The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  “Come on, Blair, honey,” Amanda said, taking his hand and starting to pull him towards the center of the room. David grabbed his other hand and held on, glaring at Amanda.

  “Leave him alone,” he whispered fiercely.

  “David! Let go. Do you want to ruin everything,” Amanda hissed.

  Against his better judgement, David let go, and Amanda led Blair to the spot under the light where he had been before and pushed him down on his knees. David was following close behind, feeling terribly worried without knowing exactly why, and Janie followed David. The kidnappers came down off the stairs and joined them, forming a circle around the kneeling Blair. Everyone stared at Blair, and he stared back at them with big, scared eyes, twisting his head back and forth as he looked from one to the other. He looked, David thought angrily, more like a frightened baby bird than a holy person seeing a vision, and it was all Amanda’s fault for trying to make Blair a part of something phony.

  “Look, Blair. Look over there,” Amanda was whispering, pointing at the box, and Blair looked for a minute, but then he jumped up and ran to David and hid his face against David’s stomach. Amanda came after him and started to pull him away again, but he held onto David and said, “No, no, no. I don’t want to. Nobody’s there. Nobody’s there now.”

  “Cosa ha detto?” Gino said and when Janie told him in Italian, Pietro shrugged, made a snorting noise and walked away. Turning to watch Pietro, everyone seemed to notice at once that the door at the top of the stairs was standing wide open.

  Pietro ran halfway up the stairs, turned and looked frantically around the cellar, yelling a question at Janie. The question was about Esther, and you didn’t have to know Italian to know what it was, because Esther had disappeared. Pushing David roughly out of the way, Gino dashed past him into the corner behind the junk pile and then around it and into the toilet room. Then he ran past David again and took the stairs three at a time, past Pietro and out the door. A second later Pietro had disappeared, too.

  “Wow!” Janie said. “What will they do to Tesser for running away?”

  The three of them stared at each other and then back up the stairs to where the door was still standing wide open—and then all at once, they were running, too, jostling each other on the stairs and then bursting through into a large, cluttered room. No one was in sight, but across the room another door swung partly open, and through it David saw sunlight, and in the distance a bit of tree-covered hillside. He ran again, out the door and into dazzling light. Almost blinded by the sudden brilliance, he came to a sudden stop, and Amanda and Janie crashed into him from behind.

  “Look!” Amanda cried, pointing. On the other side of a large cleared area, Esther was standing beside a big metal barrel. Still holding the dustpan over the barrel, she seemed rooted to the spot, a startled expression on her face, as Gino and Pietro rapidly bore down on her, their heavy boots thundering on the hard-packed earth. Then, coming suddenly to life, she let out a terrified wail, threw the dustpan in the air, and turned to run.

  “Run, Tesser, run,” Janie shrieked, and a second later she was running, too, in the opposite direction. David ran one step after Janie, remembered Blair, alone in the cellar, and stopped, and Amanda ran into him again.

  “Run, you idiot. We’re free,” Amanda said, shoving him out of her way, and then they were both running at top speed, toward the tree-covered hillside.

  When they reached the trees, they stopped to look back, in time to see that Esther had been caught. One of the kidnappers was carrying her back toward the house. The other was running again—straight for them.

  “Scatter,” Amanda gasped. “I’ll go this way,” and she crashed off through the brush, and David, feeling terrified—not just for himself but for Blair left behind, and Esther caught, and Janie somewhere in the forest—ran on alone. But not alone for long, because the clomping, thundering footsteps behind him got louder and closer as he ducked around trees, slid down steep inclines, jumped a small creek and scrambled up the other side. He was on level ground again when he jumped a fallen tree trunk, stumbled, and as he regained his balance, a hand clamped down on his shoulder and he was spun around to stare into the angry eyes of Pietro.

  David went quietly. A few minutes later he was shoved through the cellar door and it was slammed and locked behind him. The only other person in the room was Esther, who was standing at the foot of the stairs crying. She wasn’t making much noise, but tears were pouring out of her eyes and streaming down her face and dripping off her chin onto her bathrobe.

  “Oh David,” she gasped when he stumbled down the steps, still staggering from Pietro’s angry shove, “I’m so glad you came back.” Throwing her arms around him before he had time to completely regain his balance, she tripped them both and they wound up stepping on each other’s feet, kicking each other’s shins, and finally sitting on the floor.

  “Glad,” David said angrily, rubbing his shin. “What are you glad about? You should have been hoping I’d get away so I could go for help.”

  Wiping her face with both hands, Esther stared at him. He must have looked very angry because she started to cry all over again. “I’m sorry, David. I’m sorry I was glad. But—but I was all al-o-o-ne.”

  “No you weren’t. Blair’s here.” He started to look around for Blair, but at that moment the door banged open again and then shut, and Amanda was coming down the steps. David and Esther rushed to meet her.

  She was frightened and angry and so out of breath that it was a long time before she could say anything at all. There was mud on her jacket and jeans, and when she held out her hands, they saw that the palms were scratched and bleeding. “I’d have gotten away if I hadn’t fallen down,” she managed to gasp at last. “Right after we got to the edge of the clearing, I fell down so hard it knocked the wind out of me and by the time I’d gotten up Gino was right behind me.” She sat down at the table, buried her face in her arms, and her shoulders shook with angry sobs. David stood around watching helplessly. After a while she raised her head and looked around. “Where’s Janie?” she asked. “And Blair?”

  “I guess they haven’t caught Janie yet,” David said. “I don’t know where Blair is. He must be here someplace.” David was sure Blair hadn’t come with them when they dashed up the stairs, but he’d always had a way of hiding when things got frightening or unpleasant. David looked behind the junk pile and in the toilet room and was just checking under the beds when the door opened again. They’d caught Janie, too.

  Both Gino and Pietro were coming down the stairs with Janie between them. Each of them held one of her arms tightly, and by the way they kept their eyes on her, you’d have thought they were leading a dangerous animal instead of a seven-year-old girl. Near the bottom of the stairs, they looked at each other, nodded, turned her loose and stepped back. Janie was red-faced and tousled, and her eyes looked bright and dangerous. Pietro’s mask was askew and the front of his leather jacket was smeared with mud. Gino was rubbing his hand.

  “Janie,” David said aghast. “What happened?”

  “I fought,” Janie said and her voice quavered dramatically, “like a wild thing. I kicked and scratched and bit.” She looked at Gino who was examining his thumb. “I think I bit him on the same thumb.”

  “On the same thumb as what?” Amanda asked.

  “As I bit him on last time—when they kidnapped us.”

  Pietro straightened his mask and brushed off the front of his jacket and looked around the room.

  “Dov’ e Blair?” he asked.

  “Where’s Blair?” Janie said.

  “I don’t know,” David said. “I was just looking for him when you came in. He must be here somewhere.” But when they all, including the two kidnappers, had looked for several minutes, it became clear that he probably wasn’t. There weren’t that many places to hide in the cellar, and Blair wasn’t in any of them. Although he couldn’t imagine Blair doing it, David finally had to conclude that Blair had somehow managed to sneak out
of the cellar without being seen by anyone.

  He supposed that he should be glad. As long as one of them was still free, there was certainly more chance of rescue, even if the free person was Blair, who usually reacted to trouble by curling up in a corner somewhere and sucking his thumb. David tried not to imagine Blair wandering around in the forest alone and lost and maybe not finding anyone before it got dark. He was trying so hard not to think about it that he couldn’t think about anything else, until suddenly he became aware of something that felt like a wave of terror. Everyone in the cellar seemed frozen into postures of listening, like a bunch of animals with their ears cocked towards a strange sound. From somewhere not far away, and rapidly getting closer, a sputtering, roaring motor noise was approaching the hideout. A second later Gino and Pietro were scrambling up the stairs and out the door.

  “Wow!” Janie said. “They’re scared.”

  “Yeah, I got that feeling, too,” David said. “They must be afraid of what Red Mask will do when he finds out about what happened—and about Blair being gone.”

  Outside the motor noise got louder and louder and then, quite nearby, sputtered into silence.

  “Do you suppose they’ll tell him?” David asked.

  “They’ll have to. He’ll find out sooner or later that Blair isn’t here,” Amanda said.

  David sighed. “Yeah, I suppose so.” Feeling desperately worried—about Blair and Red Mask and everything—David went to his cot and threw himself on it face down—and a split second later he was sitting up pawing frantically at the covers. Blinking sleepily, Blair uncurled himself from a tight little ball in the center of the sag in the cot. “Ouch,” he said. “You squashed me, David.”

  “Hey,” Janie said. “He was there all the time. How’d you do that, Blair?”

  “I hid,” Blair said. “And then I went to sleep.”

  “Do it again, Blair,” Esther said. “Let’s see how you did it.”

  Blair curled up again in the sag in the middle of the cot, and with the covers bunched up over him, no one would ever have guessed there was anyone there.

  They were still fussing over Blair, getting used to the idea that he wasn’t gone after all, when the kidnappers came back—all three of them. Red Mask came down the stairs first, loud and angry as always, with the other two trailing along behind. Blair was standing by the table, but Red Mask ignored him and immediately told Janie about a new ransom note he wanted Amanda to write. All the time Red Mask was dictating, Gino and Pietro stood behind him near the stairs, leaning limply on the bannisters and staring at Blair.

  nineteen

  “I don’t think they told him anything,” Amanda said.

  “Well,” David said, “they obviously didn’t tell him about Blair being gone, because he didn’t seem a bit surprised to see him. But they might have told him about us escaping.”

  “Did he mention the escape, Janie?” Amanda asked. “Did he warn us not to try it again or anything?”

  Janie shook her head. “No. All he talked about was how knew your father was lying to him about not having enough money. And how you had to convince him that he’d better get the money—or else.”

  David shivered. He’d heard Janie’s translation of the things Red Mask wanted Amanda to put in the letter. Janie had told Amanda to write that if her father didn’t get enough money, Amanda and the others would soon be “morto.” Janie hadn’t translated “morto.” Instead she had looked at Esther and Blair, raised her eyebrows significantly, and said, “Just put morto. Your father will know what means.” Esther and Blair hadn’t seemed to know what it meant, but David did.

  He had to swallow hard before he could get his voice working to ask Janie, “Did he say when? Did he set any deadline?”

  “No,” Janie shook her head. “He just said presto—soon.”

  David sighed. “If we just had a little more time,” he said to Amanda. “We were just beginning to get somewhere with—” He nodded towards Blair. “You know—with the plan.”

  “I have a plan, too,” Janie said, but nobody paid much attention.

  “Were is right,” Amanda said. “We were getting somewhere until Esther’s big escape. But that really blew it. I was beginning to think we were getting to Gino, and maybe Pietro, too. I was really thinking they might help us get away or something. But then Esther had to go and start everybody escaping.” Amanda shrugged hopelessly. “Do you think they’re going to care what happens to any of us after having to chase us all over the country, wearing themselves out and falling into ditches and”—she stopped to glare at Janie—“and getting their thumbs nearly bitten off.”

  “I wasn’t escaping,” Esther said. “I just went upstairs to look for a wastepaper basket to put the dust in, and there wasn’t any in their house, and then I saw a garbage can out in the yard. I was going to come right back, only they went and ran at me and scared me.”

  “Great!” Amanda said. “Just great! What a bunch to get kidnapped with! She has a perfectly wonderful chance to get away, and all she can think about is emptying a dustpan.”

  Esther looked hurt—and puzzled. “But you just said—” she started.

  “Never mind, Tesser,” David said. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.” He turned to Amanda. “The thing is,” he said, “if they didn’t tell Red Mask about the escape, it might mean they are still a little bit on our side. Like maybe they didn’t want him to know because he’d be so angry at us.”

  “Or at them,” Amanda said. “I think they didn’t tell him because they’re scared to death of him, too. And if he knew they’d been careless enough to leave the door open when they came down here, he’d really be furious—at them. That’s probably the only reason they didn’t tell him.”

  “Well, maybe,” David said. But just then another idea began to take shape in the back of his mind. “Hey, wait a minute. I just thought of something. You probably didn’t notice because you were busy writing the letter to your father, but while Red Mask was telling Janie what you were supposed to say, Gino and Pietro were standing over there by the stairs, and they were just staring at Blair as if—” Suddenly remembering that Janie wasn’t supposed to know about the “miracle” plan, David stopped. “Uh-Janie,” he said. “Why don’t you go and—see what the ants are doing?”

  Janie glared at him. “All right for you, David,” she said. “You’ll be sorry. I won’t tell you my plan, either. Come on, Blair. Tesser. Let’s go talk about our plan.”

  While the little kids were busy whispering in the corner, David told Amanda the interesting idea that had occurred to him. He described how Gino and Pietro had stared at Blair in such a strange way, it was almost as if they thought there’d been something—well, almost supernatural about his disappearance and then sudden reappearance.

  Amanda caught on right away. “Yeah,” she said. “If we don’t tell them about finding him in the bed—maybe we can say that we just happened to look up and all of a sudden there he was again—kneeling in the corner near the Blue Lady’s box.”

  “Yeah, like that. Only there’s one problem.”

  Amanda nodded. “Janie,” she said.

  “Janie knows where we really found him. We’ll have to tell her about what we’re trying to do—since she has to be the one to tell them about it.”

  “Well, maybe not,” Amanda said. “Maybe you could just get Janie to tell them about his suddenly appearing near the box without telling her exactly what we’ve been trying to do. Maybe if you promise that we’ll tell her all about it right afterwards, if she does a good job, she won’t be so apt to hokey it all up.”

  So David agreed to try. He called Janie out from behind the junk pile and explained what they wanted done. At first she said she wouldn’t unless they’d tell her all about their plan; but when David asked her to do it for him and promised that he and Amanda would tell her all the rest of the plan very soon afterwards, she said okay. It wasn’t as if he was lying to her. There was a chance—a slight chanc
e anyway—that the plan might work soon, and Gino and Pietro might set them all free. Then he would be able to tell Janie all about it. But for now he only told Janie what they wanted her to tell Gino and Pietro about how they’d all been sitting around worrying about where Blair was, when all of a sudden they heard something, and they looked up and there he was, kneeling in front of the box. Janie was a fast learner. After hearing David tell it just once, she went through it again in English, almost word for word—and then rattled it all off in Italian, just to show him how she was going to do it. Then there was nothing more to do but wait until Gino and Pietro came in again—without Red Mask.

  It must have been shortly after that conversation with Janie that David noticed the belt to his bathrobe was missing. In fact he was still looking for it when Pietro came in alone, with the last meal of the day, and David forgot all about the belt. Everything seemed to work out fine. Pietro actually set it all up himself by asking Janie where Blair had been while they were all looking for him. So then, of course, Janie launched into the mysterious reappearance story, and David was able to understand enough of the words to tell that she was doing a good job. She even went over and knelt down in front of the box to demonstrate where Blair had been when they first noticed him. With his face covered by the hood, it was hard to tell for sure, but from the thoughtful way Pietro put the food on the table, it looked as if he’d been pretty impressed by Janie’s story.

  Not long after Pietro left the cellar, someone left the hideout by motorcycle. David noticed especially, because it occurred to him that it was probably someone taking the latest ransom note to be mailed or delivered to Amanda’s father. He wondered which one of the kidnappers had taken it. Dinner had just been served so the day was over, and it was usually about this time that Red Mask came to the hideout and Gino and Pietro went away. However he’d only heard one motorcycle start up, and it didn’t seem likely that Red Mask would allow Gino or Pietro to deliver a ransom note.