Freddy and Simon the Dictator by Walter R. Brooks

Author:Walter R. Brooks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Overlook Press

CHAPTER

10

Freddy tried to persuade Mr. Camphor to get out of the woods. “At least, if you want to duck the committee, come stay at the farm. Or in Centerboro,” he said.

But Mr. Camphor said he was going to stay with the Indians for a while. “They know how to protect themselves from wolves,” he said. “And as far as danger goes, from what you tell me, there’ll be more danger at the farm than in the Indian village. You’d better stay here with me, Freddy. This business may be dangerous for animals, but I can’t believe it will be for humans.”

Freddy thought he ought to get back to the farm, but he finally agreed to camp out two days, at Jones’s Bay, where they had camped a couple of summers earlier. The Indians agreed to camp with them, and to accompany Mr. Camphor back to the village.

Horace was a bumblebee; he was attached to the A.B.I. and was one of Mr. Pomeroy’s ablest investigators. At five the next morning, Horace started out in a beeline—which is what nearly all bees travel in of course—for Mr. Camphor’s house. Arrived there, he went buzzing around the house, investigating the open bedroom windows. He heard a variety of snores from the various committee members, but he found neither Freddy nor Bannister nor Mr. Camphor in any of the beds.

A less experienced operative might at this point have given up. But Horace had seen a family of swallows perched on the electric-light wire, waiting for some breakfast to fly by, and he went and questioned them. He felt safe in doing this, for very few swallows will try to eat a bumblebee; which is not only a pretty large mouthful, but also has a businesslike sting. He learned about the camping party, and at once set out—in a beeline again—across the lake.

Freddy and Bannister were sleeping on their backs in the little tent, with their feet sticking out into the early morning sunlight. They appeared to be having a snoring contest. Horace, who in his investigation of the Camphor house, had been much impressed by the volume of sound produced by Senator Blunder, was particularly envious of Freddy’s snore, which was rather musical. There were none of the gasps and whistles and sudden ferocious snorts which the committee had been producing, but a sort of deep buzzing, rather like a giant bumblebee practicing the first bars of America.

Horace listened admiringly for a time, but he had a message to deliver, so he lit on Freddy’s nose and tickled the inside of his nostril with his left front foot until the pig woke up with a tremendous sneeze. Bannister gave a start and muttered something in his sleep, but didn’t awake.

“Listen, Freddy,” Horace said, “Jinx told me to tell you that Garble and Simon are coming up into these woods tomorrow to have a talk with the chiefs of the rebels. There’s Lobo, the head of the wolf pack, and an old horse named Chester who is chief of the cows and horses who have escaped from farms.

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