lunkhead, somebody's got to stay here and guard your clothes. Now,
get going! We don't have much time."
Stony splashed into the water, grabbed one end of the log, and started
kicking furiously. The huge log inched forward slowly, and Stony steered
it toward the island. It took him better than fifteen minutes to reach the
island, and about the same time to get back with Buzzy and Joe kicking
along with him, their clothes piled on top of the log. Harmon had been
stomping up and down the shore, gnawing his knuckles and looking at his
watch every two minutes.
"Okay! What have you meatheads been up to?" he demanded, before they
were even out of the water.
Buzzy tried to explain how Freddy and Dinky had commandeered their boat
and made off with it. He and Joe were jumping up and down, trying to
dry off enough to get back into their clothes.
"This is a fine mess you've gotten us into!" Harmon moaned. "I shoulda
known better than to let two punkinheads like you handle it. Imagine
letting two punk kids like that take your boat away from you."
"It wasn't them two kids, it was that big dog," Joe Turner argued. "He's
a real monster. Look! He took half my shirt off!"
"Ouch!!" cried Buzzy McCauliffe, jumping three feet in the air and
clapping one hand to the seat of his pants. "Something bit me!"
"Sure it did!" said Harmon, backing away from him. "Your pants are
swarmin' with big red ants. That log you put 'em on is lousy with 'em."
"Them's fire ants!" said Joe Turner. "Ouch! I got 'em too!"
"So that's it!" cried Stony Martin. "The water brought them swarmin'
outta that log, and you saw 'em. That's why you didn't want to help me
push that log out to the island."
"Shut up!" said Harmon. "Somebody's gotta use his brains around here. Now,
let's get back to the clubhouse. We gotta find out what happened to
those two kids."
I reported in to Henry on the radio while Harmon and his gang scrambled
up the hill to the place where they had left their bicycles. Buzzy
McCauliffe and Joe Turner, well in the lead, looked like two whirling
dervishes on hot coals.
"Okay!" said Henry. "Freddy and Dinky are watching their clubhouse from
Blaisdell's barn. Follow after Harmon until you're sure that's where
they're going, and let me know. After that you can get down to the freight
yards. We may need your help. But stay out of sight, unless I call you."
"Wilco! This is Rodger the Lodger signing off!" I said, and Homer and
I took off up the hill to follow Harmon.
When Harmon and his entourage pedaled up Egan's Alley a little later,
Freddy and Dinky were peeking out through the dust-covered windows
of Blaisdell's barn, a little way down the alley from Stony Martin's
garage where they have their clubhouse. Harmon was just getting off his
bicycle when Dinky quietly opened the door of the barn about a foot,
and whispered in Kaiser Bill's ear.
"Go get your bone, Kaiser! Get your bone!" and he slapped him smartly
on the hindquarters.
Kaiser Bill shot through the door and darted up the alley so fast that
Joe Turner had to turn the handlebars of his bicycle hard-over to get
out of his way, and he ended up sprawled in the dust of the alley.
"That's him! That's him!" he shouted as he went down.
"Yeah!" cried Buzzy McCauliffe, pointing at the cloud of dust just
rounding the corner. "That's the dog that was on the island. Follow
him! Follow him! I betcha he knows where Fat Freddy and his friend are."
"Where'd he come from?"
"I dunno. He just came runnin' up the alley," Joe sputtered. "But he was
with Fatty and Skinny on that island, and I bet he's chasin' after them
right now. Go get him!"
"Okay! Okay!" Harmon blurted. "You two muttonheads stay here with Speedie.
Stony and I will take care of this." And Harmon was back on his bicycle
and chewing gravel in no time, with Stony pedaling after him.
They didn't know where they were going, but Kaiser Bill did. When they
caught sight of him after they had turned the corner, he was heading
straight down Railroad Avenue toward the freight yards. It was downhill
all the way, and they managed to gain on him some, until they got to the
freight yards, where Railroad Avenue comes to a dead end. Kaiser Bill
took the fence in one bound without breaking stride, and Harmon and Stony
dumped their bicycles there and clambered over the fence after him. They
had quite a job keeping him in sight, because Kaiser Bill didn't bother
running around the ends of the strings of freight cars that were parked
in the yards. He knew where his soupbone was hidden and he meant to get
it. He darted under car after car, picking his way through the maze of
sidings with his nose. Harmon and Stony scrambled after him, knocking
their heads on tie rods and barking their shins on the steel rails.
Finally Kaiser Bill dashed across an open stretch between tracks and
leaped through the open door of an empty red boxcar. Harmon and Stony came
puffing along about twenty seconds later and climbed in after him. They
were no sooner inside than Jeff Crocker and Mortimer Dalrymple popped out
from behind the door of the next boxcar. Jeff put his fingers to his lips
and cut loose with a sharp, piercing whistle. Kaiser Bill appeared at the
door of the red boxcar with Mrs. Crocker's soupbone held firmly in his
jaws. Jeff clapped his hands and Kaiser Bill jumped to the ground. Jeff
slammed the door of the boxcar shut, and Mortimer jumped up and shot
the locking pin home. Then they cleared out of there, with Kaiser Bill
trotting along behind them, drooling all over the soupbone.
I felt a little sorry for Harmon and Stony, trapped in that boxcar. But
I guess they got no more than they deserved. And they weren't quite
alone. When they felt the first grinding jerk of the boxcar, as the
freight train pulled out of the yards about half an hour later, they
heard the voice of Henry Mulligan brought to them through the courtesy
of Jeff and Mortimer, who had taped a handset to the roof of the car.
"This is Captain Mulligan," said Henry, as the rest of us rolled on the
floor of Jeff's barn with our stomach muscles aching from laughter. "We
welcome you aboard, and hope that your trip will be comfortable. We will
be flying at an altitude of approximately five hundred and forty feet
above sea level, and at a speed of about 18 knots. We have a tail wind
of about three knots, but we don't expect that will help much. Our next
stop will be Cobb's Junction, and we expect to let down there in about
three hours. Have a pleasant trip. Thank you."
I could just see Harmon and Stony kicking the sides of the boxcar and
shaking their fists at the handset taped to the roof. I imagine one of
them probably jumped and grabbed it, and smashed it against the wall
before Henry even got finished. But we didn't care. Dinky was lying on
the clubhouse floor with his head propped up on Kaiser Bill's broad
back, with a contented smile on his face. Kaiser Bill was gnawing on
his soupbone, and every time Freddy cast an envious glance toward it,
Kaiser would growl at him.
Harmon and Stony had to call their folks from Cobb's Junction, and they
didn't get home until midnight. But they didn't dare tell anyone the
true story of how they happened to get there.
Anyway, nobody ever tried to kidnap a member of the Mad Scientists'
Club again.
Last updated 11 Jun 98 by
max
The Great Confrontation
The Great Confrontation
© 1968 by Bertrand R. Brinley
Illustrations by Charles Geer
I
T WAS WAR! Total war! Harmon Muldoon's gang had
invaded practically every secret haunt of the Mad Scientists' Club.
We didn't mind so much when they started using the council ring on Indian
Hill for their so-called
secret meetings, because we could spy on them
whenever we wanted to. And we really didn't care about them trying to
rig up the old Harkness mansion with a lot of hoked-up gimmicks that
were supposed to scare people. We had already gotten our laughs out
of that one, and we knew that nobody in town really believed the place
was haunted.
"They're just a buncha cheap copycats!" Dinky Poore had sneered, when
we first heard about what they were doing.
But we began to get worried when we discovered they had taken the rusty
old handcar out of the zinc mine and dumped it into the river where the
big bend curves eastward about eight miles down the track. And finally,
we knew they were bent on deliberate harassment when they raided our
clubhouse in Jeff Crocker's barn early one Saturday morning and kidnapped
Dinky and Harmon's cousin, Freddy Muldoon.
Jeff was the first one to learn of it, when he went out to the barn to do
some work on a chemistry experiment he and Henry Mulligan were smelling
the place up with. He didn't exactly find a ransom note, but you could
call it the same thing. It was a message Harmon Muldoon had taped on
one of our recorders, and then tapped into the circuit for opening our
clubhouse door. The volume was turned on full blast.
To get into our clubhouse you have to know the diabolical system Henry
Mulligan devised for springing the lock. First, you have to know where
the photoelectric beam is located, and then you have to trigger it by
intercepting the beam with your hand in the proper code sequence. Henry
could set it up for any combination of Morse code signals, but this
particular week we were using the SOS signal (... --- ...). For a dash,
you held your hand in the beam for almost a full second. For a dot,
you just flicked it through the beam as fast as you could. After you
had given the proper code signal, you could hear the lock snap, and then
you could push the door open.
But instead of the lock snapping open when Jeff triggered the beam, all he
heard was the loud raspberry that Harmon Muldoon opened his message with:
PFFFFFFFFRRRRRMMMMPPPPH! IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE DINKY AND FREDDY ARE,
YOU'LL HAVE TO GIVE US THE MIDGET SUBMARINE AND THE RIGHT TO USE THE COOL
CAVERN. MAKE UP YOUR MINDS, CHUMS, CAUSE FREDDY WON'T HAVE NOTHING TO
EAT WHERE HE'S GOING. LEAVE YOUR ANSWER UNDER A ROCK BEHIND THE CANNON
AT MEMORIAL POINT.
Jeff kicked the door open, which wasn't locked at all, and hooked up
the tape recorder properly again, so he could rerun the tape. There
were two things Harmon Muldoon didn't understand, he figured. One was
that the Cool Cavern had been blocked off ever since a big piece of the
ledge had broken off Mammoth Falls, and the only way to get in there was
through the underwater passage. The other thing was that Freddy Muldoon
never went anywhere without two bologna sandwiches hidden somewhere in
his clothing. He'd even been known to keep one in his shoe. This made
a pretty flat sandwich, but with Freddy it was the calories that counted.
Jeff sat for a long while on Henry Mulligan's old piano stool, with
one hand propped under his chin, just thinking. Every time he shifted
position and spun the seat of the stool around, he made a mental note
to tell Henry to oil the thing. It squeaked like the lid of a used coffin.
Finally, Jeff got up off the stool and threw the switch that activates
the panic buzzer in the house of every member of the Mad Scientists'
Club. As president, Jeff Crocker has authority to call an emergency
meeting without pushing the panic button like the rest of us have to;
but this time he felt it was important to get us all together as fast
as possible.
While the members of the Mad Scientists' Club were scrambling to their
bicycles to head for Jeff Crocker's barn, Dinky and Freddy were standing
on the shore of a small island way out in Strawberry Lake, shouting
insults at a retreating rowboat. Harmon Muldoon and Stony Martin were
waving farewell to the two figures on the shore from the rear seat of
the boat, while Buzzy McCauliffe pulled a steady oar toward a cove in
the northwest corner of the lake. Dinky and Freddy were still hurling
abuses into the wind when the rowboat disappeared around a rocky point
a good mile away.
"Whatta we do now?" Dinky wailed, as the tail end of the rowboat went
out of sight.
"Wait'll I get my hands on that Harmon," Freddy muttered, shaking his
pudgy fist in the direction of the shoreline. "Just let me get my hands
around his neck just once, and I'll sure make his ears pop!"
"Seems to me like you had plenty of chance just now," Dinky observed.
"Yeah? Well, I just wasn't ready," Freddy grunted, as he took a sidewise
swipe at a small rock and kicked it thirty feet into the water. "Oh
boy!" he chortled, "When I get through with him, even Daphne won't
recognize him."
|
|
Daphne is Harmon Muldoon's sister, and she's pretty sleek. She's even
prettier than Stony Martin's girl friend, Melissa Plunkett. And her
teeth don't stick out in front, like Melissa's do.
"Oh boy! Oh boy!" Freddy muttered again through tightly pressed lips,
as he ran up the narrow beach and took another vicious swipe at a larger
rock. The rock didn't move, and Freddy hopped around in the sand holding
his right foot in one hand and bellowing like a mad bull.
"Let's knock off the comedy and figure out what we're gonna do," Dinky
said impatiently, as he plunked himself down in the sand and adopted the
pose of The Thinker. "We're marooned, and nobody knows where we are,"
he added dramatically.
Both Freddy and Dinky can swim, but not very far; and the closest point of
the shoreline was more than a half mile away. Of course, Freddy can float
forever, but he doesn't make much progress unless somebody pushes him.
"Maybe we could built a raft," Dinky mused.
"With what?" Freddy sneered. "We ain't even got an axe, and no nails
or nothin'."
"We could build one if we had enough ingenuity," said Dinky.
"Injun what?"
"In-gen-oo-it-tee, stupid!"
"I never heard a' that stuff. Will it float real good?"
"You fat dummy!" Dinky snorted, as he threw a handful of sand at
Freddy's head. Freddy threw a handful right back and caught Dinky with
his mouth open.
"Well, you're always such a big Indian expert, I thought maybe you
had something real good in your noodle -- like a birch bark canoe or
somethin'."
"How we gonna make a canoe, when we can't even make a raft?" Dinky
sputtered, as he tried to get the sand out of his teeth. "Sometimes you
make me sick!"
"Well, we can't stay here forever," said Freddy. "Pretty soon it'll be
lunch time, and I gotta eat."
"Whew!" said Dinky. "Is that all you ever think about? I can see you
risin' up in your coffin and askin' for a sandwich before they bury you."
"At least I ain't skinny as you!" Freddy replied.
"C'mon. Let's take a walk around the island," said Dinky. "Maybe we can
find an old log that'll float, and we can drag it out into the water."
Half an hour later they flopped down on the sand again on the same
stretch of beach where the rowboat had left them. There just wasn't
anything loose on that island that would float.
Freddy took his shoes off and worked his bare toes into the sand.
"Boy, that feels good. Hey! Why don't we build a fire and send up smoke
signals. Somebody'll see 'em and come out and rescue us."
"Nuts!" said Dinky.
"Why not? I've seen you start a fire with nothin' at all. And you know
all them Indian smoke signals too."
"Nobody'll pay any attention to any smoke signals," said Dinky. "People
are building campfires on these islands all the time, for picnics. We'd
have to set the whole island on fire before it would attract attention."
"Maybe somebody would notice it if we built a big fire at night."
"I don't figure on spending the night here," said Dinky, as he jumped
to his feet. "I just had an idea!"
From his pocket Dinky pulled a scuffed-up leather marble pouch, pulled
the thong loose, and spilled the contents on the ground. Three beautiful
agates, two steelies, and a small red-eye rolled into a crevice in the
sand. A little shaking brought out two fish hooks, a ball of line, a GI
can opener, and a bright metal object with a hole in it that looked like
it might be some kind of whistle.
"What's that?" asked Freddy.
"That's a dog whistle."
"Whatta ya gonna do with it?"
"I'm gonna blow on it," said Dinky. And he did.
Freddy Muldoon squinted his eyes up into narrow slits. "I don't hear
nothin'. Nothin' at all."
"You're not supposed to," said Dinky. "But a dog can hear it. Dogs have
real good ears."
"Oh, you're. real smart," said Freddy. "But there's just one thing
wrong. I don't see no dogs around here."
"Wait and see!" said Dinky. And he kept blowing on the whistle until
Freddy thought he had gone daft.
Back at Zeke Boniface's junkyard, on the edge of town, there was the
usual assortment of Saturday morning lookers and scavengers trying to
find whatever it was they were looking for. Zeke was lying flat on his
back in a hammock, under the shade of a corrugated tin roof, puffing on
the stub of a cigar. His battered black bowler hat was tilted over his
eyes just far enough so it would keep the glare out and still let him
see Kaiser Bill, his German shepherd dog. Zeke didn't have to watch
the customers. Kaiser Bill took care of that, and Zeke just watched
Kaiser Bill.
Kaiser Bill was stretched out flat on his belly in the hot sun, with his
jet black muzzle resting on his paws. The golden brown fur above his
eyes was wrinkled into a soft frown, and his keen brown eyes shifted
tirelessly back and forth, tracking the movements of every two-legged
creature on the lot. Nobody ever left Zeke's junkyard without checking
in at the hammock to haggle over the price of what he wanted to take
with him, or at least to say good-bye.
It was a normal Saturday morning. Or, so it seemed -- until Zeke noticed
a peculiar change in Kaiser Bill's behavior. The dog hadn't moved a
muscle for fifteen minutes; but suddenly the coarse whiskers on his
jowls fanned outwards and stood erect, pointing slightly forward. Then
the magnificent ears perked up and rotated to the front. The wrinkles on
his brow deepened into a frown of real concern, and he lifted his head
from his paws and arched his neck. Then, like a shot, he was off across
the junkyard; and with one great scrambling leap he was over the seven
foot fence and off into the woods.
Zeke sat bolt upright and the hammock flipped violently, plopping him
face-down into the dust. He picked himself up, beating the dust off
his trousers with his black derby and spitting out the fragments of the
cigar stub he had almost swallowed.
"What in tarnation got into him?" he sputtered, while a chorus of raucous
laughter fell on his ears.
"Maybe he just remembered an important date!" one of the customers cried.
"Maybe he just heard Lassie was in town!"
"I'll bet he just wanted to get a manicure before the barber shop closed!"
said another wiseacre.
Zeke got a lot of screamingly funny comments, but no offers of help
to find out where Kaiser Bill went. He flopped his huge bulk into the
hammock again, and lighted up a fresh cigar stub.
It was only fifteen minutes later that Dinky saw the dog plunge into
the water from a point on the lake shore opposite the island. "C'mon,
Kaiser! C'mon!" he shouted, clapping his hands as loudly as he could.
"Hey! That looks like Kaiser Bill!" said Freddy, jumping up and down.
"As usual, you take the cake," said Dinky. "What did you think I was
blowing that whistle for?"
Soon Kaiser Bill galloped ashore on the tiny beach, spread his
four feet far apart, and shook a spray of water twenty feet in both
directions. Then he bounded toward Dinky, rose up on his rear legs and
thumped his forepaws on Dinky's chest. Dinky ruffled his ears and kissed
him on his black snout.
"Boy, am I glad to see you!" he said.
Kaiser Bill spun around twice, then flopped on his belly in the sand and
lay there panting heavily, with his tongue hanging out of the left side
of his mouth.
"I gotta admit you pulled a good one with that whistle," said Freddy,
"but what do we do now? Now we got three of us marooned on this island."
"I didn't call him out here just for nothin'," said Dinky.
"Well, whatta we gonna do? Get on his back and ride him to shore?"
"Nope! He's gonna carry a message for us."
"Good idea! I suppose you got a pencil and a piece of paper?"
Dinky looked flustered for a moment. "No, I don't have a pencil," he
admitted. "But if you'll lend me your knife I can carve out a message
on a piece of bark."
"You flunked out again," said Freddy. "I don't have a knife."
"You mean you came all the way out here without your knife?"
"I didn't know I was coming!" Freddy retorted. "Besides, where is
your knife?"
"None of your business!" said Dinky. And he kicked a few stones into
the water.
Freddy perched himself on a flat rock in the shade of a young maple
and pulled a bologna sandwich out of his shirt. He was just unwrapping
the wax paper from it when Dinky spun around at the sound and pointed
a finger right at him.
"That's just what we need!" he cried.
"Whadda ya mean? This here hunk of paper?"
"No! I mean the whole sandwich. Paper and all."
"Nothin' doin'. If you want some lunch, you gotta bring your own."
"I don't want any lunch," said Dinky, "but we can use that sandwich to
send a message."
"You must be nuts!"
"Listen! We could send that sandwich with Kaiser Bill, and Zeke would
know it was one of your sandwiches and come looking for us."
"Now I know you're nuts!" said Freddy, biting a corner off the
sandwich. "That big ball of fur would swallow it in one gulp before he
got across the lake."
"He can't eat it if we tie it around his neck," Dinky reasoned.
"Too risky," said Freddy, taking another bite. "Besides, I need my lunch."
"You and your lunch!" Dinky fumed. "What would you rather be, a dead
fat boy, or a live skinny one?"
"I'll have to think that over," Freddy answered, licking the mustard
off his lips.
"Gimme that sandwich!" Dinky shouted, and he lunged straight at Freddy
with all the fury his seventy pounds could muster. Freddy met him with
a stiff-arm right in the chest and he bounced back ten feet, sprawling
full-length in the sand. But he was up in a flash and threw a handful of
sand at Freddy. Freddy grabbed a handful of the stuff himself, and poised
to throw it -- but it never left his hand. A deep-throated snarl stopped
his hand in midair, and he found himself looking into the menacing eyes
of Kaiser Bill.
Freddy retreated a step, holding the half eaten sandwich high above
his head. Kaiser Bill moved forward an equal distance, with the hair
on his black saddle standing erect.
"Get outta here!" Freddy blustered, but his voice quavered and Kaiser
Bill moved a step closer with his lips curled in another snarl.
"Call him off! Call him off!" Freddy pleaded.
"Give me the sandwich first!"
"Okay! Okay! Come and get it. Quick!"
Dinky stepped between the two and took the remains of the sandwich from
Freddy's hand. Kaiser Bill relaxed and trotted after Dinky, wagging
his tail, as Dinky ran to retrieve the wax paper Freddy had tossed into
the water.
"Now, let me have your shoelaces," Dinky said, as he started unlacing
his own.
"What for?" Freddy wailed.
"So I can tie this sandwich around Kaiser's neck."
"What about that fishline you got in your pocket? Use that!"
"We might need that to catch fish with," Dinky said. "Now, give me
your shoelaces."
"Go fish for 'em!" Freddy taunted.
Dinky snapped his fingers twice and Kaiser Bill trotted over to stand
straddle-legged in front of Freddy.
"Okay! Okay!" Freddy grunted. "Call off your man-eater." And he started
unlacing his shoes.
Dinky wrapped the remains of the bologna sandwich carefully, threaded
the laces twice through the wax paper, and tied it securely around Kaiser
Bill's neck.
"Go home, boy! Go!" Dinky commanded, with a firm pat on the dog's saddle.
Kaiser Bill took a step toward the water, then looked back with a
questioning frown. "Go, boy! Go!" Dinky shouted, with a clap of his
hands. "Go home!" Kaiser Bill bolted for the water and plunged into it,
cutting a wake that pointed straight for the mainland shore. Nothing
was visible from the island but a black snout, two ears folded to the
rear, and a bologna sandwich. "Go, boy, go!" Dinky shouted, clapping
his hands again.
"Yeah! Go, boy, go!" shouted Freddy, as he threw a stick that plopped
into the water about ten feet from shore. Then he pulled another bologna
sandwich from his shirt and sat down to eat it.
Back at the clubhouse in Jeff Crocker's barn, the rest of us were gathered
around the big map of the county that hangs on one wall. Jeff and Henry
were trying to lay out a search pattern for us that would cover the most
likely places that Harmon's gang might be holding Freddy and Dinky. We
had already been through a lot of arguments about how to proceed with
the search; and Mortimer Dalrymple's suggestion that we simply make a
frontal assault on Harmon's clubhouse in Egan's Alley had been voted down
by a count of three to two. I was in favor of Mortimer's proposal; but
Homer Snodgrass had sided with Jeff and Henry, who figured the clubhouse
was too obvious a hiding place. Mortimer is always in favor of action,
and Homer is always in favor of thinking things over a little longer.
"Maybe one of them has a transceiver with him," I suggested. "We ought
to be monitoring the radio."
Jeff shook his head. "I'm sure Harmon would be smart enough to take it
away from them," he observed.
Just then the buzzer on our intercom sounded. It was Zeke Boniface
calling. "Let me talk to Freddy," he asked, when Henry answered the box.
"Freddy isn't here, and we don't know where he is," Henry explained. "Have
you seen him?"
"Nope! But I think Kaiser Bill has."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, this big baboon took off cross-country about an hour ago, and I
couldn't stop him. He just came back, soaking wet, and he's got a bologna
sandwich tied around his neck. I figured it might belong to Freddy. You
know how he likes bologna."
"What kind of bread is it?"
"It's rye bread, with a lot of them black seeds in it."
"That's Freddy's all right! Boy, Zeke, you might have saved the day. We'll
be down there in ten minutes."
"Okay! But is something wrong with Freddy?"
Henry ignored the question. "Hey, Zeke! You say this was tied around
Kaiser Bill's neck?"
"Yeah!"
"What was it tied with?"
"Some old shoelaces, looks like."
"Hold onto them! We'll be at your place as quick as we can get there."
Ten minutes later we were all at Zeke's junkyard where everything looked
like "business as usual," except for Kaiser Bill. Instead of lying
quietly in the sun, he was pacing restlessly up and down, now and then
nuzzling the seat of Zeke's pants as he passed him. We looked at the
bologna sandwich, and it was Freddy's all right.
"Let me see the shoelaces," said Henry. Zeke pulled them out of his
pocket, and Henry examined them carefully.
"Looks like you were right," said Jeff Crocker, looking over Henry's
shoulder. "They sent us a message."
Sure enough, the shoelaces had been tied together in a series of knots,
some double knots and some single. Henry stretched the string of knots
out on the ground while he and Jeff decoded the message, scratching the
letters in the dirt.
"This is Morse code," Henry explained to Zeke. "The double knots are
dashes and the single ones are dots."
Jeff had scratched the letters I-S-L in the dirt. "You sure that's
Freddy's handwriting?" quipped Mortimer.
"No! It looks more like Dinky's," Jeff shot right back. "Freddy makes
fatter knots." After Henry had called out the last letter the word
I-S-L-A-N-D appeared on the ground.
"They must be on an island somewhere," said Homer.
"Great deduction, Snodgrass! Great deduction!" said Mortimer caustically.
"The only question is
where," Jeff observed. "
What island
are they on?"
"Probably Strawberry Lake," I ventured.
"But there's plenty of islands in the river too. How we gonna search
them all?" said Homer.
"We don't have to search them all," said Henry, in his usual
matter-of-fact manner. "We have the answer right here."
"Oh, oh!" said Mortimer. "The great Mulligan has the magic answer,
as usual."
"There's no magic to it at all," said Henry, pointing at Kaiser
Bill. "Kaiser knows which island they're on. All we have to do is
follow him."
And follow him we did. Zeke waved the bologna sandwich in front of
Kaiser's nose and said, "Go, boy, go!" and off he went. Jeff and I
had the job of following him cross-country, because we're both pretty
good runners, and the rest of them piled into Zeke's old junk truck,
Richard the Deep Breather. My job was to run like blazes and keep Kaiser
Bill in sight so he wouldn't outdistance us. Jeff is bigger than I am,
and can't run quite as fast; so it was up to him to keep up as best he
could, and act as a radio relay to the truck so Henry could know where
we were heading. Our two-way radios are pretty good; but you never can
tell when a hill or some dense woods or a freak atmospheric disturbance
is going to mask your transmission. So it's best to use a relay whenever
you can to make sure your messages get through.
We needed it all right, because Kaiser Bill led me through everything
you can imagine as he raced through swamps, woods, gullies, and over
the crests of hills on a beeline toward the point on the lakeshore
opposite the island where he had left Freddy and Dinky. Every time we'd
pass some prominent landmark like a hill, or a big tree, or a rockpile,
or an old tumbledown sheep shelter, I'd stop for a few seconds and pant
out directions to Jeff on the radio. Sometimes he'd make me repeat them
three or four times because I was so out of breath he couldn't understand
me, and I'd get mad and shout things I shouldn't say on the air. But,
somehow we managed to keep in communication, and Jeff scrambled on after
me, and Zeke kept maneuvering Richard the Deep Breather through a network
of back roads and old logging trails, trying to keep close to us.
At the lakeshore, Kaiser Bill scampered over pile after pile of huge
boulders and fallen tree trunks lining the water's edge, and came to a
stop in the middle of a small stretch of sandy beach. He stood poised
like a pointer for a moment, with one foreleg crooked under his chest,
and the black button of his nose sniffing the air in the direction of
a rocky island. Then he pranced up the beach and back again, in a sort
of stiff-legged canter, looking out toward the island, and then back at
me. Then he planted both forepaws in the water and started lapping up
huge gulps of the stuff. Then he went through the prancing act again.
I got the message, all right. He wanted me to swim out to the island with
him, but I was too out of breath to move another inch. I slapped my thigh
and called him over to me, and I petted him and ruffled the scruff of
his neck. Then I flopped down in the sand and called Jeff on the radio.
"Hey, Jeff, I think we found the island," I gasped, without bothering
about all that corny radio procedure you're supposed to use. "Roger! I
read you. Stand by, Green One," Jeff answered. He can be so formal
sometimes, it makes you sick.
In a few minutes Jeff was back on the air again, after checking with
Henry. "Red One says to pull back off that beach and keep out of
sight!" he told me.
"Keep out of sight? What's going on? Aren't we going to rescue Dinky
and Freddy?"
"This is Red One. You have your orders, Green One! Do as you're told,
and keep the messenger with you. And you better brush up on your radio
procedure too! You're giving away vital information. This is not a
secure net. Over and out."
After all the running I had done, this hit me in the face like a wet
towel. I pressed the "talk" button on my handset and cut loose with a
big fat raspberry: "Pfffffrrrrrttttt! How do you like that information,
oh Big Red Raspberry!" I shouted. "This is Green Apples signing off!" And
I shut my radio off.
But I knew better than to disregard Henry's instructions. Henry sometimes
moves in mysterious ways, but he almost always knows what he's doing. So I
called Kaiser Bill back from the water's edge, and the two of us climbed
a little way up the steep slope of the hill behind the beach and hid
among the trees. It seemed like an hour, but it was probably only about
fifteen minutes before I heard A rock crash through the trees and plop
into the water about a hundred feet to our left. Kaiser Bill sprang
to his feet and an explosive growl burst from his throat. I threw my
arms around his neck and held him, and whispered in his ear to calm
him down. Every muscle in his body was tensed, and I could feel him
trembling under my grip. Suddenly he relaxed and I saw the figures of
Henry and Jeff scrambling over the pile of boulders at one end of the
little beach. They kept close to the tree line, and once they had gotten
past the barrier of the rocks they darted into the cover of overhanging
branches and ran toward Kaiser and me in a crouch, as though somebody
was looking down the backs of their necks.
"Have you guys gone nuts?" I asked. "What's with all the Commando stuff?"
"Henry figures if Freddy and Dinky are on that island, Harmon's gang
must have it under surveillance," Jeff explained. "We don't want them
to know that we've found out where they are."
"Why not? Is this a war, or somethin'?"
"You might call it that," said Henry, when he had caught his breath,
"and we've got to teach Harmon and his gang a lesson."
I just sat there and watched as Henry and Jeff tied a plastic bag
around Kaiser Bill's neck. It contained one of our two-way radios,
a tiny signal transmitter like the ones used to track birds and small
animals, a roll of tape, a knife, matches, and a note. The note told
Dinky to tape the little transmitter somewhere in his huge mop of hair,
so we would always know where they were if Harmon's gang took them off
the island. If Harmon's gang did come back, they were to hide the radio
somewhere on the island. Meanwhile, they were to stay where they were,
and if they had to stay on the island all night we would send food and
blankets to them after it got dark.
"I betcha Freddy will swim to shore before he waits that long for
something to eat," I said.
"You might be right," Henry answered, "but it ought to be interesting
to find out how much the love of food dominates his psychology." Henry
is always the complete scientist. He looks at everything in life as just
another experiment.
When the bag had been tied securely, I pointed to the island and said,
"Go!" to Kaiser Bill. That was all he needed. He shot down the slope of
the hill and plunged into the water. All you could see of him was the
smooth brown part of his head between his folded ears, and his black
snout sticking out of the water as he paddled toward the island.
But Henry had been right. Kaiser Bill was no more than halfway to the
island when we saw two figures in a small rowboat putting out from a
small cove some distance to the south of us. Jeff trained his binoculars
on the boat.
"That's Buzzy McCauliffe and Joe Turner," he said. "I guess they're
going out to investigate."
They were heading for the island all right, but Kaiser Bill was there far
ahead of them. We decided to wait where we were and see what happened;
but we couldn't see too much, because the boat went around to the far
side of the island where Kaiser Bill had gone. In a few minutes we saw
it come back into view, however, and Jeff trained the glasses on it again.
"Well, I wonder what all that was about?" he mused. "There's still two
guys in the boat, but Kaiser Bill is sitting up in the bow! Hey! It's
Freddy and Dinky! What gives?"
We found out in a few minutes. Freddy and Dinky pulled the boat in among
the rocks below us, laughing their heads off. When Buzzy and Joe Turner
had nosed up to the beach where Freddy and Dinky were sitting in the
shade of a tree reading Henry's note, Kaiser Bill had dashed to the
water's edge with his hair standing on end and bared his teeth.
"What's that dog doing here?" Buzzy shouted.
"He lives here!" Dinky shouted back.
"Will he bite?"
"Why don't you come on in and find out."
Joe Turner pulled the boat a little closer in, and Buzzy stood up in
the bow as if to jump onto the beach. Fortunately he only pretended to,
because Kaiser Bill let the boat get within about ten feet of shore,
then lunged through the air straight at Buzzy. Buzzy toppled over
backwards and splashed into the water with his arms flailing. Kaiser
Bill's momentum carried him right into the boat, where he ended up with
his wet nose sliding right up the back of Joe Turner's neck. Joe didn't
even turn around to find out what had happened. He just dove over the
stern of the boat and swam for dear life. His dive propelled the boat
into shore with Kaiser Bill in complete command, a piece of Joe's shirt
dangling from his jaws.
Dinky grabbed Kaiser Bill by the collar and held the boat. He and Freddy
clambered into it, with Freddy at the oars and Dinky standing up in the
prow with a growling Kaiser Bill under a firm grip.
"We just wanted to take you back to shore," Buzzy sputtered, standing
waist-deep in the water.
"Tell it to the marines!" Freddy taunted.
"Thanks, but we can make it OK," Dinky added. They were still shouting
wisecracks and laughing as Freddy pulled out of sight around the end of
the island.
When Dinky had finished describing what had happened, we pulled the
rowboat back in among the trees, slipped it in between two huge boulders,
and covered it with brush. Then we took off to where Zeke was waiting
with the truck.
We all went back to the clubhouse, where Henry spent fifteen minutes
leaning back against the wall on his piano stool, gazing up into the roof
rafters, while the rest of us played mumbletypeg on the barn floor. Kaiser
Bill was stretched out on his stomach right in front of the door, gnawing
on a huge bone from Mrs. Crocker's kitchen. Mortimer is usually the
champ at mumbletypeg, but this time I won three games from him before the
front legs of Henry's stool hit the floor and we all turned to find out
what brilliant idea the great mind had come up with this time. But Henry
didn't say anything for a while. He just sat there wiping the lenses of
his horn-rimmed glasses clean. Finally he put them back on his nose and
looked at all of us as though he hadn't realized we were there.
"What do we do now, O High Mogul?" I asked him.
"We've got to get a message to Harmon," he answered, "and you're going
to take it, Charlie."
"We're gonna scare the pants off them," said Henry. "At last, I have
Harmon right where I want him. He fell into this beautifully."
"Fell into what?" I asked.
"Never mind," said Henry, "but it wasn't any accident that Freddy and
Dinky were here in the clubhouse this morning with the door unlocked."
Henry wrote out a note for me to take up to Memorial Point. It said:
IF FREDDY AND DINKY AREN'T BACK AT OUR CLUBHOUSE BY FOUR O'CLOCK THIS
AFTERNOON, WE WILL REPORT THEIR DISAPPEARANCE TO THE POLICE. THANKS FOR
LEAVING THE TAPE WITH YOUR VOICE ON IT.
MULLIGAN
"Why didn't we tell the police in the first place?" Homer asked.
"You know I wouldn't do a thing like that," Henry replied. "It would
spoil all the fun. But Harmon doesn't know that."
Then Henry pulled Dinky and Freddy aside and gave them some secret
instructions, and sent them packing with Kaiser Bill trotting
alongside. Homer and I got on our bicycles and pedaled out to Memorial
Point, where we put Henry's note under a rock behind the old Civil War
cannon. We rode back down the trail a bit, then hid our bicycles and
circled back through the brush to hide in the bushes behind the clearing
where the cannon and the statues stand. Pretty soon we saw Speedie Brown,
one of the best tree climbers in Harmon's gang, come swinging down out
of a big oak tree. He got the note from under the rock, read it, and
stuffed it in his pocket. Then he pulled his bicycle out of the bushes
and took off down the road.
"I'm sure he's heading for Harmon's clubhouse," Henry said, when we
reported in on the radio. "We've got that covered. You go out to the lake
and see if he shows up there, where Buzzy and Joe Turner were supposed
to be watching the island."
Harmon was in for a hectic afternoon. Henry's note must have scared him,
because he and Stony Martin did show up at the cove on the lakeshore
about thirty minutes later. Harmon looked worried. He kept looking at
his watch while he stumbled around through the trees and bushes hollering
for Buzzy and Joe.
"Hey! Here's their radio and their lunches!" Stony cried. "They must be
around here somewhere."
"I told those fatheads to keep that radio with them at all times,"
Harmon blustered. "No wonder we couldn't get any answer from them."
"You know what?" said Stony.
"What?" said Harmon.
"I don't see no boat!"
"Yeah! You know what?"
"What?"
"I don't see one neither!" said Harmon.
They both walked down to the water's edge with their hands on their hips
and rubbernecked around the shoreline.
"I bet those lunkheads are out there on that island fat-cattin' with
them other kids," said Harmon.
"If they are, we ought to cut their hair off!" said Stony.
Harmon cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted as loud as he
could. The echo came back across the lake, but nothing else. Then Stony
tried it. It was easy to see Harmon was getting madder and madder,
and soon they were both hollering at the top of their lungs.
Finally, two figures appeared on the near side of the island, waving
their arms. Harmon swung his arm in a wide arc toward the lakeshore,
and pumped his right arm up and down. But the two figures on the island
just shook their heads and waved back.
"What are those ninnies doing, waving their arms like that?"
"I think they're trying to tell you something," said Stony.
"Brilliant, Martin, brilliant!" said Harmon. "Now, hand me your shirt."
With Stony's shirt, Harmon started making wig-wag signals toward the
island. Soon the shirts of Buzzy McCauliffe and Joe Turner were sending
signals in reply.
"They say they don't have a boat, and they want us to come get them,"
Harmon snorted.
"What happened to the boat?" Stony asked.
"I don't know, knucklehead. When we get 'em in here we'll find out."
"Great," said Stony. "I'll just take my shoes off, so they don't get wet,
and walk over there."
"Look! We gotta find out what's going on," said Harmon, "and we gotta
get those guys off that island. Now use your noodle!"
"What about that old tree trunk over there? We could push that into the
water and paddle out to the island with it."
"Good idea!" said Harmon. "I'll help you push it in."
"Thanks a whole bunch!" said Stony.
The two of them grunted and struggled with the tree trunk while Homer and
I sat in our hiding place in the bushes and tried to keep from laughing
out loud. When they finally had it in the water, Stony stripped down to
his shorts and waded out to the log.
"Come on! Get your duds off," he said. "You're the one that's in a hurry!"
"Look, lunkhead, somebody's got to stay here and guard your clothes. Now,
get going! We don't have much time."
Stony splashed into the water, grabbed one end of the log, and started
kicking furiously. The huge log inched forward slowly, and Stony steered
it toward the island. It took him better than fifteen minutes to reach the
island, and about the same time to get back with Buzzy and Joe kicking
along with him, their clothes piled on top of the log. Harmon had been
stomping up and down the shore, gnawing his knuckles and looking at his
watch every two minutes.
"Okay! What have you meatheads been up to?" he demanded, before they
were even out of the water.
Buzzy tried to explain how Freddy and Dinky had commandeered their boat
and made off with it. He and Joe were jumping up and down, trying to
dry off enough to get back into their clothes.
"This is a fine mess you've gotten us into!" Harmon moaned. "I shoulda
known better than to let two punkinheads like you handle it. Imagine
letting two punk kids like that take your boat away from you."
"It wasn't them two kids, it was that big dog," Joe Turner argued. "He's
a real monster. Look! He took half my shirt off!"
"Ouch!!" cried Buzzy McCauliffe, jumping three feet in the air and
clapping one hand to the seat of his pants. "Something bit me!"
"Sure it did!" said Harmon, backing away from him. "Your pants are
swarmin' with big red ants. That log you put 'em on is lousy with 'em."
"Them's fire ants!" said Joe Turner. "Ouch! I got 'em too!"
"So that's it!" cried Stony Martin. "The water brought them swarmin'
outta that log, and you saw 'em. That's why you didn't want to help me
push that log out to the island."
"Shut up!" said Harmon. "Somebody's gotta use his brains around here. Now,
let's get back to the clubhouse. We gotta find out what happened to
those two kids."
I reported in to Henry on the radio while Harmon and his gang scrambled
up the hill to the place where they had left their bicycles. Buzzy
McCauliffe and Joe Turner, well in the lead, looked like two whirling
dervishes on hot coals.
"Okay!" said Henry. "Freddy and Dinky are watching their clubhouse from
Blaisdell's barn. Follow after Harmon until you're sure that's where
they're going, and let me know. After that you can get down to the freight
yards. We may need your help. But stay out of sight, unless I call you."
"Wilco! This is Rodger the Lodger signing off!" I said, and Homer and
I took off up the hill to follow Harmon.
When Harmon and his entourage pedaled up Egan's Alley a little later,
Freddy and Dinky were peeking out through the dust-covered windows
of Blaisdell's barn, a little way down the alley from Stony Martin's
garage where they have their clubhouse. Harmon was just getting off his
bicycle when Dinky quietly opened the door of the barn about a foot,
and whispered in Kaiser Bill's ear.
"Go get your bone, Kaiser! Get your bone!" and he slapped him smartly
on the hindquarters.
Kaiser Bill shot through the door and darted up the alley so fast that
Joe Turner had to turn the handlebars of his bicycle hard-over to get
out of his way, and he ended up sprawled in the dust of the alley.
"That's him! That's him!" he shouted as he went down.
"Yeah!" cried Buzzy McCauliffe, pointing at the cloud of dust just
rounding the corner. "That's the dog that was on the island. Follow
him! Follow him! I betcha he knows where Fat Freddy and his friend are."
"Where'd he come from?"
"I dunno. He just came runnin' up the alley," Joe sputtered. "But he was
with Fatty and Skinny on that island, and I bet he's chasin' after them
right now. Go get him!"
"Okay! Okay!" Harmon blurted. "You two muttonheads stay here with Speedie.
Stony and I will take care of this." And Harmon was back on his bicycle
and chewing gravel in no time, with Stony pedaling after him.
They didn't know where they were going, but Kaiser Bill did. When they
caught sight of him after they had turned the corner, he was heading
straight down Railroad Avenue toward the freight yards. It was downhill
all the way, and they managed to gain on him some, until they got to the
freight yards, where Railroad Avenue comes to a dead end. Kaiser Bill
took the fence in one bound without breaking stride, and Harmon and Stony
dumped their bicycles there and clambered over the fence after him. They
had quite a job keeping him in sight, because Kaiser Bill didn't bother
running around the ends of the strings of freight cars that were parked
in the yards. He knew where his soupbone was hidden and he meant to get
it. He darted under car after car, picking his way through the maze of
sidings with his nose. Harmon and Stony scrambled after him, knocking
their heads on tie rods and barking their shins on the steel rails.
Finally Kaiser Bill dashed across an open stretch between tracks and
leaped through the open door of an empty red boxcar. Harmon and Stony came
puffing along about twenty seconds later and climbed in after him. They
were no sooner inside than Jeff Crocker and Mortimer Dalrymple popped out
from behind the door of the next boxcar. Jeff put his fingers to his lips
and cut loose with a sharp, piercing whistle. Kaiser Bill appeared at the
door of the red boxcar with Mrs. Crocker's soupbone held firmly in his
jaws. Jeff clapped his hands and Kaiser Bill jumped to the ground. Jeff
slammed the door of the boxcar shut, and Mortimer jumped up and shot
the locking pin home. Then they cleared out of there, with Kaiser Bill
trotting along behind them, drooling all over the soupbone.
I felt a little sorry for Harmon and Stony, trapped in that boxcar. But
I guess they got no more than they deserved. And they weren't quite
alone. When they felt the first grinding jerk of the boxcar, as the
freight train pulled out of the yards about half an hour later, they
heard the voice of Henry Mulligan brought to them through the courtesy
of Jeff and Mortimer, who had taped a handset to the roof of the car.
"This is Captain Mulligan," said Henry, as the rest of us rolled on the
floor of Jeff's barn with our stomach muscles aching from laughter. "We
welcome you aboard, and hope that your trip will be comfortable. We will
be flying at an altitude of approximately five hundred and forty feet
above sea level, and at a speed of about 18 knots. We have a tail wind
of about three knots, but we don't expect that will help much. Our next
stop will be Cobb's Junction, and we expect to let down there in about
three hours. Have a pleasant trip. Thank you."
I could just see Harmon and Stony kicking the sides of the boxcar and
shaking their fists at the handset taped to the roof. I imagine one of
them probably jumped and grabbed it, and smashed it against the wall
before Henry even got finished. But we didn't care. Dinky was lying on
the clubhouse floor with his head propped up on Kaiser Bill's broad
back, with a contented smile on his face. Kaiser Bill was gnawing on
his soupbone, and every time Freddy cast an envious glance toward it,
Kaiser would growl at him.
Harmon and Stony had to call their folks from Cobb's Junction, and they
didn't get home until midnight. But they didn't dare tell anyone the
true story of how they happened to get there.
Anyway, nobody ever tried to kidnap a member of the Mad Scientists'
Club again.
Last updated 11 Jun 98 by
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