William S. and the Great Escape Read online

  “It will take you two or three hours,” Jancy asked, “to go shopping?”

  It wasn’t until then that Clarice explained that she really wasn’t supposed to be home alone all day. “I’m supposed to spend most of the day with my aunt, who lives just a couple of blocks away. My folks think I spend most of every day there,” she said. “But usually I don’t. My aunt doesn’t care. Actually, she’s my great-aunt and she’s pretty old, and most of the time she’s reading or sleeping. She doesn’t notice whether I’m there or not, except at lunchtime. So after I shop I’ll have lunch with my aunt like always. I usually help make it, because my aunt’s cook is giving me cooking lessons. But then I’ll come right back here. Just be sure all of you stay right here in the basement until I get back. Okay?”

  “What about Ursa?” Jancy asked. “Do you take him with you?”

  “Not when I ride my bike,” Clarice said. “He’s only supposed to go outside on a leash, because he runs away. He usually just stays in the house while I’m gone, but you can keep him down here with you in the basement if you want to, until I get back.”

  Jancy did want to. “But can I take him out so he won’t mess on the floor?” she asked.

  Clarice shook her head. “No. Don’t take him outside. You won’t need to. He’s used to waiting all day. The only time he has to go in a hurry is sometimes real early in the morning. That’s how come I happened to find you guys this morning. Ursa woke me up and absolutely insisted that he had to go out right then, even though it was still pretty dark outside.” She thought for a moment and then went on. “Maybe he heard you. Maybe that’s why he wanted to go so early.”

  So it turned out that it was only because the dog named Ursa wanted to go outside early in the morning that the runaway Baggetts wound up spending the next day at the Ogdens’. Except for the fact that he was anxious to get the running-away ordeal over and done with, William wasn’t too upset about the delay. Not at that point, anyway.

  The trip to the bus stop would be a lot easier tomorrow. There was enough bread and cheese and apples to make a pretty good lunch, and the little kids had the doll and the tin clown to play with for the rest of the day. Nothing to worry about—you might think.

  You might also think that an expensive doll with eyes that opened and shut, and a tin clown that turned somersaults, would be enough to keep a six- and a four-year-old fairly happy for a few hours. They weren’t, though, and that was how it happened that William started doing The Tempest in the Ogdens’ basement.

  CHAPTER 9

  It didn’t happen right away. For the next hour or so, while the little kids played with their borrowed toys and Jancy played with Ursa, William got his Complete Works out of his knapsack. He started where he’d left off: act one, scene three of Twelfth Night, and it was pretty interesting. All about how Olivia’s uncle, Sir Toby Belch, stayed out late and drank too much and had good-for-nothing friends. Probably a Baggett ancestor, William decided.

  But it wasn’t easy to keep his mind on what he was reading with all the other things that were going on in the basement. Jancy was talking to Ursa, Trixie was talking to the Shirley Temple doll and pretending to be the doll talking back to her, and the tin clown kept clanking up and down the cement floor. After a while, William gave up on Shakespeare for the time being and asked Jancy to help him make lunch. Making and eating the cheese sandwiches didn’t take long, and then William was back to trying to ignore everything except Shakespeare.

  But it got harder and harder to keep his mind on what he was reading. Trixie and Buddy got bored with the toys and started romping around the basement with Ursa. And when they were tired of that, they started whimpering and whining. Trixie whimpered and Buddy whined.

  “Can we go play outside, Willum?” Buddy whined. And when William said no, he switched to “Why?” His all-time favorite word. William had kept count once— the score was thirty-seven whys in five minutes.

  “Wow. They’re driving me crazy,” William told Jancy.

  “Yeah, me too,” she said. She tipped her head to one side and thought a moment. “Why don’t you read to them?”

  “Me?” William laughed. “I don’t have anything to read—except Shakespeare.”

  “I know that,” Jancy said. “Why don’t you read Shakespeare?”

  He laughed. “Read Shakespeare to those two? I don’t think so.”

  Jancy nodded. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “Most people couldn’t. But I’ll bet you could. When they don’t understand, you could kind of act it out. You know, like you did in the play.”

  That was a shock. “How’d you find out about the play?” he demanded.

  Jancy grinned. “I saw you do it. Twice. I ditched class twice and snuck over to the high school all by myself. I sat way back in the last row, but I could tell that you were a really good Ariel, and everybody thought what you did was the best part of the whole play.”

  William was amazed. “You never told me you saw it,” he said accusingly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Jancy looked away. She didn’t say anything for several minutes, and when she did, wide-eyed and solemn, it was just, “Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  There were things that might have been said. Things about how afraid he’d been that the rest of the Baggetts would find out and ruin everything, but he knew that wouldn’t be good enough. Finally, all he said was, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  Jancy grinned. “That’s okay. I liked seeing it anyway. And I bet Trixie and Buddy will too.”

  And that was how it happened that William began to read and recite, and actually act out, parts of The Tempest by William Shakespeare in the middle of the afternoon in the basement of a brown-shingled house on Gardenia Street.

  Jancy had lined everybody up—the two kids, herself, and even Ursa—like the front row of an audience. When they were all in line and quiet, William began.

  “The first scene of The Tempest,” he said, “takes place on a ship, and there’s this tempest. That’s like a really big storm, with thunder and lightning and high winds. And everybody thinks they’re going to drown. Right at first there are just these sailors running around trying to fix the sails and—”

  “And right there on the stage,” Jancy interrupted, “the actors who are pretending to be sailors are rocking back and forth like they’re on a boat, and the big wind is blowing canvas sails and everything around all over the stage. It was real scary.” She turned to William. “How’d they do that, William?” she asked. “How’d they make a big wind like that blow indoors?”

  “It’s a wind machine,” William told her. “It’s like a great big fan. Can I go on now?” They all nodded. He opened the big book to page 1299 and put it on the counter in the little kitchen, where he could remind himself what came next when he needed to. But he didn’t read it word for word. Mostly he just did it the way he thought they might understand. Like, to begin with, “‘Heigh my hearties. Take in the topsail or we run ourselves aground.’”

  He ran around then, pretending to be pulling on a rope that was taking in the sails, and leaning back and forth to make it look as if the floor was tilting under his feet. The little kids laughed and clapped.

  “And now,” he said, “the wind is still blowing, but four more men come onstage, all dressed up in fancy clothes like kings and other rich people. And one of them has a beard and gray hair because he is an old man named Gonzalo. He’s a good guy. Then there’s a king with a crown named Alonso, and a duke, who’s almost as important as a king but not quite. And the duke’s name is Antonio. Remember Antonio, because he’s the bad guy. The other person is named Ferdinand, and he’s the king’s son and he’s supposed to be young and very goodlooking. You got all that? Okay, action. First I’m going to be a bossy sailor called a boatswain, and he starts ordering the kings to stay down below. William squared his shoulders and stuck out his chin and said, “‘I pray now, keep below. You mar our labour: Keep your/cabins: You do assist the storm.’
”

  William began to recite by heart the argument between the old man named Gonzalo and the boatswain, where Gonzalo says, “‘I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he/hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is/ perfect gallows.’”

  He stopped when he could tell by the blank looks of his audience that they weren’t getting it. “What that meant,” he told them, “is that Gonzalo is telling the bossy boatswain he looks like someone who was born to be hanged. You know what a gallows is, don’t you? It’s like this platform where they hang people.” William pantomimed hanging, holding an imaginary rope above his tipped head and letting his tongue hang out. Gasps and giggles from his audience.

  “And Gonzalo says he is feeling safer now, because if the boatswain was born to be hanged, he can’t die by drowning. So that means the boat probably isn’t going to sink after all.” Jancy giggled, but the little kids still looked pretty vague.

  William checked the book and told his audience, “The first scene ends with everybody still rocking back and forth in the storm, and then there’s a big crashing sound like the boat just hit some rocks, and the curtain comes down real quick. And when it goes back up there are just two people onstage, sitting on a big rock on an island. One of them is an old man named Prospero and the other one is his beautiful daughter, Miranda. Miranda knows that her father can do magical things, so she’s asking him if he caused the storm that sank the ship, because she feels sorry for the people who were in the boat. And then Prospero says to Miranda, ‘Be collected:/ No more amazement: tell your piteous heart/There’s no harm done.’ Which means that even though he did use magic to cause the storm, he hadn’t let anybody drown. And that’s when he tells Miranda to ‘Ope thine ear’ because he’s going to explain everything to her.”

  It was right then that someone else said, “Oh, yes. I remember that part now.” And there was Clarice, sitting on the top step.

  William was embarrassed. He had no idea how long she’d been sitting there and how much she’d seen and heard. He watched her face as she got up, but it was hard to tell what she was thinking. When she got down the stairs she stopped long enough to say hello to Ursa and the kids before she looked at William and said, “Why don’t you do the part where you sing and dance?”

  “Yes,” Trixie and Buddy and even Jancy were saying. “Yes, sing and dance, William. Sing and dance.”

  He shook his head, grinning. “I didn’t really dance,” he told them. “Not like tap dancing or anything. I just twisted and twirled and jumped around and kind of halfway sang my lines. But I couldn’t do it without a costume. You just can’t do that kind of thing unless you’re wearing a costume.” He gestured at his dirty blue jeans and ragged T-shirt. “I can’t do it like this. Later. Okay?”

  Trixie sighed. “When, then?” she asked. “Tomorrow? Will you sing and dance tomorrow?”

  “Well, not tomorrow,” William said. “Tomorrow we’ll be riding most of the day on the bus.” And then, because Trixie looked so disappointed, he added, “On the bus to Gold Beach. Remember?”

  That helped. “Yes,” Trixie said. “Remember, Buddy? Remember how nice it was there?” Buddy probably didn’t, but he seemed to be willing to take Trixie’s word for it. “Yeah,” he said eagerly. “Gold Beach.”

  But then Clarice was pulling William aside and whispering in his ear. “Not tomorrow, I’m afraid,” she said. “It would be very dangerous for you to go down-town tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Dangerous? What do you mean?” William asked when Clarice said that it would be too dangerous for them to go to the downtown bus stop the next morning.

  But she only put a finger to her lips and said, “I’ll tell you later. Right now I need Jancy to help me make dinner for you guys. Come on, Jancy. We have to get your dinner over with, so the dishes and everything can be all cleaned up before my folks get home.”

  “I’ll come too,” William said, but Clarice said no, because someone had to babysit the kids in the basement until the food was ready, so they wouldn’t run around the house and mess things up.

  He tried to argue. To whisper urgently that you couldn’t just tell a person that tomorrow would be dangerous, and then go off without explaining what you were talking about. But she wouldn’t listen, and after she and Jancy went upstairs, he was left behind in the basement with Trixie and Buddy, listening to them whine about how much they wanted to go upstairs too.

  “Come on, William. Let’s go up to that big kitchen. We won’t bother anything,” Trixie said. “Tell Clarice we won’t bother them while they’re cooking dinner. Isn’t that right, Buddy?”

  “That’s right,” Buddy said. “We won’t bother the kitchen. Tell Clice we just want to go up all those stairs again. Way up to that toy room.”

  That was what William was afraid of. Once they got in the house there was no telling where they’d wind up. “Nope,” he told them. “Not yet. Soon, but not quite yet.”

  But they went on whining and begging until he finally offered to do the sailor on the sinking ship scene again if they’d shut up and be quiet. It worked, but it wasn’t easy. William wound up reeling around being a sailor on a storm-tossed ship for so long that he was pretty seasick by the time Jancy finally came down to tell them dinner was ready.

  The dinner was tuna and noodles. Not great, but better than most of the stuff Gertie managed to come up with. And there was more of it too, at least more than what was usually left when it finally got to be William’s turn to fill his plate.

  “Eat up,” Clarice said. “There’s plenty. I won’t be eating much because I’ll have to eat again when my parents get home.”

  “What will you and your parents have tonight?” Jancy asked. “What does your mom cook?”

  “Nothing much,” Clarice said. “Usually they eat at a restaurant near where they work and bring me home some of it. My mom’s too busy to do much cooking. Before times got so bad, we used to have a live-in cook like my aunt does.”

  “Times got so bad?” William asked. “Even for lawyers?”

  “Sure,” Clarice said sarcastically. “Haven’t you heard about the Depression? There’s a big one right now. Even lawyers are depressed when the times are so bad people don’t have enough money to sue each other.”

  William wasn’t entirely sure he understood, but it was an interesting thing to think about. Or it would have been, if he still hadn’t been so busy wondering what Clarice had meant when she said tomorrow would be dangerous. But he had to wait to find out until the food was gone. And then he had to wait some more while he and Jancy did the dishes and Clarice took the little kids up to pick out two more toys to borrow.

  It wasn’t until they were all back in the basement, with Trixie busy changing a baby doll’s diaper and Buddy pushing a fancy toy car around in circles, that William finally managed to talk to Clarice alone. She was heading for the stairs when he grabbed her arm and whispered, “What did you mean about tomorrow being dangerous? You’d better tell me, because we’re leaving tomorrow morning no matter what. We have to.”

  Pulling away, Clarice stared at William haughtily. “Why do you have to? You can go on hiding here a little longer.” She put her hands on her hips. “And you just better because …” She pulled William toward the stairs. “Because when I was downtown shopping, I noticed some things. Some important things.”

  “Like what?” William asked.

  “Well, like …” Her eyes were jittery again, and when William looked at her, she looked away. But in a minute she went on. “Well, like … a lot of police cars.”

  “Police cars? Where?”

  “All over town,” she said. “Outside the grocery store, and …” She paused, and then nodded. “And down by the Greyhound bus station.”

  “Oh yeah?” A cold chill ran up the back of William’s neck. “Around the bus station?” He stared at Clarice, and she stared back.

  “Did it look like they were—well, looking for someone?”

  Clarice
nodded slowly. “Yeah,” she said. “I think so. And that isn’t all.” She took a deep breath. “And—and there were posters, too. Yeah, there were posters pinned up on lampposts that said that four kids named Baggett were missing.” She paused and then, “Oh yeah. The posters said there was a reward. That there’d be a reward for anybody who found them and told the police.”

  That sounded bad. Really bad. What it probably meant was that Big Ed must have made the posters, or had someone else make them. “What did it say on the posters? There weren’t pictures, were there? Pictures of us on the posters?”

  Clarice shook her head. “No,” she said uncertainly. “No pictures. Just your names and how old you all are.”

  “Holy Toledo,” William said. He was shocked, and his face must have shown it, because Clarice grabbed his arm and said, “What happened? Tell me about it.”

  “What do you mean? I don’t know what the police are doing. Or who made the posters.”

  “No, I don’t mean that,” Clarice said. “I mean, what happened that made you decide to run away?” Her eyes were jumpy again, and her whole face looked stretched tight by excitement. “Did they kill somebody? Did the Baggetts finally kill somebody? I heard my dad say he thought they probably would, sooner or later.”

  William shook his head hard. “No,” he said. “No. That wasn’t it at all. They didn’t kill anyone. It was just that—”

  He didn’t realize that Jancy had come up behind him until he heard her voice saying, “Yes, they did.” She gave William a little shove. “Why don’t you tell her? They killed Sweetie Pie. We ran away because they killed Sweetie Pie.”

  “Wow!” Clarice’s voice had sunk to a loud whisper. “I knew it. I just knew there must have been a murder.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” William said. “There wasn’t any murder. Sweetie Pie was just a guinea pig.”

  It wasn’t until he heard her gasp that William realized what he’d said, and he whirled around in time to see Jancy running across the room to throw herself facedown on her cot. Of course, he went after her.