William S. and the Great Escape Read online

  “Oh, fifteen,” Trixie said. “Just like Babe.”

  William shrugged and grinned. “Well, not exactly like Babe.”

  “No,” Trixie said. “She’s a lot more beautiful than Babe, that’s for sure. Is she more beautiful than I am? Who’s most beautiful, Buddy? Me or Miranda?”

  Buddy pushed Trixie out of the way and stared at the drawing. Tilting his head one way and then the other, he looked from Trixie to the picture and back again before he pointed at the picture and said, “She is.”

  Trixie glared at Buddy, and he glared back. They were still glaring when Jancy told them to sit down and be quiet. “Sit down and watch William,” she said. “He’s going to tell what happened next after the storm. Remember, where Miranda’s father told her to ope her ear and he’d tell her about the tempest.”

  Pulling the sheet off his cot, William wrapped it around his shoulders like a cape and sat down. Holding out a hand the way Prospero was doing in the picture, he recited from memory, “‘Canst thou remember/A time before we came unto this cell?/I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not/out three years old.’”

  Then he jumped up. Wrapping the sheet around his waist like a long skirt, and talking in a higher voice, he said, “‘’Tis far off/And rather like a dream … /Had I not/Four or five women once that tended me?’”

  Readjusting the sheet again, William said, “‘Thou hadst, and more, Miranda…. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,/Thy father was the Duke of Milan and/A prince of power.’”

  Trixie’s hand was waving in the air, and when William looked at her, she said, “But I thought Prospero was her father.”

  William grinned. “You’re right,” he said. “Just listen. Miranda’s very next line is …” Rearranging the sheet and raising his voice, he said, “‘Sir, are not you my father?’”

  Deciding that the next part was going to need a little more explaining, William said, “So then Prospero starts telling Miranda about how he’d always liked to do all kinds of magic. And then he got so busy reading and studying about magic, he let his brother, whose name was Antonio, kind of run the kingdom for him.”

  “I remember,” Jancy interrupted. “You said to remember Antonio because he was the bad guy.”

  “Right,” William said. “He was so bad that he decided he wanted to take Prospero’s place and be the Duke of Milan, so he had his servants kidnap Prospero and Miranda, who was only three years old, and put them in a little boat way out on the ocean all by themselves. And they probably would have died, except the good old man named Gonzalo had put a lot of food and water in the boat. And he put all of Prospero’s books about how to do magic in the boat too. So then Miranda says, ‘And now, I pray you, sir,/For still ’tis beating in my mind, your reason/For raising this sea-storm?’”

  After checking Prospero’s next speech, William decided it would be quicker and easier to explain it in his own words, so he could get on quickly to the first place where it says, Enter Ariel.

  “So then Prospero tells her,” he said, “that it just happened that his worst enemies, like his brother Antonio and Alonzo, the king of Naples, were on the ship, and that’s why he raised the storm that made the ship sink. But remember, he also told Miranda that he didn’t let anybody get hurt.”

  William threw off the sheet and said, “And now comes the good part. Now I’m going to be Ariel.”

  But right at that moment Clarice jumped up from where she’d been sitting on the stairs and yelled, “Wait a minute. Wait till I get back,” and ran up the stairs and out the door.

  They waited quite a while. Finally Trixie said angrily, “Where did she go? Why did she run off like that, just when you were getting to the good part?”

  “Who knows?” Jancy said.

  “Maybe she had to go to the baffroom,” Buddy said.

  “No,” Trixie said. “I don’t think so. If she had to go to the bathroom, she could have gone in the one down here.”

  But Buddy stuck to his baffroom theory, and they were still arguing about it when the door banged open and Clarice came down the stairs carrying some strange-looking pieces of cloth, things that looked like long stockings and a bunch of filmy see-through stuff.

  “Here.” She pushed the bundle into William’s arms. “Put these on. And when you come out, I’ll be Prospero.”

  “How are you going to—,” William had started to say when she interrupted.

  “From the book,” she said. “Just show me where.”

  So William pointed out Prospero’s next speech before he went in to dress, and while he was gone Clarice studied her lines for a minute and then reached into her pocket and got out some matches and a couple of Fourth of July sparklers.

  Wrapping herself in the bedsheet cloak, she told the little kids, “See, William is going to be this super-magical spirit named Ariel, who was trapped in a tree trunk until Prospero rescued him. So he has to obey everything Prospero says. And just now he’s coming back from setting the ship on fire in the middle of the storm, and he’s going to say that he’s done everything Prospero wanted him to. I’ll be Prospero, but wait till you see how William does the part about setting everything on fire. In the play at Crownfield High, he had this long, thin flashlight that looked like a torch, but these sparklers will look almost as good.” She got up and stood by the bathroom and shouted, “Tell me when you’re ready and I’ll light a sparkler. Okay?”

  Up until that moment William had been reluctant, but suddenly he began to feel the way he had when he was on the stage at the high school and people were cheering and clapping. Pulling on the black tights and loose filmy tunic that Clarice had provided, he became the magical sprite Ariel.

  CHAPTER 13

  Stopping only long enough to snatch a lighted sparkler from Clarice’s hand, William bounded, leaped, and twirled dramatically before coming back to make a sweeping bow before Clarice, who, with one finger on the top of page 1302, recited, “‘I am ready now./ Approach, my Ariel, come.’”

  “‘All hail, great master! Grave sir, hail,’” William/Ariel cried. “‘I come/To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,/To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride/On the curl’d clouds, to thy strong bidding task/Ariel and all his quality.’”

  Moving her finger down the page, Clarice said, “‘Hast thou, spirit,/Perform’d to point the tempest that I bade thee?’”

  That was when William got to do his best scene. Leaping and whirling around the stage, he waved his torch, pretending to be setting everything on the ship on fire, and shouted, “‘Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,/I flamed amazement: sometime I’d divide,/And burn in many places; on the topmast,/The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,/Then meet and join.’”

  That had been where the whole auditorium full of people usually cheered and clapped. But now, pausing long enough to check out his audience, William decided that their silence didn’t mean they hadn’t appreciated his performance. Jancy had her hands clasped under her chin, and her smile was wide and quivery. Both of the little kids were round-eyed and openmouthed, and even Ursa was up on his feet, panting excitedly.

  The expression on Clarice’s face was different. Different and uncomfortably concentrated. William looked away quickly.

  And then Buddy was saying, “Do it again, Willum.”

  And Trixie said, “Oh yes. Please do it again. Please, please.”

  He was actually thinking he might when Clarice suddenly looked at her watch and gasped. “Oh no. I have to go,” she said, and started up the stairs.

  “What is it?” Jancy called after her. “Is somebody coming?”

  “No,” Clarice called back. “But something might be burning.” At the door she stopped only long enough to throw Prospero’s robe down the stairs before she disappeared.

  “Burning?” Trixie was worried. “What’s burning? Is the house on fire? Maybe you did it with those sparkler things, William.”

  They looked around anxiously, checking out all the place
s William had touched with his sparkler torch. Nothing seemed to be on fire, but they were all feeling a little uneasy, right up until Clarice came back down the stairs and told them that dinner was ready. And when Buddy asked, “What burned up, Clice?” she shrugged and said it was only the chicken.

  Chicken! Forgetting all about Ariel and his fire-setting dance, they all headed for the kitchen where, right there in a big roasting pan, was a whole chicken, surrounded by potatoes and carrots, all roasted and ready to eat. The chicken was just a little black along one edge, but it still looked and smelled very good.

  When there had been chicken at the Baggetts, none of the smaller kids, and that included William, ever got anything better than a neck or a few scraps of skin. And now there were just the four of them for a really big chicken. Clarice, again, wasn’t eating much because she would eat later with her parents. So there were drumsticks or thighs for everybody. And when William said how good it was, Clarice just went on apologizing for letting it burn.

  “It’s not really burned,” William told her. “But what I don’t get is how you cooked a great meal like this all by yourself.” He paused and raised an eyebrow before he went on, “And how are you going to keep your folks from finding out about it?”

  Clarice shrugged. “Easy,” she said. “Edith, my greataunt’s maid, is teaching me how to cook, and roast chicken is one of her specialties, because that’s Aunt Pearl’s favorite meal. And don’t worry about where the chicken and all that stuff came from. I just went on downtown while I was on my way to my aunt’s house and got what I needed. And Mr. Griffith, he’s the grocer, just thought I was shopping for my aunt.”

  “But what if he says something about it to your aunt? Like how was the chicken, or like that?” Jancy asked.

  Clarice shook her head. “He won’t ask her,” she said. “Aunt Pearl doesn’t talk to anybody much. Particularly not people in grocery stores.”

  But William was still worried. “But what about all the money it cost?” He motioned to all the food in the big roasting pan. “That must have cost a whole lot.”

  She shrugged again and insisted, “Don’t worry about it. Okay?”

  But William did worry about it. He even thought of offering to pay her some of what she must have spent. He knew that his running-away fund had thirty-one dollars and seventeen cents in it, which seemed like a lot. Probably more than enough to buy the tickets to Gold Beach. And there was no good reason why someone who hardly knew them should be buying expensive food for a bunch of runaway kids.

  “Look,” he started to tell Clarice, “I have some money. Maybe I could pay for some—”

  “I said, don’t worry about it,” Clarice told him. Leaning over with her lips close to William’s ear, she whispered something he didn’t quite hear. It started out, “You know, like I told you …” before it turned into a bunch of sizzling sounds.

  He didn’t want her to do it again, so he said, “All right. All right. But thanks anyhow. It sure was good.”

  When everyone had eaten as much as they possibly could, William told Jancy to take the little kids and Ursa back to the basement, and he’d be there as soon as he helped with the dishes. It was really Jancy’s turn to do dishes, but there were things that William needed to discuss with Clarice.

  As soon as they were alone, he started asking the kind of questions he really needed answers to, like what she had seen this time, when she was downtown. Questions like, “When you were there, did you see a lot of police cars again, or posters about missing kids?”

  “Police cars?” Clarice said. “No, I didn’t….” She paused for a minute and then said, “Oh, yes. Those police cars.” She nodded. “I did see two, or maybe it was three. And another poster. Yes. I did see another really big poster.” She held out her arms to show how big it had been.

  William couldn’t help wincing. “I was afraid of that. Were the posters near the bus station?”

  “Oh yes, near the bus station. There was a police car right there near the bus station too.”

  “But you didn’t …” He hardly dared ask. “You didn’t see any of the Baggetts, did you?”

  “Baggetts?” Clarice looked doubtful. Shaking her head, she said, “I’m not sure if I’d know whether someone was a Baggett or not.”

  “Yeah.” William nodded ruefully. “You’d know, I think.” He hunched his shoulders, and letting his arms swing wide with clenched fists, he stuck out his chin and stomped around the kitchen, glaring first in one direction and then in another. “Like this,” he said. “Only bigger. A lot bigger.”

  Clarice giggled like crazy while William pretended not to notice as he went on glaring from side to side. A good actor doesn’t laugh at his own funny business. But then Clarice finally sobered up enough to say, “Yes, I did.” She nodded firmly. “Yes, I think I did see a couple of guys who looked just like that.”

  But suddenly William didn’t believe her. Not about seeing Baggetts, and not really about the police cars and posters, either. Something, he didn’t know what, was making him feel pretty sure that she wasn’t telling the truth.

  Later that night when the little kids were asleep, one at each end of their cot, William pushed his cot a little nearer to Jancy’s and started telling her about what Clarice had said, and what his reaction had been.

  “She said,” he told Jancy, “that there were still police cars downtown near the bus station. And that she saw some people who looked like they might be Baggetts. Only the thing was …” He paused, checking back to remember how certain he’d suddenly been. “The thing was, I’m pretty sure she was lying.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why, but I just got this feeling that she was telling a bunch of lies. I don’t know why she would do something like that, but I think she did.”

  At first Jancy looked surprised and shocked. “Why do you suppose she’d do that?” she asked. “Why would she lie to you about there being police cars and Baggetts in Crownfield?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Unless it’s just that she doesn’t want us to leave, at least not right away. I think that might be it. Yesterday she told me some stuff that made me think she’s sort of lonely. So maybe she likes having some extra people around.” He grinned. “Even if they’re just a bunch of Baggetts.”

  Jancy didn’t smile. She seemed to be thinking for quite a while before she nodded slowly and thoughtfully. “Maybe,” she said. “But I don’t think that’s the reason. Not exactly, at least.”

  “Oh yeah? What is it then?”

  “I think it’s mostly you she doesn’t want to go away. That’s what I think.”

  William was puzzled. “Why do you think that?”

  Jancy ducked her head and looked at William out of the tops of her eyes. She was smiling, but there was something about her tone of voice that made it sound like an accusation. “You’re the one she’s crazy about,” she said.

  William was shocked and indignant. “What? What are you talking about?”

  Jancy shrugged. “Well, that’s just what I think.” Her eyes suddenly opened wider. “Either that, or else it’s Ariel. Yeah. Maybe it’s Ariel she’s in love with.”

  William might have argued some more, but just then Trixie woke up and kicked Buddy, and Buddy woke up enough to kick her back and start mumbling. Which meant he’d better be taken to the bathroom right away.

  So William got Buddy up and walked him to the bathroom, and by the time they were both back in bed, Jancy was either asleep, or pretending to be.

  CHAPTER 14

  William didn’t sleep very well that night. All night long he kept waking up to lie there wide-eyed, going over his plans. Plans that now seemed to include not only how to escape the Baggetts, but also … He couldn’t help grinning a little. How to escape Clarice?

  It was an interesting, if sort of embarrassing, complication. Not that he thought for a moment that Jancy knew what she was talking about when she said that Clarice was in love with him. That, of course, was a joke. Enough to make any halfw
ay sensible person laugh. He chuckled to himself.

  But then there was that other idea that Jancy had come up with. The one about it being Ariel that Clarice was in love with. Now that, he decided, might be a little more likely. After all, wasn’t it true that lots of people were sort of in love with actors or actresses whom they’d seen only as characters in the movies, or on the stage? And hadn’t Clarice first seen him, really noticed him at least, when he was being Ariel on the high school auditorium’s stage? It was something to think about.

  But that meant—he sighed deeply—he not only had to somehow get himself and Jancy and the little kids away from the house and down to the bus stop without being seen by the police or the Baggetts, but also without having their getaway sabotaged by Clarice. And what’s more, it was going to have to happen very soon, since tomorrow would be Friday. Clarice hadn’t mentioned it, but her parents were probably home all day on weekends—which would make hiding a bunch of Baggetts in the basement a lot trickier. If not impossible.

  There was, it seemed, only one thing to do. One dangerous but maybe not impossible thing. Before he went back to sleep, he had it all planned. What he was going to have to do was go, all by himself, on a scouting trip to find out not only what time a Greyhound bus would be heading toward Gold Beach on Saturday morning, and how much the tickets cost, but also whether or not Clarice had been lying about the town being full of posters and police cars. He lay there for a long time planning his trip. Having lived in at least a half dozen places all over Crownfield before the Baggetts got kicked out of town, he knew the whole downtown area pretty well, so it shouldn’t be too hard to decide which route would be safest, and where he might find some hiding places if he needed them. When he finally did go to sleep, he had this awful dream about being chased all over town by a whole lot of angry Baggetts who kept jumping out at him from behind corners, and even crawling out from under parked cars, looking like alligators wearing boots and black leather jackets.