The Flat Stanley Collection. Jeff Brown

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      Stanley understood everything all at once. These must be the sneak thieves! They had a secret trap door 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 kept 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 civilised 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 then 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 arrested, 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.

CHAPTER 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, Harriet, 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 any more 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 colour 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 any more. I’m tired of being flat. I want to be a proper shape again, like other people. But I’ll have to go on being flat for ever. 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 СКАЧАТЬ