Mystery of the Phantom Heist Read online

  “Yeah, right,” Chet chuckled. “Just make sure you don’t wash that hand, dude.”

  We were having a good laugh when I heard the fired-up engine of a speeding car. I turned just in time to see a shiny black Benz barreling down the road. Frank, Chet, and I stopped to watch the car as it came our way. A car window came down and . . . CLUNK!! An empty soda can was hurled out the window, barely missing Chet!

  “Hey!” Chet yelled.

  The Benz kept going, so fast I didn’t see who was inside. But I could hear them laughing—and it sounded exactly like the guys at the Chomp and Chew!

  “Jerks!” I called after the car.

  “Hey, Chet,” Frank asked, “are you okay, buddy?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Chet said with a nod. “Who do you think those guys were?”

  “It had to be those Bay Academy losers,” I said angrily. “The ones who were giving Tony a hard time at the Chomp and Chew.”

  Chet kicked the can away. “What’s with those Bay Academy kids, anyway?” he wondered aloud as we continued walking up the road. “I mean, why are they being such morons?”

  “Come on, Chet,” Frank said. “Not all Bay Academy kids are bad news.”

  I raised an eyebrow at my brother.

  “Hmm,” I teased. “And does her name happen to be Sierra?”

  Frank gave me a little push. “Okay, you guys,” he said. “Now that we’re on the case, we’ve got to get serious about Lindsay’s car. Who do you think could have done it?”

  “I still think the punks who slushied Lonny are the punks who keyed the car.” I patted the pocket holding my tablet. “And if that stunt goes viral—we’ll know for sure!”

  • • •

  “No games at the dinner table, Joe,” Mom said as she placed a platter of lasagna inches away from me. “You know the rules.”

  I looked up from my tablet and said, “But it’s not a game, Mom. I’m looking to see if any more pranks went viral.”

  “We’re working on a new case,” Frank explained. “Somebody scratched up Lindsay Peyton’s car. We want to find out who did it.”

  Dad stopped piling lasagna on his plate. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, guys?” he asked. “After what happened today with Chief Olaf?”

  We had already told Dad about being called to the police station. He wanted to call Chief Olaf, but we begged him not to play the dad card.

  “Dad, we’re not going to stop working on cases just because the chief thinks we’re detective wannabes,” I said.

  Dad nodded as if he understood. Fenton Hardy had worked as a detective for decades. He did some occasional consulting still, but was focused on writing full-time.

  “Plus, the faster we find the real culprits,” Frank said, “the faster the chief will stop blaming innocent kids around Bayport—”

  “Like us,” I cut in.

  “Okay,” Dad said, taking a helping of salad. “Then go for it.”

  Mom cleared her throat to get my attention.

  “You may have won Dad’s argument, Joe,” Mom said, narrowing her eyes at my tablet. “But you didn’t win mine.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, putting it away.

  Our mom, Laura Hardy, was a star real estate agent in Bayport. She could convince anyone to buy a home—or put away their tablets at dinner.

  I was just about to pile some lasagna on my own plate when I saw Frank sniffing the air.

  “What’s that smell?” Frank asked, wiggling his nose.

  “Grated cheese?” I guessed.

  “No,” Dad groaned. “It’s your aunt Trudy burning those smelly scented candles again.”

  “But Aunt Trudy lives in the apartment above the garage,” I said. “How can we smell them all the way over here?”

  “Because that’s how potent they are,” Dad said. “If you ask me, they smell more like rotten eggs than spring rain and patchouli.”

  “Eggs—that reminds me,” Mom said. “Someone at work told me there was a prank at the library last night.”

  Prank? My ears perked up like a dog hearing a whistle.

  “What kind of prank, Mom?” I asked.

  “Something about someone throwing eggs down the book drop,” Mom said, shaking her head. “A half dozen books were totally ruined.”

  Frank shot me a look across the table. Another prank in Bayport? Now I really wanted to check out YouTube to see if it had gone viral. I had a feeling Frank did too.

  The two of us practically inhaled our lasagna. As soon as we were excused, we raced up the stairs to my room. We sat down on the floor—but not before I tossed aside a bunch of dirty socks, a hoodie, some notebooks, and a half-eaten banana.

  “Sometimes I can’t believe we have the same DNA.” Frank sighed. “When are you going to clean up this place?”

  “I just did,” I said. “You should have seen it before.”

  “How are we going to find it?” Frank asked. “There are millions of videos on YouTube.”

  “We could search ‘egg pranks,’ ” I said as I turned on the tablet. But before I typed in a search, I had another idea. “Or . . . we could find the user name for the slushie video.”

  “What good would that do?” Frank asked.

  “We can do a search of the user name and see if he or she posted the egg prank,” I explained.

  “Go for it,” Frank said.

  It didn’t take me long to find the infamous slushie-slinger clip. It was posted by some guy who called himself “slickbro13.”

  “Slickbro13, slickbro13,” I repeated. “What do you think the number thirteen stands for?”

  “Bad luck?” Frank guessed.

  “It was definitely bad luck for Lonny,” I said as I searched for more slickbro13 clips.

  It didn’t take long to find what we were looking for. Not only did we find a clip of the egg drop crime at the library, we found other videos of window smashings, Dumpster tippings—even more slushy slingings at different fast-food places. And all of them posted by slickbro13.

  “This must be the vandalism Chief Olaf was talking about,” Frank said. “The ones that happened over the last few weeks.”

  I checked to see the dates on some of the clips. They had been posted during that time.

  “Who are the kids in the videos?” I wondered.

  To get a better look, we switched over to my computer. There I was able to enlarge the videos, even pause them at certain points. It helped, but not enough.

  “The vandals are wearing dark bandannas over their faces,” Frank pointed out. “The videos were also shot at night, which makes it extra hard to identify them.”

  “Why do you think they posted their pranks, Frank?” I asked. “On YouTube of all places, for everybody to see?”

  Frank shrugged and said, “Probably to show off. Or maybe as a message to the cops to catch them if they can.”

  The cops made me think of Lindsay’s vandalized car. After a quick search, I found a video of that prank too. But since all we could see was the vandal’s hand scratching the car, it was even harder to make out.

  “Great,” Frank complained.

  I reran the video, carefully watching the hand as it used a key to scratch out the words RICH WITCH.

  For some reason this prank had been pulled during the day, not night. Not only could I see the color of Lindsay’s car, I could make out the color of the vandal’s sleeve—dark green with gold trim. Colors I had seen many times before.

  “Frank,” I said, “that sleeve has our school colors on it!”

  Frank leaned forward for a better look. He turned to me and said, “That’s our school varsity jacket. I’m almost sure of it.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “We may not know who those viral vandals are, but we know where they are.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said with a deep frown. “Our school!”

  FOUND

  5

  FRANK

  AS I DROVE TO SCHOOL THE NEXT MORNing, I kept my eyes on the road and my mind on
the case. We now knew that one of the viral vandals went to Bayport High. It didn’t tell us who the culprit was, but it was a pretty good start.

  “Here’s the plan,” I said, stopping at the light. “We’re going to check out every kid in our classes for clues.”

  “Every kid?” Joe said from the passenger seat. “What do we look for?”

  “Varsity jackets, for one,” I said. “Then there are those dark bandannas.”

  “As if the vandals are going to wear bandannas over their faces at school.” Joe rolled his eyes.

  “Just keep your eyes peeled, that’s all I’m saying,” I said as I drove around the corner. Bayport High School was halfway up the street. As I pulled up to the school, I noticed a bunch of teachers and kids crowded around the basketball court.

  “A game so early?” I wondered out loud.

  “Maybe it’s practice,” Joe figured.

  I parked in the student parking lot. As Joe and I made our way to the court, I could see Principal Vega. He was shaking his head slowly as he spoke to the big guy in a beige suit. At first I thought it was Mr. Sweeney, the history teacher, but as we got closer, my stomach did a triple flip.

  “Principal Vega is talking to Chief Olaf,” I groaned under my breath.

  “Do you think the chief is here about us?” Joe asked.

  “Doubtful,” I said. “Maybe Chief Olaf figured out that the vandals go to our school.”

  Joe and I joined Chet and his sister Iola near the basketball court. Iola Morton was the same age as Joe and just as fearless. She didn’t look much like Chet, but their appetites for burgers were practically identical.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Check it out,” Chet said.

  I looked to see where Chet was pointing. Sprayed across the basketball court in red paint was the word “Scaredevils.”

  “Scaredevils,” Joe read out loud. “Sounds like some kind of gang.”

  “Yeah,” I said, staring at the tag. “A gang of viral vandals.”

  “Chet told me about the slushie clip,” Iola asked. “Were there more?”

  “We found a YouTube video of the car keying,” Joe explained. “The vandals might be Bayport High students.”

  “No way,” Chet said.

  “Does Principal Vega know?” Iola asked.

  “He will as soon as we tell him,” I said. “Chief Olaf ought to know what we found out too.”

  “You’re going to deal with Olaf again?” Chet groaned. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks, dude,” Joe said. “Something tells me we’re going to need it.”

  Joe and I squeezed through a crowd of kids to get to the principal and Chief Olaf. The chief frowned when he saw us.

  “Principal Vega,” I said, “Joe and I might have some information about this tag.”

  “And it’s not about us!” Joe said, looking straight at Chief Olaf.

  Principal Vega was new to Bayport High, but he knew we had done detective work in the past.

  “All right, then, boys,” Principal Vega said. “What do you know?”

  The other students crowded closer to hear. Just in case some of them might be Scaredevils, I kept my voice low.

  “We think some of the vandals go to Bayport High,” I said.

  Joe nodded at the tag on the basketball court. “Like that Scaredevils gang,” he said.

  “Gang?” Principal Vega shook his head and said, “That’s highly unlikely.”

  “Why?” Joe asked.

  “I may have been here only a few weeks,” Principal Vega said, “but I know that Bayport High School has no gang activity—and never will, if I can help it.”

  “But—” I started to say.

  “Don’t you have a class to go to, Hardys?” Chief Olaf cut in.

  “Don’t you want to know what we found out?” Joe asked.

  “Sir,” I quickly added.

  Chief Olaf opened his mouth to say something, but Principal Vega piped up.

  “Thank you, Frank, Joe,” the principal said. “But the chief and I have got this covered.”

  Joe and I sulked away from the basketball court. I wasn’t surprised that Chief Olaf didn’t believe us, but Principal Vega wouldn’t even hear us out!

  “Well, that was a total waste,” I grumbled.

  “I’ll bet some Scaredevils were nearby having a good laugh too,” Joe said.

  We were about to walk back to Chet and Iola when Joe suddenly said, “Frank—look over there.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Joe nodded toward the street. “That black Benz outside the school,” he said. “Didn’t we see that car somewhere?”

  I turned to look at the car. It did look familiar, and right away I knew why. . . .

  “That’s the car that soda can was thrown from,” I said. “The one that almost hit Chet.”

  I recognized the pugnacious face staring out of the car window too. It was the Bay Academy guy from the Chomp and Chew.

  “What’s he doing at our school?” I asked. “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “Seeing how the other half lives?” Joe scoffed.

  The driver glared at me, then at Joe. He then grabbed the wheel and drove away, tires squealing.

  We hurried to the curb to watch the car take off.

  “Why would a Bay Academy kid care what was going on at our school?” I asked.

  “Unless he had something to do with the tag on the basketball court,” Joe said. “And the other pranks around Bayport.”

  “Too bad we don’t know his name,” I said.

  “We might know more than you think,” Joe said. “I caught the guy’s vanity plate as he took off. He goes by—are you ready? Awesome Dude!”

  “Awesome Dude?” I said. “Give me a break.”

  We still didn’t know the driver’s real name. But his vanity plate was a start.

  • • •

  Throughout the day, Joe and I gave ourselves the same assignment: to ask questions about the viral videos and the mysterious “Awesome Dude” in the black car.

  Joe and I weren’t in the same classes, but most of the kids we questioned didn’t have a clue about the videos or the vanity plate. Some knew a couple of “awesome dudes,” but they didn’t drive expensive black cars. After school Joe was happy to check out his tablet for more viral videos. It didn’t take long for him to find what he was looking for.

  “Ta-daa!” Joe sang. He held up the viewing device triumphantly. “Slickbro13’s clip of the basketball court prank.”

  This clip showed some punk waving a spray paint can as he tagged our basketball court. His back was to the camera, making his face unidentifiable.

  “First Awesome Dude, now slickbro13,” I said. “How can we find out who he is?”

  Joe shrugged. “We can contact YouTube,” he said. “Maybe they’ll give us slickbro13’s real name.”

  “Not a chance,” I said. “No company would give that information out so easily—especially one as big as YouTube. They probably wouldn’t even know.”

  “Maybe we’ll have more luck with Dad,” Joe said, pocketing the tablet. “It pays to have a private investigator in the family, even if he is supposed to be retired.”

  The word “retired” wasn’t in Fenton Hardy’s vocabulary. Even though he was supposed to be writing a book about the history of law enforcement, occasionally he went back to doing what he did best—fighting crime!

  We ended up walking to Dad’s office downtown. Even though he’d retired, he kept it for writing purposes. Sometimes (well, a lot of the time) the house isn’t exactly quiet.

  “Hi, guys,” Dad said when he saw us.

  “Hi, Dad,” Joe said, plopping down on the cushy leather sofa. “What’s up?”

  “You tell me,” Dad said. “How was school today?”

  “Not great,” I replied. “Some creeps spray painted a gang tag on our basketball court.”

  “Vandals again?” Dad said. “Do you have any leads?”

  I nodde
d and said, “Some suspicious-looking kid was hanging out in front of the school this morning. He drove off before we could find out more.”

  “But I caught his vanity plate, Dad,” Joe said proudly. “It’s Awesome Dude!”

  “Awesome?” Dad asked with a smirk. “Are you sure it wasn’t Awful?”

  “What we need now is his real name,” I said. “That’s where you come in.”

  “Me?” Dad asked, raising a brow.

  “Could you please do a search and tell us who this Awesome Dude is, Dad?” Joe asked, jumping off the sofa. “I’m sure you private-eye guys have ways of finding out that stuff.”

  Dad immediately shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “But no can do.”

  “Why not?” Joe asked.

  “Because license plates are federally protected information,” Dad explained. “I never use those tracking methods unless it’s an absolute emergency or I have a reason to.”

  “But it is an emergency, Dad,” I said.

  I was just about to explain why when another detective, Felix Cruz, strolled into the office.

  “Fenton, old man!” Felix boomed. “I hear you’re writing your memoirs.”

  “Trying to,” Dad said with a grin.

  “Well, don’t forget to mention me!” Felix said, winking at Joe and me.

  “You bet, Felix,” Dad said. “You remember my boys, Frank and Joe?”

  “Sure I do,” Felix declared. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Let me show you some recent pictures of my kids, Fenton. You won’t believe how big they’ve gotten.”

  Dad smiled politely as Felix flashed pictures of his five kids.

  “I have a feeling this is going to take a while,” I whispered to Joe. “We’d better go.”

  We left just as Felix was describing his son’s birthday party at Charlie Cheese. Once in the hall, Joe turned to me. “Why did Dad give us such a hard time about the vanity plate?” he asked.

  “He may be retired, but when it comes to detective work, he still goes by the book,” I said.

  “Some things never change.” I sighed.

  Suddenly we heard a voice hiss, “Psst. Psst.”

  Turning, I saw a woman with short, curly black hair waving us into her office. It was Connie Fleishman, another detective. Joe and I smiled. Out of all of Dad’s coworkers, Connie was the coolest—always showing off her state-of-the-art spy gadgets and gizmos.