boys and sung bad songs at the top of his voice). When he goes to Aunt Jane's to sing badly to her to make up for the bad presents, she mistakes the singing for a pack of hungry wolves (she is very old and has trouble hearing). She leans out the window with a gun, ready to shoot, much to William's surprise. He coaxes her to put the gun away and use it as a last resort, and she agrees. William has an idea, and pretends that the color green scares away wolves- so he finds his green tie (which Aunt Jane gave him for a present), and throws it outside pretending it scares them away. (The story William Plays Santa Claus in William the Outlaw follows on from this tale, describing Mr. Solomon's attempts to complain about William's behaviour that night.) William to the Rescue The Outlaws have been given a tin of sardines- and they devise a new game called "Canniballs". They tie the sardine to the tree and pretend it's Ginger- and Ginger hides behind a bush doing the voice of himself. They then eat the sardine, still pretending it's Ginger, and proceed to the next one. As he goes in for lunch, he hears Ethel rehearsing a play, saying 'I don't want to marry him! I'm being forced to marry him!'. William believes this is for real, and attempts to help her. He finds the man who he thinks she is being forced to marry, and takes him to a hill and says "Ethel's dead". He believes it is really true and is very upset, and it gets into a very big muddle. In the end, William runs away after he discovers it was all a mistake. External links Brown Study — discussion of William in Trouble and Richmal Crompton at Papyrocentric Performativity 1927 short story collections Short story collections by Richmal Crompton Just William Children's short story collections 1927 children's books George Newnes Ltd books