William S. and the Great Escape Read online

  “Didn’t Big Ed even go look for her?” William asked.

  “Yes. Laura said he did. At least he went off for several months, and Laura took care of the children while he was gone. But when he came back, Mabel wasn’t with him, and he said he’d gotten a divorce. Laura had finished her second year at the junior college by then, and she just went on taking care of the kids for several more months, when for some reason she decided to marry Ed Baggett. Our father was still alive at that time, and both he and I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t listen.” Auntie shook her head and sighed. “And then you were born, William, and then Jancy.”

  “Did you ever go to see her?” Jancy asked.

  “I tried,” Auntie said. “But Ed made it clear that I wasn’t welcome. I guess he knew what my father and I thought of him, and it made him angry. And when he was angry, he took it out on Laura.”

  The three of them sat there staring at each other for another minute or two before Aunt Fiona stood up and said, “It’s late, and I know you must be very tired. Tomorrow we’ll need to start making all sorts of plans, but in the meantime let’s all go to bed.”

  And so they did, with Jancy and Trixie sharing one twin bed in what Aunt Fiona called her guest room, while Buddy had the other all to himself.

  And William S. Baggett had a deep bath in a clawfoot bathtub and then went to bed in a small corner room that had been his mother’s when she was a little girl. A room with a braided rug on a shiny wood floor, and snow-white curtains on the windows.

  CHAPTER 23

  Even though Gold Beach wasn’t quite as hot as Crownfield, it wasn’t exactly cool in William’s room that night. But then a breeze began to breathe through the open windows. Only a gentle, silent sigh, but enough to move the moonlit curtains in and out.

  Stretched out on the clean, soft bed, William watched the drifting curtains and tried not to think too much about how good it all looked and felt—just in case. In case it didn’t last, and he’d wake up to find himself back on the floor of a hot, smelly attic in a house full of Baggetts. Back there, where a clean, soft bed would be only a thing to dream about. To dream, and then wake up and say, like Caliban did in act three, “when I waked,/I cried to dream again.”

  The next morning, when his internal seven-thirty alarm went off, he awoke to the smell of coffee and bacon and hurried downstairs. And it was then, while he was helping Aunt Fiona with breakfast and the other kids weren’t yet awake, the two of them started to face up to the Ed Baggett problem, and what might happen if he showed up again.

  At first Aunt Fiona said she thought he just might not. “I really do believe that when he was here on Thursday, he went away convinced that I was telling the truth— that you kids weren’t here and that I hadn’t even known about your disappearance. Of course, he didn’t bother to apologize for the three of them stomping around my house in their dirty boots, looking through all my closets and cupboards. But he did say something about how he’d guessed wrong, and he’d have to guess again.”

  “Did he say anything about the police?” William asked. “Like whether the police were looking for us?”

  Aunt Fiona shook her head. “No. Not a thing.” She stopped setting the table and just stood there for a long minute, biting her lip and shaking her head before she said, “He didn’t say anything about having reported you missing to anybody. Actually, I really doubt if he had. Not at that point, at any rate.”

  William agreed. “Yeah. He probably thought he didn’t need to, because he knew where we were, and he didn’t need to hurry to come here and get us back. As long as it was before Mrs. Montgomery showed up again.”

  “Mrs. Montgomery?” Aunt Fiona asked.

  William grinned ruefully. “She’s the social worker who comes to check on how many kids need New Deal money.”

  Then too, there was that other reason William could believe that Big Ed had never reported them missing. That was how sure he now was that Clarice had made up all that stuff about police cars and posters. Made it all up, just to keep him—keep all four of them, that is—from trying to catch the bus for Gold Beach.

  There was also the fact that if you knew anything at all about Big Ed, you’d know he absolutely never talked to policemen, except when they started it.

  But still, when his aunt said, “So maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ve seen the last of Ed Baggett,” William felt he had to tell her that he did have one kind of scary reason to believe they probably weren’t going to be that lucky.

  What he had to say was, “Well, maybe, but the thing is, I think there was a guy on the bus yesterday who used to hang around with Rudy and Little Ed. One of their deadbeat friends, who’s been to the house at least once. I think he probably recognized all of us, especially Buddy. Buddy said he teased him and kind of hurt him. On the bus the guy stared at us, but he didn’t say anything. And then he got off in Summerford.”

  “Oh dear.” Aunt Fiona had a way of pressing her open right hand against her cheek when she was worried, and she was doing that now. “So you’re thinking that he’ll tell them that he saw you on your way here, but not until yesterday. Not until after they’d already been here looking for you. Oh dear.”

  Watching how worried and frightened she was looking, William had a sinking feeling that she was going to say they couldn’t stay after all. That she just couldn’t face having Ed Baggett come stomping back into her house and find his kids here, after all. But then she took a deep breath and said, “Well, I guess we’d better start thinking of a way to handle things if and when they show up again.” She smiled and then sighed. “Like finding a foolproof hiding place where we can put all four of you and make everything look as if you were never here.”

  William was amazed. What popped into his mind at that moment was, once again, the “brave new world” quote, but all he said was, “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Do you think we can?”

  They started working on finding a hiding place that same morning. Jancy helped, but the little kids, who were trying to do pick-up sticks on the kitchen table, weren’t in on it at all.

  The three of them, William and Jancy and Aunt Fiona, went through the upstairs first, looking in all three bedrooms and the bath, but except for the closets and under the beds, places where the Baggetts had looked before and were sure to look again, there didn’t seem to be any possibilities. But then Aunt Fiona came up with an interesting suggestion. Way at the back of her bedroom closet was a little square door that led into a very shallow attic area, where the roof went out over the back porch. With longish dresses hanging in front of it, you didn’t even see the little door when you opened the closet, and the Baggetts apparently hadn’t noticed it when they were there before. The area was packed full of cardboard cartons of stored-away stuff, but after the boxes were removed, there just might be enough room for four tightly-squeezed-together kids.

  So they cleared it out, with William crawling in and handing out the boxes, and Aunt Fiona contributing some old quilts to pad the rough, unfinished floor. Then came showing it to the little kids and explaining what it was for—and why. Auntie thought it might frighten Trixie and Buddy too much if they really knew why they had to practice hiding. So when they took the kids up to show them the secret attic area, Jancy came up with another “game” story.

  “We’re going to play a kind of hide-and-seek game,” she told Trixie and Buddy. “But the best part is that nobody knows when we’re going to start playing. That part will be a surprise. The game starts all of a sudden when somebody says, ‘Here we go,’ and then everybody has to run through Aunt Fiona’s bedroom and into her closet and through that little door, and shut the door and be very quiet.”

  “Can I say it?” Trixie asked. “Can I be the one to say, ‘Here we go’?”

  “No,” Jancy said. “It has to be William or Aunt Fiona or me.”

  Trixie began to whimper. “But I want to say it. Why can’t I be the one to say it?”

  “Because that’s the way the rules are
.” Jancy was sounding exasperated. “The rules say only people who are older than ten get to decide when to say, ‘Here we go.’ Okay?”

  Trixie didn’t look happy, but she shrugged and said, “Okay then. I won’t say it right away. But I get to have my turn as soon as I’m ten. Okay?”

  So they had to promise her she could be the one to say, “Here we go” when she got to be ten years old, and then they all went down to the kitchen and started a practice run. Aunt Fiona said, “Here we go,” and all four of them ran up the stairs, down the hall, through the bedroom and closet, climbed through the little door, squeezed into the secret attic, and closed the door behind them. Trixie and Buddy loved it. In fact, they wanted to keep doing it over and over. But after they’d done it three or four times, they finally agreed to go back to trying to learn how to do pick-up sticks.

  The next day and the one after that, Auntie seemed to be fairly relaxed. Either that, or she was really good at pretending she was. She went right ahead doing everyday things in a calm, ordinary way. Like making plans about what would happen when school started. As if it really was for certain that the four of them would still be there.

  “I’ve talked to a friend of mine who says she’d be glad to take care of Buddy while I’m teaching,” she told Jancy. “And you and Trixie can ride to school with me, if you don’t mind going a little early. We’ll drop William off at the junior high and then go right on to Gold Beach Elementary.”

  They didn’t mind. William thought that riding to school every day in Aunt Fiona’s car, instead of having to ride the school bus, would be a nice change. He was beginning to really look forward to the first day of school. To the time when he could stop hanging around the house all day, listening for suspicious noises and running to look out the front windows every time he heard a strange sound.

  Where Aunt Fiona lived, at the end of Eleanor Street, there wasn’t much traffic, and that seemed to make the problem worse. The windows had to be kept open in the hot summer weather, so every time a car did go by, it was pretty noticeable. Particularly if the car had a noisy engine, like the old wrecks the Baggetts usually owned.

  William found himself listening and watching pretty constantly. Watching to be sure the kids hadn’t left any clothes or toys lying around, as well as listening for cars. Particularly listening for a noisy car that sounded as if it was getting ready to stop. Two or three times a day a thumping motor or a squeal of brakes would send him racing to the window, only to catch sight of the offending car and see that it wasn’t full of Baggetts—and walk away, reminding himself to start breathing again.

  Two more days went by like that, but then, right after lunch on a gray, muggy Thursday, William was in the living room reading one of Aunt Fiona’s books, when there was a chugging, coughing roar that came from just outside the house. And when he ran to the window, the first thing he saw was Rudy Baggett climbing out of a big, rusty car. Climbing out, slamming the door behind him, and joining Big and Little Ed, who were already headed for Aunt Fiona’s front door.

  CHAPTER 24

  A split second of stunned disbelief, and William was swinging into action. Calling, “Here we go,” he ran into the kitchen, where Trixie and Buddy had made a playhouse by hanging a sheet over a card table. Still saying, “Here we go, here we go” in a loud whisper, he stuffed the sheet into a drawer, grabbed Trixie and Buddy’s hands, and headed for the stairs. After the first startled-stiff minute the kids got their act together, and by the time they’d reached the top of the stairs they were both squealing, “Here we go.” And Jancy was right behind them, with her arms full of things they’d left lying around the house. Things like an old baby doll and a bunch of pick-up sticks.

  By the time they’d reached Aunt Fiona’s bedroom the doorbell had started to ring, one loud, demanding jangle after another.

  “Hush. Stop yelling. Be quiet,” William was whispering as he pushed the two little kids headfirst through the little opening in the closet wall and climbed in over them. And a few seconds later Jancy was there too.

  Pulling the door closed, William whispered, “Everybody be very quiet.”

  And then it was absolutely quiet, and very dark. The silence lasted for a minute or two before Trixie asked, “Is whispering against the rules?”

  William and Jancy said, “Shh!” in unison.

  Minutes passed. Except for the soft whisper of hushed breathing, no sound at all. But then suddenly there were footsteps, soft and far away at first, but quickly getting louder and nearer. And voices. Loud, demanding voices that faded briefly and came back again. More footsteps and even louder voices, louder and clearer.

  William’s heart was already pounding against his ribs when he heard a gasp, and then another. And then Trixie was saying in a whispery whimper, “Big Ed? Is that Big Ed, William?”

  Pressing his lips against Trixie’s ear, William barely breathed, “Yes, it is. Be still.”

  Trixie stopped whimpering. Stopped so immediately and completely that for a moment William wondered if she’d stopped breathing, but when he put his ear against her skinny little chest, he could hear the rapid pounding of her heart.

  And then, very near their hiding place, a different Baggetty voice was shouting. Shouting loudly enough for even people shut away in an attic hideout to hear and understand the words. “Look here, Pop. Look what Little Ed found downstairs. They’re here, all right. They got to be.”

  A softer voice followed. Softer and very familiar. Aunt Fiona was saying something only partly understandable, but clearly pleading, begging. “Please. Please. Just go away.” A moment more of unintelligible pleading. And then, louder, “Don’t. Please don’t. Stop it. You’re hurting me.”

  And suddenly, before anyone could stop him, Buddy was shouting, “No. No. You stop that. Don’t hurt Auntie.” And Buddy was shoving William’s hands away and struggling to push open the attic door and wiggle his way out into the closet. By the time William was able to follow him, Buddy had run to Aunt Fiona, and with his back against her legs and both his clenched fists held out in front of him, he was threatening the Baggetts. Threatening to take on the three big men who were staring at him in disbelief—staring and then convulsing in loud roars of laughter.

  The laughter didn’t last long. And it didn’t take much longer for the Baggetts to find their hiding place and pull the rest of them out. To find them and drag them, with Trixie crying hysterically and Buddy yelling and William and Jancy shocked into frozen silence, down the stairs to the front door.

  There was a brief pause there, when Big Ed ordered William to go back and get their clothing. “All of it,” he yelled. “I’m not going to get stuck with buying you good-for-nothing tramps a bunch of new school clothes. Now get going. Rudy, go with him and see that he does as he’s told. Just some stuff for them to wear. Nothing else. Ya hear me?”

  “You heard him. Just your duds,” Rudy repeated when William tried to add Doubleday’s Complete Works to his jam-packed knapsack. “Nothing else.”

  And then they drove away—away from Gold Beach and 971 Eleanor Street, leaving Aunt Fiona standing on the front porch with her hand pressed against her cheek and tears running down her face.

  It didn’t take nearly as long to go the one hundred miles between Gold Beach and Crownfield in the Baggetts’ car as it had on the bus, but to William it seemed like forever. A forever of having to try to answer the questions Big Ed shouted back at him from the driver’s seat. Questions like, “What kind of excuse you got for running away from your home and family—and taking those two helpless little tykes with you? Just making sure they’re going to turn into the same kind of sneaking lying tramp you are, and always have been?” And a little later, “And how you going to explain where you got the money to take all four of you all that way on the bus? Tell me that. Bet I know now what’s been happening to the hard-earned cash me and your brothers been missing lately.” At first William tried to answer and explain, but it was no use.

  In between the ques
tioning sessions William could only listen to Trixie’s soft sobs and Buddy’s constant questions. Questions about where they were going and why. “Why can’t we stay at Auntie’s? Why, Willum? Why?”

  It was pretty obvious that Big Ed, and the rest of the Baggetts as well, blamed William for the escape attempt, and they meant to see that he never tried it again. By the time they’d been back at the farmhouse for three or four days, William had been beaten hard with Big Ed’s long leather belt, and slapped around more times than he could count. Jancy got whipped too, but just with a switch, and not quite as long and hard. And in between the beatings, they both were carefully watched and spied on by one or another Baggett. Even by Babe, who ordinarily didn’t do anything except comb her hair and put on makeup.

  They were watched so closely that it wasn’t until three or four days later, on a particularly hot afternoon when everyone seemed to be napping, that William and Jancy finally managed to get to their old meeting place in the moldy hayloft. They had a lot of things to talk about. The first and most important was Trixie.

  “I’m really worried about her,” Jancy said as soon as they reached their hiding place. “She’s so quiet. It’s just not like her at all. She’s been that way ever since he made her stand there and watch while he beat you with his belt. I tried to take her away, but he wouldn’t let me.”

  “I know. I saw her,” William said. With his hands over his face to protect it from the whip, as well as hide his tears, he hadn’t seen much. But he did catch a glimpse of Trixie’s pale, frightened face and heard big Ed yelling at Jancy, “Stay right there and watch. Both of you. You’ll get it too, missy, if you ever try to run out on me again.”

  William sneezed, sniffed, and swallowed hard before he could go on, “But I’ve hardly seen her since then. Where has she been? Doesn’t she ever come out of your room?”

  “She never wants to. Not even to eat.” Jancy’s large eyes were full of tears. “She wants me to stay there with her, and if I have to go out for even a few minutes, she hides herself. When I come back, she’s usually in the closet or under the bed. That’s probably where she is right now.”