The Kidnapped King (4 page)

Inside the house, Officer Fallon examined the piece of glass. “If this came out of the boy’s kaleidoscope, how’d it get to your front steps?” he asked.

“The top unscrews,” Dink explained. “Sammi likes to take the glass out.”

Josh and Ruth Rose stood silently in Dink’s kitchen. Pal lay at Josh’s feet, snoozing. Dink was sitting at the table
with his mom and Officer Fallon. Officer Keene had left to organize a search.

Officer Fallon sighed. He left the piece of glass on the table and stood up.

“Green Lawn isn’t that big,” he said. “We’ll find the boy. I’ll make sure every possible way out of town is checked. Try not to worry, okay?”

Dink’s mother grabbed her car keys. “I’m going to drive around and look for him,” she said.

“Can we come, too?” Dink asked.

His mother shook her head. “You can help by staying by the phone,” she said. She looked at Officer Fallon. “Do you think the kidnappers would telephone here?”

Officer Fallon nodded. “They might try to make contact. But kidnappers usually wait a few days before calling. They like to get the family worried so
they’ll hand over more ransom money.”

Dink watched his mother and Officer Fallon leave. He heard the front door lock click into position.

“Look at this,” Dink said. He showed Josh and Ruth Rose the damaged back door.

“Boy, this is creepy!” Josh said.

“Poor Sammi,” Ruth Rose said. “He must be so scared!”

“Let’s go check out his room,” Dink said. “Maybe we’ll find some more clues.”

The kids hurried toward the stairs. Pal followed them into Sammi’s room, his long ears brushing the floor.

Sammi’s sheet and blanket were tangled, half off the bed. Dink walked over to the bureau. There was the kaleidoscope box and two small mounds of colored glass. Each mound was a different color.

“This is the kaleidoscope,” Dink said, removing it from the box. “See, he took all the glass out.”

Josh touched the jewels that decorated the kaleidoscope. “Are these real?” he asked.

“Sammi said they were,” Dink answered.

Ruth Rose was examining the pieces of glass. “Where are the yellow pieces?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Dink asked.

“The piece we found is yellow,” she said. “But all I see here is red and blue. No yellow.”

“That’s weird,” Dink said. “Let’s look around.”

The kids began to search Sammi’s room for the yellow glass. Pal waddled around, sniffing everything.

Dink checked in the bathroom while Josh went through the clothes in
the closet. Ruth Rose got down on her hands and knees and looked under the bed.

“Well, if there’s yellow glass in this room, I don’t know where it is,” Josh said. He stepped away from the closet.

“WATCH OUT!” Ruth Rose yelled, stopping Josh in his tracks.

She snatched something from the carpet where Josh was about to step. It was another piece of yellow glass.

Just then, the phone rang.

Dink ran down the stairs and grabbed the phone on its third ring.

“Hello?”

Dink listened for a minute, then yelled up the stairs, “Hey, guys, it’s Officer Fallon. He wants to know if Sammi’s pajamas and slippers are in his room. Can you look?”

He waited. Ruth Rose came to the top of the stairs. “No pj’s or slippers,” she said.

Dink spoke into the phone. “We can’t find them.”

After a minute, Dink hung up the phone. He climbed the stairs to Sammi’s room.

“What’s up with the slippers?” Josh asked.

“Ron Pinkowski found a gold tassel near the river by his bait shop,” Dink said. “Sammi’s slippers had gold tassels on them.”

“But what—”

“And one of Mr. Pinkowski’s boats is missing,” Dink interrupted.

He stared at his two friends. “Officer Fallon thinks the kidnappers took Sammi away in a boat!”

“What kind of boat?” Josh asked. “The water in Indian River isn’t very deep.”

“But it’s deep enough for a rowboat,” Ruth Rose said.

Dink thought about the river near Ron’s Bait Shop. They’d all waded there before. The water was only up to their knees.

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe they took Sammi downriver in a small boat.
When they got to the deep part, they could have put him in a bigger boat …”

“… and taken him out to sea!” Ruth Rose added.

The kids stared at each other. Dink thought about poor Sammi, afraid of noises and animals, tied up in some boat.

“We have to do something, guys,” he said. “Let’s go see if we can find more clues at the bait shop.” He ran down the stairs to the kitchen.

Ruth Rose hurried after him, with Josh and Pal right behind her.

“Your mom told us to stay put,” Josh reminded Dink.

“I know, Josh.” Dink was scribbling on a pad. “I’m telling her where we’re going,” he said. “We’ll probably be back before she sees this. Come on!”

The kids cut through the dining room and headed for the back door.

Suddenly, Pal barked and began straining on his leash. He pulled until Josh let him have his way. Pal headed for the living room, and the kids followed.

“I think he smells something,” Josh said. Pal had his nose on the rug, sniffing at something small and shiny.

“It’s another piece of glass!” Josh said, snatching it away from the dog’s nose.

“This is the third one,” Dink said. He looked at the stairs going up to the bedrooms. “Sammi dropped one in his room, one down here, and another one on the front steps …”

“SAMMI LEFT US A TRAIL!” Ruth Rose suddenly yelled.

“I’ll bet you’re right,” Dink said. “The kidnappers must have brought him down the stairs and out the front door. Come on, let’s look for more!”

The kids hurried out the door and into the front yard. Pal snuffled with his nose along the ground while the kids searched with their eyes.

“Nothing,” Dink muttered after a few minutes. “The trail ends here.”

Suddenly, Pal yanked on the leash.

“Whoa, doggie,” Josh said.

But Pal kept pulling. He dragged Josh to the road. At the curb, Pal’s nose went right into the gutter.

“Look!” Josh said. He held up a fourth piece of yellow glass.

Dink and Ruth Rose ran over. “Sammi must’ve dropped it when the kidnappers loaded him into a car,” Ruth Rose said.

“And I bet the trail picks up again down at the river,” Dink said. “Let’s go!”

With Pal loping along behind them, the kids hurried down Woody Street. They cut past the elementary school,
then crossed Duck Walk Way toward the river.

Inside his shop, Ron Pinkowski was feeding the bait shiners in one of his huge tanks.

“Hey, I heard about that boy disappearing,” Ron said when he saw the kids.

“He didn’t disappear,” Josh said. “He was kidnapped!”

Ron nodded. “That’s what Officer Fallon said. And they stole one of my rowboats!”

“Can you show us where the boat was?” Dink asked.

“Sure, come on.” Ron took the kids outside. “Right over there,” he said, pointing to a line of upside-down boats along the riverbank. There was an empty space between two of the boats.

“They broke my padlock and took a pair of my brand-new oars, too.”

“Thanks, Mr. P,” Dink said.

The kids hurried over to the row of boats and searched for yellow glass. Pal sniffed the ground for a few seconds, then flopped under a tree and closed his eyes.

The kids examined the ground where the boat had been. They didn’t find any glass at all. “Let’s look in the driveway,” Dink suggested.

They walked back to the road, then
worked their way down to the boats again.

Josh found a nickel, but there wasn’t a piece of yellow kaleidoscope glass anywhere.

“That’s weird,” said Dink. “If Sammi left a trail back at my house, why didn’t he drop another piece of glass when he got here?”

“Maybe he ran out of glass,” Josh said.

Ruth Rose shook her head. “How could he? He took all the yellow glass, remember?”

“You know,” Dink said, “something about the yellow glass is bugging me. Why did Sammi leave a yellow trail? Why not red or blue?”

“Well, he had the colors in separate little piles,” Josh said. “So maybe he just grabbed the closest pile and it was yellow.”