William S. and the Great Escape Read Free

Big Ed took Buddy and Trixie away. Like how she’d had them and loved them for two years and would have kept them forever if Big Ed hadn’t showed up all of a sudden to take them back.”
    â€œYeah, I
know
,” William said. “I remember.” What he knew, and would never forget, was that right after Buddy was born, their mother, Laura Hardison Baggett, died. Died very suddenly, leaving behind newborn Buddy and two-year-old Trixie to be taken care of by Big Ed and a bunch of Baggett teenagers. William had been eight years old at the time, and he remembered that final scene all too well. Especially when he was trying not to.
    Back then Big Ed had been glad to let Aunt Fiona take Buddy and Trixie away to live with her. Let them go probably because there was no longer any Baggett left alive who was willing and able to change diapers. William had been willing to try, and he’d said so, but nobody would listen to him. So the two youngest Baggetts went to live with their mother’s sister, who kept them for two years before Big Ed decided to take them back.
    That happened right after he’d married Gertie, his third wife. What Big Ed told the welfare people was that he took the two little kids back because Gertie wanted to be a mother to them. As far as William could see, Gertie wasn’t, and never had been, the least bit interested in being a mother to anyone. The way William figured, it was a lot more likely that President Roosevelt’s new welfare plan had something to do with Big Ed’s decision to have all his kids under the same roof. The New Deal plan that gave really poor families a certain amount of money for each of their children.
    â€œAunt Fiona probably didn’t answer your letter,” William told Jancy, “because she was sure that if she got them back, Big Ed would just show up and grab them away again.”
    â€œI know.” Jancy hung her head so that a bunch of her thick, streaky-blond hair swung down, hiding her small face. Jancy got teased about her hair—got called Mop Head and Rabbit Tail and even worse names. Actually, William thought her curly hair was her best feature, at least when it was clean and combed, which wasn’t all that often. He’d told her so before, but now he said nothing at all, and after a while she said, “I know” again, in a faint weepy voice. “But I am leaving, for absolute sure and certain, and I just can’t leave the poor little things here all alone.”
    â€œHumph!” William snorted. “All alone? Not hardly.Even with you gone, and maybe me too, that still leaves—let’s see.” He pretended to count on his fingers. “Seven”—he stopped to sneeze—“that leaves eight big Baggetts, if you count Gertie.”
    â€œYeah, exactly,” Jancy said. “That’s exactly why I can’t leave Trixie and Buddy here.”
    William got her point, and he couldn’t help but agree, but just then another thought hit him. “I don’t get it. What I don’t get is why you’d
want
to bother with them. Well, Trixie maybe.” He could sort of understand that. Trixie was kind of hard to resist. “But Buddy? I mean, wasn’t he the one who flushed the toilet?”
    Her face still hidden by her hair, Jancy nodded. “I know,” she kind of gasped. And when she went on, her voice sounded wobbly. “But it wasn’t his fault. Not really. Al, or else it was Andy—Buddy never can tell them apart—told him that a toilet is just the right size for a guinea pig bathtub, and when you flush, it’s just like a guinea pig washing machine. It was that crummy twin’s fault. I know it was awful dumb of Buddy to believe him, but he’s only four years old. And who’s going to tell him what else to not believe after both of us leave?”
    William could tell she was crying by the sound of her voice, even though a heavy