The Great Gold Robbery Read Online Free Page A

hang glider as it crashed into the wall of the store, snapping the TV antenna and then tumbling to the ground.
    Nilly ran over to Petter, who was already standing up amid the wreckage, brushing gravel and grass off his potbelly.
    “Yikes, Petter, you’ve got to look where you’re going!” Nilly said.
    “Why bother? It’s not like I can see anything anyway,” Petter said, breathing on his thick glasses and then rubbing them on his bodysuit. “I flew all the way to the
coast, Nilly! Soon I’ll make it all the way to Denmark. Then I can buy us some Danishes to go with our hot chocolate. Hmm, now that I mention hot chocolate . . .”
    “I’ll go reheat the batch we made this morning,” Nilly said with a sigh.
    Half an hour later they were sitting in the kitchen, each drinking from their mug as Petter stared at the Chinese checkers board in deep concentration.
    “I’ve been thinking,” Petter said.
    “Yes,” Nilly said. “You’ve been thinking for more than twenty minutes, and you haven’t even moved your first marble yet. Maybe it’s about time
you—”
    “I wasn’t talking about the Chinese checkers,” Petter said. “I was thinking that you’ve been up here for a long time now. Not that I’m not enjoying having you
around, but . . .”
    “I can’t go back home, Petter. Oh, the humiliation, the humiliation! My whole school, my whole family, they’re all laughing at me. All my friends . . .”
    “All of them? How many friends do you—” Petter began.
    “Well, okay, fine. Both of them . . . They warned me, said I should bite my tongue, not talk about how we saved the world from invisible baboon monsters from the moon. They said no one
would believe us anyway, but like the idiot I am, I—”
    “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Nilly! You’re not an idiot!” Petter protested.
    “Yes, I am!”
    “No, no. You’re way smarter than . . . than me, for example,” Petter said.
    “No, I’m not.”
    “Yes, you definitely are, Nilly!”
    “No.”
    “Yes!”
    “Okay, fine, so I am,” Nilly said, slurping his cocoa.
    “Shh,” said Petter, looking up. “What’s that sound?”
    “Um, hello? It’s called slurping,” Nilly said.
    “No, not that sound,
that
sound!” Petter said, pointing to the ceiling.
    Nilly listened and sure enough, there was a
floppety-floppety-flop
sound that was getting louder.
    Nilly peered out the kitchen window. A sudden gust of wind caused the pine trees to sway, dust to kick up from the country road, and the grass to lie down. The sound just got louder and louder,
and a shadow settled over the lawn.
    And as Nilly and Petter sat drinking their hot chocolate, a vehicle suspended in thin air slowly touched down, stopping right outside the kitchen window as tufts of grass, chickens, and
pinecones all blew away.
    “What do you suppose that is?” Petter said, taking a sip of his cocoa.
    “Looks like a helicopter,” Nilly said.
    The banner saying SALE ! HANG GLIDERS 30% OFF WHILE SUPPLIES LAST !!! came loose and blew away.
    “I can see that, but who are those guys inside it?”
    “Based on their sunglasses and hats, I’d say they’re from the secret service.”
    “Well, well, I guess we’d better make some more cocoa, then.”

Nilly Makes a Decision
    “NO,” NILLY SAID.
    “No what?” said Hallgeir, adjusting his hat. He slurped his hot chocolate and looked around at the kitchen.
    “No, I don’t want to take the assignment,” Nilly said.
    “Why not?” asked Helge, wiping hot chocolate off his mustache. “The king is personally asking you to save Norway from financial ruin!”
    “Thanks, but I already saved Norway one time, and look at what happened,” Nilly said.
    “But . . . they stole the national gold reserves. Our people need you, Nilly!” Helge pleaded.
    “Do they?” Nilly asked. “To laugh at, maybe.”
    “Laugh? What do you mean?” Hallgeir said.
    “Go home, my good men,” Nilly said, crossing his arms. “Go home and tell the