Flat Stanley - Jeff Brown [3]
“Oh, dear! Are the police no help?” Mrs. Lambchop asked.
“It seems not,” said Mr. Lambchop. “Listen to what the Chief of Police told the newspaper. ‘We suspect a gang of sneak thieves. These are the worst kind. They work by sneakery, which makes them very difficult to catch. However, my men and I will keep trying. Meanwhile, I hope people will buy tickets for the Policemen’s Ball and not park their cars where signs say don’t.’”
The next morning Stanley Lambchop heard Mr. Dart talking to his wife in the elevator.
“These sneak thieves work at night,” Mr. Dart said. “It is very hard for our guards to stay awake when they have been on duty all day. And the Famous Museum is so big, we cannot guard every picture at the same time. I fear it is hopeless, hopeless, hopeless!”
Suddenly, as if an electric light bulb had lit up in the air above his head, giving out little shooting lines of excitement, Stanley Lambchop had an idea. He told it to Mr. Dart.
“Stanley,” Mr. Dart said, “if your mother will give her permission, I will put you and your plan to work this very night!”
Mrs. Lambchop gave her permission. “But you will have to take a long nap this afternoon,” she said. “I won’t have you up till all hours unless you do.”
That evening, after a long nap, Stanley went with Mr. Dart to the Famous Museum. Mr. Dart took him into the main hall, where the biggest and most important paintings were hung. He pointed to a huge painting that showed a bearded man, wearing a floppy velvet hat, playing a violin for a lady who lay on a couch. There was a half-man, half-horse person standing behind them, and three fat children with wings were flying around above. That, Mr. Dart explained, was the most expensive painting in the world!
There was an empty picture frame on the opposite wall. We shall hear more about that later on.
Mr. Dart took Stanley into his office and said, “It is time for you to put on a disguise.”
“I already thought of that,” Stanley Lambchop said, “and I brought one. My cowboy suit. It has a red bandanna that I can tie over my face. Nobody will recognize me in a million years.”
“No,” Mr. Dart said. “You will have to wear the disguise I have chosen.”
From a closet he took a white dress with a blue sash, a pair of shiny little pointed shoes, a wide straw hat with a blue band that matched the sash, and a wig and a stick. The wig was made of blond hair, long and done in ringlets. The stick was curved at the top and it, too, had a blue ribbon on it.
“In this shepherdess disguise,” Mr. Dart said, “you will look like a painting that belongs in the main hall. We do not have cowboy pictures in the main hall.”
Stanley was so disgusted, he could hardly speak. “I will look like a girl, that’s what I will look like,” he said. “I wish I had never had my idea.”
But he was a good sport, so he put on the disguise.
Back in the main hall, Mr. Dart helped Stanley climb up into the empty picture frame. Stanley was able to stay in place because Mr. Dart had cleverly put four small spikes in the wall, one for each hand and foot.
The frame was a perfect fit. Against the wall, Stanley looked just like a picture.
“Except for one thing,” Mr. Dart said. “Shepherdesses are supposed to look happy. They smile at their sheep and at the sky. You look fierce, not happy, Stanley.”
Stanley tried hard to get a faraway look in his eyes and even to smile a little bit.
Mr. Dart stood back a few feet and stared at him for a moment. “Well,” he said, “it may not be art, but I know what I like.”
He went off to make sure that certain other parts of Stanley’s plan were taken care of, and Stanley was left alone.
It was very dark in the main hall. A little bit of moonlight came through the windows, and Stanley could just make out the world’s most expensive painting on the opposite wall. He felt as though the bearded man with the violin and the lady on the couch and the half-horse person and the winged children were all waiting, as he was, for something to happen.
Time passed and he got tireder and tireder. Anyone would