Читать книгу The Story of Terrible Terry - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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Terrible Terry was on the rampage. Not a porch chair had escaped him nor was there an unguarded window that had failed to resound to his blithesome efforts at tick-tack. And at the corner from which he and his followers had just barely escaped, a small group of irate residents stood about bemoaning the advent of Hallowe’en. Several full-sized swings and other articles of porch furniture were piled up in the street, having been tumbled there and left to the mercy of passing traffic by these small marauders.

“All is fair on Hallowe’en,” said Terry, with breathless laughter. “We’ve had swell luck tonight, so far, ain’t we?”

Two rowdyish looking boys nodded in smiling assent and scurried up close to their leader as he cut into the dark alley that ran alongside of the railroad tracks. From there, he led them across a small, open lot and thence behind the brilliantly lighted building that housed Bridgeboro’s police force.

Cautiously they approached this home of law and order and their eyes sparkled curiously as Terry silently pointed to an open window on the yard level. They took turns in guessing what might be in the room and finally came to the conclusion that it must be used as a storeroom for it seemed to be devoid of any furniture. The only object visible was a large crate pushed into the far corner.

“What you s’pose they got it all lit up for, huh?” asked Terry.

His followers made no answer to that query for they knew well that their leader wouldn’t lose any time in finding it out for himself. Terry worked out all his own problems in his own inimitable way.

“I’m going to climb in that window and see what’s up,” he announced to the taller of his followers, Pip Cornell. Pip was known to his family as Nathaniel.

“S’pose a cop walks in then and catches you—what then, huh?” asked Pip, who had a quaint, matter-of-fact way about him.

“Well, I won’t be doing anything, will I?” returned Terry, a trifle annoyed. “Is it a crime to go in a police station through a back yard window, is it?”

“Nah, I didn’t say it was,” answered Pip. “Only you got to be more careful about police stations than people’s houses, don’t you?”

“Not me,” said Terry boastfully. “Ain’t cops people when they ain’t got uniforms on?”

Pip held both his tongue and his breath, for Terry was already approaching the opened window. Then, as his followers gasped with delight, he threw a skinny leg over the sill and pulled himself into the large, lighted room. Once in, he turned around and waved his hand to the watchers as if to say that it was all too easy.

Lemuel (Dinky) Duff, the shorter of Terry’s followers, who acted as a sort of rear-guard of the gang, shook his head doubtfully. “Say, he’s got nerve a’right, Terry has,” he whispered admiringly, “but maybe he’ll get himself in trouble, huh?”

Pip wrinkled up his pug nose disdainfully and said, “You leave it to Terry, Dink. Just you leave it to Terry!”

They did leave it to Terry.

In a few seconds, smiling and perspiring, he appeared at the window with something bulky in his long, thin arms. He gave his head a frantic toss that indicated he was in need of immediate assistance, bringing Pip and Dinky in breathless haste to the window.

“I swiped a couple of tear bombs out of a big box in here,” he whispered, hurriedly.

“Goodnight!” murmured Pip, obviously awe-stricken.

Dinky was speechless until Terry jarred him into action.

“Here, Dink, you take these things and hold ’em and Pip can help me down,” said Terry, calmly.

Dinky patiently suffered the strange looking objects to be placed within the crook of his arm. “What would they do if I was to drop one of ’em?” he whispered fearfully.

“Nothing, ’tall,” answered Terry, as he jumped to the ground with Pip’s aid. “They’ll make you cry something fierce, but that’s all.”

Suddenly a door opened in the big room and without waiting to see why or how, the little band took to their heels and disappeared in the darkness. Voices called after them but they paid no heed and the shriek of a police whistle only served to hasten their speed.

It wasn’t until they had reached the armory building, a quarter of a mile away, that they stopped for good. Cars were lined up on either side of the street, but there wasn’t a human being in sight. Terry gave a wild whoop of delight and threw himself down on the armory’s soft lawn.

“Maybe we didn’t give ’em a run for their money, huh?” he asked, between spasms of laughter. “Do you say we can’t get away with anything?”

Words failed Pip and Dinky. They stood watching Terry, grinning in silent admiration, and in the soft glow of the lanterns, artistically hung along the walk leading up to the armory-door, they resembled a couple of tattered, mischievous brownies.

“Those nice boy scouts—they’re giving a party here or something,” said Terry, meaningly. “I read it in the paper tonight and they’re going to have refreshments—all the things that you and Dink and me are crazy about.”

Pip sighed. “That’s just our luck!” he said, gloomily.

“What’s just our luck?” Terry demanded, sitting up straight. “Don’t fool yourself that we ain’t lucky. Anyhow, what do you s’pose I ran all the way up here, for, huh?”

Pip’s mouth opened wide with astonishment as Terry arose and nodded his head, significantly. “You don’t deny you won’t eat some of those refreshments if I think up a good scheme to get ’em, will you?” he asked after a low chuckle.

Pip, whom the school doctor had pronounced twenty-five pounds overweight, shook his head vehemently. “When I pass up a lot of free refreshments, I’ll be dead,” he said, convincingly.

“But how you going to get in without a ticket, huh?”

Terry pointed to the tear bombs, still intact in little Dinky’s arms. “You watch my dust, Pip,” he announced with gusto. “Just watch it, that’s all.”