Home Alone 3 (9 page)

Up on the third floor, Alice watched Unger and Jernigan disappear through the trampoline. She had to admit that she wasn't entirely disappointed in the development.

Clunk!
A sound from the other side of the attic caught her attention.

Behind the fence, Alex watched as Alice left the window. He imagined that by now the toy robot had hit the UP button on the dumbwaiter control panel, sending the dumbwaiter back up to the attic.

Of course, Alice thought as she walked toward the dumbwaiter.
This
was how the kid had gotten downstail's.

Well, what was good for the goose was good for the gander.

So she crawled into the dumbwaiter herself.

0nly, the dumbwaiter no longer had a bottom.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!''
Alex could hear her scream all the way from the alley behind the yard.

It was a long scream.

After all, it was four floors from the attic to the basement.

Thunk!
The scream ended.

Out in the alley, Alex dusted off his hands. All in a day's work.

But neither the day nor the work was over. Alex cut through backyards and circled around to Mrs. Hess's house. He found her in the garage, tied to a chair, wearing only a thin sweater. That was crazy. It was freezing out. Her head was tilted forward and she wasn't moving. Alex was afraid she might have died from fright or the cold.

Alex took off his backpack and left it on the garage workbench with the toy car. He crouched down in front of the old lady. "Mrs. Hess?"

Mrs. Hess slowly opened her eyes.

Alex felt a wave of relief. "You're okay now," he said softly. "I'm here."

He took off his coat and draped it around her shoulders.

"Just give me a second," he said, going around behind her. "I'll untie you."

He was in the middle of untying her when he felt an uneasy sensation. He stopped and looked up.

But there was nothing there.

He started to untie her again, but as he did, he was overcome with a feeling of dread.

He looked up again.

Just as Peter Beaupre stepped out from behind Mrs. Hess's car.

Alex froze. Beaupre smiled.

"Well, son—it's Alex isn't it?" he said. "Today you learned a valuable lesson. There's a price to be paid for being a good citizen. In your zeal to rescue your neighbor, you finally stepped into one of
my
traps."

Alex swallowed and didn't reply. Beaupre went over to the workbench and picked up the toy car. He nearly ripped it apart with his hands, then tossed it aside when he saw that the chip wasn't there.

Next, he dumped the contents of the backpack on the workbench and started to go through them.

Alex cleared his throat. "Can Mrs. Hess go inside? She's very old and she's very cold."

Beaupre ignored him.

"Please?" Alex asked.

Beaupre didn't answer. The chip wasn't in the backpack either. Beaupre walked over to Alex and grabbed him by the collar, nearly lifting him off his feet.

"Give me the chip," Beaupre growled.

Alex shook his head. "It doesn't belong to you."

Beaupre reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun. He aimed it at Alex's face.

Trembling with fear, Alex stared down the barrel. He realized with a start that there was a dart in there. It wasn't a real gun. It was his Nerf dart gun.

"The chip, son," Beaupre said ominously. "Give me the chip or else."

Alex nodded at the gun. "That doesn't belong to you either."

Beaupre frowned. "What?"

"That isn't your gun," Alex said.

Beaupre looked at the gun. He pointed it at the ceiling and pulled the trigger.

A dart shot out and hit a support beam.

Alex reached into his coat pocket and took out another gun.

"
This
is your gun," he said.

Beaupre stared at it in disbelief.

Alex forced a confident smile on his face.

Peter Beaupre turned around and ran out of the garage as fast as he Could.

Alex squeezed the trigger of the gun in his hand.

A stream of water bubbles came out.

Alex managed to get Mrs. Hess out of the garage and into her kitchen, where he helped her into a kitchen chair. The old lady wasn't shivering so much anymore, but she still looked pretty cold.

Alex pulled open the kitchen pantry doors. Inside was a row of canned soups.

"These are the times that call for soup," he said. "Got any favorites?"

"I'm fine, honey," Mrs. Hess replied. "Thanks anyway."

She was starting to get some color back in her face. Alex was impressed.

"Know what, Mrs. Hess?" he said. "It's really cold outside. You must be a pretty tough old bird."

"And you're a very sweet young man," Mrs. Hess replied. "I just never took the time to notice.''

"You're not alone in that," Alex said, thinking of his brother and sister.

Outside came the loud grumble and scraping of a snowplow. Alex looked out Mrs. Hess's window and was shocked to see a bunch of police cars with their lights flashing. Next came some black cars and then came his mom's car.

"Gotta go, Mrs. Hess," Alex said, heading for her front door.

"Come back and visit," Mrs. Hess said with a wave.

Alex left the old lady's house. Down on the street, his mom was looking around with a really worried expression on her face.

Alex cupped his hands around his mouth and called, "Hey, Mom!"

Mrs. Pruitt spun around. Alex jogged toward her, but made the mistake of getting too close. The next thing he knew, she scooped him into her arms and started hugging and kissing him. Meanwhile, the police were all over the place.

"Mom?" Alex started to squirm out of her grasp. "You're hugging and kissing me in front of the cops."

"I'm so sorry," Mrs. Pruitt said as she put him down. "I'm so sorry I didn't listen to you about those burglars."

Stan came up and offered his hand. Alex shook it.

"This is very cool," Stan said.

"You're a hero," Molly said, patting him on the shoulder.

A man wearing a long, dark coat came up to them. "Alex Pruitt?"

"That's me," Alex said.

The man took out an identification card. "I'm Agent Stuckey with the FBI, son. I think you have something we've been looking for."

"Here." Alex reached into his pocket and handed Stuckey the Axus Defense microchip. "Also, there's a senior citizen across the street who needs some soup and a doctor's care. And there are two burglars in the pool and a third one in our basement. But the other guy got away."

Agent Stuckey reached into his pocket and took out a photograph of Peter Beaupre. "Is this him?"

Alex looked at the photograph and nodded.

"We've been after him for seven years," Stuckey said. "But somehow he always manages to slip away."

Peter Beaupre's butt was freezing. He was sitting on the icy ground in the kid's snow fort behind the house. It was just the sort of place the cops would never bother to check. If he could manage to sit there until dark, he was pretty sure he could escape. Beaupre had to smile to himself. The FBI would really kick themselves if he got away again.

Suddenly he heard the flutter of wings. Some kind of bird landed in the entrance to the snow fort. It was all green, with a big hooked beak and long green tail feathers.

A parrot! Beaupre realized. What in the world was a parrot doing there?

"Awk," the parrot called softly, then began to sing that old song, "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown."

It sounded familiar. . . . Beaupre knew he'd heard it recently. But where?

The phone machine in the Alcotts' house! Beaupre stared at the parrot in shock. Meanwhile, the dumb bird was still singing. If the cops heard it, they might check the snow fort and catch him.

Beaupre pressed his finger to his lips. He had to shut the dumb bird up!

But the bird kept right on singing.

Desperate, Beaupre reached into his pocket and came up with a cellophane-wrapped cracker from the San Francisco-Chicago flight. He quickly unwrapped the cracker and held it out. The parrot studied the cracker, then hopped closer. It reached out with a claw and grabbed it.

Beaupre felt a wave of relief as the bird ate the cracker.

Then the bird cocked its head and gave Beaupre a questioning look.

At first the burglar didn't understand. Then the parrot raised its claw. It wanted another cracker.

"I . . . I only had one," Beaupre stammered.

The parrot studied the burglar for a second, then shook its head. "Say good night, Gracie."

Beaupre lunged. The parrot jumped away.

"Emergency!"
the dumb bird squawked loudly.
"Calling all cars! Intruder!"

Beaupre lunged again, this time landing outside the fort.

Again he missed the bird.

He looked up. Right into the barrel of a police officer's gun. The police officer smiled. "Looks like the bird got away," he said. "Looks like this time you won't."

The bad guys were taken away. Unger and Jernigan walked stiffly in their frozen pants. The police had to carry Alice away because she was sort of permanently scrunched up from her fall down the dumbwaiter shaft. Peter Beaupre just kept muttering, "Polly want a cracker?" over and over.

The police and the FBI were so thankful that Alex had helped catch the bad guys that they arranged for workers to come in and fix all the damage in the house. While they patched, painted, and cleaned, Mrs. Pruitt ordered a bunch of pizzas for her family and Mrs. Hess and the FBI and Chief of Police Flanagan.

A little while later they all sat around the kitchen table eating the pizza and talking about dumb family stuff. Alex could tell that his mom still felt guilty about leaving him in the house alone.

"Hey, listen," Agent Stuckey said as he chewed on a piece of pizza. "Child care's a rough deal. I know. My wife works."

"Mine, too," said the other FBI agent, a guy named Rogers.

"I'm home all day, every day," Mrs. Hess chimed in. "If you need a hand, all you need to do is call."

"Do you have any plans for tomorrow?" Alex asked her.

"Just to watch the soaps," Mrs. Hess replied.

"Have you had the chicken pox?" asked Alex.

"Honey, I had the chicken pox when Herbert Hoover was in the White House," she said.

Mrs. Hess wouldn't have to worry about catching chicken pox from Alex—the way every one of the crooks had!

The front door opened and Mr. Pruitt came in, carrying his overnight bag. He looked surprised at all the activity, but when he saw Alex, he smiled.

Alex ran to him. Mr. Pruitt picked him up and hugged him. "I heard all about what happened. You sure don't look any worse for the wear."

"They couldn't touch me," Alex replied with a wink.

The FBI agents and the chief of police stood up and introduced themselves. Mr. Pruitt kept looking around at all the workers with an amazed expression on his face.

"Axus Technologies is giving Alex a reward for getting their stolen microchip back," Stan said.

"It's a large six-figure sum," Molly added. "Which is extremely nice of them."

"And the city sent over a crew to fix the place up," Mrs. Pruitt said.

"I can see," Mr. Pruitt said with a nod.

Just then, a paramedic came into the kitchen carrying the gorilla doll Alice had shot up. The paramedic had bandaged the gorilla's bullet holes.

"Gee, thanks," Molly said, taking the gorilla and setting it beside her.

"Well, I think we've learned a lot from this," said Chief Flanagan. "Most importantly, I think we learned something about listening to our kids."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"We know now that if you come to us with something you think isn't right, we're obliged to check it out," said Mr. Pruitt.

"Good," said Alex. "And by the way, did you bring me anything from your trip?"

"I sure did," Mr. Pruitt said. He reached into his bag and pulled out a box . . . with a picture of a toy car on it.

The same toy car that had caused all the trouble in the first place.

Alex took the box and smiled. "Thanks, Dad. It's just what I always wanted."

Todd Strasser has written many award-winning novels for young and teenage readers. Among his best-known books are
Help! I'm Trapped in Obedience School
and
Girl Gives Birth to Own Prom Date
. He speaks frequently at schools about the craft of writing and conducts writing workshops for young people. He and his family live outside New York City with their yellow Labrador retreiver, Mac. His most recent project for Scholastic was a series about Camp Run-a-Muck.