Freddy and the Flying Saucer Plans (2 page)

“Phooey!” said the mole. “That bank hasn't been going for a century.”

“Of course it hasn't,” said Freddy. “It's been going about five years. But that motto up there is the truth just the same. If we haven't lost anything in those five years, we couldn't very well have lost anything in the ninety-five years before that, because we weren't there.”

“H'm,” said the mole thoughtfully. “Why didn't you say: No loss to any customer for two thousand years? That's true, too, isn't it?” He turned to Jinx. “What do you know about this bank? Is this guy on the up and up?”

“Look, mister,” said the cat. “How long you been living around here?”

“All my life,” said Samuel. “I say all my life.”

“All your life, and you don't know who Freddy is?” Jinx demanded. “I guess you don't get around much, do you?”

“Oh, I get around,” said the mole. “Yeah, I guess I've heard the guy mentioned. But us moles, we don't pay much attention to what goes on above ground. Still …” He hesitated. “You got any money in this bank, cat? I say, you got any money in here?”

“I've got
all
my money in here,” said the cat. “That's the way I feel about how safe it is. And any other animal on this farm will tell you the same.”

Freddy grinned, for he knew that Jinx had just eight cents in the bank. The cat had had a good deal more than that at various times. But cats never can seem to save any money, and Jinx was a free spender; when he got a little money it trickled right through his claws.

Samuel looked thoughtful for a minute, then he seemed to come to a decision. “Maybe I could use your bank,” he said. “I've got quite a little money saved up. Trouble is, I don't know just where it is.”

“I don't get you,” said Freddy.

“It's like this,” said Samuel. “Us moles find a lot more valuable things than you'd think—things people have dropped. I remember my grandfather telling me how he found a gold watch once. Probably it fell out of somebody's pocket, and then he didn't know where he'd lost it, and the grass grew up over it and the rain washed dirt around it so that in a few years it sank into the ground. Grandpa said it was a couple inches underground when he ran on to it.

“Well, I've got some stuff I've found—money and an emerald ring and a gold pencil and so on. I suppose your bank could keep it safe for me?”

“Just bring it in,” said Freddy. “We'll rent you one of our safe-deposit holes; there's just a nominal monthly rent—a cent a month and up, according to the size of the hole. They're perfectly safe from burglars—five feet underground and guarded day and night. Would you like to inspect the vaults?”

“Well, I've got to find the stuff first,” Samuel said.

“Got to find it!” Freddy exclaimed. “I thought you'd found it once. I thought—”

“Let me tell my story, will you?” the mole interrupted. “I say, let me tell my story. I did find the things. But then I lost them again. A year or so ago I hid them under Mr. Bean's front lawn. And now I've forgotten where I hid them. That's what I've been doing under the lawn-hunting for them. I don't hunt for food under that lawn; there's hardly a beetle or an angleworm left there, on account of those robins—J. J. Pomeroy and his family—that live in the big tree inside the gate. No mole could make a living there; they've stripped the place of game. You help me find my stuff and I'll put it in your bank, and then you won't have to worry about the lawn any more. I say, you needn't worry about that lawn; there won't be any reason for me to go there any more.”

“You're sure it was under that front lawn that you hid the things?” Freddy asked.

“Of course I'm sure. I picked the lawn specially. Fields and gardens are no good: they get ploughed up. So do pastures sometimes. But that lawn has been a lawn for a hundred years, and will be for another hundred. My stuff's safe there.”

“Why do you want to get it then?” Jinx asked. “Why not leave it there, unless you want to sell the ring or spend the money?”

“That's a silly question,” said the mole. “I say that's a silly question. Sure it's safe, but it isn't really mine when I don't know where it is.”

“I know what you mean,” said Freddy. “It isn't that you want to do anything with it; it isn't even that you want to touch it and look at it. You just want to know where it is.”

“You've got it,” Samuel said. He went closer to Freddy's chair and squinted up at him. “You've got an honest face,” he said. Then he caught sight of the guitar, lying on the ground. He started back in alarm. “Hey, what's this thing? Got a hole in it. Ain't a trap is it? I say is it a mole trap?”

“Oh, don't be so suspicious,” said the pig. “It's a musical instrument.” He picked it up and twangled a few chords. Then he put it down. “Well now, Samuel, I've got an idea maybe we can find your stuff for you. We'll try it, if you'll agree to stay out of that lawn. How about it?”

“Of course I'll agree. I don't want—” He stopped, and they all raised their heads and listened. From far away down the Centerboro road there came a series of bangs and explosions. It sounded as if a giant was popping corn.

The sounds came rapidly nearer, and as Freddy and Jinx jumped up and looked, far away down the road they saw something coming toward them. It was a black speck at first, bounding like a ball as it approached. And then it grew bigger, and they saw that it was a small station wagon, coming at tremendous speed, at such speed that it every now and then left the road entirely and bounded through the air.

“Uncle Ben!” they shouted. “Hurray, here's Uncle Ben!”

And before the words were out of their mouths, the station wagon slid to a halt in a screech of tires, and the little old man who was driving leaned out. “Howdy,” he said.

CHAPTER

2

Mr. Benjamin Bean was Mr. Bean's uncle. He was a very fine mechanic. He spent a good deal of his time at the Beans', working in the shop which he had set up and equipped in the loft over the horse stable. It was here that he had made the parts for the space ship in which he and Mrs. Peppercorn and some of the animals had tried to reach Mars. Here too he had put together the small atomic engine which he had installed in his station wagon, making it probably the fastest and most powerful automobile ever constructed. Although because of its speed, and the kangaroo-like jumps which it made on the open highway, few people but Uncle Ben cared to ride in it.

The year after the space ship had been lost, a flying saucer containing a number of Martians had landed in Centerboro. The Martians were small, and had four arms and three eyes; but they were pleasant, friendly people, they had traveled for a while with Mr. Boomschmidt's circus, and had spent a good deal of time at the Beans'. They liked life on earth, and would probably have stayed much longer but for one thing. The saucer had attracted a good deal of attention. It could travel at almost the speed of light, and so would far outclass even the swiftest of modern bombers. Any nation that had even a small fleet of flying saucers could rule the world.

As soon as pictures of the Martians and the saucer, and some accounts of its flight speed, began to appear in the newspapers, spies and secret agents of every nation on the globe swarmed into Centerboro. The hotel was jammed, every rooming house was crowded, there wasn't a vacancy in any of the motels for fifty miles in any direction, and hundreds camped in tents on the fairgrounds, after the circus had gone. There were spies of every nationality, and many in very queer costumes—turbans and fezzes and long bright-colored robes. All day long the lounge in the hotel looked like a meeting of the United Nations.

The saucer, which was parked part of the time at the farm, and the rest on the Centerboro fairgrounds, was the center of a milling crowd of spies. When it left to go from one place to the other they jumped into cars and followed. They climbed all over it, banged on the door, peeked in the portholes, and mobbed the Martians whenever they went in or came out. Some of them had sheaves of big bills in their hands which they offered for “just a peek inside.” Others took dozens of photographs of the Martians and the saucer from every possible angle, hoping that their governments might be able to spot something in the pictures that would give a hint of how the saucer worked.

Late one night a gang, thought to be Communists, came armed with machine guns and grenades and tried to blow in the door with nitroglycerine. Fortunately, by this time a detachment of troops had been sent by the War Department to guard the saucer, the secret of which was felt to be too important to be allowed to fall into foreign hands. The gang was discovered just as it was approaching the saucer, and all the members were captured and sent to prison.

There were so many spies that none of them was able to accomplish anything. Had there been a few, a direct attack on the saucer might have been successful. But with a hundred or more of them, each small group opposed to all the others, they were constantly falling over one another; a hundred eyes watched every move of every member of the crowd, which even by three or four o'clock in the morning was as dense about the saucer as in the daytime. And at last the Martians got tired of it. They no longer had any freedom of movement; they could never escape from the crowds which followed them everywhere. So they went back to Mars.

Before the Martians attracted so much attention, however, they had given the Beans and some of the animals rides in the saucer; they had even shown Uncle Ben all over it and explained how it worked. With the knowledge thus gained, Uncle Ben had decided to build a saucer of his own. He had at first intended to build another space ship, like the one that had been lost. But the saucer was much faster than the ship, and also could move much more slowly, and even stop in the air, so that it could be used for travel from place to place on the earth's surface, almost like a helicopter. The ship was only good for interplanetary travel, whereas there were a number of ways in which the saucer could be used on earth. By saucer, for instance, a letter mailed in New York could be delivered in ten minutes in London.

Unfortunately Uncle Ben had used up nearly all his money in building the ship. So he spent several months drawing up plans and instructions for building a saucer, and then several more trying to interest some of the big airplane companies in putting up the money to build it. As long as the plans were in his head, he had no trouble with the spies, who, now that the Martians had flown back home, didn't know that anybody on earth knew how the saucer worked. But as soon as he began talking to the airplane companies the secret leaked out. Perhaps some of the officers in the companies talked. But from that moment Uncle Ben was a marked man.

He began to realize that wherever he went he was being followed, at first by one man, then by a dozen, then by fifty. His rooms were searched, sometimes six or eight times a day. Before long, wherever he went, he was surrounded by a crowd; spies were everywhere; if he went into a building, faces peered at him over the edge of the roof; if he went to a movie, even if there were only half a dozen people in the place when he went in, in ten minutes there wasn't an empty seat left in the house.

Of course there was safety in numbers. One or two efforts were made to kidnap him; but if one gang tried it, there were always six other gangs lurking in the background, ready to foil the attempt. For no nation wanted any other nation to get the secret.

One evening he was walking back to his hotel in Chicago from a movie, followed by the usual crowd of spies—twenty or thirty on foot, and the rest in a string of taxis and private cars. Three men rushed out of an alleyway, grabbed him, and started to drag him toward a black car which was drawn up at the curb, with one door open. But the moment they laid hands on him, the crowd of followers surged forward. No firearms were used. With clubs and blackjacks they laid out the three assailants, and then they laid into one another. The passengers in the taxis and cars leaped out and joined the fight. Probably each gang thought it was a good idea to eliminate, at least for a few days, some of the others. For a few minutes there was a magnificent eighteen-nation free-for-all. Then suddenly, just before the police arrived, the fighting stopped. The fighters slunk away down side streets, and when the police cars rolled up they saw only a dozen or so unconscious figures lying in the road. These were put into ambulances and carried off to hospitals. But Uncle Ben had ducked out among the fighters and got back to his hotel.

Probably each gang thought it was a good idea to eliminate, at least for a few days, some of the others.