Mystery of the Phantom Heist Read online

  “Thanks, Cal,” Daisy said, smiling brightly. “Do I have time to quickly show my friends the ride before it starts?”

  Cal nodded, not making eye contact. He locked the gate, then led the four of us up a metal gangplank toward the shining, brushed-chrome ride. A small rectangular door was embedded in the side, and Cal easily pulled it open, gesturing for us to enter. Behind us, people were hooting and hollering, clearly eager to get onto the ride themselves.

  Inside, small purple lights recessed into the ceiling and walls provided just enough light to make out a circle of huge, cushy seats, each with a sturdy restraining bar, surrounding an open center. I strained to see the ceiling, the floor, anything that would give a hint to what the ride actually did—but it was too dark.

  “So . . . what does it do?” I asked Cal, who had paused in front of a bank of seats.

  He turned to me and smiled. In the low purple light I could just make out that he was missing several teeth. He laughed, a low, raspy sound.

  “I guess you’ll just have to ride it and find out, won’t you?” he asked. Then he nodded at the door. “Let’s get you strapped in.”

  Daisy and Penelope smiled and eagerly chose seats next to each other. As Cal was securing the restraints around each of them, I glanced at my brother. I thought he looked pale.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered. His eyes were darting around the ride nervously.

  He bit his lip. “What do you think the ads meant,” he whispered, “when they said, ‘You’ll never be the same’?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but Joe immediately held up his hand to shush me. “Never mind,” he whispered. “I don’t want Daisy to hear.”

  At that moment, Cal finished strapping in Penelope and looked back at us. Joe smiled eagerly—I mean, I guess it was supposed to look eager, but to me it looked kind of insane—and walked over to the seat next to Daisy. As he got strapped in, I settled into the seat next to Penelope.

  She looked at me warily. “Great,” she said tonelessly, “we get to ride together.”

  I nodded. “There was a rumor on Amusementgeeks.com that this ride will send you into another dimension,” I told her, “but of course that’s scientifically impossible.”

  “Good to know,” she said, and turned back to Daisy.

  Cal came over and quickly strapped me in, placing two restraining belts over my shoulders and clicking a wide metal bar into place just inches from my stomach. He jiggled the bar a little to make sure it was tight, then, apparently satisfied, turned and exited the ride without a word.

  “So, have you test-driven the ride?” Joe asked Daisy, breaking the silence.

  She shook her head. “I wish,” she said with a sigh. “But my dad’s agreement with the Piperato Brothers was very specific. No one—except the test subjects they used when they were designing the ride, I guess—gets to ride G-Force before its official opening.” She checked her watch. “Which happens—wow—in about three minutes!”

  Before any of us could reply, the door opened again, and eager riders from the line began filing in, oohing and aahing, straining to get a good look at the ride’s interior. They milled around and selected seats, and after a minute or so, Cal entered and began to strap all the riders in.

  “So, Daisy,” Brian Mullin, one of the football players, spoke up. “Is this ride going to change my life, or what?”

  Daisy chuckled. “You know what the ads say, Brian,” she replied, deepening her voice. “You’ll never be the same.”

  Brian snickered. “Well, I hope I come out taller.”

  Cal was just finishing strapping in the last rider, and as we all laughed at Brian’s joke, he glanced around at all of us, then nodded. “Enjoy the ride,” he said, not smiling, and then exited through the tiny door. It closed behind him, and the inside of the ride darkened even further.

  Everyone grew quiet as we waited for the ride to begin. In the quiet, I picked up a weird clicking sound—like someone tapping their fingernails against a hard surface. I looked to my right, where the sound was coming from. Penelope was looking around too, seeming to hear it, and Daisy glanced at her and frowned, then turned to Joe.

  “Are your teeth chattering?” she asked.

  But Joe didn’t get a chance to answer—at that very moment, the purple lights clicked off and we were immersed in darkness. A huge whoosh emanated from the floor—probably the ride’s engine cranking up. Then a loud guitar chord sounded: I recognized it as the beginning of “Beautiful,” a rock song that was climbing the charts. The song started up, and then suddenly we were moving—suddenly we were moving really fast! The circle of seats orbited faster and faster around the center, and I could feel the centrifugal force pushing me against the back of the seat. My head slammed back into the headrest, and it felt like the skin of my face was tightening, being pulled back by the force of the revolutions.

  People began screaming, and suddenly the darkness was cut by a bright white light. I could make out the riders on the other side of the circle grimacing and beaming, screaming in fear and pleasure. Then the light cut out, then on again—a strobe light, making the whole ride look like it was in stop-motion.

  The ride seemed to slow, and then suddenly the seats rose into the air. I gasped, exhilarated by the sudden motion. Just as quickly as they’d risen, though, they plunged down, farther, I think, than we’d been when the ride started. The strobe lights changed, suddenly, so that instead of bright white light, we saw neon images projected on the riders across from us—symbols, photographs of beautiful nature scenes, crying babies, an old woman smiling. The ride kept spinning, ascending, descending, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t keep track of all its motions. The scientist in me had wanted to break down exactly what G-Force did, but in the end, I just couldn’t. The experience of the ride took over, and I screamed and laughed with everyone else, feeling totally exhilarated.

  After some time—it could have been seconds or it could have been hours—the ride spun around again, gluing us all back in our seats. I closed my eyes as the revolutions slowed, and the music began to fade. Slower, slower, slower still we circled, until finally I felt the ride click into its resting position. I opened my eyes as the purple lights kicked on again, illuminating the ride with dim light.

  Everyone looked like they’d been tumble dried. Hair stuck out in all directions, clothes were all rumpled, expressions dazed. But as we all looked at one another, not sure how to capture the experience, suddenly Brian Mullin began to clap slowly. The girl on his right joined in, and after a few seconds, so did everyone else on the ride.

  “That was AWESOME!” Brian shouted.

  His words seemed to give everyone else permission to speak too.

  “That was AMAZING. . . .”

  “Unreal . . .”

  “I’ve never felt anything like that.”

  “Omigosh, I want to ride that, like, ten more times!”

  I looked over at Daisy, who looked a little dazed herself, but a smile was creeping slowly to her lips. Joe (who looked less pale now) smiled at her and took her hand, giving it a little squeeze.

  “Looks like Funspot’s new main attraction is a hit,” I heard him whisper to her.

  But as everyone seemed to be giving their personal review of the ride, an increasingly concerned voice broke through the din.

  “Kelly?”

  Penelope sat up, grinning, and patted Daisy’s shoulder. “Good job, Hector,” she said. “I think he bought a winner!”

  “Kelly?”

  I looked across the ride, where the voice was coming from.

  People were gradually stopping their own conversations, turning their attention to the spot where a girl about our age struggled against the restraints, stretching her neck to look around.

  “Kelly? KELLY!”

  The girl let out a sob.

  “Oh no!” she cried. “No, no, no! Where is she?”

  That’s when I caught sight of the seat next to her.

  “My sister di
sappeared!”

  It was empty. And the restraints that should have held Kelly in place had been cut.

  FRANKLIN W.DIXON is the ever-popular author of the Hardy Boys series of books.

  Check out the first mystery in the

  HARDY BOYS ADVENTURES:

  Secret of the Red Arrow

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  Jacket illustration copyright © 2013 by Robert Carter

  ALADDIN

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

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  Library of Congress Control Number 2012953641

  ISBN 978-1-4424-6586-2 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-2237-7 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-2238-4 (eBook)