Free Snatched by Pete Hautman Page A

Chess.
    At least two of them agreed on the color. Roni said, “I heard it was a Ford Explorer.” See how sure this kid was about what he saw.
    “There was a green Ford Explorer here, too. And a Chevy Tahoe. But the girl got into the Jeep.”
    Roni’s jaw dropped. “Are you sure?”
    “Just because I’m weird looking doesn’t mean I can’t tell a Jeep from an Explorer.”
    “Did you see the driver?”
    “No.”
    “Tell her what you told me,” said Brian.
    Chess looked at Brian and a smile lit up his face. “You mean about the police?”
    “Yeah.”
    “They didn’t even bother to talk to me,” Chess said.
    “Really?”
    “Nobody talks to the lump in a wheelchair. Except you guys.”
    Roni felt herself blush. If it hadn’t been for Brian, she might have ignored the kid, too. “Well . . . thanks. This is really good information.”
    “Any time,” said Chess.
    They were walking away when Chess called after them. “Hey!”
    Roni and Brian stopped and looked back.
    Chess said, “Don’t you want the license number?”
     
     
    “Where are you going?” Brian asked.
    “Where do you think? We have to report this,” Roni said, speeding up. They were walking into the wind. The tails of Roni’s trenchcoat flew straight out behind her, flapping in Brian’s face.
    “I thought you wanted us to be the ones to find her,” he said.
    “The cops know how to look up license numbers,” she said. “They’ll find out right away who grabbed Alicia.”
    “What if we could find her ourselves?”
    “How?” She stopped and put her hands on her hips in a stance she must have learned from her mom. “There must be dozens of green Jeeps in Bloodwater.”
    “But only one with the license number BFLYGUY.”
    “You know whose Jeep it was?”
    “It belongs to Mr. Nestor.”
    “Who is Mr. Nestor?”
    “Mr. Nestor,” Brian explained, “is the Butterfly Guy.”

28
    carnivorous butterflies
    Mr. Nestor was a tall, bony man with hairy arms, a bulging forehead, and even bulgier eyes. He answered his door with the perplexed look that most people save for working advanced algebra problems.
    “Hi, Mr. Nestor,” said Brian. “It’s me.”
    Mr. Nestor stood in the doorway and stared down at the two of them. Brian always had to reintroduce himself. Mr. Nestor knew everything there was to know about insects, but human beings all looked the same to him.
    “Who is me?” he asked.
    “Brian Bain.”
    Mr. Nestor fluttered his hands together as if they were wings. “Oh, yes. Oh, my. I remember you. It was swallow-tails, wasn’t it? Your project?” Brian had met Mr. Nestor for the first time when he had done a seventh-grade science project on swallowtail butterflies.
    “That’s right. This is my friend Roni,” Brian said. “Mind if we come in?”
    Mr. Nestor backed into his living room as if they were holding him at gunpoint. “Yes, yes of course.”
    Brian looked at Roni as they stepped inside. He wanted to see what her face looked like when she saw Mr. Nestor’s house. Books were stacked from floor to ceiling. And where there were no books, there were display cases full of dead butterflies. It was a library and a bug museum all squashed into one room.
    Roni didn’t blink at Mr. Nestor’s strange nest. She looked around with open curiosity. “Did you catch all these butterflies?” she asked.
    “I’ve collected from all over the world,” said Mr. Nestor. “I captured this particular specimen in Tanzania back in 1994. . . .”
    Once Mr. Nestor started talking about his butterflies he could go on for hours, so Brian interrupted him. “Were you at the hospital yesterday?”
    “At the hospital?” Mr. Nestor blinked and flapped his hands. “No, I don’t believe so. I’ve been feeling fine.”
    “Were you anywhere near the hospital?” Brian asked.
    Mr. Nestor’s head swiveled from Roni to Brian. “Let’s see. I did drive by the hospital. Yes, indeed. I thought I had seen a Painted American Lady, but it