Hunter Moran Hangs Out by Patricia Reilly Giff Page A

of disappointments. And poor Mary, asleep in her crib, doesn’t even know she’s not the baby anymore.
    Still . . .
    Zack and I grin at each other. We’ve had an alternate name plan just in case this happened.
    We all troop downstairs to the kitchen. Nana pulls out a container of milk and a box of saltine crackers. She puts an open jar of peanut butter in the middle of the table. A knife sticks out of the top. William’s work. He never puts anything in the dishwasher.
    I sit and chew; lights are blazing in the used-to-be-empty house. We’ve probably awakened the whole neighborhood. Worse, we may have awakened the kidnapper, wherever he is.
    After we finish off the crackers and milk, everyone goes back to bed. Everyone except Zack and me.
    Upstairs in our bedroom, we look through the pile of books. Not one under a hundred pages; the letters are so small I’ll be wearing an eye patch by the time I’ve finished the first chapter.
    â€œWhat we could do—” Zack holds up his hand so I don’t interrupt. He picks up the skinniest book. “One hundred two pages.” He snaps his fingers. “What’s half of that?”
    I squint up to the ceiling. “Forty-one?”
    â€œFifty-one.” He squints, too. “You’ll read one half, I’ll read the other. We’ll figure out two life changes.” He looks thrilled with his idea.
    We’re both yawning now; I can’t keep my eyes open. It must be after midnight. We’ll tackle fifty-one pages in the morning.
    But Fred is barking again, a muffled bark.
    Where is that coming from?
    â€œIt doesn’t sound as if it’s in the house,” Zack says. He goes to the window and peers out at the backyard. I look over his shoulder.
    Is that Fred out there? We don’t see him, but he’s howling like Dracula.
    How has he gotten out of the house?
    We see the falling-apart playhouse we built with Pop a couple of weeks ago, and the half-dead bushes with their withered leaves dragging on the ground.
    â€œWhy hasn’t someone watered all that stuff?” Zack asks.
    I don’t remind him that Pop told us to do it about fifty times.
    But now we see something else. Someone is in the yard. It looks like an old man, all bent over, wearing one of those hats with brims that cover his eyes. His nose is huge, hooked like a pirate I read about once.
    He’s dragging an odd-looking striped bag behind him. It’s big enough to stuff Linny inside. In the dim light it seems to move, to bulge one way and then another.
    Without thinking, I shove up the window. “Hey!” I yell.
    The guy, whoever he is, looks a little familiar. But before I can get a good look, he backs out the gate and takes off.
    We’re going to take off, too. We can’t let him get away with this.
    We won’t bother going through the house. Nana sleeps with one eye open. Instead, we dive into the closet for one of those rope ladder things. Nana gave it to us; she’s afraid of fire the way Linny is afraid of kidnappers.
    â€œJust throw this thing out the window if necessary, then climb down,” she told us. “Read the instructions. It’s easy as pie.”
    We haven’t read the instructions. And it’s not easy as pie.
    The thing is heavy, but we manage to loop it over the windowsill, the handles like claws, ruining the paint, but no one will notice; the whole room is chipped from our wall-walking in spikes last summer.
    I go first. I climb out backward, the ladder swaying like the lookout platform. I look over my shoulder at the maybe-kidnapper, who’s rushing down the alley.
    â€œHurry!” I yell to Zack as I find places for my toes. This ladder was built for feet like Mary’s.
    Zack backs out behind me.
    The kidnapper looks over his shoulder, too . . . and trips over his feet.
“Oof!”
he yells.
    I leap off onto the ground, but my own feet are caught; the