Home Alone 3 (7 page)

Earl Unger looked down at the sign, written in crayon in a child's handwriting. The kid was pretending that the yarn was high-voltage wire. Unger couldn't help smiling.

"Hey, Jernigan," he yelled to his partner, who was around the corner behind the house. "I think this is going to be fun. It's been a long time since I was a kid. I forgot how extraordinarily stupid they are."

In the backyard, Jernigan laughed. "You be careful," he called back. "Sometimes they wet their pants when they get scared."

"Right." Unger reached down and used the wire cutters to cut the yarn.

He didn't notice the thin copper wire leading from the extension cord.

ZAP!
A huge blue spark burst around the wire cutters.

Unger's eyes bulged.

Thwack!
The shock knocked him back and doubled him over.

Up in the attic, Alex smiled. That took care of Unger for a moment. Next he checked out Jernigan on the back terrace.

Burton Jernigan knew he might have to wait for a while. He noticed a metal lawn chair in the backyard and decided to sit. He was still chuckling about the kid as he dusted the snow off the seat and eased himself down into the chain

Little did he know that under the snow the chair was connected to the car battery by the jumper cables.

Jernigan sat. Suddenly sparks started flying.

"Yeeeeeoooooow!"
He let out a scream.

Bang!
The ammo in his belt discharged, launching him out of the chair.

Wham!
He flew face first into the wall.

As Peter Beaupre crossed the street toward Alex's house, he couldn't believe what he was witnessing. Earl Unger was doubled over in the driveway. His face was twitching, and the seat of his camouflage pants had been blown open by some kind of electric shock.

Around the corner of the house, Jernigan was on his hands and knees, looking dazed, and whimpering. Smoke was seeping out of holes in his camouflage outfit, and his mittens were smoldering.

Beaupre picked up his pace and hurried toward the house. He had to find out what was going on.

Knowing he'd bought a few seconds, Alex ran down to the basement and used a funnel to fill a balloon with water. He checked his watch when he was finished. It was about time for the burglars to make their next move. He went back up to the living room, pulled a footstool up to the front door, and watched through the peephole.

Unger had recovered from his shock. He was now standing halfway down the front walk. Suddenly he started to run toward the house, trying to build up speed before he jumped over the yarn Alex had strung between the ski poles.

Unger jumped. He cleared the yarn between the ski poles . . . and landed on the welcome mat with the marbles underneath.

"Whooops!"
Unger flew up in the air.

Wham!
He landed so hard on his back that inside the house Alex felt the floor shake.

Now Beaupre came running up the porch steps. Inside the house, Alex stayed by the front door watching through the peephole and listening. Beaupre looked down at Unger, who was lying on the porch, groaning.

"Mr. Unger'" he said. "What are you doing?"

"The kid's got the place booby-trapped," Unger groaned. "Don't touch the yarn. It's wired."

Through the peephole, Alex watched Beaupre cross the porch and pull the extension cord out of the plug. Then he went down the steps and knocked the ski poles aside.

Alex pressed his lips into a hard, straight line. Darn! That was one of his best tricks!

Beaupre returned to the porch and kicked the marbles away. "Have you tried the door?" he asked Unger.

"Not yet," Unger said.

"Let me point something out to you," said Beaupre.

On the other side of the door, Alex knew Beaupre had spotted the barbells he'd placed on the roof. Both Beaupre and Unger stepped out of the way so the barbells wouldn't fall on them.

Then Beaupre pointed at the fishing line Alex had tied to the door knocker. It must have looked obvious to them that the fishing line was the trip cord for the barbells.

Alex watched as Beaupre took out a knife and cut the line.

Both men kept their eyes trained on the barbells, waiting for them to fall. Neither man knew that the fishing line wasn't even tied to the barbells.

It was tied to the trunk full of books, hidden behind the dormer window in the attic.

Crash!
The steamer trunk went right through the window and started to fall.

Unger and Beaupre looked up to see where the sound had come from.

What they saw was a large old steamer trunk plummeting down toward them.

WHOMP!

The snow was coming down hard now. As Alice left Mrs. Hess's garage and crossed the street to the kid's house, she was startled to see two bodies and a steamer trunk in the front yard covered with a thin layer of white.

Beaupre and Unger rose to their knees. Both of them were holding their heads. Both had nasty bumps where the trunk full of books had hit them.

"How did that happen?" Unger asked groggily.

"I don't know," replied Beaupre. "But that's it. I'm going in there and getting that kid."

"I'm right with you," said Unger.

The two men staggered to their feet and dusted off the snow. Then they started up the steps.

Upstairs, Alex cut the line holding the barbells.

Downstairs, Unger and Beaupre never even saw them coming.

Clang!

A sudden gust of snow cut off Alice's vision. She didn't see Beaupre and Unger climb the steps. She didn't see the barbells sail off the roof and smash them in the heads. Now Beaupre and Unger were on the ground again, holding their heads.

Scattered around them were books and iron weights. Alice walked up and stopped.

"You got hit by a book?" she asked Unger in disbelief.

"
Books
," Unger corrected her angrily. "Plural. A whole trunk full of books. And then a set of weights. We got hit twice, you bimbo."

"Excuse me, Mr. Unger," Alice huffed. "But I didn't get taken down by an infant. You did."

Beaupre sat up, holding his throbbing head. "We didn't anticipate the defense the boy would mount. We're going to have to presume that we're on equal ground with him and adjust our plan accordingly."

"I say we just burn the house down," Unger muttered.

"What about the chip, moron?" Alice asked.

"You want to know what you can do with that chip?" Unger asked angrily.

"May we continue, please?" Beaupre interrupted. "I'll go in the front. Mr. Unger, you take the north side. Alice, you take the south side. And let me know when you get that kid. I owe him one.

Inside the house, Alex couldn't hear exactly what the burglars were saying. But they didn't sound happy.

The three burglars split up. Alex knew they were going to try to get into the house now. He heard the front door knob turn and knew Beaupre was trying to pick the lock. Alex knew he might succeed in picking it, but he'd still never get through the front door. Alex had used wood screws to screw it shut.

The windows were another problem. Alex heard a sound coming from the living room. Unger had jimmied open a window. Now he was sliding a knife blade between the shutters to open the latch that held them closed.

Alex crawled under the living room table. Above him was a giant slingshot made out of bungee cords and strung from wall to wall. In the sling was a five-pound bag of plaster and the large water balloon he'd just filled.

Unger tipped the latch and spread the shutters. He stuck his head through the window and into the room.

Alex fired the giant slingshot.

POW!
The water balloon and bag of plaster smashed into Unger's face, leaving a large white cloud. Unger flew backward into the yard and landed on his back in the snow.

Thump!
Alex heard a dull thud coming from the vestibule. He grabbed a can of black spray paint and ran to the front door just as the mail slot flipped open.

On the other side of the door, Beaupre was trying to look into the house through the mail slot. Alex aimed the can of black spray paint at the slot and fired.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!"
Beaupre lurched backward with his hands over the black stripe across his eyes.

Instant raccoon.

Next a jangling sound caught Alex's attention. Someone was trying to get through the gate from the alley into the backyard. Alex ran to the back of the house just in time to see Alice climb over the gate.

Bad idea, Alex thought with a smile.

On the other side of the gate was a muddy patch of ground. The night before, Alex had hooked a garden hose to the hot water line in the basement and run it out to the gate. Hot water had been seeping into the ground all night.

Splat!
Alice dropped down on the other side of the gate and immediately sank down in mud up to her knees.

And somewhere in that mud was a trip wire made of fishing line. The line was connected to a cinder block carefully balanced on the roof gutter. When Alice hit the trip line, it made the cinder block tip out of the gutter.

Bonk!
Alice collapsed into the mud. Now she had a nasty bump on her head, too.

With those three temporarily out of commission, Alex began to wonder about Jernigan. He hadn't seen or heard from him since he sat down in the "electric chair."

Creak!
Alex heard the sound of the garage door opening. Now he knew where Jernigan was. He ran to the kitchen and peeked out through the window as Jernigan carefully stepped into the garage.

Alex smiled to himself. In the back of the garage was a loft. Alex had taken a big old stuffed gorilla of Molly's and dressed him in pants and shoes and put him up there with his legs hanging over the loft edge. The gorilla doll was part of a pair—one boy and one girl. For as long as Alex could remember, they'd always been together. Alex had hated to separate them, but duty called.

This was it, Jernigan thought. He could practically
smell
the kid in the garage.

There!
From the garage floor he could see the kid's legs hanging over the edge of the loft.

"I got him!" Jernigan yelled gleefully as he reached up and grabbed the legs.

He pulled them as hard as he could.

Down came the kid.

No, wait! It wasn't the kid! It was an old stuffed monkey in kids' clothes.

And around the monkey's neck was some kind of rope.

It looked to Jernigan like a pull cord to a lawn mover.

Now, why would that be tied around the mortkey's neck? Jernigan wondered.

Varrroooom!
He heard a sound like a lawn mower starting.

Jernigan scratched his head. It sounded like the lawn mower was up in the loft. But why would anyone put a lawn mower up there?

The lawn mower rolled forward. Jernigan looked up just as it rolled out of the loft.

Onto him.

"Ahhhhhhhh!"
came the scream. It sounded to Alex like Jernigan had just found out what it was like to get a close haircut with a lawn mower.

It was time to go up to the attic. Alex would have preferred keeping the burglars out of the house, but he knew that probably wasn't possible.

So he'd booby-trapped the
inside
of the house as well.

In the attic he turned up the volume on the baby monitor he'd brought up from his bedroom. The other monitor was strategically placed down in the living room.

Alex heard a sawing sound and assumed that Beaupre was now sawing through the front door. He had to say
one
thing for these burglars—they sure were determined.

The front door creaked. Alex knew Beaupre had gotten into the house. What Beaupre didn't know was that the front door was attached by a string to Molly's old Baby Sniffles doll in the front closet. The string pulled the loop in the doll's back that made sounds.

"Ha-choo."
Through the baby monitor came the sound of Baby Sniffles sneezing in the closet. Alex assumed Beaupre must've heard it.

Thinking it was Alex who had sneezed, Beaupre would position himself in front of the closet.

He'd swing open the door.

"Uhhhhhnnn!"
Beaupre let out a groan as the boxing glove shot out of the doset and hit him right in the stomach.

Bang!
The sound of a gun firing caught Alex by surprise. Was Beaupre dumb enough to try and shoot the boxing glove?

On second thought, maybe the gun had discharged accidentally.

Alex checked the TVs. Jernigan, now sporting a flattop haircut that had sheared straight through his hat, had taken a ladder from the garage and was trying to climb into a second-floor window.

Too bad they were still doing renovations on the floor in that part of the house. Many of the floor joints had been removed.

Crash!
Through the baby monitor Alex heard the sound of Jernigan crashing through the second floor.

Smash!
Then through the first floor.

Crunk!
He'd just landed in the basement. That would take care of him for a while.

Alex looked back at the TVs in time to see Alice take a running start at the back porch. That meant she'd noticed that the porch steps had been sawed.

By jumping over the sawed steps she would avoid
that
obvious booby trap.

Alice ran and jumped. She easily cleared the steps and landed on the porch itself. Where more boards had been sawed.

Ka-bong!
A board flew up and smacked her in the back of the head.

"Help!"
She screamed as she fell through the porch and into a stairwell leading down to the basement.