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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...