Well, it made a little sense, so I hurried along behind Poetry, my heart beating faster because we were hurrying so fast. Pretty soon we were almost there, when Poetry stopped all of a sudden and said, “Sh!”
I shushed quick, ’cause I’d heard it as plain as day myself. There was the sound of a car motor running, somewhere. It sounded like it was at the top of the hill away up above the boathouse. We knew there was a sandy road up there, ’cause we’d been on it once ourselves.
“Somebody’s stuck in the sand,” Poetry said, and it sure sounded like it. The motor was whirring and whirring. I’d seen cars stuck in sand and snow before, and I could imagine the driver, whoever he was, doing what is called “rocking” the car, and starting and shifting from first gear to reverse and back and forth, and the wheels spinning, and still the car not getting out of the sand...
We were real close to the boathouse now. Poetry shoved the beam of his light toward the door, and we both let out an excited gasp. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and yet I had to, ’cause the boathouse door was wide open, and the hinge of the lock was hanging like somebody had forced it open with a crowbar or something.
We flashed our lights around inside, and there wasn’t anybody there, but a cot in the other end was mussed up like somebody had been lying down on it. A pile of shavings were on the floor and were also scattered around under a carpenter’s work bench. On the wall above the work bench were a lot of tools such as screwdrivers, saws, planes, and other carpenter’s tools. Santa had maybe been working there, making something during the day.
“Quick!” Poetry ordered. “Let’s go up the hill and get his license number.”
I wanted to tell Santa or Barry or somebody, and get a lot of noisy action around there, but I knew Poetry was right. We were maybe already too late, and we maybe couldn’t do anything helpful. We’d probably be shot if we were seen by the man, whoever he was. But if we could get the car license number, it might help the police to trail him, if he really was the kidnapper.
Up that hill we went, following that hardly-ever-used road. At the top of the hill, we turned right and zipped along the edge of Santa’s woods, where you could hardly see the road at all, but we knew it would come out at the sandy road a little later, which it did. We could see, even with our flashlights off, which they had to be, that it was a newish car, as we sneaked up behind it. It had its tail light on and only its parking lights, and the driver was “rocking” it, starting slowly, going forward a few feet, then backwards, then forward, but not getting anywhere.
Already I was close enough to see the license, but didn’t dare turn on my flashlight, or the guy would find out we were there. “Wait,” Poetry said, “I’ll sneak up behind that tree.” Right away he started to start. Then he hissed to me, “DOWN, BILL! QUICK!”
Down we ducked and didn’t dare make a sound, ’cause the motor had stopped and the guy was opening his car door and getting out. Right there in front of our eyes not more than fifty feet away, we saw him make a dive for the back left wheel, and heard him mumbling something that sounded like mad swear words, and for a second I was glad that Little Jim wasn’t there, ’cause it always hurts him terribly to hear anybody swear, on account of the One whose Name is used in such a terrible way when a person swears is Little Jim’s best Friend. I was glad he wasn’t there for another reason, too, and that was that when he hears somebody using filthy rotten words like that, he can’t stand it and sometimes calls right out and says, “STOP SWEARING!”