by jeff brown
All the museum visitors burst into applause as the officer led Madame Sévère away. Agent Lunette slapped Stanley on the back. “You have done it, Monsieur Lambchop! How can we ever repay you?”
Stanley thought for a moment. “There is one thing I’d like to do before I leave Paris.”
Crêpe Stanley
Aunt Simone chose the restaurant for dinner: She said it was one of the finest in Paris. She wore a red dress to match her red lips and hair, and Agent Lunette was dressed in his best uniform, with medals pinned to his chest. Stanley had on a white shirt and a tie. When Etoile arrived, her dark hair was pulled back off her face. Her blue eyes sparkled in the candlelight.
While Aunt Simone and Agent Lunette talked to each other in French, Stanley leaned toward Etoile.
“Sorry I left you at the Eiffel Tower,” he told her.
“I knew you weren’t just visiting,” Etoile said with a smile.
“Are you upset about your teacher?” asked Stanley.
Etoile’s face darkened. “Madame made us copy masterpieces so she could have something to hang on the walls after she stole the originals. From now on, I will create my own masterpieces. Maybe one day they will hang in the Louvre.”
“I hung in the Louvre for two whole days,” said Stanley. “It’s not as glamorous as it looks.”
Etoile laughed.
Their meal was served, and Stanley remembered what his aunt had said when he first arrived: “This is France. Everything is delicious.” He couldn’t agree more. The beef Bourguignonne was rich and full-bodied, just like the province of Burgundy where Aunt Simone said it was a specialty. They agreed that the Camembert cheese tasted like the fields in the town of Camembert. There was cassoulet stew from Toulouse filled with beans and meat that made Stanley feel as if he were by a fireplace in a country castle.
“This is the finest meal I have ever had,” Agent Lunette said. He looked into Aunt Simone’s eyes. “And it is only partly because of the food.”
Aunt Simone waved him away, but Stanley noticed her blushing. “Oh, Pierre, you are such a romantic!”
Stanley smiled. Just then the waiter appeared with the chef. “Monsieur Lambchop,” he said, “the chef has something special for you.”
Stanley looked up and nearly fell out of his chair. “No!” he cried. In his panic, he leaped up onto the table, grabbed a fork, and brandished it in front of him.
“Stanley, what’s wrong?” cried Aunt Simone.
“The chef!” Stanley declared. “He’s the one who chased me across Mexico, trying to steal La Abuela’s secret!”
Chef Lillou held out his palms and shook his head. “Non! Non! S’il vous plaît,” he pleaded. “Please. I am not the man I was. I was wrong. I want to apologize.”
“You— What?” Stanley said, surprised.
“I have dreamed of seeing you again. I am glad you stopped me in Mexico. There was a missing ingredient in my life. I thought it was La Abuela’s secret, but I was a fool. It was only when I came back to Paris that I found what was missing. It was amour—love. Everything changed when I found my true love. I changed.”
Suddenly the hostess of the restaurant, a plump woman with a warm smile, appeared and wrapped her arms around the chef.
“L’amour changes everything,” she said.
Stanley didn’t know what to say. Meanwhile, Agent Lunette and Aunt Simone were staring dreamily into each other’s eyes.
“Oui,” Aunt Simone said lightly. “L’amour changes everything.”
“Oui,” Agent Lunette agreed. He took her hands and held them to his cheek.
Etoile wrinkled her nose at Stanley. “Maybe you should get down off the table now,” she whispered.
Stanley thought that was a good idea, so he did.
The waiter wheeled over a silver platter. “I have created a new dish,”
Chef Lillou announced. “All over the world, Crêpe Suzette is known as one of the great French desserts. But I have made something new. Something magnifique. It is called Crêpe Stanley!” The waiter lifted the silver dome off the platter with a flourish, and everyone oohed and ahhed.
Stanley and Etoile were finally full after they’d each eaten eight entire Crêpe Stanleys.
“My compliments to the chef!” Stanley told Chef Lillou, shaking his hand. “Can I take some home for my brother, Arthur, too?”
Au Revoir
Etoile and Stanley stood together beneath the Arc de Triomphe, a giant monument shaped like an arch in the center of the city. The lights of Paris twinkled around them.
“I feel so small standing here,” said Etoile.
“I feel flat,” said Stanley, “like usual.”
Etoile laughed. “Will you write me?” she asked.
Stanley nodded. Then he said, “Maybe one day I can come visit by airmail.”
“I hope so,” said Etoile.
Neither of them said anything for a long time.
“It’s time for me to go,” Stanley said at last. “Au revoir, Etoile.”
“Au revoir, Stanley.”
She turned to walk away—and then she spun around and gave Stanley a hug and a kiss on the cheek. And in that moment, the evening breeze almost blew him away.
One afternoon, several weeks later, Stanley and his brother, Arthur, were lying on their beds in their room, daydreaming of Paris.
Arthur groaned. “I would give anything to have one more Crêpe Stanley. I can’t believe I ate all forty-six of them the night you got home.”
“Why don’t you write Aunt Simone?” Stanley said. “I bet she could get Chef Lillou to send you some more.”
“Why don’t you just climb in an envelope and go get me some more?” replied Arthur.
“Why don’t I flatten you with a bulletin board and then you can climb into an envelope?” teased Stanley.
Stanley reached under his pillow, and pulled out the latest letter from Etoile. He never got tired of rereading her letters.
One of her paintings had been accepted into a special exhibition of young artists’ work. It was a portrait of him called La Terre Est Plate: “The World Is Flat.” He glanced up at his wall. Next to his bulletin board, he’d hung the T-shirt he was wearing the day they’d met—the one that she had painted on. He thought it was a masterpiece. He tucked the letter back under his pillow.
Arthur suddenly jumped from his bed and onto Stanley’s. “I know how we can make more,” said Arthur with a devilish grin, towering over Stanley.
“Arthur, don’t—” Stanley said.
“S’il vous plaît,” Arthur said. “May I please have . . .”
“Arthur!” Stanley giggled.
Arthur leaped in the air and threw himself down on Stanley, rolling over his body like a rolling pin.
“Crêpe Stanley!” he shouted.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PARIS
The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 Paris World’s Fair. It was the entrance arch for the fair.
The Louvre Museum was built in 1190 as a fortress. It was rebuilt as a royal palace in the sixteenth century and became a museum in 1793.
France is the most visited country in the world, with over 80 million visitors per year.
The largest bell in the Notre Dame Cathedral weighs about 26,000 pounds!
The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911. After two years, French authorities finally found the Italian thief and recovered the painting.
It took almost 200 years to finish building the Notre Dame Cathedral.
A replica of the Statue of Liberty stands on Île aux Cygnes, a man-made island in the middle of the Seine River, which runs through Paris.
France makes almost 400 different types of cheese!
The Tour de France started in 1903 and is the most famous bike race in the world. Competitors bike almost 2,000 miles all around France over twenty-three days.
Montmartre, a hill in the northern part of Paris, is the highest point in the city.
Excerpt from Flat Stanley’s Wor
ldwide Adventures #12: Escape to California
There’s No Place on Earth That a Flat Kid Can’t Go! Don’t Miss:
Turn the Page to Read a Sample!
Caught in San Francisco
The hills in San Francisco were so steep that all the parked cars looked as if they were going to roll away. Stanley Lambchop was climbing the sidewalk alongside his old friend Thomas Anthony Jeffrey, whom the Lambchops were visiting on their family vacation.
“I can’t believe how much has happened since the last time I saw you,” Stanley said to Thomas as they walked with Stanley’s parents and brother, Arthur, up the hill. “You had just moved to California, and it was my first time traveling by mail. I hadn’t even been flat long enough to get creased!”
Thomas laughed. “I remember opening your envelope. You smelled like egg salad.”
Arthur shook his head. “I told you, Mom: Egg salad and milk in the mail is a bad idea!”
“Are a bad idea,” corrected Stanley’s mother, who was a stickler for good grammar. “I didn’t want Stanley to go hungry. After all, it was his first time away from home!”
“I remember thinking, California, wow!” Stanley went on. “I’d never traveled so far away. And to think, now I’ve been all over the world.”
“You have had a lot of excitement,” said Thomas. Then he added playfully, “Though you still kind of smell like egg salad.”
“I do not!” cried Stanley, cracking up.
Since the bulletin board over Stanley’s bed had fallen and flattened him, he had been to Egypt, Kenya, France, Australia, and lots of other places—but there was still something nice about exploring a city like San Francisco with his family and a good friend. Thomas had shown them Haight Ashbury, where everyone seemed to be wearing tie-dye T-shirts, and taken them on an old-fashioned-looking cable car to Union Square, where people in business suits hurried in and out of skyscrapers. Except for the moment at Fisherman’s Wharf when a group of tourists had recognized Stanley and insisted on taking pictures with him, Stanley felt like a regular sightseer. Now they were heading to the Japantown district for dinner.
As they came to the top of the hill, Stanley suddenly heard a scream. He spun around to see a girl in a wheelchair barreling down the middle of the street.
“HELP!” the girl shrieked.
Stanley leaped into action. “Thomas, throw me! Quick!”
“What?” said Thomas, in shock.
But then Arthur stepped up, took Stanley’s hands, and launched him into the air like a boomerang.
“Stanley, don’t!” his father yelled after him. As the wheelchair zoomed past, Stanley caught the back of it with both arms. His body ballooned backward like a parachute, and the wheelchair slowed.
“I have you!” Stanley reassured the girl.
But then he felt a tug at his back. His father had caught up and grabbed Stanley’s shirt.
“Stanley!” Mr. Lambchop gasped. “It’s not safe!”
“Dad! Let go!” yelled Stanley. “I have this under control!”
With his father pulling on him, one of Stanley’s hands came loose from the back of the wheelchair, and his body swung backward.
“Eek!” screeched Mr. Lambchop. Now they were all in trouble. It was as if Mr. Lambchop were waterskiing behind the speeding wheelchair . . . except there was no water and Stanley was the rope.
Now it was Stanley and his father’s turn to scream, “HELP!”
Suddenly, the wheelchair came to a halt. Stanley shot over the girl’s head, and his father went flying after him.
They landed with a thunk in the open bay of a cargo van, which was parked at the bottom of the hill. The girl rolled up a ramp into the van after them. She appeared to be in perfect control.
“Let’s blow this taco stand!” she called to the driver.
Suddenly the doors swung closed, and the van peeled away.
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About the Authors and Illustrator
JEFF BROWN created the beloved character of Flat Stanley as a bedtime story for his sons. He has written other outrageous books about the Lambchop family, including Flat Stanley, Stanley and the Magic Lamp, Invisible Stanley, Stanley’s Christmas Adventure, Stanley in Space, and Stanley, Flat Again! You can learn more about Jeff Brown and Flat Stanley at www.flatstanleybooks.com.
JOSH GREENHUT once mailed Flat Stanley, in costume, to a Halloween party 300 miles away. He is now married to the woman who hosted the party, and they live in Toronto with their two children.
MACKY PAMINTUAN is an accomplished illustrator. He lives in the Philippines with his wife, Aymone; their baby girl, Alison; and their pet Westie, Winter.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors and artists.
Books by Jeff Brown
CATCH ALL OF FLAT STANLEY’S
WORLDWIDE ADVENTURES:
The Mount Rushmore Calamity
The Great Egyptian Grave Robbery
The Japanese Ninja Surprise
The Intrepid Canadian Expedition
The Amazing Mexican Secret
The African Safari Discovery
The Flying Chinese Wonders
The Australian Boomerang Bonanza
The US Capital Commotion
Showdown at the Alamo
Framed in France
AND DON’T MISS ANY OF
THESE OUTRAGEOUS STORIES:
Flat Stanley: His Original Adventure!
Stanley and the Magic Lamp
Invisible Stanley
Stanley’s Christmas Adventure
Stanley in Space
Stanley, Flat Again!
Credits
Cover art by Macky Pamintuan
Cover design by Alison Klapthor
Copyright
FLAT STANLEY’S WORLDWIDE ADVENTURES #11: FRAMED IN FRANCE. Text copyright © 2014 by the Trust u/w/o Richard C. Brown a/k/a Jeff Brown f/b/o Duncan Brown. Illustrations by Macky Pamintuan, copyright © 2014 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Greenhut, Josh.
Framed in France / created by Jeff Brown ; written by Josh Greenhut; pictures by Macky Pamintuan. — First Edition.
pages cm. — (Flat Stanley’s worldwide adventures ; #11)
Summary: “Stanley Lambchop is whisked away to Paris, where he must help catch a mastermind art thief at the historical Louvre museum by posing as a painting”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-218985-1 (hardcover bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-06-218984-4 (pbk. bdg.)
EPub Edition February 2014 ISBN 9780062189868
[1. Art thefts—Fiction. 2. Louvre (Paris, France)—Fiction. 3. France—Fiction. 4. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Pamintuan, Macky, illustrator. II. Brown, Jeff, 1926-2003. III. Title.
PZ7.G84568Fr 2014
2013032812
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
AC
* * *
14 15 16 17 18 CG/RRDC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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