Ransom

Ransom

Author: Lois Duncan

Setting: The story takes place in New Mexico

Time: The story occurs during the winter.

Characters: Buck is one of the three people who are kidnapping the children. He is tempered easily. He doesn't really care for others much. Rita is Buck's wife. She is not very pretty and gets drug into schemes by Buck. She feels he will leave her if she doesn't follow directions. Juan is the other kidnapper who does more of the dirty work. He is the one who calls the parents for the money. He's the one who shot the bus driver. Glenn is one of the boys who were kidnapped. He's very popular and has friends and thinks that nobody dislikes him. He's handsome and very athletic. Glenn's brother Bruce is into more technology stuff. He is not very handsome and looks up to his brother a lot. He is physically challenged because his body is underdeveloped. Dexter doesn't have a mother or father. He lives with his bachelor uncle who's always away on business trips. He is liked fairly well. He is happy with his life. Jesse is new to everyone. She moves around the world quite a lot. She's very mature compared to the others. Marianne has two brothers. Her parents are divorced and her mother remarried another man. She thinks that her real dad still loves her and will rescue her and doesn't care much for her new father.

Conflict: The group's main problem is that they are being held ransom and they don't know whether they'll ever be rescued. The group is concerned that their parents won't be able to get the whole amount of money so they are faced with the fact of having to runaway in order to escape their kidnappers.

Plot: The kids are getting on the bus to go home after another ordinary day at high school. They noticed they had a substitute bus driver. He missed a couple of stops so Bruce volunteered to show him the way. When only the five kids who live on Valley Gardens are left, the bus driver drives past their subdivision without stopping. The kids complain and he tells them to shut up. The bus pulls off to the side of the road next to a waiting car. He orders them to get off the bus and into the car. By this time the kids realized they were being kidnapped. A woman is in the car, whose name is Rita. She drives them to a cabin about two hours away. When they arrive, the kids are fed stew. The boys were sent to sleep in the storage room. The girls head to the bunkroom for the night. They awake the next morning and discuss what's happening. Jesse and Dexter talk. She tells him that the night before she heard Rita and Buck saying that he killed their bus driver. She gets scared and starts to cry. After hearing this, the boys decide that they need to leave. Back at Valley Gardens the parents are receiving the phone calls from Juan regarding the ransom. All the parents are discussing with their spouses the amount of the ransom are making plans to get the money except. But, Dexter's uncle still hasn't heard about the kidnapping yet. The parents are also faced with the question of whether or not to call the police. Back at the cabin, the kids finally decide that Marianne will distract Rita while Buck's gone so Jesse can sneak and get the keys to the storage room to unlock the boys later. When Buck comes home, he and Rita go to sleep and the girls unlock the boys. The plan is to have Dexter hotwire the car with Glenn's help, and for Bruce to transport messages between the boys and girls. Jesse and Marianne go back to the bunk beds and await the message from Bruce that they are ready when she hears Buck get out of bed and go into the kitchen. She tries to get Buck to go back to bed when the door comes open slowly and in walks Bruce. Bruce says quietly that they got the car hotwired, then he sees Buck. Jesse shouts 'run' and all three boys take off down the hill. The girls screamed when a pistol shot rang out throughout the forest. They saw a dark figure drop onto the ground. Once in the forest, Bruce and Glenn realize that Dexter isn't there and Glenn tells Bruce he heard Dexter fall earlier. Glenn tells him to keep strong and they've got to keep moving. They walk out onto the dirt road and prepare themselves for the twenty mile hike towards town. A few minutes later they hear Buck coming down the road at full speed. Glenn darts into the shadow of the steep embankment on the side of the road. Bruce tries to get up the embankment but can't. He runs as fast as his underdeveloped body will carry him. It's not until he sees the bright lights come around the bend trying to run him over on the icy road that he bursts into supernatural speed as he clears another corner and onto the embankment, finally making it this time. Falling onto the ground and having the breath knocked out of him, he looks at the car as it slams on the brakes and slides out of control and over the drop off. As he's laying there trying to catch his breath he hears his brother coming up behind him. Bruce is upset about Buck's wreck, and suggests that they check on him. Glenn tries to tell him that it wasn't his fault that Buck wrecked and that his suggestion of checking on Buck was wasn't smart and that they should get moving. They fight over some recent issues. Bruce decides he will go check on Buck and that Glenn can go to town to be the hero like usual. Bruce went down the drop off rather slowly to the car. He tried to look through the fire and sees Buck dead. He realizes that the car might explode any time and he scurries up the very steep hill. He walks back to the cabin. When he gets there he finds Rita reading a book. He walks over to the fire to get warm when she asked him where Buck was.