Comic Con Artist Read online

  ATAC BRIEFING FOR AGENTS FRANK AND JOE HARDY

  MISSION:

  To discover the criminal responsible for forging versions of valuable original comic-book art.

  LOCATION:

  A huge comics convention in San Francisco, CA.

  POTENTIAL VICTIMS:

  A major comic-book artist stands to lose a lot of money, but thousands of fans at the convention could lose their lives if the culprit gets desperate.

  SUSPECTS:

  Rival artists, obsessed fans, and even a co-owner of the local art gallery are all possibilities.

  THIS MISSION REQUIRES YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENION.

  THIS MESSAGE WILL BE ERASED IN FIVE SECONDS.

  WATCH OUT FOR OUR NEXT CASE: #22: Deprivation House

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Cover designed by Lisa Vega

  Cover image copyright © 2008 by

  Dynamic Duo Studio/Corbis

  Ages 8–12

  kids.simonandschuster.com

  0308

  Girl Fight

  People tried to give the two girls room. I spotted the adversaries: two college-age girls dressed in goth gear. The one with the blue streaks in her jet-black hair was Asian American. The one with the short, spiky magenta hair was smaller, with super-pale skin.

  Suddenly Magenta shoved Blue Streaks. “You know I’m right!” she shrieked. “Admit it.”

  “I won’t admit anything,” Blue Streaks screamed back. “You’re just jealous!”

  A crowded cable car with open sides was not the best place for a shoving match.

  “Settle down, girls!” one of the conductors shouted. But the car was so crowded, I didn’t think he could actually see what was happening.

  “Don’t make us stop this car!” the other conductor shouted. But he had to keep his hand on the brakes and his eye on traffic.

  “Take that back!” Now Magenta shoved the taller Blue Streaks really hard. Blue Streaks stumbled, and her notebook went flying between Frank and me.

  “My drawings!” Blue Streaks wailed.

  In a flash, she climbed over the seat. Just as she was about to jump off, I grabbed her around the waist and held her back.

  And watched Frank hurl himself off the cable car and into the street.

  #1 Extreme Danger

  #2 Running on Fumes

  #3 Boardwalk Bust

  #4 Thrill Ride

  #5 Rocky Road

  #6 Burned

  #7 Operation: Survival

  #8 Top Ten Ways to Die

  #9 Martial Law

  #10 Blown Away

  #11 Hurricane Joe

  #12 Trouble in Paradise

  #13 The Mummy’s Curse

  #14 Hazed

  #15 Death and Diamonds

  #16 Bayport Buccaneers

  #17 Murder at the Mall

  #18 Pushed

  #19 Foul Play

  #20 Feeding Frenzy

  #21 Comic Con Artist

  Super Mystery #1: Wanted

  Super Mystery #2: Kidnapped at the Casino

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2008 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part

  in any form.

  THE HARDY BOYS MYSTERY STORIES and HARDY BOYS UNDER-COVER

  BROTHERS are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS and related logo are registered trademarks of

  Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Lisa Vega

  ISBN: 978-1-4391-1344-8 (eBook)

  The text of this book was set in Aldine 401 BT.

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition March 2008

  Library of Congress Control Number 2007932269

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-5498-9

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-5498-8

  Chapter 1: Terror at the Circus

  Chapter 2: Next Stop: San Francisco

  Chapter 3: Fake-Out

  Chapter 4: Cartoon Criminal

  Chapter 5: Wild Ride

  Chapter 6: Keeping Secrets

  Chapter 7: “F” Is for Fans

  Chapter 8: A Clue!

  Chapter 9: Superhero Action!

  Chapter 10: Break-in—or Break in the Case?

  Chapter 11: Framed?

  Chapter 12: Back to School

  Chapter 13: Paper Trail

  Chapter 14: Keeping Secrets, Part Two

  Chapter 15: Monsters and Heroes

  Chapter 16: Pretty Sketchy

  Chapter 17: Swimming with Sea Lions

  Chapter 18: Bad Odds

  Chapter 19: Killer Comics

  Chapter 20: Calling Card

  Chapter 21: Mayhem at the Marina

  Chapter 22: Men Overboard!

  Chapter 23: Truly Original

  1.

  Terror at the Circus

  Animals stink.

  Don’t get me wrong—I’m as fond of critters as the next guy. I even have a pet parrot named Playback.

  Okay, maybe I shouldn’t use Playback as an example of how much I love animals. He can seriously work my nerves. But dogs, horses, cats, even mice and snakes are cool. That doesn’t mean they don’t also sometimes smell. You can smell an elephant long before you see it.

  And an elephant stood between me and the bad guy I was chasing down.

  Did I mention elephants are also really big?

  “Come on, Koko,” I pleaded. “Just let me by.”

  I peered under the elephant’s trunk and spotted my brother Frank rounding the far side of the circus tent. His red wig was sliding off his head sideways and his little red nose was gone. The white makeup he wore was streaked with sweat. He was a mess.

  I’m sure I didn’t look any better. This whole clown getup was a bummer. Not exactly suave.

  I was psyched when ATAC (that’s American Teens Against Crime, to those of you not in the know) gave us the assignment to go undercover with the circus. I had imagined being a tough roustabout, a smooth trick rider, or one of those guys who balances pretty girls in the air. But no. “Apprentice Clown” was the job title given to us as our cover.

  For some reason our dad, Fenton Hardy—aka the man who created ATAC—thought this was hilarious. Not that he wasn’t also worried about the danger. He knows better than anyone how serious—deadly serious—these jobs can be. Still, he spent a lot of time laughing and making bad jokes.

  He wouldn’t be joking now.

  Frank and I had finally figured out the identity of the madman who had been sending the threatening e-mails to the circus owner. Why a terrorist wanted to blow up a circus during a crowded matinee is anybody’s guess. If you’re nuts, you’re nuts, right?

  So now Frank and I were tailing a clown calling himself Sad Sack Simon, hoping he’d lead us to the ticking bomb. But Koko the elephant stood in my way.

  I tried to squeeze through the space between Koko’s ginormous front feet and the fence. He stepped forward, blocking me.

  I scooted to his even more ginormous back end. He took two steps back.

  “Koko!” I exclaimed, completely exasperated. “You’re as stubborn as a mule!” Though, come to think of it, a mule would be a lot easier to get by.

  Off to the
side, out of Frank’s sight, Sad Sack ducked under the tent flap. At least I hadn’t lost his trail. “Frank!” I shouted. “Inside!”

  Frank nodded and dashed around to the performers’ entrance.

  “Koko, move it!” I tried again. This was ridiculous. Worse—the performers were going to need to get into the tent. It was dangerously close to showtime. We had to disarm that bomb and catch the terrorist fast!

  I noticed a group of showgirls tottering toward the tent on their high heels. They gave me an idea.

  “See, there’s your crush,” I told the balky elephant, pointing toward Tanya. Tanya made her entrance riding on Koko. Koko acted like a lovesick pup around Tanya. A two-ton pup.

  “Hey, Tanya!” I called. “Have a great show!”

  Tanya looked over and gave a lukewarm smile. As a clown, I’m not exactly a babe magnet. “Thanks,” she called back.

  At the sound of Tanya’s voice—just as I had hoped—Koko jumped into action. Well, not jumped, exactly. Plodded is more accurate. The elephant lumbered toward the girls.

  “Koko!” Tanya squealed. She held out her arms to Koko.

  I shook my head. I can barely get Tanya’s attention. But a big, stinky elephant gets the girl’s best smile.

  I didn’t have time to think about being beat out by a pachyderm. The moment Koko moved out of my path, I raced toward the tent and through the performers’ entrance flap.

  Frank stood inside with his hands on his hips. After the bright sunshine outside, the interior of the tent was dim. I blinked a few times, trying to adjust.

  “Did we lose him?” I asked.

  “’Fraid so,” Frank said.

  I scuffed the sawdust in the ring, kicking up dirt. “I can’t believe I got waylaid by an elephant!”

  “The best thing we can do is find that device,” said Frank. “I saw Sad Sack climbing down from the flying trapeze platform. After that, he vanished.”

  “Makes sense,” I said, peering up toward the tippy-top of the tent at the platform. “No one goes up there but the flyers. They’re the last to perform. Sad Sack could plant the bomb and no one would disturb it.”

  Frank tried to run his hands through his dark hair in frustration and knocked off his wig. We both ignored it. “How are we going to keep him from setting it off?”

  “The plans we saw were fairly primitive,” I reminded him. “Low-tech. He’s not going to use a remote.”

  “You’re right,” Frank agreed. He turned to face me, his expression grim under his smeared clown makeup. “Which means it’s already set to go off.”

  My blood ran cold as his words sunk in. “We’ve got to disarm that bomb pronto. I’ll bet he has it timed to explode during the opening parade!”

  “I think you’re right, bro,” said Frank. He raced toward the ladder leading up to the trapeze platform. “We’ll worry about bringing the bad guy to justice after we make sure this place doesn’t blow up.”

  I was right behind him. Once he had climbed a few rungs, I clambered up after him.

  Climbing the ladder wasn’t the cinch I had expected. My stupid clown shoes kept slipping off the little rungs. Now that I was under him, I noticed that Frank was barefoot. He’d ditched his floppy clown shoes. I wished I had done the same.

  After the long climb up to nearly the very top of the tent, I swung around to get my feet on the platform. Frank was already scouring the cables, the steel supports, checking under the platform.

  Me? I avoided looking down.

  Believe me—I’m no wimp. I’ve parachuted out of planes and bungee jumped, and I’m way into parasailing. So why was I freaking out about standing on a skinny little Plexiglas platform forty feet up?

  Uh . . . hello? The lack of a net? It doesn’t get set up until the intermission. Oh yeah, and the fact that there was probably a ticking bomb up here somewhere . . .

  “Got something!”

  Frank was fiddling with a small box lashed into the corner of the platform where the supports met the platform. Deviously brilliant. The bomb had been placed so that when it exploded, the flying rig would collapse. The metal structure would bring the tent down with it.

  Right on top of a thousand circus lovers.

  The crazed clown didn’t even need a bomb that packed a lot of punch. Just enough to destroy the rig.

  Frank held up the small box. “Timer is already going,” he said grimly. “We have to work fast. They’re going to let the audience in any minute.”

  I pulled my very special cell phone out of my pocket—the one I used to snap the high-def pix of the plans we had found. We needed to know exactly which wires to pull, or the whole place would go sky-high. And us along with it.

  “Image coming up!” I said. I peered at the tiny screen. “It’s the—”

  “Give me that!”

  I whirled around so fast I lost the cell phone. It flew out of my hands and dropped down forty feet to the ring.

  Glad it wasn’t me!

  I gripped the steel pole to steady myself. Sad Sack’s head rose up to the platform. My hand hit a little bag dangling from one of the supports. A little white cloud puffed out of it on contact.

  Chalk! The flyers kept bags of it up here to keep their hands from slipping.

  I ripped the bag down and smacked it hard into Sad Sack’s face.

  “Yah!” he yelped, sputtering and coughing. Chalk dust flew everywhere. I shut my eyes and smacked him again, trying not to inhale. I wanted him blinded and coughing—not me!

  “What do I do?” Frank shouted at me.

  “Green wire!” I yelled back, even though he was only a foot away. “Pull the green wire!”

  “Stop!” Sad Sack bellowed. He blindly reached out to try to grab my ankle. I slid my feet out of his reach and smacked him with the chalk bag again. Only nothing poofed out. The bag was done.

  Uh-oh.

  “You stupid kids!” Sad Sack clambered up onto the platform and lunged at Frank. Frank deftly hoisted himself up to the second-level platform and kicked Sad Sack in the gut.

  Sad Sack grabbed a steel rung with one hand and clutched his belly with the other. He bent over, groaning and swearing.

  “Come on!” cried Frank.

  I pulled myself up to the higher platform. Frank had tucked the device into his clown costume and was gripping the flying trapeze bar.

  I gaped at him. “You have got to be kidding,” I said.

  Strong fingers grabbed my ankle.

  “Up, up, and away!” I shouted, kicking away Sad Sack’s hand.

  Frank and I each grabbed the wide bar. I took in a deep breath, and before I could change my mind, I shouted, “Now!”

  We leaped off the platform.

  I instantly felt a burn in my shoulders and pressure in my hands as my body dropped.

  “Kick!” Frank yelled beside me.

  I had put as much oomph into my jump off the platform as I could, but it still wasn’t enough to make it to the other side. If we didn’t pick up momentum, we’d swing right back to Sad Sack.

  Or worse—come to a dead stop in the center of the ring. Forty feet up.

  “One, two, three, kick out!” Frank ordered.

  We kicked out, but we weren’t in total synch. We kept the swing going, but didn’t gain any momentum. “Again!” he shouted.

  After a few tries, we were finally kicking back and forth together, gaining power and adding height to the arc of our swing.

  What a total rush! Our movement created an amazing breeze that cooled my sweating face.

  I almost forgot that we had a crazed clown and a ticking bomb to worry about!

  “Harder!” yelled Frank. “This should do it!”

  I jackknifed the center of my body as we pulled up toward the platform we’d left, then opened up sharply and pushed my hips forward to create the perfect pendulum motion that would bring us across the ring. Frank did the same.

  Who knew the flying trapeze was all about physics? I’d have to pay more attention in class.
br />   My toes felt the platform and I flung all my weight forward, releasing the bar. Man, what a burn to my poor hands! Instinctively I threw my arm behind Frank’s back. We stumbled toward the steel bars at the back of the platform and held on, catching our breath.

  If it hadn’t been so terrifying, it would have been the best three minutes of my life!

  Frank yanked the device out of his costume. “Did you see the instructions?”

  I nodded. “You have to clip the green wire, and then unwind the copper that’s around the red wire—in that order.”

  Frank pressed his lips together as he concentrated. We didn’t have any wire clippers with us, so he was working the wire with his fingernails. Finally it broke in half.

  “You’re doing great,” I said. I meant it. His hands were a lot steadier than mine at the moment!

  As he unwound the tiny copper wire, I glanced back to the opposite platform. Sad Sack would have to climb all the way back down and cross the ring to get to us. I figured we’d be okay long enough to disarm the bomb.

  Ping! Ping!

  That was before he started shooting.

  “Done!” Frank cried.

  Ping!

  We ducked down. We lay on our stomachs and wriggled toward the ladder.

  Ping!

  “That’ll take too long,” I said. I saw the thick rope hanging beside the ladder. It was used in a different act, but was clipped to the flying platform. “We need to take the express!”

  I unclipped the rope, then wrapped it around my leg. I grabbed on tight and slid down to the ground. My hands were going to be seriously blistered after this.

  We hit the sawdust running. I stooped to grab the cell phone. I didn’t want it to get into the wrong hands—not with all the goodies loaded into it. Miraculously it had survived the fall. ATAC knows how to build technology.

  I hit our SOS call, and within moments law enforcement swarmed into the tent.

  2

  Next Stop: San Francisco

  “The new issue of Fierce is out today,” Chet said. We were standing in front of Beastly, Chet’s favorite comics store at the mall. “Scotty Milner is a total genius.”

  “He’s cool,” agreed Joe. “But you’ve got to give P. J. Rodriguez props too. His new series, Dragon’s Tooth, is awesome.”