Flat Stanley Read online

  Cr-eee-eee-k …

  The creaking sound came from right out in the middle of the main hall, and even as he heard it, Stanley saw, in the same place, a tiny yellow glow of light!

  The creaking came again, and the glow got bigger. A trapdoor had opened in the floor, and two men came up through it into the hall!

  Stanley understood everything all at once. These must be the sneak thieves! They had a secret trapdoor entrance into the museum from outside. That was why they had never been caught. And now, tonight, they were back to steal the most expensive painting in the world!

  He held very still in his picture frame and listened to the sneak thieves.

  “This is it, Max,” said the first one. “This is where we art robbers pull a sensational job whilst the civilized community sleeps.”

  “Right, Luther,” said the other man. “In all this great city, there is no one to suspect us.”

  Ha, ha! thought Stanley Lambchop. That’s what you think!

  The sneak thieves put down their lantern and took the world’s most expensive painting off the wall.

  “What would we do to anyone who tried to capture us, Max?” the first man asked.

  “We would kill him. What else?” his friend replied.

  That was enough to frighten Stanley, and he was even more frightened when Luther came over and stared at him.

  “This sheep girl,” Luther said. “I thought sheep girls were supposed to smile, Max. This one looks scared.”

  Just in time, Stanley managed to get a faraway look in his eyes again and to smile, sort of.

  “You’re crazy, Luther,” Max said. “She’s smiling. And what a pretty little thing she is, too.”

  That made Stanley furious. He waited until the sneak thieves had turned back to the world’s most expensive painting, and he shouted in his loudest, most terrifying voice: “POLICE! POLICE! MR. DART! THE SNEAK THIEVES ARE HERE!”

  The sneak thieves looked at each other. “Max,” said the first one, very quietly. “I think I heard the sheep girl yell.”

  “I think I did too,” said Max in a quivery voice. “Oh, boy! Yelling pictures. We both need a rest.”

  “You’ll get a rest, all right!” shouted Mr. Dart, rushing in with the Chief of Police and lots of guards and policemen behind him. “You’ll get ar-rested, that’s what! Ha, ha, ha!”

  The sneak thieves were too mixed up by Mr. Dart’s joke and too frightened by the policemen to put up a fight.

  Before they knew it, they had been handcuffed and led away to jail.

  The next morning in the office of the Chief of Police, Stanley Lambchop got a medal. The day after that his picture was in all the newspapers.

  5

  Arthur’s Good Idea

  For a while Stanley Lambchop was a famous name. Everywhere that Stanley went, people stared and pointed at him. He could hear them whisper, “Over there, Agnes, over there! That must be Stanley Lambchop, the one who caught the sneak thieves …” and things like that.

  But after a few weeks the whispering and the staring stopped. People had other things to think about. Stanley did not mind. Being famous had been fun, but enough was enough.

  And then came a further change, and it was not a pleasant one. People began to laugh and make fun of him as he passed by. “Hello, Super-Skinny!” they would shout, and even ruder things, about the way he looked.

  Stanley told his parents how he felt. “It’s the other kids I mostly mind,” he said. “They don’t like me anymore because I’m different. Flat.”

  “Shame on them,” Mrs. Lambchop said. “It is wrong to dislike people for their shapes. Or their religion, for that matter, or the color of their skin.”

  “I know,” Stanley said. “Only maybe it’s impossible for everybody to like everybody.”

  “Perhaps,” said Mrs. Lambchop. “But they can try.”

  Later that night Arthur Lambchop was woken by the sound of crying. In the darkness he crept across the room and knelt by Stanley’s bed.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  “Go away,” Stanley said.

  “Don’t be mad at me,” Arthur said. “You’re still mad because I let you get tangled the day you were my kite, I guess.”

  “Skip it, will you?” Stanley said. “I’m not mad. Go away.”

  “Please let’s be friends….” Arthur couldn’t help crying a little, too. “Oh, Stanley,” he said. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

  Stanley waited for a long time before he spoke. “The thing is,” he said, “I’m just not happy anymore. I’m tired of being flat. I want to be a regular shape again, like other people. But I’ll have to go on being flat forever. It makes me sick.”

  “Oh, Stanley,” Arthur said. He dried his tears on a corner of Stanley’s sheet and could think of nothing more to say.

  “Don’t talk about what I just said,” Stanley told him. “I don’t want the folks to worry. That would only make it worse.”

  “You’re brave,” Arthur said. “You really are.”

  He took hold of Stanley’s hand. The two brothers sat together in the darkness, being friends. They were both still sad, but each one felt a little better than he had before.

  And then, suddenly, though he was not even trying to think, Arthur had an idea. He jumped up and turned on the light and ran to the big storage box where toys and things were kept. He began to rummage in the box.

  Stanley sat up in bed to watch.

  Arthur flung aside a football and some lead soldiers and airplane models and lots of wooden blocks, and then he said, “Aha!” He had found what he wanted—an old bicycle pump. He held it up, and Stanley and he looked at each other.

  “Okay,” Stanley said at last. “But take it easy.” He put the end of the long pump hose in his mouth and clamped his lips tightly about it so that no air could escape.

  “I’ll go slowly,” Arthur said. “If it hurts or anything, wiggle your hand at me.”

  He began to pump. At first nothing happened except that Stanley’s cheeks bulged a bit. Arthur watched his hand, but there was no wiggle signal, so he pumped on. Then, suddenly, Stanley’s top half began to swell.

  “It’s working! It’s working!” shouted Arthur, pumping away.

  Stanley spread his arms so that the air could get around inside him more easily. He got bigger and bigger. The buttons of his pajama top burst off—Pop! Pop! Pop! A moment more and he was all rounded out; head and body, arms and legs. But not his right foot. That foot stayed flat.

  Arthur stopped pumping. “It’s like trying to do the very last bit of those long balloons,” he said. “Maybe a shake would help.”

  Stanley shook his right foot twice, and with a little whooshing sound it swelled out to match the left one. There stood Stanley Lambchop as he used to be, as if he had never been flat at all.

  “Thank you, Arthur,” Stanley said. “Thank you very much.”

  The brothers were shaking hands when Mr. Lambchop strode into the room with Mrs. Lambchop right behind him. “We heard you!” said Mr. Lambchop. “Up and talking when you ought to be asleep, eh? Shame on—”

  “GEORGE!” said Mrs. Lambchop. “Stanley’s round again!”

  “You’re right!” said Mr. Lambchop, noticing. “Good for you, Stanley!”

  “I’m the one who did it,” Arthur said. “I blew him up.”

  Everyone was terribly excited and happy, of course. Mrs. Lambchop made hot chocolate to celebrate the occasion, and several toasts were drunk to Arthur for his cleverness.

  When the little party was over, Mr. and Mrs. Lambchop tucked the boys back into their beds and kissed them, and then they turned out the light. “Good night,” they said.

  “Good night,” said Stanley and Arthur.

  It had been a long and tiring day. Very soon all the Lambchops were asleep.

  The End

  TURN THE PAGE FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT:

  A Morning Surprise

  Mrs. Lambchop was making breakfast. Mr. Lambchop, at the
kitchen table, helped by reading bits from the morning paper.

  “Here’s an odd one, Harriet,” he said. “There’s a chicken in Sweden that rides a bike.”

  “So do I, George,” said Mrs. Lambchop, not really listening.

  “Listen to this. ‘Merker Building emptied. To be collapsed next week.’ Imagine! Eight floors!”

  “Poor thing!” Mrs. Lambchop set out plates. “Boys!” she called. “Breakfast is ready!”

  Her glance fell upon a row of photographs on the wall above the sink. There was a smiling Stanley, only half an inch thick, his big bulletin board having fallen from the bedroom wall to rest upon him overnight. Next came reminders of the many family adventures that had come after Stanley’s younger brother, Arthur, had cleverly blown him round again with a bicycle pump. There were the brothers with Prince Haraz, the young genie who had granted wishes for them all after being accidentally summoned by Stanley from a lamp. There was the entire family with Santa Claus and his daughter, Sarah, taken during a Christmas visit to the North Pole. There was the family again in Washington, D.C., in the office of the President of the United States, who had asked them to undertake a secret mission into outer space. The last picture showed Arthur standing beside a balloon on which Mrs. Lambchop had painted a picture of Stanley’s face. The balloon, its string in fact held by Stanley, had been a valuable guide to his presence, since he was invisible at the time. “Boys!” she called again. “Breakfast!”

  In their bedroom, Stanley and Arthur had finished dressing.

  While Stanley filled his backpack, Arthur bounced a tennis ball. “Let’s go,” he said. “Here! Catch!”

  Stanley had just reached for a book on the shelf by his bed. The ball struck his back as he turned, and he banged his shoulder on a corner of the shelf.

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry,” Arthur said. “But let’s

  go, okay? You know how long—STANLEY!”

  “Why are you shouting?” Stanley adjusted his pack. “C’mon! I’m so hungry—” He paused. “Oh, boy! Arthur, do you see?”

  “I do, actually.” Arthur swallowed hard. “You’re, you know … flat.”

  About the Author

  Jeff Brown created the beloved character of Flat Stanley as a bedtime story for his two sons. He has written other outrageous books about the Lambchop family, including Flat Stanley, Stanley and the Magic Lamp, Invisible Stanley, Stanley’s Christmas Adventure, Stanley in Space, and Stanley, Flat Again! You can learn more about Jeff Brown and Flat Stanley at www.flatstanleybooks.com.

  Macky Pamintuan is an accomplished illustrator. He lives in San Diego, California, with his wife and dog.

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  DON’T MISS ANY OF THESE

  OUTRAGEOUS STORIES:

  Flat Stanley: His Original Adventure!

  Stanley and the Magic Lamp

  Invisible Stanley

  Stanley’s Christmas Adventure

  Stanley in Space

  Stanley, Flat Again!

  AND CATCH FLAT STANLEY’S

  WORLDWIDE ADVENTURES:

  The Mount Rushmore Calamity

  The Great Egyptian Grave Robbery

  Copyright

  Flat Stanley: His Original Adventure!

  Text copyright © 1964 by Jeff Brown

  Copyright renewed © 1992 by Jeff Brown

  Illustrations by Macky Pamintuan, copyright © 2009 by HarperCollins Publishers

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-06334-2

  Library of Congress catalog card number: 2002024014

  ISBN 978-0-06-009791-2

  09 10 11 12 13 LP/CW 30 29

  First paperback edition, 1996

  Reillustrated edition, 2009

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