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Informationen zum Autor Willo Davis Roberts wrote many mystery and suspense novels for children during her long and illustrious career, including The Girl with the Silver Eyes , The View from the Cherry Tree , Twisted Summer , Megan's Island , Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job , Hostage , Scared Stiff , The Kidnappers , and Caught! Three of her children's books won Edgar Awards, while others received great reviews and other accolades, including the Sunshine State Young Reader's Award, the California Young Reader's Medal, and the Georgia Children's Book Award. Klappentext Living next door to a darkened amusement park! brothers Rick and Kenny become involved in a mystery that starts when their mother is kidnapped. Scared Stiff Chapter One Troubles come in threes, Pa always said. I knew it was true. When my little brother Kenny broke his arm falling out of a tree, Pa said there’d be two more catastrophes before long, and sure enough, there were. The very next day I cut my thumb on a tuna fish can and had to have three stitches, and a week later Ma lost a contact down the bathroom sink. We had insurance that took care of the emergency room charges on the first two, but we had to pay for the new contact, and it meant Pa couldn’t buy the boots he’d been counting on. So I guessed, when Pa came home and told us a load of new TVs he’d been hauling had been swiped while he was parked in a truck stop, that we were in for a whole lot of trouble. I hoped the next two things wouldn’t be as bad as the first one. Pa was in a real bad mood when he told us. Ma licked her lips and asked, “Are they blaming you?” His mouth was twisted and ugly. “Well, nobody’s given me any medal for it. The truck and the load are my responsibility, as dispatch pointed out.” Ma pushed back a lock of dark hair with the back of her hand. She’d been stirring spaghetti sauce and was holding a wooden spoon, and she didn’t even notice when the sauce dripped onto her blouse. “Are they going to fire you?” Pa kicked the leg of a chair so it came out from the table and sat down, scowling. “It wasn’t my fault, but when did that ever matter to E and F?” E and F were Edward and Frank, partners in E & F Alberts Trucking. E was fat and always joking, and F was skinny and bald. Edward gave me gum when I went into the office with Pa sometimes, but I sort of liked Frank better. He remembered my first name and called me Rick instead of Sonny. I stood in the doorway, waiting, because if Pa got fired it might mean we’d have to move, and I didn’t want to move. And it might even mean Ma would lose her job, too, because she was the bookkeeper at E & F Alberts Trucking. Ma noticed the spoon was dripping and put it back in the pot. I could tell she was upset. “So they haven’t talked to you yet? You don’t know if they’ll fire you?” Pa swore. “Who cares? A good driver can get a job anywhere,” he said. Kenny came up behind me, his eyes wide. He’s only seven, and usually he’s not paying much attention to what’s going on with the rest of us, but nobody could listen to Pa’s voice and not realize it was something serious this time. Once he was out of work for more than a month, and it made him pretty bad-tempered. Kenny looked at me, but I shook my head. I didn’t know how bad it was yet. “Anywhere,” Ma echoed. She didn’t want to move any more than I did. “Don’t sweat it,” Pa said, but now he sounded bleak rather than mad. “I’m not fired yet. I had to talk to the cops for over an hour. Maybe they’ll get the stuff back.” A whole semi-load of TVs would be worth a lot of money. It made my mouth dry to think about it. I hoped they wouldn’...
