The Bell Bandit

Back at Grandma’s house, Evan runs down the driveway, searching frantically for Grandma. He thinks of calling out to her, but intuition tells him not to in case Grandma has forgotten who he is again and is afraid of him. Anxiety wells in Evan again as he thinks about worst-case scenarios. He continues running the half-mile down the driveway to the road, wondering if she could have gotten this far. As he reaches the road, he hears a car and feels momentary relief, thinking it is his mother. It is Pete, who slows down, and Evan tries to contain his fear while explaining what has happened.

Pete first suggests calling Mrs. Treski, but Evan tells him that his mother left her phone at Grandma’s when she went into town to meet with the insurance agent. Pete tells Evan to stay at the house in case someone calls and says he will drive into town to get Mrs. Treski. Evan agrees to this plan and walks back to Grandma’s as Pete drives away.

Back at the house, Evan checks for Grandma in the barn. He sees that Grandma has not returned and wonders whether she may have gone to see the bell. Evan runs to Lovell’s Hill and stares at the empty crossbeam, his grandma nowhere in sight. Standing on the hill, Evan suddenly misses his dad, whom he has not seen in a year. Evan suddenly realizes he needs help from someone good at solving puzzles: Jessie. He begins running toward Maxwell’s house, but as he reaches the bottom of the hill, he hears the crash of shattering glass. Evan follows the sound.

Outside the Sinclairs’ house, Jessie watches brothers Jeff and Mike run to a barn on their property without noticing Jessie and Maxwell. Maxwell’s face goes white, and he doesn’t take his eyes off the boys. Maxwell says that the boys would have “killed us” (114) if they found them. Jessie walks toward the barn, insisting that the bell must be inside, but Maxwell tells her again that they will not find it in the barn.

Jessie goes to the barn by herself and peers inside the back window. Inside, she sees Jeff and Mike nailing pieces of wood together to make some kind of device. Maxwell joins her at the window and points out the box that Jeff brought from the house. Maxwell and Jessie watch as the brothers continue working on their contraption, adding spools of thread to the wooden frame. For a minute, Jessie cannot see what they are doing until Mike holds up a live frog and the boys start laughing. Maxwell begins moaning in horror as the boys tie the frog’s legs to their contraption and stretch its legs in all directions. Jessie and Maxwell’s terror mounts as they watch the torture unfold. Finally, Maxwell snaps, screaming as he unearths a rock from the snow and flings it through the barn window. Maxwell continues screaming as he runs back toward his house and away from the barn, where Mike and Jeff Sinclair are now staring right at Jessie through the hole in the glass.

As Evan runs toward the sound of shattering glass, he encounters Maxwell, who is running “as if a wild animal” (125) were chasing him. Evan tries to get Maxwell to stop so that he can ask where Jessie is, but Maxwell continues running, ignoring Evan completely. Evan continues running in the direction Maxwell came from until he sees the lights on in the barn on the Sinclair property, where he hears Jessie’s voice.

Evan finds Jessie outside the barn, holding a rock and staring at two boys. The older boy threatens to beat up Evan, and Evan retaliates, egging the boy on until Jessie intercedes, telling them they should not fight. Evan asks what is going on, and Jessie tells him that while spying on the Sinclairs, she and Maxwell discovered the boys torturing a frog inside the barn. The older boy and Jessie argue about who should go to jail for their infractions until Evan interrupts, asking Jessie if she broke the window. She tells him that Maxwell threw the rock because the boys were trying to remove the frog’s legs while it was alive. Evan tells the boys that their behavior is sick, but the older boy tells Evan that they can do whatever they want on their property. Evan and the boys advance toward each other until Jessie throws a rock, hitting the older boy on the shoulder.

The older boy tells his brother to hold Jessie down, but Evan shoves him to the ground. Both Sinclair boys back away, telling Evan and Jessie to go away. Evan tries to pull Jessie away, but she refuses to leave without the frog. They hear the boys’ mother calling for them. The brothers hesitate at the sound of their mother, whose voice grows increasingly frustrated as she calls for them to come in. The older brother tells them that he will be back in five minutes to check that they are gone, and then he and his brother run quickly back to the house.

Jessie and Evan rush into the barn, removing the string from the frog’s legs and putting it back on the ground. The frog looks weak, and Jessie says she thinks the frog will die. Looking at it, Evan agrees, feeling a surge of sadness about “all the things in the world that were damaged and broken” (133). Evan decides that they need to bring the frog home to end its suffering. As he reaches for it, the frog suddenly jumps and disappears beneath a nearby woodpile. Still reeling from the thought of having to kill the frog, Evan cannot match Jessie’s excitement and insists they get out of there and go home.