The US Capital Commotion (3 page)

The two men were pushing their way through the crowd. A placard held high by a marcher, reading
AND JUSTICE FOR ALL
, slid before Stanley’s eyes. He jumped for it.

Hanging off the back of the sign, Stanley glanced back. The two men were spinning in circles in front of the
WE THE PEOPLE
poster, wondering where he had gone.

I need a disguise, Stanley thought.

A block later, Stanley dived into a recycling bin full of newspapers. He started shoving crumpled-up handfuls of newsprint under his shirt and into the legs of his pants. He’d learned in school how to fold boat-shaped hats out of newspaper, and now he made one and put it on his head.

A tour group was gathered on the giant steps of a building nearby. Stanley rustled up to the back of the group, trying to blend in.

“Many of the most important buildings in Washington were burned during the War of Eighteen-twelve,” the tour guide was saying. “The Library of Congress was mostly destroyed, as was the Capitol. It is said that the smoke could be seen as far away as Baltimore. Even the White House was ruined—but not before a life-size portrait of George Washington was cut out of its frame and sneaked to safety.

“We are all very lucky that the most important documents in our nation’s history weren’t lost during the burning of Washington. Let’s go inside the National Archives and see them.”

In a grand room with very high ceilings, Stanley bent over a large piece of yellow parchment, crowded with script. It was the Declaration of Independence, dated July 4, 1776. The tour guide said it was written by Thomas Jefferson. John Hancock’s very fancy signature stood out among the names of all the people who had signed at the bottom.

The tour guide said that when people first came to America, many of them just wanted to be themselves without getting into trouble. They wanted the right to be different, and that was the first thing that the Declaration of Independence declared: that all people are equal and entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In the same room, Stanley saw the Constitution, which set up how the government worked: The president ran things, Congress made laws, and a Supreme Court made tough decisions. The building also had the Bill of Rights, which were the first laws to get passed and are still the most important ones. Right at the beginning, in the First Amendment, there was freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the freedom to protest.

“Excuse me,” a small voice said. Stanley turned to see two girls staring at him, holding big, colorful guidebooks. “My name is Sook-ying and this is my sister, Cho. We are from South Korea. Are you Flat Stanley?”

“No,” Stanley lied.

The girl frowned. “Your head is flat,” she said. “Please, we are big fans. May I take a picture with you?”

At least it’s okay to be different in America, Stanley thought. He put a crinkly, newspaper-filled arm around the girl and smiled.

Just as the camera flashed, Stanley saw two men in black suits and sunglasses appear in the doorway to the giant room: the kidnappers!

Stanley turned his back and bent his head close to the girls. “I need your help,” he whispered.

A moment later, Stanley spied the men in black as they kicked a mound of scrunched-up newspaper on the floor next to the Bill of Rights. He watched them as he escaped, sticking out of Sook-ying’s backpack, folded up to look like a guidebook.

Stanley spent the rest of the day hiding in different museums. He visited the National Gallery of Art, where he hid from the police in three different paintings, including a Picasso. At the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, he was admiring the Apollo 11 space capsule, which had landed on the moon, when the men in black appeared again. Stanley gave them the slip by jumping into an astronaut suit whose visor was open. He found it to be very warm and slightly musty.

In the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Stanley saw the Hope Diamond, an enormous forty-five-and-one-half-carat jewel. I wish Calamity Jasper could see this, he thought, thinking of his and Arthur’s treasure-hunting friend from Mount Rushmore.

But night eventually fell.

All the museums closed.

And Stanley had nowhere to go.

He saw the Lincoln Memorial shining brightly in the dark, like a lit house on a stormy night. It sat at one end of a large strip of grass called the National Mall. At the other end, exactly one mile away, was the dome of the US Capitol, where the members of Congress worked. And right in the middle, halfway between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol, was the tall white pillar of the Washington Monument.

Stanley settled into Abraham Lincoln’s enormous white stone lap and sighed deeply. The statue’s wise eyes looked unblinkingly over him.

“I’ve never run away before,” Stanley admitted. “Everyone must be worried sick.”

Stanley smiled for a moment, thinking of how his mother would correct his grammar. “Stanley,” she would have said, “you mean that everyone is sick with worry.”

“But if I go back,” Stanley continued in a soft voice, “they’ll make me out to be some kind of American hero. But I’m
not
one. I’m just a kid who got flattened by a falling bulletin board. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence even though he knew he was going to get in big trouble with the king of England—that’s a hero. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon—that’s a hero. Heroes risk everything for what they believe in. They make tough choices, like you did, President Lincoln. I didn’t
choose
to be flat. I don’t stand for
anything
.”

Stanley looked up at Abraham Lincoln’s large, impassive face. And all of a sudden, from a certain angle, the former president looked like the Japanese movie star Oda Nobu, with his big nose and square jaw and beard. Stanley’s mind raced back to a moment on a Japanese bullet train, and he could hear Oda Nobu’s voice in his mind.

“Stanleysan,” Oda Nobu had said, “your flatness is what makes you special. But you must remember this: Being flat is
what
you are. It is not
who
you are.
Who
you are is a very bright, very funny, very curious young boy. It is who you are, flat or round. Always remember that, Stanleysan. Flat or round.”

Somehow, the memory made Stanley feel a bit better. Maybe he wasn’t a hero. But at least he was himself.

Suddenly, a pair of shadows darted across the base of the statue. Before he knew it, he was surrounded by at least a dozen men in black.

“Stanley Lambchop!” one of the men shouted. “Stop—”

Stanley flipped up into the air. He sprang end over end down the grand steps, the men close behind him.

There was a long rectangular pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. In the darkness, Stanley could see the Washington Monument reflected in and rising above it. Picking up speed, he launched himself over the water and pushed out his stomach.

Stanley skipped on the surface like a stone: one … two … three … four … five times. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see men in black racing alongside the edge of the pool, their ties flapping over their shoulders.

With a final, powerful thrust of his belly against the water’s surface, he soared out of the pool … and landed flat against the side of the Washington Monument.

Because he was damp from the reflecting pool, he stuck to it like a wet washcloth on the side of a bathtub.

“Stanley!” one of the men in black called. “Stop!”

“Why should I listen to a kidnapper like you?!” Stanley shouted back.

Stanley looked toward the sky and began inching his way up the monument as fast as he could. Like an inchworm, he would unpeel his arms from the stone, re-stick them a few inches higher up, unpeel the rest of his body, and pull himself up.

When Stanley finally looked down, his stomach lurched. He was more than five hundred feet high. He reached up again, and the stone tilted. He had reached the pyramid-shaped tip of the Washington Monument.

He had no place left to run.

Suddenly, there was a blinding light and a terrible roaring. Stanley trembled as a helicopter rose into view.

“STANLEY LAMBCHOP!” a voice over a loudspeaker boomed. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”

The wind from the helicopter got under Stanley’s skin, and his whole body flipped out to the side. He held on to the Washington Monument in desperation, his body flapping like a flag over the capital.

“STANLEY!” the loudspeaker called. “STOP!”

In his head, Stanley heard the words of Billy Wallaby, the Australian billionaire who had brought him and Arthur to Australia. “If I were you, I’d worry about the wind, mate. That’s the greatest threat to your well-being.”