Trust

Trust is a major theme of this novel because it plays a major part in many of the relationships throughout the main plot. The first time trust comes into the novel is when Maggie Rose Dunne and Michael Goldberg leave their school with Mr. Soneji, their math teacher. The children have a deep trust of the teacher even though he is relatively new to the school because he is cool and he relates well with the students. When Mr. Soneji tells the kids that the Secret Service called him and told him the children should be moved, the children do not question the validity of this statement. Another teacher also does not doubt it. The children leave the school and are consequently kidnapped and held for ransom.

Trust again comes to play in the novel through the relationship of the parents of these children and the police. The...