Home Alone 3 (3 page)

"What if she gets tanked up on iced tea and comes over and makes me smoke cigarettes?" Alex asked apprehensively.

"Don't be ridiculous," his mom said. She reached behind him and fluffed up his pillow. Alex didn't want her to go.

"Did you know that there are an awful lot of safety hazards in the average home?" he asked. "I just watched a show on the subject. It was really frightening."

"That's why I want you to stay in bed," his mom said.

"If something happened, our family could be the subject of an embarrassing and lengthy television tabloid news inquiry," Alex went on. "We could get the nod to represent the fraying of the family fabric, which is a hot topic today."

His mom gazed at him and pursed her lips. "Alex, don't do this to me. I have to go. I don't have a choice."

But Alex wasn't ready to give up. "What if there's a tornado?"

"They don't happen in the winter," said his Mom.

"Hurricane?"

"We're not on the ocean."

"Earthquake?"

"In the Midwest? Not for millions of years."

"There's a blizzard coming in from the mountains," Alex said.

"Not in the next hour," replied his mom.

"Social unrest?" he was grasping for straws.

She smiled. "I don't think so."

"Boredom?" Alex ventured. "I hear it's deadly in old folks."

His mom kissed him on the forehead. That was always a bad sign. She stood up and started toward the door.

"What about crooks?" Alex gave it one last try. He was surprised when his mom actually hesitated for a moment. "I don't think that's a problem during the day, honey. At least, not around here."

But her hesitation gave Alex hope. "Why not?" he asked. "Nobody's home during the day. I'm only eight and I figured that out. Don't you think a grown-up crook could figure it out, too?"

"This is a very safe neighborhood," his mother replied patiently. "The doors will be locked, and you have numbers where you can reach me. I'll be home as soon as I can."

She was backing out of the doorway.

"Hey, Mom," Alex called after her. "What about dragons, giant spiders, mummies, the living dead, and other figments of my imagination?"

"Sorry," she called back as she went down the stairs. "I can't help you there. Only
you
can control your imagination."

Alex lay back on his bed and considered that. Actually, it was a scary thought.

His mom left. The house was empty except for Alex, Stan's parrot, and Doris the white rat. Feeling just a bit nervous, Alex decided to keep an eye on things around the neighborhood with his telescope. Outside on the street he watched a lady he'd never seen before walking a solidly built brown-and-black dog.

Maybe they were new to the neighborhood. Then he saw a jogger. That was weird, too. Washington Street was a dead end. All you could do was run up to the end, then turn around and run back.

Maybe the jogger didn't know.

Still, curious and wanting to see more, Alex decided to take the telescope up to the attic on the third floor and look out the dormer window from up there.

A few moments later in the attic he could see more of the neighborhood. And the first thing he saw was that jogger again. Only now he was in the alley behind the houses across the street. And he wasn't jogging. He was talking into his hand.

Alex swung the telescope around. That blue van had pulled into the street. And the strange lady with the dog was standing on the corner, staring at the Steffans' house across the street and two doors down.

Alex aimed the telescope at the Steffans' house. The scope was powerful enough to allow him to look in the windows. Suddenly, Alex caught his breath. There was a strange man in Kerry Steffan's bedroom! He was wearing white latex butt-inspection gloves and pulling Kerry Steffan's window shade down.

Burglars!
Alex ran downstairs to his parents' room. He quickly dialed 911. A dispatcher answered and he told her about the stranger in the Steffans' house.

"Are you by yourself?." the dispatcher asked.

"Yeah," Alex said. "My mother just ran out for a few minutes. I have the chicken pox."

"Can I have your address please?" the dispatcher asked.

"The burglar's not in my house," Alex tried to explain. "He's in the Steffans' house. Seven twenty-four Washington Street."

He heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway downstairs. It must have been his mom! Alex hung up on the dispatcher and ran downstairs to the back door. He yanked it open just as his mom appeared.

"There's a burglar in the Steffans' house!" he cried. "I saw him with my telescope. There was a woman and a dog and a jogger and a blue van. I didn't recognize any of them. And nobody around here has a blue van. So I called the police."

Mrs. Pruitt blinked in astonishment. "You called the police?"

Alex nodded. His mom hurried past him and into the house. Alex followed her to the living room. Through the window they saw a police car pull up in front of the Steffans' house. Two officers with guns drawn got out of the car and hurried toward the house.

Alex waited for the policemen to come out with the burglar.

But they came out alone and got back into the patrol car. Alex couldn't understand it. What had happened to the burglar?

The next thing he knew, the police were parking in front of
his
house.

Alex backed nervously from the window. He had a feeling he was in trouble.

At the regional bureau of the FBI in San Francisco, Bureau Director Albert Stuckey sat back in his chair and let out a weary sigh. His gray metal desk was littered with files and field reports covering everything from truck hijackings to high-tech thefts of valuable computer chips. All of it was urgent, but none was more urgent than the file he was now looking at.

An Axus Defense microchip had been stolen. That little piece of plastic and metal circuitry, not more than two inches square, was the key to building one of the most dangerous weapons known to humankind—a stealth nuclear missile, undetectable by radar.

In the wrong hands, that chip could be devastating. An entire city could be wiped out without warning.

There was a knock on Stuckey's door.

"Come in," Stuckey said.

The door opened, and a young agent named Rogers came in with a gray folder. "This just came in, sir."

Stuckey took the folder and opened it. Inside were the photos and rap sheets of a gang of burglars associated with high-tech crimes like the Axus chip theft. The gang was led by a suave-looking dark-haired gentleman named Peter Beaupre. Beaupre was a master thief who specialized in this kind of crime. Stuckey and the rest of the FBI had been trying to catch him for seven years.

"So these are our suspects," Stuckey surmised.

"Yes, sir," Rogers said.

"Do I assume they've high-tailed it to some third-world country by now?" Stuckey asked.

"No, sir," Rogers reported. "They were ticketed under aliases, but didn't board their Hong Kong flight."

Stuckey sat up, surprised. "You mean, they're still in this country?"

"Yes, sir," Rogers said. "As far as we know, they're still here."

Stuckey actually smiled. "Well, for once, luck seems to be on our side. Now let's find them, fast."

The police officers stood at the Pruitts' front door, talking to Alex's mother. Alex stood behind his mom and listened.

"The burglar alarm was on and working in the Steffans' house," one of the policemen was saying. "There was no one in the house. Nothing appears to have been taken. I don't know what your boy saw, but it wasn't a burglar."

"I'm very sorry about this," Alex's mom apologized. "My son's home with the chicken pox. I had to run out for a moment. He thought he saw something."

"You'll talk to your neighbor about the damaged door?" the policeman said. Apparently they'd kicked the Steffans' kitchen door in. Alex wished he could have seen that.

"Yes, of course, absolutely," his mom said.

The policeman looked past Mrs. Pruitt at Alex. "False alarms are no joking matter, son."

"It wasn't a false alarm," Alex insisted. "There was a guy in the house. He had two lookouts and a driver in a blue van."

"He's been running a fever," his mom tried to explain.

"You might want to remind him that this is a serious business," the police officer said.

"He knows," said Mrs. Pruitt. "We got him a police set last Christmas. It had a badge, hat, and whistle, and he took it very seriously. He went around the house arresting us for various crimes. Not real crimes, but things like snoring and not putting the toilet seat down."

The police officer nodded pensively and left. Alex's mother closed the door.

"I am very disappointed in you," Mrs. Pruitt said as she and Alex went back upstairs.

"Excuse me, but I saw a person in Kerry Steffan's bedroom," Alex insisted. "He was a white male about Dad's age, but bigger. And he was wearing butt-inspection gloves."

"I warned you about that telescope," his mother went on as if she hadn't heard him. "You look through it long enough and you're going to see things that aren't there."

"I guess you have to be thirty-five before anyone listens to you around here," Alex groused as he got into bed.

"Don't get smart with me, Alex," his mom said as she tucked him in. "Sick or not, I'm angry at you. You caused a lot of trouble and now we're going to have to replace the Steffans' kitchen door. Do you think we're happy about that?"

But Alex just crossed his arms stubbornly. "I saw what I saw."

It had been a close call. Peter Beaupre had gotten out of the Steffan's house, crossed the yard, and jumped into the van in the alley just moments before the police arrived. Back at their ranch house headquarters, the gang tried to figute out what had gone wrong.

"It had to be the burglar alarm," Alice Ribbons said.

"No way," said Beaupre. "I had it bypassed."

"Then someone must've called the cops," said Earl Unger.

"You mean, someone was watching?" Burton Jernigan asked nervously.

"It's possible," Alice said. "The problem is, we don't know who or where they are. They could be on Washington Street. Or someplace else."

"We're gonna have to be more careful," said Earl Unger.

"Either that or we're going to have to figure out who's watching us and stop them," Beaupre said ominously.

"And we're gonna have to do something about these sleeping bags, too," complained Earl Unger. "I'm getting lower back pain from sleeping on the floor. And I'm allergic to the dust balls, too."

There was no more talk about the "false alarm" that night. The next morning Alex's father stayed home later than usual while he waited for the cab to take him to the airport. Alex joined his dad in the attic, where Mr. Pruitt was ironing the pants he was going to wear. Alex was looking through his telescope again.

Down the street a cab turned the corner.

"Cab's here, Dad," Alex said.

Mr. Pruitt looked up from the ironing board. He was wearing a suit jacket, shirt and tie, boxer shorts, black socks and shoes.

His pants were on the ironing board.

"Shoot," Mr. Pruitt grumbled. "Your mom's not back yet. I don't want to leave you."

Alex's mom had taken the opportunity to run some documents over to the bank.

"I'll be okay," Alex said.

"Well, Mom'll be home any minute," his father said. "Mrs. Hess is home. You'll be fine. Don't forget, if you need me, my beeper number's on autodial on the phone."

"Right." Both his mom's and dad's beeper numbers were in the phone's memory.

"I have to get a move on or I'll miss my plane," his dad said. "I'm traveling with my boss and he won't like that very much. Give me a kiss."

Alex kissed his dad on the cheek, and Mr. Pruitt kissed his son on the forehead. Alex watched his father start down the stairs.

"Dad?" he said.

Mr. Pruitt stopped. "Yes?"

"Are you going to bring something home with you?" Alex asked.

"I always do," Mr. Pruitt said. He started down the stairs again.

"Dad?" said Alex.

Mr. Pruitt stopped. "Don't worry, Alex. This is a safe neighborhood. We have great police, as I'm sure you saw yesterday. Nothing bad is going to happen here."

He started down the stairs again.

"Dad?" Alex said.

Mr. Pruitt stopped. "What is it, Alex?"

"Got your plane tickets?" Alex asked. "Right here." Mr. Pruitt patted his pocket. "Got your wallet?" Alex asked.

"Right here." Mr. Pruitt patted his pants pocket.

Only he still wasn't wearing his pants.

His face turned red and he started back up the stairs. "Thanks for reminding me." He took his pants off the ironing board and pulled them on.

"Anytime, Dad," Alex said.

Through the telescope, Alex watched his dad get into the cab. As the cab pulled out, a blue van pulled in. Alex watched it closely.

Next he noticed an old man he'd never seen before walking slowly up the street with a cane.

Next
came a woman in a jogging suit, pushing a baby in one of those three-wheel jogging strollers.

Things were happening quickly now. Alex rushed back and forth from one end of the attic to the other, looking out windows.

Mrs. Hess was pulling her old gray car out of the driveway.

The jogger lady was talking into her hand.

The old man paused in front of Mrs. Hess's house.

Alex trained the telescope on Mrs. Hess's living room. He saw someone inside.
It was the same guy!
The one with the white rubber butt-inspection gloves!

Alex ran downstairs and called the police. This time they were going to nail those burglars for sure!

Several hours later, Chief Raymond Flanagan, the silver-haired chief of police, sat on the couch in Alex's living room. Alex sat at the other end of the couch. Mrs. Pruitt sat in a chair facing them. She looked very grim.