The Wedding Bandit

Wendell Quanset was bored with sitting quietly in the large white living room of Mr. and Mrs. Merchant. Their son Sammy was going to marry his sister Vera. The adults were talking about the wedding. He didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

“Why can’t somebody just say, ‘Abracadabra, you’re married’? Then we’ll all have cake and go home.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Mr. Merchant assured him.

“You’re so right, dear,” Mrs. Merchant said. “In fact, I hear terrible things about a wedding bandit operating in this town. The bandit masquerades as a guest, and then steals watches and jewelry from the real quests.”

“Nobody even knows whether the bandit is a man or a woman,” Vera said.

Wendell liked his sister. She never made fun of him the way some other big sisters did. And she usually gave him good advice.

“I think we should hire a security person,” Mr. Quanset said. “We don’t want anybody robbing our guests.”

Something like a robbery would only improve the wedding, Wendell thought. As far as he could tell, weddings were even more boring than meetings where the weddings were planned.

All the adults agreed that hiring a security person was a good idea. Mrs. Quanset wrote it down on her list of things to do.

“Can I bring Roswell?” Wendell asked. “I think a cat would really liven up a wedding.”

All the adults stared at Wendell as if he had suddenly grown a second nose.

“We certainly don’t want a cat underfoot,” Mrs. Merchant said.

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This story will be on The Times’ Web site at https://www.latimes.com/kids.