Free Blair’s Nightmare by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Page A

“I’ve been waiting for you.”
    â€œWhat for?” he asked suspiciously. With Janie it paid to be suspicious.
    â€œI want to interview you,” Janie said. “I’ve already interviewed Amanda, and now I want to interview you.” She took a little note book and a pencil out of the pocket of her jeans and folded back a page.
    â€œSure,” David said, grinning. “I’m always glad to give interviews to my loyal fans. What do you want to know? How many millions I make? How it feels to be famous?”
    â€œDavid,” Janie said patiently, “don’t be dumb. I’m solving the mystery of the escaped prisoners. I want to know if you saw any clues Saturday.”
    â€œOh that!” David had a sudden sinking feeling. He wondered exactly how much Amanda had told about their hike. Like, had she mentioned that she’d come to David’s rescue by punching Pete Garvey in the nose. “What did Amanda tell you?” he asked.
    Janie turned back a few pages in her notebook. “Well. She told me about seeing squirrels and things and some dirt bikers. She didn’t see anything very suspicious, I guess. But I thought you might have noticed something. You’re usually pretty good at noticing things.”
    David breathed a secret sigh of relief. “Sure. I can give you a clue or two,” he said. “Just let me get something to eat first. I’m starving.”
    So Janie followed him into the kitchen, and in between mouthfuls of milk and cookies David made up a few broken twigs and blurry footprints just to keep Janie happy. Then he started telling about the things Jerry had told him at lunch. While he was talking, Amanda came into the kitchen and sat down and listened. He went over all the stuff about the freaked-out bloodhound and how Bob Alquist had said he was glad he didn’t live where the Stanleys did. Janie looked excited and wrote very fast. Amanda frowned.
    â€œThat’s gross,” she said. “I wish they’d hurry up and catch those creeps.”
    David had just taken another cookie when somebody knocked loudly on the backdoor and there was Pete Garvey, leering in at him through the screen. In all the excitement about the prisoners he’d almost forgotten that Garvey had said he was going to come over. Besides he hadn’t really believed it. Even Garvey wouldn’t be dumb enough to tell his intended victim exactly where and when he was planning to make his next assassination attempt.
    â€œHi,” Garvey said. “I come to work on my bike.” He leaned forward and peered through the screen. “Hi,” he said to Amanda.
    â€œYou again,” Amanda said.
    Garvey’s hand was on the door handle, and he was beginning to open it, so David said, “Come on in.”
    It was all really weird. David offered Garvey a cookie, and he sat down at the kitchen table and ate six, and drank about a quart of milk. Right at first, nobody but Janie said anything. Garvey ate cookies, Janie rattled on about the escaped prisoners, and David and Amanda just sat there. But after a while Garvey asked David a question about where Janie got that stuff about the bloodhound, and David told him about Jerry’s inside information. Before long they were all talking about it. All four of them were still sitting there when Dad came home.
    David introduced Garvey, and Dad shook hands and started asking Garvey friendly questions and calling him Pete.David listened, wondering what Dad would say if he knew the truth—if David had introduced Garvey by saying, “This is Pete Garvey, Dad. He just dropped by to punch me out.” Instead Dad went on finding out just where the Garvey’s poultry farm was and showing a lot of interest in the fact that David’s “good old buddy Pete” had just hiked over to see if David could help him repair his bicycle. It wound up with Dad insisting on going out to the garage to