Rocky Road Read online

  “No better way to cool off!”

  “Look,” I interrupted him. “We don’t want any, okay? And we’d like you to move your truck out of here, if you don’t mind. That song—it’s really annoying.”

  Captain Creamy seemed offended. “Hey!” he said. “It’s ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad’!”

  “I know that,” I said.

  “It’s a classic,” he said. “An American classic.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “Hey!” Joe broke in. “Just move along, okay? Don’t make us have to ask you again!”

  “I’ve got hard ice cream, too!” he kept on. “Toasted Almond? How about a Fudgsicle?”

  “Maybe next time,” I said.

  I felt kind of sorry for him. This poor guy was really desperate.

  “Whatsa matter? You don’t like ice cream? That’s un-American!”

  “I guess we’re gonna have to call traffic control,” I said to Joe, and we turned back toward the house.

  “WAIT!”

  His shout stopped us in our tracks. “Here!” he said, holding out a big box of ice-cream sandwiches. “Take it—no charge!”

  No charge?

  “That’s weird,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Joe replied, “but the price is right.” He went back over to the truck and took the box from Captain Creamy.

  “You won’t be sorry!”

  Joe scowled back at him. “I’m sorry already. Now move along before we call the cops.”

  This time, Captain Creamy didn’t wait around. He hit the gas pedal and, with a screech of rubber, the ice-cream truck barreled off down the street, still blasting “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” at full volume.

  “We’d better hide this box from Mom and Aunt Trudy,” Joe said, looking it over.

  “You’ve got that right!”

  “There must be two dozen sandwiches in here. It weighs a ton!”

  “We’d better put it way in the back of the freezer.”

  “I don’t think so, Frank.”

  Joe was looking at me with a suddenly serious expression on his face.

  He held up the box for me to see. On the side were written the letters ATAC.

  Captain Creamy had just brought us our next case!

  3.

  OVER A BARREL

  Well, you could have fooled me.

  That geeky ice-cream guy, an agent for ATAC?

  No way.

  Either they’ve lowered their standards over at headquarters, or Captain Creamy was the ultimate master of disguise.

  Anyway, whatever. We had our next case, and that was what counted.

  I went back into the house with Frank right behind me, the big box of “ice-cream sandwiches” under his arm.

  Aunt Trudy was waiting, with Playback perched on her shoulder. There was no hiding our prize from them.

  “What did I say about junk food?” she asked, shaking her head.

  “But Aunt Trudy—,” Frank started.

  “Aaarrk! Wanna cookie! Wanna cookie!”

  “Hand it over,” Trudy said.

  Yikes!

  No way could we let Aunt Trudy look inside that box. I didn’t know what was in it, but I knew it wasn’t ice-cream sandwiches.

  Frank and I were experts at talking our way around our mom, but nobody has ever put anything over on Aunt Trudy.

  “We’re not gonna open it now,” Frank said quickly, holding the box away from her. “We’re just gonna put it in the Sub-Zero . . . for another time.”

  “Hmmph.” Aunt Trudy crossed her arms, looking doubtful. “All right. Just as long as you make them last.”

  Whoa. Impressive. I always knew Frank was a good liar, but you also have to be quick sometimes.

  This was way quick. Me, I never would have thought of it.

  We went down to the basement. Behind us, at the top of the stairs, Aunt Trudy watched, eagle-eyed.

  Frank opened the Sub-Zero freezer unit and put the box inside. “There. Come on, Joe, we’ve got things to do.”

  “But—”

  “Come on, Joe.”

  I was going to say that whatever was in the box might not take too well to freezing. But Frank was right—what choice did we have with Aunt Trudy there?

  We went up to our rooms. They adjoin each other on the second floor, with a shared bathroom in between. Frank and I sat down on the side of my bed.

  “Now what do we do?” I asked.

  “I guess we wait till Aunt Trudy decides to go to sleep.”

  “We can’t wait till after midnight to check it out—this case could be urgent!”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. But we can’t risk Aunt Trudy finding out about ATAC.”

  “Frank, that disk will freeze in there by tonight!”

  That got him. “You might be right about that. . . . Just give me a minute to think of something.”

  He sat there.

  I sat next to him.

  Nothing happened for what seemed like an hour. Then Frank suddenly sprang up from the bed.

  “I’ve got it!”

  “What?”

  “It’s brilliant. You’ll see.”

  He picked up the phone and punched in a number. “Adam, please.”

  Adam Franklin is one of the mechanics at our local airport. He’s in on the ATAC secret—he has to be, since Joe and I sometimes have to fly planes to weird locations while on our missions.

  He also happens to be a friend of Aunt Trudy’s.

  “Hi, Adam,” Frank said into the phone. “Frank Hardy. Listen, I’ve got a favor to ask of you. What are you doing tonight after dinner? Really? That’s great! How’d you like to invite my Aunt Trudy out to the movies? Yes, I’m serious. . . . I know you’re not interested in her ‘that way,’ but couldn’t you just pretend for one night? Adam, it’s for ATAC. . . . I can’t go into it any further, but trust me, it’s important. . . . Great! Adam, you’re the best. . . . I owe you one. . . . Yes, a great big one. Right. You’ll call her, then? Excellent. Bye!”

  I shook my head in wonder. “You are unbelievable.”

  “On the contrary. I think I’m totally believable. Ask Adam.”

  In a few minutes we heard the phone ring downstairs and Aunt Trudy saying, “Hello?”

  She stayed on the phone for only a minute. But afterward, we could hear her humming a cheerful tune to herself as she got dinner ready.

  “Soon as she leaves the house, we rescue our box,” Frank said.

  “We’d better hope it’s not frozen by then.”

  “It won’t be.”

  “I’m glad you’re so sure. Do you know how cold it is inside a Sub-Zero?”

  “Let me guess. Below zero.”

  “Exactly!”

  Frank grinned at me. “No worries, bro. I pulled out the plug with my foot and left the door open a crack.”

  Is my big brother amazing, or what?

  After dinner Aunt Trudy raced upstairs—and when the doorbell rang half an hour later, she came back down, all dressed up. Complete with makeup.

  (She never wears makeup! Adam, you dog, you!)

  Once she was gone, we quickly retrieved our box. It was chilled, but miraculously, not frozen. I tore the top open and reached inside. My hand came in contact with frozen metal and stuck to it like glue.

  “Ahhh! Get it off me!” I yelled, pulling my hand out of the box.

  Attached to it was the barrel of a gun.

  Frank laughed. “That’ll teach you not to grab.”

  He went into the bathroom and came back with our blow-dryer. Plugging it in, he heated up the gun barrel until my hand came free.

  “Now let’s see what else is in here,” he said, shaking the box’s contents out onto the bed.

  There were more pieces of the gun, although I couldn’t immediately figure out how to put them together. It looked like a sawed-off M4 rifle, but there were some extra parts that were unfamiliar.

  There was a large wad of cash, too.

  “Excell
ent!” I said, reaching for it—but Frank whisked it away from me in a flash.

  “Uh-uh-uh,” he said, wagging his finger at me. “This is for our mission.”

  “So?”

  “So, as the older brother, I’ll keep an eye on it for us.”

  I hate it when he pulls rank on me.

  “Let’s see what it’s all about.” He grabbed the video game CD that had tumbled out of the box, popped it into our system, and flicked on the monitor.

  The startup video began, with menu options strung out at the bottom of the screen.

  Over the Edge, the title roared out at us.

  In clever animation that seemed totally real, we were at surface level on a roaring river rapids. White water gushed by us so fast, it made me want to duck.

  The title letters whooshed by and out of sight. Then the view backed up, and we saw that we were hovering right over a huge waterfall. And not just any waterfall—

  Niagara Falls!

  The menu options came on the screen, including one that said, “Play Game.” I grabbed the control and chose it. The voice of Q.T., our boss at ATAC, began to speak:

  “Hello, there, ATAC agents, and welcome to your next mission. What you’re looking at is the famous Niagara Falls. It is, as you know, a major tourist attraction. Millions of people visit every year. The Niagara River, which feeds the falls, is also a major source of hydroelectric power for the surrounding area.

  “And now, someone is threatening to turn it off, by damming the river at Lake Ontario!

  “That would be a major disaster. The waters of four of the five Great Lakes pour through the Niagara River. If they started backing up, it could cause catastrophic flooding throughout the region.

  “Only a lunatic would plan and carry out a scheme like this—and only an ATAC agent can stop him. You’ll need to get up there as soon as possible—certainly within twenty-four hours. Time is of the essence.

  “We’ve provided you with cash for your expenses and a stun gun that can be quickly assembled and disassembled. Nonlethal, but effective in temporarily stopping an attacker. This weapon fires projectiles that explode three feet in front of the target, releasing an electrical charge that stuns your quarry until you can subdue him. Instructions for assembly are rolled up inside the barrel. Please destroy them as soon as you’ve mastered the process. And remember, please use this weapon only if you feel it is absolutely necessary.

  “Good luck. You’ll need it. This mission, as usual, is top secret. Oh, and also as usual, this program will revert to an ordinary video game CD in five seconds.”

  The view angle pointed down, straight down the falls, and we started falling with it. Just as we were about to hit the rocks at the bottom, the picture froze and music came on.

  Milli Vanilli.

  Ugh.

  Frank was already at work, reading the instructions for weapon assembly. “This is so cool!” he said.

  Frank loves gadgets.

  I’m a bit of a spy weapons geek myself.

  I could tell we were going to fight over this one. But not now, because we had to pack our things and get out of town in a hurry.

  And of course, we had to get permission from our mother, too.

  Easier said than done.

  4.

  SLOWLY I TURN

  Usually, when Joe and I need to go somewhere by ourselves on a mission, our dad helps us “explain things” to Mom and Aunt Trudy. But this time he was out of town, at a retired police officers’ convention in New York City.

  We were on our own.

  I am the brother in charge of making up stories. The thing is, when you start telling lies, there’s no end to it . . . and sometimes things go wrong, and you get caught in your lie . . . which means you have to lie some more to get out of it. . . .

  You get the picture.

  “Um, Mom?” I said as we ate breakfast. “Joe and I want to take one last trip on our bikes before school starts.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Not another trip!”

  Right away I could see she wasn’t happy about it.

  “I was thinking about what you were saying about junk food yesterday,” I said, “and there’s this organic food convention starting tomorrow in Niagara Falls.”

  “Niagara Falls?” Aunt Trudy said, her mouth gaping.

  “Aaarrk! Slowly I turn . . . step by step . . . inch by inch . . .”

  “Shut up, Playback,” Joe warned the parrot.

  Playback took the hint, hopping away from Joe and over to the far end of the counter. He could tell Joe meant business. There’s a time for joking, and this wasn’t it.

  “Niagara Falls is nine hours from here!” Aunt Trudy said.

  “Now, Trudy,” Mom said, “if the boys finally want to do something I approve of, why should I stand in their way? Besides, Niagara Falls is a national landmark—and they’ve never seen it.”

  Good old Mom. She’s always been cool about allowing us a lot of freedom.

  And by the way, just for the record, she was right—with all the cases we’ve been on, we’d never been to Niagara Falls.

  Aunt Trudy wasn’t giving up yet, though. “I don’t believe a word of it. And Joe, I don’t like you speaking to Playback that way.”

  “Huh? He’s a parrot!”

  “Never mind—he’s part of our family, and he deserves the same respect we all do. Now, apologize.”

  Joe looked bug-eyed, like he was choking on a piece of raw liver.

  “I think you’d better do it, Joe,” Mom said gently.

  He looked at me.

  I shrugged. “Hey, dude, you were rude to the parrot.”

  Joe looked at Playback and tried to spit out the words. “I . . . I’m . . . s . . . sorry.”

  I’ve never seen him look more miserable. Me, I was cheerful as could be. “So,” I asked, “can we leave right away?”

  “I’ll be sorry to see this summer come to an end,” Joe said as we strapped our backpacks onto our bikes.

  “It’s been pretty amazing,” I agreed.

  We’d been on at least half a dozen cases, with lots of thrills and chills and narrow escapes.

  Now it was almost over. Would ATAC even call us during the school year?

  Not very often, I guessed. This might be our last case for a very long time.

  We strapped on our helmets and headed for the interstate. The sun was already hot, but it wouldn’t matter at 70 mph, with the wind in our faces.

  Our plan was to ride straight through till we got there. It was a straight shot up the New York State Thruway.

  One thing we didn’t plan on was road construction. Between Rochester and Syracuse, traffic was gridlocked. Not that we let that slow us down. We just switched to the service road and rode at 60 mph.

  And that’s how Joe hit the pothole.

  I saw it coming and managed to maneuver around it—but I must have screened it from Joe’s view, because he ran right over it. I didn’t see him hit, but I heard his cry of pain.

  I slowed down as quickly as I could and stole a quick glance back at him. He was still riding, but in standing position.

  Ouch. That must have hurt.

  Joe was still riding standing up a couple of hours later when we pulled into Niagara Falls. He rode up alongside and signaled me to pull over outside a building marked TOURIST INFORMATION.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I’ll never be the same again. Talk about rocky road!”

  Well, at least he still had his sense of humor.

  We started grabbing maps and brochures off the rack outside the building. “First thing we’ve gotta do is find a decent hotel, where I can take a long, hot bath,” Joe said.

  I corrected him. “First thing we’ve gotta do is check out the falls.”

  “Aw, man . . . every bone in my body is aching.”

  “Joe, we got a late start on this as it is. We have to get down there and scope it out, so we know where to start investigating. Otherwise this jerk will have d
ammed up the river before we can stop him!”

  “Here. I pulled this brochure for you,” Joe said.

  “Over in a Barrel,” the title read. It had stories of everyone who’d ever gone over the falls—with or without a barrel.

  “What’s this for?” I asked.

  “I figured this guy must be some kind of nut, right? Well, if you want to know about nuts obsessed with Niagara Falls . . .”

  He had a point. I looked through the brochure while Joe went inside and bought some aspirin, which he downed with half a bottle of water.

  Quite a few people over the years had gotten the idea of tackling the falls into their heads. Most of them had died.

  The most recent jumper, however, a guy named Kirk Jones, had not used anything at all for protection—and he’d come out alive and uninjured!

  It just goes to show you, it’s better to be lucky than smart.

  I managed to get Joe back on his bike, and we headed straight for the American side of the falls (the other side is in Canada). We parked our bikes, paid our admission fee, and went down an elevator and through a tunnel.

  We came out onto a wooden walkway and stared at the most amazing sight I’d ever seen this close up. If you’ve never been to Niagara Falls, you’ve got to go—it is totally spectacular!

  There we were, not twenty feet away, as mountains of water roared over the edge of the cliff and down past us, where they hit the rocks below and sent clouds of spray back up. At the end of the walkway, stairs led down toward the abyss below.

  I fished out the binoculars I always carry and checked out the river below us. There was a boat chugging hard to get as close to the falls as possible. I could make out her name: Maid of the Mist.

  Cute.

  I also saw, across the falls on the Canadian side, a promenade crammed with sightseers. Behind them was a park, and farther down, a main street with all sorts of tacky attractions on it: a wax museum, a museum of famous freaks, a replica of a torture chamber, an instant wedding chapel.

  I remembered that Niagara Falls is a famous honeymoon spot. I have to tell you, it didn’t seem that romantic.

  Maybe it was different after dark.

  I lowered my binoculars, and there, on the face of the Canadian cliff, was a hydroelectric energy station. Obviously, Canada was using power from the falls to light up its houses and factories. I guessed that the United States was doing the same.