Invisible Stanley

For Robert Brown

First published in Great Britain 1985

by Methuen Children’s Books Ltd

Reissued 2012

by Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © 1985 Jeff Brown

Illustrations copyright © 2012 by the Trust

u/w/o Richard C. Brown a/k/a/Jeff Brown

f/b/o Duncan Brown

First e-book edition 2014

ISBN 978 1 4052 0421 7

eISBN 978 1 7803 1218 7

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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CONTENTS

Cover

Title page

Dedication and Copyright

Prologue

1 Where is Stanley?

2 Doctor Dan

3 The First Days

4 In the Park

5 The TV Show

6 The Bank Robbers

7 Arthur’s Storm

Back Series Promotional Page

Prologue

Stanley Lambchop spoke into the darkness above his bed. ‘I can’t sleep. It’s the rain, I think.’

There was no response from the bed across the room.

‘I’m hungry too,’ Stanley said. ‘Are you awake, Arthur?’

‘I am now,’ said his younger brother. ‘You woke me.’

Stanley fetched an apple from the kitchen, and ate it by the bedroom window. The rain had worsened.

‘I’m still hungry,’ he said.

‘Raisins . . . shelf . . .’ murmured Arthur, half asleep again.

Crash ! came thunder. Lightning flashed.

Stanley found the little box of raisins on a shelf by the window. He ate one.

Crash ! Flash !

Stanley ate more raisins.

Crash ! Flash !

Arthur yawned. ‘Go to bed. You can’t be hungry still.’

‘I’m not, actually.’ Stanley got back into bed. ‘But I feel sort of . . . Oh, different, I guess.’

He slept.

Where is Stanley?

‘Breakfast is ready, George. We must wake the boys,’ Mrs Lambchop said to her husband.

Just then Arthur Lambchop called from the bedroom he shared with his brother.

‘Hey! Come here! Hey!’

Mr and Mrs Lambchop smiled, recalling another morning that had begun like this. An enormous bulletin board, they had discovered, had fallen on Stanley during the night, leaving him unhurt but no more than half an inch thick. And so he had remained until Arthur blew him round again, weeks later, with a bicycle pump.

‘Hey!’ a call came again. ‘Are you coming? Hey!’

Mrs Lambchop held firm views about good manners and correct speech. ‘Hay is for horses, not people, Arthur,’ she said as they entered the bedroom. ‘As well you know.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Arthur. ‘The thing is, I can hear Stanley, but I can’t find him!’

Mr and Mrs Lambchop looked about the room. A shape was visible beneath the covers of Stanley’s bed, and the pillow was squashed down, as if a head rested upon it. But there was no head.

‘Why are you staring?’ The voice was Stanley’s.

Smiling, Mr Lambchop looked under the bed, but saw only a pair of slippers and an old tennis ball. ‘Not here,’ he said.

Arthur put out a hand, exploring. ‘Ouch!’ said Stanley’s voice. ‘You poked my nose!’

Arthur gasped.

Mrs Lambchop stepped forward. ‘If I may . . .?’ Gently, using both hands, she felt about.

A giggle rose from the bed. ‘That tickles !’

‘Oh, my!’ said Mrs Lambchop.

She looked at Mr Lambchop and he at her, as they had during past great surprises. Stanley’s flatness had been the first of these. Another had come the evening they discovered a young genie, Prince Haraz, in the bedroom with Stanley and Arthur, who had summoned him accidentally from a lamp.

Mrs Lambchop drew a deep breath. ‘We must face facts, George. Stanley is now invisible.’

‘You’re right !’ said a startled voice from the bed. ‘I can’t see my feet! Or my pyjamas!’

‘Darndest thing I’ve ever seen,’ said Mr Lambchop. ‘Or not seen, I should say. Try some other pyjamas, Stanley.’

Stanley got out of bed, and put on different pyjamas, but these too vanished, reappearing when he took them off. It was the same with the shirt and slacks he tried next.

‘Gracious!’ Mrs Lambchop shook her head. ‘How are we to keep track of you, dear?’

‘I know!’ said Arthur. Untying a small red balloon, a party favour, that floated above his bed, he gave Stanley the string to hold. ‘Try this,’ he said.

The string vanished, but not the balloon.

‘There!’ said Mrs Lambchop. ‘At least we can tell, approximately, where Stanley is. Now let’s all have breakfast. Then, George, we must see what Doctor Dan makes of this.’