Free Freddy the Pied Piper by Walter R. Brooks Page B

cruelty to humans. But if we let her stay in her bedroom, she’ll go to the window and yell for help.”
    They talked it over. They didn’t want to be any meaner to her than they had to, and they at last decided that she would be locked in the pantry during the day. At night she could sleep in her own bed, but Leo would be locked in with her. Then if she tried to call the neighbors, the lion could stop her. “And don’t you worry,” he said. “I’ll sleep right under the window, and if she tries any funny business—” He crouched and lashed his tail, and began to creep towards Freddy with a ferocious grin.
    Freddy backed away. “Hey, quit that!” he said. “I—I don’t like it!”
    The lion didn’t move a muscle. He stared at Freddy with his fierce yellow eyes, and then suddenly he twitched his whiskers, and Freddy jumped convulsively backward and fell over a chair.
    When he scrambled to his feet, Leo was sitting up and looking at him with a pleased smile. “My goodness,” Freddy said, “you looked awful, Leo! I’ve known you so long, I’ve sort of forgot you really are a lion.”
    â€œThat’s all right,” said Leo. “I just wanted to show you that I’m not going to let Mrs. Guffin forget it. We won’t have any trouble with her.”
    â€œI guess she won’t sleep much,” said Jinx.
    â€œOh, I won’t bother her if she behaves herself. Just give a little growl now and then to remind her I’m there.” He stopped suddenly and they all raised their heads to listen. Somebody had knocked at the front door.
    â€œYou’ll have to go, Leo,” Freddy said. “Here, get into your bathrobe again.”
    Freddy and Jinx stayed in the diningroom. They heard the bell tinkle as Leo opened the door, and they listened. But Mrs. Guffin had heard the bell too, and suddenly she began to yell at the top of her lungs: “Help! Help! Police! I’ve been kidnaped!”
    â€œWe’ve got to put a stop to that!” Jinx said. He rushed at the door between the diningroom and the shop and slammed it, and Freddy put his mouth close to the keyhole of the pantry door. And when Mrs. Guffin stopped for breath, he called to her. “One more yell and I’ll let this lion in at you.”
    But she didn’t mean to be silenced so easily. Freddy heard her draw in a deep breath for another yell. “Here, Leo!” he said. “Go in and get her! Chew her up!” He rattled the doorknob, then dropped down and put his nose to the crack under the door and made the sort of snorting, snuffling sounds that he supposed a lion might make if he was trying to get at somebody.
    Mrs. Guffin didn’t use her breath for another yell. Freddy heard her let it out in a sort of sigh. “All right, Leo,” he said quickly. “I guess she doesn’t want to be eaten up after all.” Then he answered for Leo with a deep growl. There was a good deal more pig than lion in it, but I guess it fooled Mrs. Guffin for she didn’t yell any more.
    In a few minutes Leo came back. “Some man wanted to buy a canary,” he said. “I told him to stop by next week. I said I was too sick to keep the shop open today.”
    â€œWell, but didn’t he hear Mrs. Guffin?” Jinx asked.
    â€œSure. I told him it was a parrot.” Leo laughed. “He said he’d like to buy the parrot; he’d never heard one with such a deep voice. Maybe we could sell Mrs. Guffin to him.”
    â€œI wish we could,” Freddy said. “She can do a lot of hollering in the next two days. I wonder …” He thought a minute, then he went and rummaged in Mrs. Guffin’s desk and found pen and ink and a piece of cardboard and lettered a big sign: MEASLES, which he hung in the shop window. “That ought to keep people away,” he said.
    It did keep them away too. During the rest of that