William S. and the Great Escape by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Page A

“What’s that stuff?”
    â€œCome up here,” Jancy said, so he did, and when he got into the kitchen she went on, “It’s some real nice boys’ clothing I saw in that hall coat closet yesterday. You know, when Buddy ran off and I was looking all over for him. I asked Clarice whose they were, and she said they belonged to her cousin who came to visit last Easter, and when he went off he left this suit, because he’d prettymuch outgrown it. It looks like it might fit you.”
    William checked the things out. There were some pants made of a smooth gray material with built-in pleats down the front, a dressy grayish brown checked jacket, and a floppy cap made of the same material as the jacket.
    â€œI can’t wear that,” William said. But of course he did. The pants were a little too big around his waist and the jacket sleeves were just a bit long. But it was the matching cap that was the most important. Pulling the silk-lined cap down hard over his shaggy hair made him look a whole lot different. And feel different too. Almost as if he were wearing a stage costume. A kind of rich-kid costume that you’d certainly never see on anybody in a play about runaway Baggetts, that was for sure. But an excellent costume for someone who was playing the role of a self-confident guy who knew what he wanted, and how to go about getting it.
    It was in that frame of mind that he waved good-bye to a stunned-looking Jancy and started down Gardenia, even managing to stay in character when he met up with a Gardenia Street resident. An oldish guy with a cane and a lot of white hair, who smiled and nodded in such an enthusiastic way that it was obvious that he had no idea he’d just met up with a Baggett.
    That meeting put William into a confident mood that he managed to hang on to all the way down GardeniaStreet, and almost to Main. But on Main Street, in a part of the city that he’d known very well when the Baggetts were living in town, he found it harder to keep on feeling and acting like a visiting tourist who actually lived in some famous place like London or Paris.
    Out on Main Street the first thing he did was stop long enough to check up and down the street for police cars. Not even one. And no posters, either, at least not on any of the lampposts he’d passed so far. So much for Clarice’s horror stories.
    But now, right there in front of him was Carson’s Candy Store, where, when he was four or five years old, Al and Andy used to twist his arm until he agreed to go in and look pitiful until the kind lady behind the counter gave him a handful of jelly beans. Which he, of course, had to turn over to the twins the minute he got outside—or get slapped around. And get slapped around even harder if he’d dared to eat even one of them.
    And down there on the corner was Wally’s Cheap Gas, where the older Baggett brothers always used to go to buy gasoline for their hot rods and motorcycles. William was still staring at the familiar shapes of the gas tanks when an even more familiar screeching roar made him head for cover. A motorcycle was thundering into Wally’s driveway. A motorcycle with two big shaggy windblown guys on the seat. Without waiting to be sure, Baggetts or not, William jumped around the corner intothe alley and stayed there, completely out of sight for several minutes, until the motor roared again—roared and then died away.
    Close call. Way too close. Ducking his camouflaged head in its floppy cap, William walked hard and fast in the direction of the Greyhound bus station. The next scary question was, would the clerk on duty today be someone he’d met before? Someone who’d known him well enough to see through his rich kid costume and immediately call the police? As he pushed open the door to the ticket office, William held his breath.

CHAPTER 15
    W ell, hello there, young man,” the man under the picture of a huge dog with a