Flat Stanley - Jeff Brown [4]
Maybe they won’t come, Stanley thought. Maybe the sneak thieves won’t come at all.
The moon went behind a cloud and then the main hall was pitch-dark. It seemed to get quieter, too, with the darkness. There was absolutely no sound at all. Stanley felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle beneath the golden curls of the wig.
Cr-eee-eee-k …
The creaking sound came from right out in the middle of the main hall, and even as he heard it, Stanley saw, in the same place, a tiny yellow glow of light!
The creaking came again, and the glow got bigger. A trapdoor had opened in the floor, and two men came up through it into the hall!
Stanley understood everything all at once. These must be the sneak thieves! They had a secret trapdoor entrance into the museum from outside. That was why they had never been caught. And now, tonight, they were back to steal the most expensive painting in the world!
He held very still in his picture frame and listened to the sneak thieves.
“This is it, Max,” said the first one. “This is where we art robbers pull a sensational job whilst the civilized community sleeps.”
“Right, Luther,” said the other man. “In all this great city, there is no one to suspect us.”
Ha, ha! thought Stanley Lambchop. That’s what you think!
The sneak thieves put down their lantern and took the world’s most expensive painting off the wall.
“What would we do to anyone who tried to capture us, Max?” the first man asked.
“We would kill him. What else?” his friend replied.
That was enough to frighten Stanley, and he was even more frightened when Luther came over and stared at him.
“This sheep girl,” Luther said. “I thought sheep girls were supposed to smile, Max. This one looks scared.”
Just in time, Stanley managed to get a faraway look in his eyes again and to smile, sort of.
“You’re crazy, Luther,” Max said. “She’s smiling. And what a pretty little thing she is, too.”
That made Stanley furious. He waited until the sneak thieves had turned back to the world’s most expensive painting, and he shouted in his loudest, most terrifying voice: “POLICE! POLICE! MR. DART! THE SNEAK THIEVES ARE HERE!”
The sneak thieves looked at each other. “Max,” said the first one, very quietly. “I think I heard the sheep girl yell.”
“I think I did too,” said Max in a quivery voice. “Oh, boy! Yelling pictures. We both need a rest.”
“You’ll get a rest, all right!” shouted Mr. Dart, rushing in with the Chief of Police and lots of guards and policemen behind him. “You’ll get ar-rested, that’s what! Ha, ha, ha!”
The sneak thieves were too mixed up by Mr. Dart’s joke and too frightened by the policemen to put up a fight.
Before they knew it, they had been handcuffed and led away to jail.
The next morning in the office of the Chief of Police, Stanley Lambchop got a medal. The day after that his picture was in all the newspapers.
5
Arthur’s Good Idea
For a while Stanley Lambchop was a famous name. Everywhere that Stanley went, people stared and pointed at him. He could hear them whisper, “Over there, Agnes, over there! That must be Stanley Lambchop, the one who caught the sneak thieves …” and things like that.
But after a few weeks the whispering and the staring stopped. People had other things to think about. Stanley did not mind. Being famous had been fun, but enough was enough.
And then came a further change, and it was not a pleasant one. People began to laugh and make fun of him as he passed by. “Hello, Super-Skinny!” they would shout, and even ruder things, about the way he looked.
Stanley told his parents how he felt. “It’s the other kids I mostly mind,” he said. “They don’t like me anymore because I’m different. Flat.”
“Shame on them,” Mrs. Lambchop said. “It is wrong to dislike people for their shapes. Or their religion, for that matter, or the color of their skin.”
“I know,” Stanley said. “Only maybe it’s impossible for everybody to like everybody.”
“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Lambchop. “But they can try.