William S. and the Great Escape Read online

  It took a while. Sitting on the floor beside Jancy’s cot, he patted her shoulder and told her he knew that Sweetie Pie was a lot more than just a guinea pig, and he shouldn’t have put it that way. It wasn’t until Jancy finally sat up and wiped the tears off her face and said she was okay, that he went back to where Clarice was waiting on the top stair.

  He sat down beside her, and for a second or two they just looked at each other. Her eyes were still wide but not so fluttery looking, and after a minute she smiled—one of those strange, unexpected smiles. Nodding toward Jancy, she said, “That was good.”

  “What?” William said. “What was good?”

  “What you did just then. What you said to Jancy.” She paused and then went on, “Is Jancy her real name? It’s not a normal-sounding name.”

  “I know,” William said, grinning ruefully. “A lot of Baggetts have weird names. Big Ed named everybody. I think he’d decided to name the next one Johnny, but when she turned out to be a girl he just changed it to Jancy.”

  “Big Ed?” Clarice asked.

  “Yeah. The Big Man. The Boss,” William said sarcastically.

  “You mean your father?”

  William shrugged. “You might put it that way,” he said.

  Clarice nodded. “Well, anyway, it was nice what you said to Jancy. I heard you.”

  “Oh.” William shrugged again. “Well, I shouldn’t have said just a guinea pig. I mean, that guinea pig was the only pet Jancy ever had, and she was real crazy about it. And Sweetie Pie really was the reason we ran away when we did.” He grinned. “I mean, it was Jancy who decided. Oh, I’d thought about doing it for a long time, but I didn’t have any definite plans until Jancy decided it had to be right away.”

  Clarice nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve thought a lot about running away too, and why a person might do it.”

  “You mean why we did it? I told you. It was what happened to Sweetie Pie that did it.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “What I meant was that I’ve thought about running away myself. About why I ought to do it.”

  William stared at Clarice, and she looked back. The tense, nervous flicker was there in her eyes again, but it wasn’t quite the same. William was puzzled.

  “Why would you want to—,” he was beginning to say, when she looked at her watch and jumped up.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she said. “Okay? Tomorrow I’ll tell you why I almost ran away, if you tell me first. I mean why you really decided to. Before the guinea pig thing.”

  William found himself agreeing. Tomorrow he would tell Clarice why he’d been planning to run away since he was about six years old. And she would tell him … what? He couldn’t imagine.

  She left then, and a few minutes later, as he was getting into his cot, Jancy sat up and motioned for him to come over, so he did. She wasn’t crying anymore, but her eyelashes were still wet. “I won’t be mad at you anymore,” she said, “if you tell me what you and Clarice were talking about.”

  So he did. At least he told her the part about the police cars Clarice had seen in Crownfield, and how he’d decided they better not try to catch the bus tomorrow morning. But that was all. He didn’t mention what Clarice had told him about running away. That could wait until he’d found out more about it himself.

  CHAPTER 11

  The next day was Thursday, and just like the day before, they had to wait until Clarice’s parents left for work before they went up to the kitchen for breakfast. The only difference was that while they were eating, Trixie kept asking why they weren’t going to ride on the bus like William said. Of course that got Buddy started on the “why” thing too. From why weren’t they going on the bus, he went on to why did they have to stay in the basement all day, and why did Clarice have so many toys, and why couldn’t they pick out three toys to play with instead of just two, and why didn’t everybody in the world have their own playroom with lots of toys? And a lot more.

  At first Clarice seemed to think all the whys were amusing, but after a while she began to get glassy-eyed, and she interrupted Buddy’s whys long enough to tell him that he could pick out three toys today, if he didn’t say why one more time until he’d finished his breakfast. It worked. Both Buddy and Trixie ate silently and so fast they almost choked themselves, and it wasn’t long before they were all back in the kitchen, loaded down with toys, and Clarice was telling Jancy it was her turn to babysit the kids in the basement while William helped do the dishes.

  While he carried the dishes to the sink, William was feeling, along with some eager curiosity, a certain amount of uneasiness about having promised Clarice that he’d tell her why he’d been planning to run away. Things like how long he’d been planning to. For instance, the fact that as soon as he started school he’d begun to realize that most people lived in places that were cleaner, and quieter, and a lot more peaceful than any of the places he’d ever lived. And that most kids didn’t get picked on and slapped around as much as he did. He’d never told anyone how he felt about being a Baggett, except, of course, Jancy. Not even Miss Scott, although he had a feeling that she knew about it without him having to tell her. Like how she seemed to know not to ask him if his parents were going to come to watch him being Ariel in The Tempest.

  Miss Scott. Now, that was a topic he’d rather talk about. Maybe he could start out by asking Clarice if she had Miss Scott for English last year, and go on from there. Go on to talk about how Miss Scott had picked him to be in The Tempest, and taught him a whole lot, not only about Shakespeare, but about stage presence and projection and a lot of other stuff about being an actor.

  He knew it might not sidetrack Clarice. What she obviously wanted to hear was not just what happened to Jancy’s Sweetie Pie, but also a lot of other stuff about the Baggetts. She’d probably love to hear things like how Big Ed never had a steady job because of his “bad back” and how his limp always got a lot worse whenever the welfare people came around. And how when he got drunk he yelled and hit everyone he could get his hands on, except the ones who were getting big enough to hit him back. And how the Baggetts had always moved around a lot because Big Ed hardly ever bothered to pay rent.

  He was pretty sure those were the sorts of things Clarice wanted to hear. He didn’t know how he knew, except the excited way her eyes started flickering whenever she started asking that kind of question. And he also knew that it was a subject he didn’t particularly want to discuss.

  But on the other hand, he had to admit that she wasn’t the only one who was curious. He was curious about why in the world Clarice would be planning to run away. After all, she was the only child of very important people, like she kept saying, who apparently didn’t slap her around, and certainly bought her everything she could possibly want, and then some.

  Thinking ahead, it did occur to him that it might be possible to get Clarice to talk first, and maybe she’d get so wound up she’d keep going long enough so they would run out of time before they got to his turn. It seemed like a good idea, and it began to look even better when she took Jancy and the little kids down to the basement and didn’t come back for a long time. Good. Not much time left before she’d have to leave to have lunch with her great-aunt.

  “I know. I’m late,” she said when she finally showed up. “Jancy asked for some soap and a scrub board so she could wash some clothes, so I had to show her how to use our new washing machine.”

  “Washing machine?” William asked. “You have one of those machines that washes clothes?”

  “Sure,” Clarice said. “A new one with a big automatic wringer.”

  “An automatic wringer? Hey, I’d sure like to see that. All right?” William said, heading for the door. But it didn’t work.

  “You can see it later,” Clarice said, starting the hot water running into the dishpan. “Right now we have some other things to do—and talk about. Okay. You first. Start talking.” No argument or even discussion. Just “Start talking.”

&n
bsp; William sighed. There was the Miss Scott possibility, so he gave it a try. “Hey,” he ventured. “Did you have Miss Scott for English last year?”

  “Sure I did,” Clarice said. “All the really good students do. Why?”

  “I just wondered what you thought of her. You know, the way she taught English at the junior high and drama at the high school, too. I thought she was … Well, actually what a lot people think, is that she’s … Well, a pretty good teacher.”

  Clarice shrugged. “Sure, she’s okay, I guess. I’ve known her since I was just a little kid. I told you, she’s a friend of my family.” She paused and looked at William with squinty eyes. “Yeah, I guess you would think she’s special. After all, she was the one who picked you to be Ariel.” She did a slow grin. “How did that happen?” The grin faded. “Anyway, Miss Scott isn’t what we were going to talk about. You were going to tell me how come you had to escape. I mean, what happened back there at the Baggetts’ that made you decide you had to run away?”

  Okay. He’d just see how much he could say without saying anything in particular. Picking up the dish towel, he dried several dishes before he said, “Well, my so-called father’s name is Edward G. Baggett, and he’s been married three times.”

  He paused to check Clarice. Disappointed, he thought. Nothing excitingly shocking about having three wives, as long as it’s one at a time. So he went on. “His first wife had six kids, five boys and a girl, and his second wife, who was my mother, had four. Two of each. So that makes ten kids in one family.”

  “And what happened to his first wife?” Clarice interrupted. “Did she die?”

  Actually, William didn’t know. He remembered hearing Big Ed say that her name was Mabel and she came from Texas, but he’d never said where she went. So William told Clarice that he guessed Mabel just got tired of so many kids and went back to Texas. “And after that happened,” he went on, “he married my mother, whose name was Laura Hardison, and she had me first and then Jancy, and a few years later, Trixie and Buddy. And a few days after she had Buddy, she died.”

  Clarice rinsed a plate, put it carefully in the rack, and turned to look at William with narrow eyes. “What did she die of?” she asked. “How old were you, and how did you feel about your mother dying like that?”

  William returned her stare. Stared back, blank eyed and stiff faced. There was no way he was going to get into that. No way he would even begin to get into anything about his mother. Nothing about the way he’d felt about her when he was little and she took such good care of him and Jancy. But then, as he got older, how he began to blame her for letting Big Ed’s older kids knock him around. And how sometimes, after Trixie was born, he’d almost hated his mother for spending all her time with the new baby, and kind of giving up on him and Jancy.

  Maybe he’d just say something that would give Clarice the thrill she was obviously looking for. Something that wouldn’t be too far from the truth, either. Like, for instance, “She died of being a Baggett.” But no, he wouldn’t. Instead he just said, “I don’t remember. But when she died, her sister, Fiona Hardison, came and took Buddy and Trixie to live with her for two years. Then Ed Baggett got married again, so he just went to her house and took them back.”

  “So now you have a stepmother?” Clarice’s eyes narrowed again, probably thinking evil stepmother like in a fairy tale.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” William said.

  “What do you mean, you guess so? If she’s married to your father, she’s your stepmother. Right?”

  “Right.” William shrugged. “I guess.” He didn’t go on to say that it had never occurred to him to think of Gertie Baggett as his mother, step or otherwise.

  “So when did you start thinking about running away?” Clarice’s eyes still had that sharp, squinty look. “And why? What happened that made you decide that’s what you had to do?”

  William looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Look what time it is,” he said. “You’re going to have to leave for your aunt’s house pretty soon. So it’s your turn to talk now. Okay?”

  She frowned at first and shook her head, but at last she said, “Well, okay. Okay.” It took a while before she began again. “Like I told you, my parents are very important people.” There it was again, that sharp, sarcastic edge to the positive, almost boastful, things she was saying. “They’re both lawyers, you know, and my father might be a judge pretty soon if the times start getting better. They met each other way back when they were in law school, and they decided to open an office together and get married.” Long pause. “But I don’t think they ever decided to have any children.”

  She looked at William, so he looked back, but he didn’t say anything until after she repeated, slowly and significantly, “I don’t think they ever decided to have children.”

  At last William grinned and said, “Well, I guess that’s the way it happens sometimes. I guess people can have kids without actually deciding to.”

  She didn’t smile. “So what they did decide to do was to pretend it didn’t happen, at least as much as they possibly could. Like when I was little they hired a live-in babysitter to keep me from bothering them too much, and now they have me spend most of my time at my great-aunt’s house. Or at least they think that’s what I’m doing. And then they go and buy me all sorts of stupid junk just so everybody will think that they’re these great, wonderful, devoted parents.”

  “And so?” William nodded, thinking, Is that it? But what he said out loud was just, “And so that’s the reason you decided to run away?”

  He didn’t say anything more. Not a word about what was really going through his mind, but she must have kind of guessed.

  “All right,” she said. “All right! So they didn’t beat me or shut me up in a dungeon or anything. But how would you feel if you knew your parents thought you were just a big mistake? How would you feel if …” She kind of ran down then and went on staring at William for a minute before she shrugged and said, “Well, I never did get around to making any actual plans to run away, I guess. But I do think about it sometimes. You know. Like, sometimes I wonder if they’d even notice I was gone.”

  She turned away then and went back to washing the dishes very hard and fast. She didn’t say anything more until the dishpan had been put away. Then she grabbed a plate out of William’s hands and said, “No. The plates don’t go there. They go up here. See?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I see.” And he did. Where the plates went, and a few other things besides.

  CHAPTER 12

  Life in the Ogdens’ basement went pretty smoothly that morning, at least for a while. There were a lot of toys to keep the little kids busy. Jancy had borrowed a couple of books from Clarice’s bookshelves, and after she’d finished hanging the still ragged, but much cleaner, clothes up to dry, she got to read for a while too.

  And William himself even managed to spend an hour or so reading Twelfth Night—the part where Sir Andrew Aguecheek, one of Sir Toby’s drinking buddies, comes onstage and tries to get friendly with Maria, the chambermaid, except she lets him know she definitely isn’t interested.

  William found he was able to read most of a page without having to look up more than a couple of words in the glossary at the back of the book, and he probably would have gotten even further if he hadn’t had some other things on his mind. Things like how he was going to get everybody to Aunt Fiona’s now that the police were looking for them. Reading Shakespeare, he decided, is a lot harder when the police are looking for you.

  It wasn’t until after lunch—sandwiches in the basement again—that the kids got tired of playing with their toys and began begging William to let them go outside.

  “No, you know Clarice said you can’t do that,” he told them.

  “I know that,” Trixie said. “But I don’t know—”

  “Why,” Buddy finished her sentence. “Why can’t we play outside, Willum?”

  Thinking that because the police might see you would sound too scary, W
illiam could only say, “Because the neighbors might see you.”

  Trixie thought about that for a minute before she asked, “Why don’t we want the neighbors to see us? We won’t do anything bad.”

  “Yeah,” Buddy echoed. “We won’t do anything bad.” William considered because the neighbors might tell Big Ed but decided that might be even scarier, so he could only shrug and try to get back into Shakespeare. But the whys kept coming, one after another until he suddenly blew his top and bellowed, “Stop it! No more whys.” It wasn’t until both the little kids, and even Jancy, stared at him, wide-eyed, that he realized how much he’d sounded like a Baggett.

  “Okay, okay,” he told them. “If you forget about going outside, I’ll do some more of The Tempest. Would you like that?”

  They would, but he’d barely opened his Doubleday’s Complete Works of William Shakespeare to page 1300 when the basement door opened and Clarice came in and sat down on the steps.

  “Hey,” she said. “You going to do some more Shakespeare? Go on, do it. I’ll watch too.”

  William swallowed hard. Having Clarice in the audience made a difference. Maybe he’d just forget about it. Cancel the performance. But then he looked back to where Jancy, two bug-eyed little kids, and one very attentive, very large dog, were sitting up straight in a neat row. Sighing, he reached out again for his Complete Works and turned it so the kids could all see the picture on the cover. The picture of Prospero and Miranda on their little island, surrounded by a stormy sea.

  “See, here they are. Prospero and Miranda. Right here on the cover.”

  Trixie and Buddy, and Jancy, too, crowded closer. “Is that Miranda?” Jancy asked. “How old is she?”

  “She must be fifteen,” William said. “Because she was three when they came to the island, and they’ve been there for twelve years. So she must be fifteen.”