William S. and the Great Escape (17 page)

“Yeah?” Jancy was beginning to nod. “I guess he
hasn't
had it quite as bad as the rest of us. I thought that was just because he's the littlest.”

“That might be part of it,” William said. “Sort of. Because he's little—but mostly because he's … tough.” He paused, and then went on. “When a little kid like Buddy is ready to take on three full-grown guys, that's
something that might get anybody's attention, even a Baggett. I think that might be why they've laid off him a little.”

“Yeah, well, maybe,” Jancy said. She shook her head, looking thoughtful. “But that scares me even more.”

“Why's that?” William was puzzled.

“Well, you know how much Buddy likes folks to like him? If he starts thinking those Baggetts like him, he just might start liking them back.” Jancy's still tear-wet eyes widened as if in fright. “He might even start wanting to act like them.”

William saw what she meant. Buddy wasn't exactly perfect as it was, but a Buddy who was trying to grow up to be another Rudy or Little Ed could be a lot worse. It was a troublesome thought. But what to do about it? Nothing came to mind immediately, and it was time to cut things short and hurry back to the house before someone woke up and started looking for them.

So time went by, and after those first few terrible days, most things had gone back to being nearly the same as before they ran away—no better, but not a whole lot worse. Trixie had begun to come out of her hiding places (but only if Jancy stayed right beside her), Gertie's cooking was as bad as ever, and the big Baggett kids' favorite form of indoor sport was still tormenting anyone smaller than they were.

But in some very important ways, things were worse than ever for William. First off was the fact that without his Getaway Fund, there wasn't even that exciting “someday” to look forward to. No more daydreams about Hollywood or Broadway in the not-too-distant future.

And in the meantime, there wasn't even his journal or
Doubleday's Complete Works
to fall back on. Not anymore. It helped a little to remind himself that Aunt Fiona would keep them safe, and maybe someday he could get them back. But that was in a future so out of reach he could barely dream about it.

So there he was, back in the hot, smelly attic with less to look forward to and a lot more to worry about. The only thing left that helped a little, when he was trying to get to sleep, was reminding himself of the fact that August was almost over and the school year was about to start. And of course, the best thing about school was that he'd be taking English from Miss Scott. At the moment, the possibility of being in Miss Scott's class again was just about the only good thing the future was likely to bring.

Of course, there was still the real possibility that Big Ed wouldn't let him and Jancy go to school anymore for fear that once out of sight, they'd just up and run away again. But maybe not. Since he'd already had so many run-ins with Crownfield's truant officers, perhaps Big Ed wouldn't have the nerve to keep two more of his kids out of school.

So that was how things stood when, a day or two after the beginning of September, the Baggetts' social worker came to make one of her usual visits. Mrs. Montgomery was a tall, worried-looking woman, with lots of grayish hair wrapped around her head in a thick braid. William had always been glad to see her. Her visits had never seemed to change anything for the better, but at least for the short time she was right there in the house, there was a lot less yelling and punching.

William was the one who went to the door when she knocked, but Big Ed got up off the couch and limped over as soon as he saw who it was. Limped a lot worse than usual, to show Mrs. Montgomery how bad off he was. So crippled he couldn't even drive a dump truck, if she still had a job like that to offer him. And also, as always, he made all his kids line up and be counted so the social worker would know what a lot of President Roosevelt's relief money the family needed. He even made Jancy drag poor little stiff-faced, tearful Trixie out to stand in line with the rest of them.

Watching the social worker that day, William got the feeling that she didn't actually believe everything Big Ed was telling her, and she would have liked to say so, only she didn't quite dare. She looked particularly suspicious when Big Ed said, “And they'll all be starting school again in a few days. All of them except the baby there, and Ed Junior and Rudy, over at the other end of the line. But
my little cutie, Trixie—what you crying about, Trixie, this nice lady isn't goin' to hurt you—she'll be starting school too this year. And that makes seven of them. And believe you me, seeing to it that seven kids gets a good education, that takes a lot out of my wallet. You know, all them clothes and books and lunches.”

At that point the social worker started to say, “Well, I have checked into last year's attendance records at the high school and …”

But then Big Ed's eyebrows started to twitch, and he began to throw his arms around and yell. Stomping around the room, he cussed and yelled stuff about how bad the schools were, and how they never bothered to check up on whether people were there or not—and how the stupid teachers marked kids absent when they really weren't. And on and on and on. Mrs. Montgomery got very quiet. And it wasn't long before she gathered up her papers and went away. And everybody went right back to whatever they'd been doing, or not doing, before she showed up.

But then, only two days later, there was another loud knock on the Baggetts' front door. Loud and long lasting. This time Big Ed was busy drinking beer and beating Little Ed in a game of checkers, while two or three of the other Baggetts were busy standing around watching the game and cheering every time Big Ed took one of
Little Ed's pieces. Baggett kids, even the large ones, knew better than to cheer for anybody who was trying to beat Big Ed.

So Big Ed yelled at William to answer the door. “Get going, Willy,” he bellowed. “Answer the goddamn door.” William got to the door as fast as he could, but when he snatched it open, he just stood there staring, shocked into frozen silence.

What he seemed to be seeing was a whole crowd of people. Some of them carefully balanced on the sloping, broken-down veranda, and some others down on the path. To William's absolute astonishment, one of them was Mrs. Montgomery, the social worker, and next to her was a broad-shouldered guy wearing a police uniform. Behind them were two important and confident-looking people carrying briefcases—a man and a woman he'd never seen before. And down at the bottom of the steps were Miss Scott and Aunt Fiona.

H
ow did it happen? It took a long time to put all the facts together and understand how one thing led to another, then another, and eventually caused those six people to show up on the Baggetts' front porch. A long time for William and Jancy to learn exactly what had started it, and what happened next, and where it had gone from there.

Actually, unlikely as it might seem, the very first step that eventually led to the arrival of those six people on the Baggetts' veranda was taken by Clarice Ogden on that same Saturday morning when the four runaway Baggetts sneaked out of her basement and caught the bus to Reedly. On that morning, after her parents finally left for their Chamber of Commerce lunch meeting around eleven o'clock, Clarice rushed down to the basement, only to find that the four Baggetts and all their belongings had disappeared. Right at first, she had been surprised and disappointed, and sad—and then
angry
.

It was right then, while she was still down in the
basement looking around and remembering how exciting it had been and how well she'd arranged everything, that she found something very interesting. On the counter in the little kitchen she found the note Jancy had left behind on purpose. The note that said she and William had borrowed one of the oldest suitcases, and that they would return it as soon as possible.

That was all the information in the note, but right there under it, kind of crinkled up with it, was an empty envelope. A wrinkled, beat-up-looking envelope with a return address up in the corner that said, in adult-type handwriting, “Fiona Hardison, 971 Eleanor Street, Gold Beach, California.” That was when Clarice remembered that William and Jancy had said they were headed for Gold Beach, and she also remembered that William had said that Hardison was his mother's last name before she became a Baggett.

Clarice, a Sherlock Holmes fan, had stared at the envelope for a long time before she said to Ursa, “Aha! I'm making a brilliant deduction, Watson.” Ursa sat up, cocked his head, and sniffed the envelope. “See that,” Clarice went on, “that, right there, is obviously their aunt's address, and my superior detecting skill is telling me where that sneaky, ungrateful bunch of Baggetts are right this minute.”

Finding Jancy's lost envelope was an important part of the final outcome, because of what Clarice decided to
do then, which was to write a letter. A letter to William in Gold Beach, and to Jancy, too, of course. It turned out to be a long letter, in which she scolded him/them for leaving without telling her they were going, after all she'd done for them. After she'd hid them for such a long time and cooked all those wonderful meals for them. The letter started out just a little bit angry, but then it got
angrier
, and toward the end it said,

So I guess it's a good thing you cleared out when you did, because the rest of your awful family, that disgusting Baggett mob, is in big trouble again. Serious trouble, things like drunk driving
.

And then in even larger and darker letters,

Not to mention bank robbery and murder
.

It took her quite a few days to finish the letter, especially the part she had to kind of make up as she went along—the part, that is, about the robbery and the murder. At first the murder victim was a bank employee, and then she decided to change it to a policeman. By the time Clarice's long letter was finally finished and arrived at Aunt Fiona's, the Baggetts had been there, and the kids were gone—stolen away and taken back
to the farmhouse on the Old Westbrook Highway. And since Aunt Fiona was sure William would never get the letter if she forwarded it to the Baggetts, she decided to read it herself. After she did, she felt she had to call the mysterious Clarice Ogden, who had conveniently included her phone number.

What Fiona Hardison meant to do was simply call the Ogden family and thank them for being so good to her nieces and nephews by trying to help them escape from the Baggetts. And also, of course, to ask for more information about the recent crimes those other Baggetts had committed, which distressed but didn't surprise her, and of which she hadn't been aware. Crimes that now that she knew about them, increased the deep concern she was feeling for her nieces and nephews.

But Aunt Fiona happened to call on a Saturday, and it was Mr. Ogden, the lawyer and almost famous judge, who answered the phone. And since the only thing William and Jancy had told Aunt Fiona about their stay in Crownfield was that “a friend had let them hide in their basement,” she didn't realize that the friend's parents hadn't known anything about it. So she thanked him for allowing the four runaway Baggett kids to be hidden and protected on his property. “The children arrived here safely, and they were here with me until …,” she told Mr. Ogden in a shaky, tearful voice that stammered to a stop and then managed to go on. “Until the day before yesterday, but
then their father showed up and took them away.”

It took a while for her to steady her voice enough to ask about the recent murder, and who it was the Baggetts had killed.

At first Mr. Ogden had been absolutely astonished, and not at all sure Fiona Hardison was in her right mind. He did try to calm the poor woman by telling her he hadn't heard anything about a murder. But then, as soon as he hung up the phone, he went up to Clarice's room and knocked on the door.

His first words to Clarice were, “Do you know anything about a Fiona Hardison who lives in Gold Beach, and why she would think we've been hiding some runaway children on our property?”

Clarice stared at her father with her mouth hanging open for a long moment, before she closed it, swallowed hard, and began, “Well, yes, I do know who she is. She's related to some of the Baggetts. Like an aunt or something, and … and …” She stopped, squared her chin, and went on. “We did have some Baggetts—some little ones, anyway—hiding in our basement.” She swallowed again, raised her chin, and said, “I did it, and I'm glad.”

Encouraged by the fact that the expression on her father's face was closer to astonishment than anger, she went on. “The Baggetts who ran away are the four youngest ones. The ones who had a different mother, and they were running away because …” She paused, caught
her breath, and went on. “Because those other Baggetts were starving and beating and torturing them. They were on their way to their aunt's house when I met them, but the other Baggetts were about to catch up with them, so I hid them in our basement.” At that point she lifted her chin up even higher and said, “I probably saved their lives, and I'm glad I did and I'd do it again if I could.”

At that point Mr. Ogden said he wanted Clarice's mother to hear this, so they went downstairs and Clarice told her story all over again, adding some new, exciting details. Details about how she'd been out with Ursa early in the morning when she found the little kids hiding in the bushes because a huge gang of Baggetts carrying whips and guns had just started down Gardenia Street. And some other facts and figures like how much of her allowance money and her free time she'd spent feeding and taking care of the runaways. An only slightly embellished account that wound up, “And I'd have told you about it right away, except I was afraid you might insist on turning those poor little kids over to the authorities, who would probably have given them right back to their awful father.” At that point Clarice managed to produce a few real tears, and her parents began to comfort her and tell her she'd done what she did for good reasons, and she wouldn't be punished for it.