Night of Fear by Peg Kehret

people.
    “Make sure it’s empty this time,” T.J. said.
    Brody motioned for T.J. to be quiet. He got out and walked toward the row of sheds.
    Quickly, T.J. got out, too. He didn’t trust Brody to look inside the sheds before he set them ablaze and he did not want to dash into a burning building and rescue any more animals. If there were any living creatures in these sheds, T.J. planned to turn them loose right now, before Brody got his lighter out.
    Brody cupped his hands on the sides of his face and looked through the dirty window of the first shed. “Oh, man,” he said. “We’ve hit the jackpot.”
    T.J. looked in, too, and saw an elegant old car. T.J. couldn’t tell in the dark what kind it was but from the size and shape he guessed an early Model T or some other classic car.
    Brody went from shed to shed, pulling on the padlocks. T.J. knew he was hoping one of them wasn’t clicked tightly into place.
    T.J. went to the second shed and looked in the window. This one contained a large boat, on a boat trailer.
    At the fifth shed, Brody said, “Bingo,” and removed the lock. Then he continued down the row, pulling on the rest of the padlocks.
    T.J. slid open the unlocked shed door. He felt along the wall beside the door, found a light switch, and pushed it. As the light flickered on, he stared in surprise. The shed was jammed full—not with live animals, but with wooden ones.
    “Look at this,” T.J. said. “There are parts of an old merry-go-round stored in here.”
    There were carved horses, chariots, an ostrich—even awooden pig with a fancy carved saddle. Like the outside of the shed, their paint was faded and chipped but enough color remained to give the overall appearance of red, blue, gold, and green. “This must have been in a circus or an amusement park,” T.J. said.
    Brody looked in the door.
    “You can’t set a fire here,” T.J. said. “That old car in the first shed is worth a bundle and these are antiques. They’re works of art.”
    “Tough.”
    “Old carousels like this are worth a lot of money.”
    “They are?”
    “Absolutely. Collectors pay thousands of dollars for just one old merry-go-round horse and there must be two dozen of them in here. This place is worth a fortune.”
    Brody peered at the carved animals. “They look old and worn out to me.”
    “The older they are, the more they’re worth. Look,” he said, pointing to his left, “there’s the calliope or organ or whatever it’s called that was in the center of the merry-go-round. It’s what played the music. I wonder if it still works.”
    “How do you know so much about old merry-go-rounds?”
    “My grandmother was interested in antiques. She used to take me to antique shows with her. When I was little and we saw carousel horses displayed, I always wanted to buy one but Grandma Ruth said they were too expensive.”
    “How much do you think all this is worth?”
    T.J. did a quick mental count. “There must be twenty carved animals, plus the organ and all the other parts. As a rough guess, I’d say at least one hundred thousand dollars.”
    T.J. could tell that Brody was impressed. “We’d be fools to burn this shed,” T.J. continued, “without taking this stuff out of here first.”
    “You mean, you want to steal it?”
    “I doubt the owner would give permission for us to take it.”
    “I don’t know. I never stole anything.”
    “You could buy a lot of gasoline for one hundred thousand dollars. You wouldn’t ever have to do temporary work again.”
    Brody scratched his head. “One hundred thousand smackeroos.” He slapped his hands together, as if he’d made a momentous decision. “We’ll load this stuff in the truck and take it to Seattle and sell it.”
    “Good plan.” Excellent plan, in fact, T.J. thought. Any reputable antique dealer would ask questions about how Brody happened to own such treasures. They’d want to know the background of the carousel and where Brody got the animals. If the