Freddy and the Flying Saucer Plans by Walter R. Brooks Page B

sneeze under Penobsky’s pillow, and when they lifted it, there she was, lying on her side and moaning feebly. She had a broken wing.
    The sheriff got a match box and put cotton in it, and then they put the injured mosquito in it. They couldn’t of course set the wing, but the sheriff looked at it under a magnifying glass and said he thought it would heal all right. He gave her some breakfast, and then leaving her resting comfortably went down to his office.
    â€œWhat I’d like to do, sheriff,” said Freddy, “is get away for a while, until Uncle Ben has his engine made and can clear my good name. How’d this be. Jinx and I have been planning a riding trip, and we’ll go. You give out that you’re keeping me, as the perpetrator of a dastardly crime against my country, in solitary confinement in the dungeon under the jail.”
    â€œThere isn’t any dungeon, Freddy,” said the sheriff. “Goodness, you ought to know that I wouldn’t have any such horrible place to stick my boys into.”
    â€œWell, and I won’t be in it, either, so that’s all right,” said the pig.
    â€œEh?” said the sheriff. “Oh, I get you. On bread and water?”
    â€œNo,” Freddy said. “People could imagine me in a dungeon, but they couldn’t imagine me living on bread and water. Not with my appetite. No, regular meals; but no light, except what filters through a tiny barred window, high up in the damp and slimy walls.”
    The sheriff shivered. “Rats?” he asked.
    Freddy thought a minute. “No,” he said, “I think not. Snails.”
    The sheriff shivered again. “I feel terrible for you, Freddy,” he said.
    â€œSo do I,” replied the pig. “We must both remember that I won’t be there.… Well, I’d better escape tonight, if it’s all right with you.”
    â€œSome of the boys will be going to the movie tonight,” said the sheriff. “Better wait till after midnight. They go early, but some of ’em stay right through the second show, and then they go get a soda afterwards. But they’re usually in by twelve.”
    Freddy didn’t say anything about all this to Horace, the bumblebee, or to any of the other operatives of the A.B.I. who came during the day to collect information or take back any messages he might have for his friends. The fewer animals or people that knew that he was no longer in the jail, the less trouble it would be for everybody.
    That night, back at the Bean farm, the four mice—Eek and Quik and Eeny and Cousin Augustus—went to bed at nine o’clock in their cigar box under the stove. And behind the stove Jinx curled up on his red cushion. But nobody slept well, for Cousin Augustus tossed and turned and disturbed the other mice, who squeaked their protests; and then from muttering, Cousin Augustus began talking, so that what he said could be understood.
    The mouse’s voice wasn’t loud enough to keep Jinx awake, but what annoyed the cat was the things Cousin Augustus said. He was calling some cat all the insulting names he could think of. Jinx knew quite well that the insults weren’t meant for him; he was on the best of terms with all the mice. He just didn’t like to hear any cat—even an imaginary one—called names by a mouse. To sit quietly and listen to it was in his opinion not dignified.
    He got up and went over to the cigar box, with the intention of lifting Cousin Augustus out and giving him a good shaking. But in the dim light from the kerosene lamp which Mrs. Bean always left turned down on the kitchen table, the four mice looked so innocent and helpless, all lying spoon fashion in the box with Cousin Augustus in the forward position, eyes tight shut and whiskers twitching as he muttered his insults, that the cat grinned and got over being mad. He just carefully shut the lid of the box and went back to his cushion. The