The Red Chipmunk Mystery (2 page)

“So long, Mr. Furlong,” Djuna said, and there was something in his throat that made it hard for him to swallow. “Thanks very much for everything. Good-bye, Ben. I’ll write to you. Let me know about things.”

“Sure,” Ben said as he shook Djuna’s hand. “Gee, Mr. Furlong, we better hurry this time. The train is beginning to go.”

“I guess we’d better, at that, unless we want to go to Edenboro with Djuna,” Socker said, and he followed Ben’s running feet down the corridor with the easy grace of a galloping rhinoceros.

“Good-bye, kid, good-bye,” Socker shouted as he went through the doorway.

Djuna glued his face against the window-pane and waved at them until their faces passed from sight and Champ climbed up on his lap to bark a last good-bye.

Then, as the train wheels began a regular rhythmical clickity-clickity-clack, Djuna sat back in his seat; and he blinked his eyes a couple of times because they were smarting. His thoughts flashed back through the summer and the grand time he’d had while he had been visiting there. He thought about all the fun he’d had with Ben Franklin, who was working as a copy boy on the
Morning Bugle
so that he could become a reporter like Socker Furlong when he was older.

They were all very pleasant memories, and yet Djuna had the very sad feeling that he would never again see any of the people he had known that summer. It was a pretty sad thought and Djuna was really feeling very badly when the ticket inspector loomed up beside him and said, “Don’t you know you can’t keep that dog here?”

Djuna started and quickly lifted Champ down off the seat and put him underneath it. “No, sir,” he said. “No, I didn’t. He’ll be quiet. He won’t say a word. I’ll keep him down there under the seat.”

“Have you got a ticket?” the inspector asked him. He was a tall, thin man who looked as though he had just taken a big bite of something bitter by mistake. Djuna hastily pulled out his wallet and produced his ticket. The conductor punched it and stuck it in his pocket and turned and motioned to a guard behind him.

“Take this dog up to the guard’s van,” he said to him.

Djuna reached down and grabbed at Champ and lifted him up into his arms as something close to panic seized him. He looked up at the inspector and said, “Please, can’t he stay here with me? He’ll be—–”

“Listen, sonny,” the inspector shouted. “Do you want to make trouble for me?”

“Oh, no, sir!” Djuna said. “I—I—–”

“He’s got to go up into the guard’s van,” the inspector said. “You can go up there and stay with him if you want to,” he added grudgingly.

“Come on, boy,” the guard said, and he patted Champ on the head and smiled at Djuna. “You’ll like it up there. It’ll be fun,” he whispered in Djuna’s ear.

Djuna followed the guard along the corridor and through the doorway into the next coach, and Champ followed both of them, sniffing at the unusual smells on every side of him.

When they went into the luggage van there was a fat little man with a jolly face putting something on a high desk that was built against the side of the car. His stomach was round and plump like his face, and sitting right on the very top of his head was a uniform cap that looked as though it might bounce off at any moment. He was moving a crate of live chickens to the other side of the car when the guard shouted at him, “Hey, Charlie! Here’s a couple of customers for you. They’re going to Riverton. Don’t put ’em in one of those chicken crates by mistake.” The guard waved a hand in the air and disappeared as the fat man saw Champ and began to chuckle.

“One of them Scotties, eh?” he said and his stomach shook as he laughed at Champ. Champ sniffed at a crate of chickens. “I don’t know why,” he went on, “but them dogs always make me laugh. Does he bite?”

“Oh, gracious, no,” Djuna said. Just then one of the chickens in the crate stuck its head out and pecked at Champ’s nose and Champ jumped backwards so quickly he fell over on his back. He barked once at the chicken, while the guard roared with laughter. “Ho! Ho! Ho!” he shouted.

Champ looked up at him, wagged his stubby tail and looked embarrassed. Then he dropped down on his stomach, stretched his hind legs straight out behind him and grinned, as much as to say, “All right. Let’s be friends, but no rough stuff, see? It’s too hot.” He stuck out his red tongue and began to pant to show just what he meant.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” the guard shouted again, and then he took a big round watch out of his pocket and said, “Say, I must get busy. Got to get all this stuff sorted out before we get to Thompsonville. I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll open the top half of the door so you can look out and it’ll be cooler in here.”

“Thank you very much,” Djuna said as he looked around the crowded luggage van. “I don’t want to get in your way.”

“You won’t if you stand over there by the door,” the man said. “Just make yourself at home.”

He opened the door and Djuna and Champ went over to lean against the bottom part that was closed. Djuna’s shoulders just came to the top of the bottom half of the door so that he had a fine view of the countryside through which they were passing. They were out of the city now and the meadow grasses were tall and green, with here and there a lazy brook winding through them. White clouds scudded across the blue sky overhead and in the distance, far off to the west, Djuna could see the dim outline of green hills.

After a bit he picked Champ up and held him so that just his nose hung over the top of the door, but after Champ had looked around for a couple of minutes he began to squirm and wiggle, so Djuna said, “All right. Don’t look if you don’t want to. Go back to sleep.” He put him back on the floor and Champ curled up and closed his eyes and flipped his tail several times to show he wasn’t angry about anything.

Djuna got tired of looking over the door, too, after a time, so he turned round to watch the roly-poly little man moving the trunks and bags and boxes and crates around to get them in their proper places. Once he thought of offering to help but decided he had better not because he might only get in the way, and he was afraid he might get something in the wrong place so that it got lost.

When Djuna looked out of the doorway again the train was slowing down a little. The engineer blew the whistle three times for a crossing and it was so piercing that Champ jumped up on his feet and began to bark back at the whistle. The man laughed at him so hard that Djuna was afraid he might burst something, so he told Champ to be quiet.

Then the houses became closer and closer together and there weren’t any more horses or cows in the fields, and Djuna asked the man if they were close to Thompsonville.

“That’s right,” he said, and lifted his cap and wiped the perspiration off his forehead. “We’ll be in there in a few minutes. It’s a junction, so we’ll pick up a car or two there. We’ll be there about ten minutes, so you can take your dog down on the station platform and stretch your legs if you want to.”

“I’d like to very much,” Djuna said.

“Don’t go too far away.”

“Oh, no, sir,” Djuna said; and he thought that this was turning out to be a very pleasant trip after all. He had felt so badly when he left Ben Franklin and Socker Furlong, and then the inspector hadn’t been very nice about Champ and that made him feel even worse. But now he was really having a fine time and he knew that Champ would, too, when they got down on the station platform where he could strut a little, as he always did when people made a fuss over him.

When the train had stopped Djuna and Champ got out. There were two or three engines huffing and puffing into the sidings, and people were rushing through the station and going down into a tunnel that went under the lines and came out on the other side where another train was waiting. Djuna and Champ wandered around to the street side of the station, where there were a lot of cars speeding back and forth and every one was hurrying.

Djuna had never been in Thompsonville before. He had thought it would be just a little bit of a place, but when he saw all the activity he knew it was much larger than he had supposed; and he looked wistfully up the streets leading away from the station, wishing he had time to explore a couple of them.

He saw a lot of people crowded around a shop window just across the street, so he climbed up on a bench to see what they were looking at. By standing on tiptoe he could just see over their heads. It was a sports shop, with a camping scene in the window. He could see a little tent pitched in the back and imitation trees and bushes around it. Hanging from the trees were some stuffed pheasants and wild turkeys and up in the front of the window was a canoe with two boys in it with paddles in their hands. There were some fishing rods and guns and an axe leaning against the tent, and a camp-fire with what looked like, from where Djuna stood, real flames leaping out of it. A third boy was bending over the camp-fire, cooking something in a pan.

Djuna climbed down from the bench and ran around to the other side of the station, and saw that they were still busy loading and unloading things from his train, so he started back to look at the window again. When he got back the traffic light on the corner had turned red and traffic was standing still.

“C’mon!” he said to Champ and they scurried across the street, weaving in and out among the traffic. “I’ll just take a quick look and hurry right back,” Djuna said to himself as they reached the other side.

All the people around the window were taller than Djuna, so he edged down to a corner of the window where there were a couple of boys shorter than himself. When he got there, he was sure he had never seen anything quite so beautiful as the camping equipment in the window. He was so dazzled by it that he hardly felt the violent tug Champ gave on his leash. He took a firmer grip but suddenly the leash slipped out of his hand as though it had been greased.

“Champ!” he shouted, as he swung around and collided with a very fat woman. The fat woman gave him a push and he apologised quickly and ducked under her arm just in time to see Champ’s tail and flying hind legs disappear down the entrance to a lane.

“
Champ! Come here, Champ!
” he screamed as loud as he could, and started after him. As he reached the entrance to the lane he looked quickly across the street and saw that his train was still standing there. When he looked down the alley he saw a cat go up a tree beside a fence, balance expertly on the top to spit at the barking Champ below him and then disappear from sight. An instant later Champ found a hole under the fence.

“Oh, Champ!” Djuna moaned to himself as he looked for a way to get over the fence. He saw a high, narrow gate at the end by a corner of a house and quickly pushed it open and stepped inside. There was no sign of the cat or of Champ. He started across the garden when a woman’s voice came from some place. He looked around but he couldn’t see her. He could only hear her and feel the threat in her voice.

“Where are you goin’, boy?” the voice asked. Djuna looked at all the windows of the two houses built close together and all around the yard and in the open doors, but he couldn’t see any one. He didn’t answer because he wasn’t sure the voice was talking to him.

“Where are you goin’, boy?” the voice repeated.

“I’m looking for my dog,” Djuna said to no one. “He was chasing a cat and came under this fence. I have to find him quick because my train is waiting.”

“You better start stretchin’ your legs then, boy,” the voice said. “He came in here under the fence an’ he went out under the other side. Now he’s gone!”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am,” Djuna said, and he took one more desperate look around trying to locate the mysterious voice before he went back through the gateway into the lane.

He ran up the lane shouting Champ’s name frantically every few minutes and looked into all the gardens. The lane ended at a cross street and Djuna pondered which way to go. After a moment of indecision he decided that he would go down the street to the left, because that was the general direction in which Champ had been bearing when last Djuna saw his black tail disappearing under the fence. He asked a couple of boys who were tossing a football back and forth if they had seen a black Scottie and they shook their heads and went on tossing. He kept on down the street to the next corner where there were cars whizzing by in an endless procession.

“He’d never try to cross that street,” Djuna said, and turned around and started back towards the lane. He was almost certain now that his train had gone without him, and much as he loved Champ he couldn’t help being very angry at him. He went past the alley and kept asking people if they had seen a black Scottie, but none of them had. He was beginning to be really desperate when he happened to notice a white-haired, portly man walking towards the gate in a garden just ahead of him. He wouldn’t have paid any attention to him if the man hadn’t been laughing and talking to himself when there was no one near him. Djuna thought of the mysterious voice he had heard in the garden in the lane and he began to wonder what kind of people lived in Thompsonville, anyway.

He watched while the man opened the front gate, and then his eyes popped as he saw Champ come through the gate to the street. Never before had Djuna seen Champ look so unhappy. He was dripping wet and his ears were flat down against his head and his whiskers were flattened against his face.

“
Champ!
” he shouted and started to run towards him. Champ’s head came up and his tail began to swing back and forth as he shook himself, and the man said, “Is this your dog?”

“Yes, sir,” Djuna said. “He jerked his leash out of my hand to chase a cat. My train—–”

“Well, he didn’t catch the cat,” the man said, and when he began to laugh Champ put his head down again. “He chased the cat into my garden,” the man went on. “When the cat came to my fish pond it was going too fast to bother about any fish. It just sailed right over the length of the pond and landed on the other side running. Your dog tried to do the same thing. Only he didn’t make it. He landed right in the middle and I had to pull him out. I never saw a dog look so sad before.”

“I’m awfully sorry, sir,” Djuna said and he couldn’t help laughing because he knew how sad Champ could look when he tried. “I hope he didn’t do any harm.”