Читать книгу The African Safari Discovery - Alice Polk Hill - Страница 6

The Search Begins

Stanley Lambchop was flattened against the wall outside the kitchen. He knew it was impolite to eavesdrop, but his mother sounded upset. And she was talking about him .

‘I’m worried about Stanley,’ Harriet Lambchop was saying to her husband, George. ‘What if he’s flat for the rest of his life? You know how difficult things can be for someone who’s special.’

Stanley thought of the morning, not long ago, when he awoke to find that the bulletin board over his bed had fallen on him during the night. Ever since, he’d been only half an inch thick. With his new shape, Stanley could do all sorts of things most people couldn’t do, such as travel via airmail. But his mother was right. Just yesterday, someone at school had called him ‘Boardbrains’.

‘I’m sure everything will be fine, dear,’ Mr Lambchop said. ‘Just because Stanley has gone flat –’

‘Become flat,’ Mrs Lambchop said. ‘Stanley hasn’t gone flat, George. He’s become flat. You know how improper grammar makes me –’ She was overcome with emotion.

Stanley peeled himself off the wall and trudged down the hall. He felt like being alone.

A moment later, he was flat on his back beneath the couch in the living room. It may have been too low to the ground for the vacuum cleaner, but it wasn’t too low for Stanley . . . or for how he felt.

Stanley should have been excited to find all the things that he and his little brother, Arthur, had lost under the couch. There was a dusty origami ninja star, which Stanley had made after travelling by mail to meet the boys’ idol, the martial arts star Oda Nobu, in Japan. There was a hockey puck from a professional game in Canada where Stanley had recently slid across the ice. There was a yellow race car that Arthur liked to run down Stanley’s body like a giant ramp.

Stanley didn’t want to be flat forever. He imagined how lonely he would be if he were the only flat person he knew for as long as he lived.

The doorbell rang. Stanley heard his father answer it.

‘Mr Dart!’ Mr Lambchop said.

Mr O. Jay Dart was the director of the Famous Museum and the Lambchops’ neighbour. Stanley had helped him foil some sneak thieves once; he’d had to dress up like a shepherdess in a white dress and a curly wig and pretend to be in a painting. It was humiliating.

‘Good morning, George. Have you seen this morning’s paper?’ Mr Dart said as Mr Lambchop led him into the kitchen.

A minute later, Stanley’s father called, ‘Stanley!’

Oh, great, thought Stanley. I must be in trouble.

‘Stanley?’ his father shouted again.

Stanley saw Arthur’s sneakers race into the living room. ‘Stanley! Stanley!’

‘Stanley?’ Mrs Lambchop’s grey high-heeled shoes marched past.

‘Stanley! Stanley? Stanley! Stanley!’

Shoes paraded before Stanley’s eyes. Doors opened and closed in other rooms. His family and Mr Dart were looking everywhere for him.

‘Where could that boy be?’ Mrs Lambchop returned to the living room, her toe tapping the carpet anxiously.

‘You’re sure he didn’t go out?’ Mr Dart’s brown loafers asked.

‘Maybe he saw it already,’ wondered Arthur’s sneakers.

Stanley slid his head out from under the couch and looked up at everyone towering over him. ‘Saw what?’

Mr Dart thrust the newspaper in Stanley’s face. ‘Stanley, my boy, they found a flat skull in Africa!’

Stanley read.

Everyone took a seat around the kitchen table.

‘I hereby call this special session of the Lambchop family meeting to order,’ announced Mr Lambchop.

‘Let’s begin by welcoming our esteemed guest,’ said Mrs Lambchop. ‘Mr Dart, would you like a snack?’ She slid a bowl across the table. It was filled with chips sprinkled with the secret ingredient that Stanley had recently retrieved from Mexico.

Stanley stared at his hands. He was thinking that he should go to Africa to see the flat skull. Maybe he wasn’t so alone after all. ‘I want to get mailed to Africa,’ he declared.

‘Absolutely not,’ said Mrs Lambchop. ‘It’s one thing to fly airmail to a major city like Tokyo, Cairo, or Mexico City. Who knows how often mail is delivered in the most remote regions of Africa?’

‘Your mother is right, Stanley,’ said Mr Lambchop. ‘It isn’t safe.’

‘But I have to! What if that skull is the same as me?’

Mr and Mrs Lambchop exchanged looks.

‘No way,’ Arthur blurted, as if reading their minds. ‘I am NOT missing another big adventure. Stanley gets to circle the globe, while I have to stay home and miss all the fun. It isn’t fair!’

‘These are the most delicious chips I’ve ever tasted!’ said Mr Dart, shovelling another handful into his mouth.

‘Maybe we should all go,’ Mr Lambchop suggested.

‘I can’t, George,’ said Mrs Lambchop. ‘I’m hosting my fund-raiser for the Grammar Society on Saturday. I still have to dot the i’s and cross the t’s on all of the place cards. Besides, how could we possibly afford plane tickets to Africa?’

‘Perhaps you could fly courtesy of the Famous Museum,’ said Mr Dart. ‘After all, investigating a major archaeological find would qualify as official museum business. It’s the least we could do for you, Stanley, after all your help.

‘Of course, we could justify only two plane tickets to our board of directors,’ added Mr Dart.

Arthur groaned. ‘That figures.’

‘I could stay folded in the pocket on the back of the aeroplane seat,’ Stanley offered, ‘so both you and Dad could come.’

‘You would do that?’ said Arthur.

‘Sure,’ said Stanley. ‘I’d only slip out from under the seat belt anyway.’

‘That settles it,’ decided Mr Lambchop. ‘Boys, pack your bags for Africa!’