A Nose for Adventure Read Online Free Page A

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    “Thanks,” I say to Frieda, who doesn’t reply. I follow her onto the next section of moving sidewalk. The sign up ahead says WAY OUT – BUSES AND TAXIS . The sidewalk is moving us quickly towards it, as if it wants us to go this way.
    Frieda’s staring at something up ahead on the left. “Hey!” she says in a whisper. “Hey, Alan, look over there, behind the pillar. Who do you see?”
    I turn, and peer closely. “No one,” I say.
    “I thought I saw the guy with the dyed red hair and the cologne – you know, the guy I slapped,” she says.
    “Oh.” I stare, backwards now, because we’re still moving. “I don’t see him,” I say.
    “He was pretty creepy, wasn’t he? And the other guy – the skinny government guy – acted funny too.”
    “Do you really think that red hair was dyed?” I ask.
    She frowns up at me. “With those dark eyebrows? Of course.”
    “He’s not that old. I thought only old guys dyed their hair.”
    “This sounds crazy, Alan, but I think he was after … me. He was interested in me. So was the skinny guy.”
    “He was interested in your Horus the dentist earrings,” I say.
    She doesn’t smile. “There’s a lot of kidnapping going on these days,” she says. “We get taught about it in school. How to avoid it.”
    An amazing idea. What kind of school does she go to, I wonder? “We get taught about fire safety,” I say. “And to look both ways before crossing the street.”
    “I wonder if they want to kidnap me.”
    Is she kidding? She’s got to be kidding. Kidnapping is like floods and earthquakes and civil war. It happens far away, to strangers.
    “One of my classmates got kidnapped last year, you know. Her parents had to pay a hundred thousand dollars to get her back.”
    She’s not kidding. I choke. Bad enough to be on my own in New York City. Now I’m thinking about being on my own with kidnappers.
    “Let’s go back,” I say. “We’ll go back to the policeman.”
    “No.”
    “Yes.” There’s a sidewalk moving the other way. It’d be easy enough to hop across. I turn my head to see if anyone’s coming – looking both ways, like they teach us in school – and there he is! He’s well back of us, behind a bunch of people, but he’s on our moving sidewalk. I know it’s him. He sees me looking, and immediately ducks his dyed red head, as if he doesn’t want me to notice him.

“Oh, no! He’s behind us!” I whisper. Not that he could hear me.
    “Who? The slouchy guy, with the dyed hair? You saw him?”
    “What’ll we do? What’ll we do?” I look around for a police officer. There isn’t one. “Help!” I call, to … well, I don’t know who. I look up, maybe for a sign from the heavens, but we’re still inside.
    “First, we’ll get a cab,” says Frieda.
    She pushes off. The wheelchair skitters forward on the moving sidewalk. I follow her as fast as I can. People get out of our way.
    “Do you have enough money?” I ask breathlessly.
    “I have a fifty-dollar bill in my purse,” says Frieda. “My dad says you should never travel without a fifty-dollar bill for emergencies.”
    An amazing idea. What kind of parents does she have? “My mom says you should never run with scissors,” I say.
    The moving sidewalk ends. The doors to the outside open automatically. There’s a crowd of people waiting for a line of yellow taxis. It’s a lovely clear morning, now, but a gang of dark clouds are chasing the sun across the sky. Sooner or later they’re going to catch it.
    There’s a problem with the cab at the head of the line. An old lady is complaining, pointing with her cane at the cab. The cabdriver is trying to explain something.
    “I tell you, it’s not my dog,” he says. “She just hangs around here. Ask anyone! Ask Harvey, there. Hey, Harvey, is this my dog?”
    Harvey is a big fat man in a tight shirt. He clambers out of his cab, the next in line.
    “That’s Sally,” he says.
    “Is she my dog?”
    “Nope. She’s no