The Video Game Bandit Read online

  Chapter 4

  THE FIVE WS

  Joe wrote The Five Ws at the top of the page and underlined it twice. Whenever they were trying to solve a mystery, they started with a few simple questions. He wrote Who?, What?, Where?, When?, and Why? underneath the heading.

  “Let’s start with a possible motive,” Frank said. “Why would someone want to take the ZCross5000?”

  Mr. Fun laughed out loud. “Well, that’s easy! Because it’s a ZCross5000! Who wouldn’t want to take it?”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Fun is right,” Mrs. Freeman said. “Everyone in Bayport—not to mention the whole country—wants one.”

  Frank walked the length of the room. “Because it’s expensive and they could sell it. Because they wanted one for themselves. Because they couldn’t get it anywhere else. Those are three possible motives.”

  Joe wrote all three down. Frank and Joe’s dad, Fenton Hardy, was a private investigator. He’d taught them all about motive, which was just another way of saying why someone would do something. Every crime had to have a motive, and sometimes the motive helped you find the suspect.

  “How many guests are at the party?” Joe asked.

  “About a hundred,” Mrs. Freeman answered. She sat down on the couch and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m so upset. What a horrible ending to the afternoon.”

  “It’s not over yet. Is there anyone here that you think might do something like this?” Joe asked.

  Mrs. Freeman shook her head.

  Suddenly Mr. Fun snapped his fingers. “Wait, I remember—I did see someone.”

  Joe put his pen to the paper, ready to copy down everything Mr. Fun said.

  “At the beginning of the party,” Mr. Fun went on, “there was a girl hanging around the den and the dining room, by the prizes. She kept looking into the other rooms, like she was searching for something. She seemed really suspicious.”

  Frank glanced at his brother. Most of the guests had spent the afternoon outside. It was strange that the girl had been in the house, and even stranger that she was exploring all the rooms. “Do you remember what she looked like?”

  “She had a purple shirt with polka dots on and a pink streak in her hair. Her hair was brown. I think. I’m not sure.”

  Joe scribbled some notes. He wrote Pink streak in hair, purple shirt with polka dots, then a few notes about where she’d been in the house. “Is there anyone else who might have done it? Anyone else you can think of ?”

  Mr. Freeman pointed to the closed door on the other side of the room. He lowered his voice when he spoke. “The kitchen is right there. Do you think one of the workers from Forks and Knives might have taken it?”

  “I don’t think so, Ed,” Mrs. Freeman said. “They wouldn’t. Besides, we’ve had them work for us at other parties. Why would they suddenly start stealing things now?”

  Mr. Freeman nodded. “You have a point, but there were two or three people working in the kitchen today. Even if one of them didn’t take it . . . maybe they saw something strange. If anyone used the kitchen door that goes outside, the workers would’ve noticed, right?”

  Mrs. Freeman looked like she might argue with him, so Frank jumped in. “We’ll question them just in case. It helps to have witnesses, too.”

  Joe looked at Cissy. “You said that you saw the ZCross here just half an hour ago?” he asked.

  Cissy looked uncertain. “I think it was half an hour ago, but then again . . . I’m not sure. I thought I saw it at the beginning of the auction, whenever that was.”

  “I think the auction started right at three o’clock,” Mrs. Freeman added. She pointed to Joe’s notebook, as if to say, You should probably write that down.

  “So the ZCross could’ve disappeared anywhere between three o’clock and now—four fifteen.” Frank plopped down in the beanbag chair, deep in thought.

  Joe wrote down Between 3:00 p.m. and 4:15 p.m. under When? He wrote ZCross5000 under What? That was always the easiest question to answer. Where? was simple too. The ZCross had been taken from the Freemans’ den, where it was waiting to be auctioned off.

  “I really don’t think the workers had anything to do with it,” Mrs. Freeman repeated.

  “Don’t worry,” Joe said, looking at the list. “We’ll figure out what happened. We should start by talking to the girl Mr. Fun mentioned.”

  Frank stood and peered out the back window and into the yard. There were a bunch of people around the side of the stage, looking at the prizes from the auction. Guests were still using the photo booth. Some were huddled around the dessert table, piling cookies onto their plates. It was a huge crowd of people, and Frank didn’t see a girl in a purple shirt anywhere.

  “We just have to find her,” he said. “And we don’t have much time.”

  Joe joined him, scanning the crowd. “Agreed. But where should we start?”

  Chapter 5

  PICTURE PERFECT

  Joe squeezed through the crowd, moving around toward the pool. There was a group of kids he didn’t recognize. He thought they might’ve been some of Ellie’s friends from camp. He looked at each of the girls’ outfits, but none of them matched the description Mr. Fun had given.

  “Have you seen a girl with a purple shirt and a streak in her hair?” Joe asked a blond boy with glasses.

  The boy just shrugged. “A streak? What do you mean?”

  “Her hair was colored—she had pink in it,” Joe explained.

  The boy shook his head. A few of the other girls were playing tag on the lawn. They stopped for a moment, watching Joe. “I think I saw someone like that, but I don’t know her name,” a girl with braces said.

  “Do you remember where?” Joe asked.

  “No, just that she was here at the party somewhere,” the girl explained. “Sorry.”

  Joe had wasted almost twenty minutes walking around in circles, trying to find the girl Mr. Fun had mentioned. He was starting to wonder if she actually existed. He’d checked all the rooms in the house, making sure she wasn’t hiding somewhere. He’d looked at the tables by the pool and studied the groups of people sitting on the chairs by the stage. He’d even gone to the edge of the woods behind the backyard, where Ellie’s old playhouse was.

  He spotted Frank across the lawn, by the dessert table. “Did you find anything?” Frank called out.

  “Nothing,” Joe said. He walked over and picked up a chocolate chip cookie. “Maybe she already left.”

  “Look,” Frank said, pointing to the photo booth across the way. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “It couldn’t hurt to check,” Joe said. “There’s a chance she might’ve taken a picture there. We might find some more clues.”

  The boys took off across the lawn, waiting in line while Cissy’s parents posed in front of a background with the Bayport Bandits logo. “Looking good!” the man behind the camera said. “Let’s see your big smiles!”

  Mrs. Zermeño held a feathered fan and wore a floppy hat with ribbons on it, and Mr. Zermeño had goofy sunglasses on. They both looked nervous. They straightened up as soon as they saw Frank and Joe. “Did you find anything? What happened?” Mrs. Zermeño asked, turning to the boys.

  “Nothing yet,” Frank said.

  Joe went over to the man behind the camera. He was a tall, skinny guy with suspenders and a fedora. He had his laptop computer on the table in front of him. With a few clicks of the mouse, he printed out copies of the pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Zermeño. They didn’t look very happy in any of the pictures.

  “Let us know if we can help with anything. This is just terrible,” Mrs. Zermeño said, before walking off.

  “You want to take another turn in the booth?” the guy asked. “I’ll be closing it up in a little bit.”

  “Actually, we were hoping you could help us with something,” Frank explained. “Do you keep all the pictures on your computer?”

  “Yeah,” the guy said. “Just about. Unless someone really hates the photo and wants me to de
lete it. But eventually they all go up on the website the day after the party.”

  Joe glanced sideways at his brother, knowing they were onto something. “Can we see them? We’re looking for a girl who had a pink streak in her hair. We were hoping she stopped by here.”

  “That sounds familiar,” the guy said. He clicked through screen after screen of photos. Finally he stopped on a set of four. Sure enough, they were pictures of a girl in a purple shirt with brown hair. One piece in the front was dyed pink.

  “That’s definitely her—she matches the description,” Joe added.

  The guy hit print, and a strip of four photos came out. “Here, so you have it.”

  Joe and Frank studied the pictures. In them, the girl in the purple shirt was next to a girl with short blond hair. Freckles covered her nose and cheeks. She looked a year or two younger than the girl with the short hair—maybe she was eight or nine. They were making angry punk-rock faces in two of the photos, and silly faces in the others.

  “Thanks for this,” Frank said. “Now we have something to show people.”

  “I don’t think I saw either of them,” Joe whispered as they scanned the crowd.

  “Me neither,” Frank added. They pushed past a group of teachers who were talking about the fashion show. Principal Green was in the center of them, making a joke about the furry orange hat Mr. Hendricks had to wear.

  The boys checked the backyard again. They checked the patio and the playhouse. It wasn’t until they went back to the dessert table that they spotted her. The freckle-faced girl was there alone, taking a bite of chocolate cake.

  “Can we talk to you?” Joe asked, walking up to her. “We were hoping you could tell us who your friend is.”

  The girl’s green eyes widened. “Where’d you get those?” she asked, looking at the strip of pictures. “Those are mine.”

  Before Joe could answer, she plucked the photos from his hand. “We’ve been looking for your friend,” he said.

  “Why?” the girl asked. “We aren’t friends. Where’d you find these?”

  “The guy from the picture booth gave them to us,” Frank explained. “What do you mean, you aren’t friends?”

  “Never mind,” the girl with freckles said. Frank was about to ask her more, but the girl turned on her heel and headed across the lawn, to where the other kids were playing tag.

  “That was really weird,” Joe whispered.

  “Really weird,” Frank agreed. “Why would they take pictures together if they aren’t friends?”

  As they stood there, watching her join the game of tag, they were more confused than ever.

  “She’s hiding something,” Joe finally said. “The only question is what.”

  Chapter 6

  A SECRET IN THE WOODS

  Frank and Joe were still standing there, confused, when a little boy with red hair and freckles came up to them. He had chocolate around his mouth. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old.

  “Do you guys know my sister, Lisi?” he said. He pointed to the girl with the freckles. She was running across the grass, reaching out to tag a boy with curly black hair.

  “Kind of,” Frank said. It wasn’t a lie . . . not really.

  “Have you met her friend with the pink streak in her hair?” Joe asked.

  “Kendall,” the little boy said. “But Mom and Dad said they weren’t allowed to hang out anymore. They always get in trouble when they’re together.”

  Joe raised his eyebrows at his brother. No wonder Lisi had been so nervous when she saw the pictures of them together. She probably hadn’t realized they would be on the website, or that anyone else would see them. If she wasn’t allowed to hang out with Kendall, the pictures might get her in trouble.

  “Do you know where we could find Kendall?” Frank asked.

  The little boy shrugged. “I don’t know . . . she was here before. My mom says Kendall likes doing her own thing. What does that mean?”

  Joe scratched his head. It might have seemed like a small detail, but it would definitely help them. He and Frank had spent the last half hour looking in all the most crowded places. Maybe they should have been looking in the quiet rooms of the house, or the places no one else would go.

  “I have an idea,” Joe said, waving for Frank to follow him. They thanked the boy as they headed off to the back of the yard, where the woods began.

  “Where are we going?” Frank asked.

  “To the quietest place there is,” Joe said. “Ellie’s old tree house. I walked around it before, but I never looked inside.”

  “Good thinking,” Frank said. He followed Joe, his feet crunching down on dry leaves and twigs. Soon they could see the tree house through the trees. It was dirty, and all the shutters were closed.

  When they got there, Joe knocked on the tiny door. “Kendall? Are you there?”

  One of the shutters opened, and the girl with the pink streak in her hair peered out. “Who’s asking?”

  “We just have a few questions for you,” Frank said. “Someone saw you in the Freemans’ house around the time the ZCross went missing. Did you see anything strange?”

  “Ugh,” Kendall sighed. She closed the shutter and opened the door, letting them in. Frank and Joe both had to duck a little to walk around. They noticed she had a sketchbook. She was drawing different objects in the house—an old plastic teapot and some broken crayons.

  “I hope you didn’t tell my mom I’m back here,” she huffed.

  “No,” Joe said. “We don’t even know who your mom is.”

  “We did talk to Lisi,” Frank said. “Are you two friends?”

  Kendall laughed. “Yeah, just don’t tell her parents that. That’s why I was in Ellie’s house before. Lisi and I had a plan to hang out during the fashion show, when her mom wouldn’t notice. She’s still upset over this expensive vase we broke the last time I went over to their house. It was a total accident! I tripped and fell!”

  “So you were in the house during the fashion show? Where?” Joe asked.

  “We actually stayed on the front porch, playing Spit. You know that card game?” Kendall said.

  “Who won?” Frank asked.

  “Lisi did—she’s pretty good.” Kendall sat down on the floor of the playhouse and crossed her legs. She closed her sketchbook and put it in her lap.

  “Did you see anything suspicious?” Joe said.

  “Nope. You can ask Lisi, too, if you want—she was with me the whole time.” Kendall twisted the piece of pink hair around her finger. “Is that it? I want to finish my drawing before the party ends.”

  Joe looked at his older brother, wondering if they were thinking the same thing. Kendall seemed to be telling the truth. She hadn’t even paused when Frank asked her who won the card game.

  “I think that’s it,” Frank said.

  “Let us know if you remember anything else,” Joe added before they left.

  When they were far enough away from the playhouse, Frank finally spoke. “I think she’s telling the truth,” he said.

  “Me too,” Joe agreed. “Which means our only other lead is the workers Mr. Freeman mentioned.”

  Frank sped up, walking faster back to the party. “Let’s talk to them as soon as we can,” he said. “Everyone will be leaving soon—we’re running out of time.”

  Chapter 7

  TOO MANY COOKS

  As Joe and Frank made their way back to the house, they noticed the party was quieter than before. A lot of guests had left. Phil had abandoned the stereo, putting on music that sounded like what you’d hear in an elevator.

  “Mrs. Freeman seemed pretty sure the people who helped set up the party didn’t have anything to do with it,” Joe said. “If they’ve worked at other parties at Ellie’s house, it doesn’t make sense that they’d suddenly walk in and take the ZCross. What would be the point of that?”

  “It’s our only lead now,” Frank said. “We have to follow it.”

  Their dad had taught them
about leads, which were clues that pointed the investigator in a certain direction. This one was leading them to the people who worked for Forks and Knives. There was a reason Mr. Freeman had mentioned them, and they had to explore it. As they walked into the kitchen, they tried to stay hopeful. Maybe Mr. Freeman was right. Maybe the workers did know something about the missing ZCross.

  A man with a white bandanna around his head was washing dishes. A few other people brought trays in from outside. Frank, Joe, and the rest of the Bandits had met all the workers at the beginning of the party. For most of the event the Bandits had been going inside and picking up appetizers, then passing them out to all the guests.

  A blond woman was arranging a plate of giant brownies. She looked up when Frank and Joe walked in. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “We were hoping to talk to you about the missing video game system—the ZCross everyone’s been looking for.”

  The woman sprinkled some powdered sugar on the brownies. “Wish I knew more, but I didn’t see anything. What about you, Larry?”

  The man with the bandanna shrugged. “Nothing.”

  Joe pulled out his notepad, hoping a few questions might help them remember something. “Did you notice anyone go into the den from the kitchen? Or maybe they came out of the den? We think whoever took it would have left this way—otherwise they would have had to go through the backyard.”

  The woman had a white jacket that said HEATHER on the front in curly script. She pulled a lemon custard pie from the fridge. “I didn’t, but I was busy prepping the desserts.”

  Just then a teenage girl came into the room. She looked like she went to Bayport High School. She had her hair in a ponytail and was wearing a shirt that said FORKS AND KNIVES. She put a pile of dirty dishes into the sink and turned to go.

  “Excuse us!” Joe called out. “Did you see anything strange this afternoon? We’re trying to figure out who took the ZCross from the den. We still haven’t been able to find it.”