A young girl and her neighbor are kidnapped during a burglary gone awry in this hair-raising and fast-paced thriller from three-time Edgar Award–winning author Willo Davis Roberts. Sixth-grader Kaci Drummond longs for excitement and to be noticed just as her sister Jodie is for dancing, or her brother Jeff is for playing the piano. Shortly after her family moves to a new house, Kaci returns home in the middle of the school day and stumbles upon a burglary. The robbers kidnap her, and when a nosy neighbor suspects that something is wrong and tries to help, they take her as well. Kaci quickly discovers that the elderly woman not only has some good ideas, but also helps them both keep up their courage. Can the two hostages band together to escape their captors? Kaci enjoys reading mysteries and adventure stories as long as there are other family members around and especially when she has a big bowl of popcorn nearby. Sometimes, though, she longs for a little excitement and wonders what it would be like to have a real adventure. Kaci is feeling this way at the time her family moves to a house in a new development that is supposed to be safer than their old neighborhood. She likes everything about the new place except the nosy neighbor next door, Mrs. Banducci. She's a pain, always asking too many questions. She's around the morning Kaci comes home from school to get special medicine for her allergy attack, and her questions are about the deliveries made that morning to Kaci's house. What were they? Kaci doesn't know. She also doesn't know, when she gets to her front door, why it is open. No one is supposed to be home. Although she doesn't realize it right then, this is the start of Kaci's big adventure. The new development, it turns out, is not so safe after all. A neighborhood where Mrs. Banducci is probably the only person home all day is ideal for thieves who want to break in and steal -- thieves who don't care what they do to you when they find you in a house where they don't expect you to be. Kaci's adventure is one that can even make her value Mrs. Banducci. Once again Willo Davis Roberts has created an adventure story that leaves you breathless, yet makes you feel it could happen down the street, next door, or even to you. "I always thought I'd be ready for an adventure, if one ever came along. I didn't know how stupid that was until it happened". 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. Hostage Chapter One I’m the kind of person who loves being thrilled by a scary book or movie. I like feeling the hairs prickle on the back of my neck and gooseflesh creep along my arms. In the safety of my own living room, or curled up in bed at night, knowing the rest of my family is within shouting distance, I’m as brave as anything. I’ll take on lions, and tigers, and bears. I’ll tiptoe with the heroine through a darkened, deserted house, with the telephone lines all cut and the poker from the fireplace my only weapon. This is especially satisfying if I have a big bowl of popcorn beside me, one that I don’t have to share with anyone. Dad says I’ve got a heck of an imagination. It’s about my only personal asset, in a family with brilliant minds and multiple talents. I can’t compete with any of them on their own turf. I’m the ugly duckling in a flock of birds of paradise. Except that I can make up stories, and enjoy the ones other people have made up. Especially the ones calculated to send paralyzing chills through my entire system. So I always thought I’d be ready for a real adventure, if one ever came along. I didn’t know how stupid an idea that was until it happened. • • • Dad never really wanted to buy the house in Lofty Cedars Estates. He said all the houses there were too expensive. Mom said, “I told you, honey. I know we can’t swing a new house unless we continue to be a two-income family, but I love being office manager at the clinic. I want to keep on working. I don’t mind having to hold down a job in order to meet the payments. Now that the piano is paid for, we’ll be able to do more with the money I earn than just have the house. We can put the rest of my salary in the bank, in a college fund for the kids. You know we aren’t going to be able to send them to college on our current savings. Not all four of them.” “The houses are ostentatious,” Dad countered. “Big, fancy, show-off places. I’m a high school principal, for pete’s sake. Not the governor.” “Ken,” Mom said patiently, “these