Pushed

  ATAC BRIEFING FOR AGENTS FRANK AND JOE HARDY

  MISSION:

  Investigate the murder of Evan Davis, a runaway teen who was pushed off a subway platform.

  LOCATION:

  New York City.

  POTENTIAL VICTIMS:

  Other teens living at the Haven, a shelter for runaways in the city.

  SUSPECTS:

  Everyone from another resident of the shelter who ended up with Evan’s jacket to Evan’s own dad, a politician who wanted to keep his son a secret.

  THIS MISSION REQUIRES YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. THIS MESSAGE WILL BE ERASED IN FIVE SECONDS.

  WATCH OUT FOR OUR NEXT CASE: #19: Foul Play

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Cover designed by Lisa Vega

  Cover photograph copyright © 2007 by Getty Images

  Ages 8-12

  kids.simonandschuster.com

  0907

  Trapped underground!

  “If you were a guy in a suit, we’d be saying the same thing. We’d be asking you to help us. Will you help us? All we want is to find out how our friend died,” I said.

  “You should have told me that in the first place,” the man answered. “I’m a believer in truth, justice, and the American way—just like Superman.” He handed me the box. “I just don’t like to be pushed around.”

  He turned and headed deeper into the subway.

  “Where’s he going?” Joe whispered. “The Batcave?”

  “Wrong superhero,” I answered. “Wherever he’s going, I don’t . . .”

  The words evaporated in my mouth. My suddenly dry mouth. The air around me was . . . vibrating. Then the ground started to shake.

  Two small circles of blinding light appeared in the darkness.

  “Train!” yelled Joe.

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  Available from Simon & Schuster

  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 © 2007 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 UNDERCOVER BROTHERS are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Lisa Vega

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

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition September 2007

  Library of Congress Control Number 2007921471

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-4802-5

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-4802-3

  ISBN: 978-1-4424-6537-4 (eBook)

  1. Poisoned Pilot

  2. Pushed?

  3. Runaways

  4. A Dead Guy’s Jacket

  5. Down on the Tracks

  6. Let Joe Do It

  7. Bump and Pick

  8. Secrets

  9. Get Out!

  10. Thief

  11. Dead

  12. The Morgue

  13. Potter’s Field

  14. Threats

  15. Where’s the Money?

  16. Bait

  17. Thankful to Be Alive

  1.

  POISONED PILOT

  “We shut that place down,” Joe said. He glanced out the window of the Cessna Skylane and watched the Miller Academy grow smaller and smaller as we flew away.

  I swallowed hard. “Yeah. And it needed it. It was like a school for hate crimes.” I pushed the throttle forward. I wanted to get a little more altitude.

  “You’re sweating like a hog,” Joe told me.

  “I know.” I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe off my face.

  “It’s Dr. Miller who should be sweating. He’s never going to teach again. Forget about treating patients,” Joe said.

  I swallowed again. “Yeah. Using his psychiatric training to make the students at his school violent—that was seriously evil.” Parents usually sent a kid to Miller after they’d been booted from at least one other school. Dr. Miller, the head of the academy, had a reputation for being able to get any kid—no matter how “troubled”—straightened out.

  And maybe there was a time when he was even good at it. Then he got fascinated by what caused violent behavior and started doing experiments with the kids at his school. He didn’t stop even when one of his human lab rats got violent enough to seriously injure a teacher.

  I had to swallow again.

  “You want a soda?” Joe asked. “We don’t have anything cold, but we have a couple cans left over from when we flew in.”

  “Better not,” I said. I ran one hand through my hair. Sweat had it plastered to my head. “I’m already dying to go to the bathroom.”

  Joe clucked. “What would Aunt Trudy say? You’re always supposed to go before you leave home, even if you’re just going to be gone for ten minutes.”

  I laughed, and a little saliva spilled out of my mouth. I wiped it off with my sleeve.

  Joe stared at me. “Like you’re not a total slob,” I told him.

  “SLUDGE,” said Joe, eyes wide.

  “Sludge?” I repeated.

  “Salivation, lacrimation, urination, diarrhea, gastric upset, and emesis,” Joe rattled off. “Remember from the ATAC first-aid class? I think Miller fed us poisonous mushrooms in that salad. Frank, you have muscarine poisoning.”

  “You’re not showing any symptoms,” I pointed out. “And you ate the salad too.”

  “I hate mushrooms, remember? I picked mine out.” Joe dug around in his pocket and pulled out a handful of mushroom pieces. “I stashed them when Miller wasn’t looking. I didn’t want to be rude to the demented criminal. Aunt Trudy believes there’s no excuse for bad table manners.”

  He reached over and put his fingers on the side of my neck. “Your pulse is up,” he told me after about fifteen seconds.

  “Wait, am I crying?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that’s lacrimation,” Joe informed me. “We’ve got to get you to a hospital. Are you going to be able to keep flying this thing?”

  I looked at the instrument panel. It was a blur of red and white. “My vision’s affected now. You better take over.”

  “Just keep her straight for one minute while I find a place for an emergency landing. We need to get you to a doctor, now.” Joe pulled out our map. I squinted, bringing the dials back into focus.

  “Okay, there’s a hospital about seventy miles from here,” my brother said. “The map shows a nice, big patch of green behind it. There are a lot of potato fields around here. I’m betting it’s one of them. We can do an emergency landing. Let’s trade places. I’ll slide over, you slide under
.”

  My stomach turned over, and the nausea made my head spin.

  “Come on, Frank. Move,” Joe urged.

  “I don’t think I can,” I admitted.

  Joe leaned across me and nudged the yoke to the left. “We need to head ten degrees west. That should do it. Just hold it steady for another sec while I radio for help.”

  I nodded, swallowing down the saliva that kept flooding my mouth. I flicked the perspiration and tears away from my eyes, but I still couldn’t see the dial of the compass. So I just followed Joe’s instructions and held the yoke as firmly as I could with my sweat-slick hands.

  “Okay, an ambulance is going to meet us. The field is coming up. You see it?” asked Joe.

  “I see it,” I told him. “And I hope my eyesight is getting worse. Those aren’t trees in the potato field, are they?”

  “I guess I was wrong about the potato part,” Joe admitted. “But those trees are about a mile out. That gives us enough space to land.” He leaned over and took the yoke again.

  “Just barely,” I commented.

  “Just barely is more than enough for me,” Joe answered. “Get the field lined up with your right wing tip,” he muttered, coaching himself. “Altimeter should be at one thousand.”

  My stomach gave another flip-flop. Symptom, not fear, I thought.

  “Okay, we’re going in. Hang on.” Joe pulled back on the throttle to slow us down.

  “Careful not to let the nose drop too far,” I warned.

  “You worry about the rudder pedals,” Joe shot back as he released the landing gear. “I can’t reach them from over here.” He pulled all the way back on the throttle, then brought the yoke back a little.

  We hit the bumpy ground hard—and bounced. We hit again and stayed there, tearing across the long grass.

  “Trees,” Joe reminded me.

  I blinked rapidly to clear my vision. Yep, there were trees. And we were going to crash into them. We were going way too fast to avoid it.

  I used the rudder pedals to position the body of the plane between the two trees that looked farthest apart. A little left. Too far. A tiny bit right. This was it. There was no time for anything else.

  My body jerked as the plane slammed into the trees. But I’d gotten us lined up so the wings took most of the impact.

  “You okay?” I asked my brother.

  “Excellent tree crashing! You did it!” he cried over the wail of the approaching ambulance.

  “I did it. And now I think I need to vomit,” I told him.

  2.

  PUSHED?

  “Aunt Trudy, Frank wants oyster dressing this year.”

  I couldn’t resist tormenting my brother. I pulled a jar of the slimies off the supermarket shelf and waved them in front of Frank. His face went as gray as the crustaceans—just like it had before he puked all over the instrument panel of the plane. Wait, make that mollusks. Crustaceans are the ones with the flexible carapaces, not shells. See, I’m as much of a science guy as Frank. Yet I am cooler and better at video games.

  “Frank Hardy, you always rave about how much you love my chestnut stuffing,” Aunt T scolded. “Are you telling me you’d rather have oyster?”

  “No!” Frank said quickly. He shoved the oysters out of his sight line and glared at me. I gave a snort of laughter. I know, I know. The oyster thing was totally juvenile. But I had to give Frank a little extra torment—just to show I was glad he was still alive.

  “Are you sure?” Aunt Trudy pressed. “It’s your Thanksgiving. I want you to have your favorites. I can make oyster and chestnut.”

  “No, really, thanks, Aunt Trudy, but I’m not hungry,” answered Frank.

  Aunt Trudy laughed. “Thanksgiving isn’t for almost two weeks,” she reminded him. “I hope you’ll find your appetite by then.”

  “I may never eat again,” Frank mumbled.

  Aunt Trudy didn’t hear him. She’d taken off down the aisle, racing a woman toward the last turkey-shaped cake pan. Aunt T won. I knew she would. She’s sort of old. But she’s fast—and crafty.

  Actually, she’d make a great ATAC agent, except for the part where the T stands for “Teens.” The American Teens Against Crime organization was set up by Frank’s and my father. Dad figured there were some situations—situations like your basic mad scientist trying to make reform school kids more vicious—where teens were the best possible operatives because they could fit in in a way that adults couldn’t. He’s a retired cop, so he knows all about infiltration, and going undercover, and the rest of that covert stuff. He isn’t crazy about me and Frank getting in dangerous situations—he’s a dad, after all—but he knows that we’re helping put away the bad guys, and that makes him proud.

  Aunt Trudy and Mom would be proud of us too—after they finished killing us for risking our necks. So it’s probably better that they don’t know.

  “You’re going to make your giblet gravy again this year, aren’t you, Aunt T?” I asked. Because Frank’s face had gotten pretty much back to normal color, and I wanted to see if I could make it go green this time.

  “Of course. I’m famous for it,” Aunt Trudy answered.

  “What are giblets again?” I scratched my head, like I was trying to think. Okay, sometimes I carry things to far.

  “Heart, liver, gizzard,” Aunt Trudy listed off. “I chop them up kind of coarse, and—”

  “We need cereal,” Frank burst out. He hadn’t gone green exactly, but his face definitely wasn’t any of the healthy human colors. “I’ll go get it.”

  And he was outta there.

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I’m a fun-loving kind of guy. A crackling sound came over the grocery store audio system, and I thought I might hear a “clean up in aisle” whatever aisle the cereal was on. Instead I heard my own name.

  “Joe Hardy, you have won the Gobble Gobble Goodies Prize of the Day. Come on down to cash register three to pick it up,” a girl called over the intercom.

  “Go see what you won, Joe!” cried Aunt Trudy. “I hope it’s the biggest turkey in the place.”

  I headed toward the front of the store. I suspected Frank had figured out a way to get me back for trying to make him puke. Aunt Trudy isn’t the only crafty one in the family.

  “I’m Joe Hardy,” I said when I reached register three.

  “Then Theresa is yours,” the checker told me.

  “I’m hoping your name is Theresa,” I replied. She was really cute, with her blond hair all scooped up on the top of her head.

  “Uh, no, it’s not,” the girl answered. She pointed to her name tag. I hadn’t noticed it before. It read JULIANNA in big red letters.

  “My brother isn’t that observant,” said Frank as he stepped up behind me.

  Julianna smiled at him, in that flirty way 98 percent of girls smile at my brother. The sad thing is, he usually doesn’t notice. And when he does, he blushes.

  Frank here. I don’t think all this discussion about the various colors my face can turn adds anything to the—

  Joe here. And I’m telling this part of the story. Take your face and the rest of you on out of here.

  So anyway, suddenly Julianna was shoving this huge turkey piñata into my arms. It was crazy-looking. Its feathers were bright pink and it had eyelashes about a foot long. “This is Theresa,” Julianna explained. “I think you two make an adorable couple.”

  “I do too,” Frank added.

  “I didn’t actually enter a contest or anything.” I shifted Theresa so that her beak wasn’t about to peck my eye out—and that’s when I heard it. A muffled thunking sound. There was something inside my turkey, and I didn’t think it was candy. Or giblets. “But thanks,” I added quickly. I rushed out to the parking lot, Frank on my heels.

  “Aunt Trudy still needs help with those two carts of groceries,” he reminded me.

  “I know. Just give me one second.” I shoved my hand into the turkey and felt a game cassette inside. I was right. “We’ve got a mission,” I told
Frank.

  Frank and I helped unload and stow the mountain of food Aunt Trudy thought was necessary for our family Thanksgiving. Then we headed up to his room. We quickly emptied out the turkey piñata and ended up with the game cartridge labeled “Runaway,” a map of the New York City Subway, and two plane tickets to LaGuardia Airport.

  “We’ve got a sweet New York City mission,” I said, holding up the tickets.

  “Let’s see just how sweet,” answered Frank. He slid the game cassette into the player.

  A video began to play. My eyes flicked back and forth as I tried to take in everything at once. The video showed a subway station—an NYC Subway station, I assumed. Yellow crime-scene tape was strung between the cement pillars that ran down the station, blocking access to the edge of the platform.

  “I don’t like this already,” Frank said, his eyes on the cop who had just ducked under the tape line. He handed an empty vinyl body bag down to someone on the tracks.

  The image faded and was replaced by some grainy black-and-white footage of a crowded city street. A yellow arrow pointed at a teenage guy in grubby clothes carrying a cardboard box.

  “Evan Davis. Age fifteen,” the low, serious voice of our ATAC contact began. “This footage was taken by an electronics store security camera approximately five minutes before he entered the Astor Place subway station. Ten minutes later he was dead, hit by a subway train. It is unclear if his death was an accident . . . or murder.”

  A new image appeared—a color photo of Evan and a couple of other teenagers in front of a four-story building of gray stone. A sky blue sign with yellow daisies on it read THE HAVEN.

  “Davis ran away from his home in Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, two months before his death. For the six weeks before he died, he was staying at the Haven, a center for runaway teens at five-seventeen, West Twenty-third Street in Manhattan.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Evan’s face as our contact continued to give us the deets.

  “Davis was scheduled to meet Gwen Anderson, a reporter with the Village Voice, on the day he was killed. Anderson claims that Davis wanted to talk to her about what he described as ‘something bad’ that was going on at the Haven. That’s all he would tell Anderson over the phone. She says he sounded agitated and frightened the day he made the appointment with her.”