  A light-skinned boy could never make it. That thought, first suggested by Chuba, restated by Jack Hudson, kept running through Biff’s head. The Chinese Reds’ border patrol would spot a white boy instantly. Biff remembered stories he had read of Americans captured in Red China. The stories weren’t pleasant. Biff left Headquarters House deep in thought. He walked slowly across the compound. Chuba was waiting for him in the palm grove. “Biff has big thoughts?” was Chuba’s greeting. “Maybe Chuba can help.” “Maybe you can, Chuba. Maybe you just can. I’ve got an idea. See what you think of it.” For fifteen minutes Biff spoke to Chuba. At first, the native boy kept shaking his head. Then, as Biff’s enthusiasm mounted, Chuba was swept up by the idea. Negative shakes of his head became excited head shakes of agreement. Chuba’s eyes lighted up. Now he cut in on Biff’s enthusiasm with bursts of his own. He took over Biff’s plan, and added to it. Biff was a hard one to resist when he became enthusiastic about anything he wanted to do. And this he meant to do. “We can do it, Biff,” Chuba said. There was no holding the boy now. “I get things ready on double quick. Have much ideas. But will take time.” “How much time?” Biff demanded. “Two hours—maybe three. Then you come to the house of my father. You know, where you saw Evil Spirit Box. Chuba be all ready.” “Chuba, you’re a really smooth operator.” “Like real American boy?” “You said it.” Chuba’s mouth was split into a wide grin of pride. No praise could have pleased him more. Toward late afternoon, Jack Hudson ran his hand over his forehead. He was tired. He hated paper work. All afternoon, he had been poring over files, checking bills, answering letters. The work had to be done, but he wished there was someone else to do it. Action, that’s what he liked. Not sitting at a desk in a hot room. As cluttered as his mind was with facts and figures, the thought of his missing friend, Charles Keene, kept coming back again and again. Jack thought of Biff, too. He didn’t like the idea he felt sure was building in Biff’s mind. Too risky, of course. But, he told himself, this sitting around, just waiting, was getting him down too. With an impatient sweep of his arm, Jack shoved the papers away from him. He stretched, got up, and made for the front entrance of Headquarters House. On the raised platform, six steps above the ground, Jack stopped to light a cigarette. As he did so, his attention was caught by a beggar boy coming at a run across the compound. The boy reached the foot of the steps and sprawled on the ground. “Baksheesh, Sahib! Baksheesh!” the boy wailed. Jack Hudson looked down at the boy, his feeling of disgust mingled with one of sympathy. These poor kids, he thought, trained to beg from the day they could walk. Baksheesh, the word for a tip, a present, was used in many places in the East and Far East. “Baksheesh! Baksheesh!” the boy continued to moan. Jack looked about him. He spotted Chuba’s father. “Ti Pao. Come here. Chop! Chop!” Ti Pao came on the run. He could tell Sahib Hudson was annoyed. “You know my orders, Ti Pao. No beggars allowed in the compound. How did this boy get in?” Ti Pao shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe slip through gate, or hide in truck coming through.” “Well, get him out of here. You know that twice a week, we hand out food and alms to the beggars. They are not to come inside.” “Baksheesh, Sahib! Baksheesh.” The plea came again. “Take him away, Ti Pao.” Jack Hudson turned, and started to reenter the building. As he did so, the beggar said softly, “No baksheesh? Not even Coke money?” Jack whirled around. The beggar boy was already heading for the gate. Jack scratched his head. “I could have sworn he said— Nah! I must have been hearing things. Must be the heat,” he mumbled to himself. He shook his head and went through the door. The beggar boy neared the gate, then cut to the left. He raced through the palm grove, then carefully, stealthily, made his way to the cabin of Ti Pao. There was just a flash of brown, ragged clothing as he slipped through the door. “It work. It work! Biff!” Chuba danced up and down in his excitement. The beggar boy grinned. It was the grin of a happy Biff Brewster. “I’ll say it worked. Even your father didn’t recognize me.” “Not Sahib Hudson, either?” Biff shook his head. “Nope. I fooled him completely. I even spoke some American words. Course, I said them low, just as I was leaving. Don’t know whether he heard them or not.” “Let me take closer look,” Chuba said. Biff turned slowly around as Chuba made his inspection. “Is much okays. I only afraid sweat make betel nut juice get all smeary.” “I was afraid of that, too, Chuba. But the stain didn’t run.” Biff looked as much like a native boy as Chuba did. The tattered shorts and torn shirt that he wore had been dug up by the always astonishing Chuba. Biff’s face, his body, his legs, were stained a light, yellowish brown. This had been done with the juice of betel nuts, mixed and thinned with still another liquid, to lighten the blackish fluid crushed from the betel. On his feet, Biff wore floppy, torn sandals. “Only one thing, Biff. Your eyes. Should be more slanty. I fix.” Chuba took out a piece of charcoal. At the outside corners of each of Biff’s eyes, Chuba deftly applied upward strokes with the charcoal. He stepped back to view his handiwork. Then he went into a gale of laughter. “You much China boy now. No one could tell difference.” “Just call me the Chop Suey Kid,” Biff laughed. “Chop Suey Kid? What’s chop suey?” “You never heard of it?” Chuba shook his head. “Well, back in America it’s our favorite Chinese food.” Chuba looked puzzled. He still didn’t get it. He shrugged it off. “Now, we all set. No border guard ever spot you. Never tell you American boy.” Biff had passed his test. Neither Jack Hudson nor, even more important, Ti Pao, had penetrated his disguise. “Okay then, Chuba. We’re all set. It’s still an hour before the night mess call. I think we’d better be well on our way by then. I’ll be missed when I don’t show up for chow. And Jack Hudson will guess where I’ve headed. But by then, it will be too late, too dark, to start a search. What about food, and other stuff?” “All set. Chuba has everything. Even bottle of juice in case you start turning back into white boy. We got food for two days. After that, Chuba get more wherever we are.” “All right, Chuba. Now I’m really going to let your father put me out the gate. I’ll follow the river until I reach the second bend. Then I’ll wait for you.” “All is good. Chuba be right after you. Not look good for me to leave here with lowly beggar boy.” Chuba grinned, and Biff returned his smile. That night, by nine o’clock, the two boys were deep in the swampy jungle between the Irrawaddy River and the border of China. |
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