The Missing Playbook Read online

  “Well, it looks like it wasn’t you who stole it, Frank,” Joe said.

  Frank punched him in the arm while Chet laughed.

  After that, the pictures moved outside. There were at least a dozen showing members of the team working together to clean up the Zermeños’ yard.

  “You can skip these,” Joe said. “Did you take any more in the living room?”

  “Sure did,” Chet replied. He clicked forward until the pictures moved from the Zermeños’ dark yard to their bright living room. There was one of several parents in the kitchen, smiling and waving at the camera. Then there was a picture of Frank looking shocked. Frank remembered he was holding a trash bag at that moment. He hadn’t seen Chet there, and the flash of the camera had temporarily blinded him. Joe laughed at the goofy expression on Frank’s face in the picture, but Frank studied the photo with sharp eyes.

  “There!” Frank said. In the bottom corner of the picture was a splotch of red on top of the coffee table. It was a little fuzzy, but Joe had a feeling he knew what that red splotch was.

  Joe put his face close to the computer and squinted at the picture. “Yeah, that’s definitely the playbook.”

  Frank frowned and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “What’s wrong?” Chet asked.

  Frank sighed. “The Jupiters didn’t steal the playbook.”

  Chapter 7

  BANDIT BETRAYAL

  “What?” Joe said. “How do you know?”

  “Because the Jupiters were gone by that point,” Frank said. “When I came out of the kitchen with the empty trash bag, Conor Hound’s dad had already arrived and sent them outside to wait for him.”

  “Are you sure?” Joe said. “Maybe Mr. Hound didn’t arrive until later.”

  “I’m positive,” Frank said. “That was the only time I went inside while we were cleaning the yard.”

  “You know what, I think you’re right,” Joe said. “When you went inside, I went over to help Speedy instead. I remember she and I were trying to get some toilet paper out of a tree with a rake when we saw the Jupiters getting into Mr. Hound’s car.”

  “But the playbook was still on the coffee table right where I left it,” Frank said, pointing to the red splotch in the picture. “The Jupiters couldn’t have stolen it. Which means . . .”

  “What?” Chet asked.

  “It means it was one of us who stole it,” Frank said slowly. “One of the Bandits.”

  “Oh man,” Joe said, leaning back in his chair with a frown.

  All three boys just looked at one another for a moment. Frank’s stomach suddenly ached. He didn’t want to solve this mystery anymore. Not if the thief was someone on his own team.

  “Keep going, Chet,” Joe finally said. “Maybe there are more clues to find.”

  Chet continued to click through the pictures, but neither the coffee table nor the playbook could be seen in any of them. Until he reached the last picture. It was the photograph he’d taken of most of the team at the end of the night. They all had their arms around one another, big grins on their faces.

  On the coffee table in front of them, the playbook was nowhere in sight.

  Frank and Joe decided to forget about the case for the rest of the night. It made them both too sad to imagine that one of the Bandits had stolen the playbook. Instead they played video games with Chet and tried not to think about it.

  By the next morning, though, Frank was once again determined to find out who was behind the playbook’s disappearance. The thief might be someone he liked, but he still had to get to the bottom of the mystery. He owed that to Coach Quinn and the rest of the team. Joe told him at breakfast that he’d woken up feeling the same way.

  “The thing I don’t get,” Joe said over pancakes at the kitchen table, “is why any of the Bandits would have a motive to steal the playbook. It hurts the team, and whoever they are, they’re on the team! It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Frank had been thinking about the same thing. Why would a Bandit want to hurt the Bandits?

  “I don’t understand it either,” he said. “Do you remember anyone acting strangely that night?”

  Joe shrugged. “Not really. Oh! Except Tommy Dawson. He was in a really bad mood, remember?”

  “Oh yeah!” Frank said. “He was upset about not getting to pitch.”

  “Right!” Joe exclaimed. “He was supposed to pitch in Speedy’s place because of her hurt wrist. But when Speedy got better, Coach Quinn told him she was going to start Speedy instead.”

  “He was pretty angry about that,” Frank remembered. “Maybe angry enough to want to get revenge on Coach Quinn . . .”

  “By stealing the playbook she made,” Joe finished. “Would Tommy have had a chance to do it? The team was together most of the night. When would he have taken it?”

  Frank thought back to the night of the party. The playbook went missing sometime between when the Jupiters left and when Chet took the group photo at the end of the night. For most of that time, the team was outside cleaning up the Zermeños’ yard, but kids did come and go from the yard the whole time they were out there.

  “He might have had a chance,” Frank said, “if he went inside while the rest of us were in the yard. The younger kids were playing in Speedy’s bedroom by then, and most of the parents were in the kitchen. There wouldn’t have been anyone in the living room to see him swipe the playbook.”

  “But did he go inside while we were in the yard?” Joe asked.

  “Only one way to find out,” Frank said. “Hurry and finish your breakfast quick. We’ve got to stop by the Mortons’ before school!”

  Joe wolfed down the rest of his pancakes, and he and Frank left for school. They usually walked anyway, so today they made a detour to Chet’s house on the way.

  “Hey, guys!” Chet said when he answered the door. He looked happy to see them but puzzled. “What are you doing here?”

  “Can we look at those pictures again, Chet?” Frank asked.

  Chet checked his watch. “I think we’ve got time if we hurry! What are you looking for?”

  The three boys ran upstairs to Mr. Morton’s office while Frank explained their new theory. Chet fired up the computer and found the pictures he’d taken of the team outside cleaning, the same ones they had skipped the night before. They went through them slowly, scouring the pictures for clues, their faces just inches from the computer screen.

  “There!” Joe said.

  The photograph was of Speedy holding an armful of toilet paper. In the background was the front door of her house. It was partially open, spilling light across the lawn. Tommy Dawson was stepping inside.

  “He did go inside while we were working,” Frank said, “which means he would have had the chance to take the playbook.”

  Joe nodded. “I guess it’s time to talk to Tommy. Let’s get to school!”

  Chapter 8

  PITCH WARS

  “You ready?” Frank asked his brother when they spotted Tommy Dawson near the gym after school. They’d been keeping an eye on Tommy’s gym locker ever since the bell rang. They had baseball practice right after school, so they knew Tommy would eventually go to his locker to pick up his gym bag.

  “I’m ready,” Joe said. “Let’s do this.”

  Joe approached Tommy as he reached his locker and started to spin the combination lock. Frank waited farther down the hall. Tommy looked up when Joe approached.

  “Hi, Joe,” he said. “How’s it going?”

  “Pretty good,” Joe replied. Then he launched into the conversation he and Frank had rehearsed. “I just wanted to say, I’m really sorry you’re not going to be pitching in the first game.”

  “Thanks,” Tommy said, putting his math book down and grabbing some stuff from his locker. Joe moved to the other side of the locker, so that Tommy would have to turn his back to his open locker to face him.

  “The truth is,” Joe continued, “I think you’re a better pitcher than Speedy any day.”

&
nbsp; “You and me both,” Tommy said, getting annoyed. “It’s so unfair! Coach Quinn told me I was going to get to pitch in the first game. Just because Speedy got better faster than anyone expected shouldn’t change anything.”

  With Tommy’s back turned to him while he was complaining to Joe, Frank crept toward Tommy’s open locker. If Tommy had stolen the playbook, the odds were high that this was where he was keeping it. A private place with a lock on it.

  “Yeah, that’s really uncool,” Joe said.

  Tommy crossed his arms over his chest. “I bet Coach Quinn just wants to put Speedy in because she’s a girl like the coach. I can’t believe a girl is getting to pitch over me.”

  Frank rolled his eyes behind Tommy’s back. Speedy was the best pitcher in the league. It had nothing to do with her being a girl. Frank quietly inched Tommy’s locker door open enough that he could peer inside.

  “This whole thing makes me so mad,” Joe said. “It almost . . .”

  “What?” Tommy asked.

  “Well . . . ,” Joe said. Frank had never realized just how good an actor his brother was. He really seemed upset on Tommy’s behalf. “It almost makes me want to get back at the coach somehow, you know?”

  Tommy’s locker was a mess of papers, books, broken pencils, and dirty clothes. Frank didn’t see the playbook, but it could easily be buried under all the junk crammed inside. Frank reached inside and began to move things around, moving slowly and carefully so as not to make any noise.

  Meanwhile, Tommy didn’t take the bait Joe had laid out for him. Instead he just shrugged and said, “It’s not that big a deal. It just made me mad, you know?”

  “Yeah, I get it,” Joe said, “but are you sure you want to let Coach Quinn off the hook that easy?”

  Tommy looked at Joe with sudden suspicion in his face. “What are you trying to say?” he asked.

  Uh-oh. Frank knew he had to move fast. He moved a couple of Tommy’s textbooks and looked underneath a dirty (and kind of smelly) T-shirt. He still didn’t see the playbook, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still buried in there somewhere. . . .

  Joe said, “I’m not saying anything, Tommy.”

  “Are you trying to ask me if I’m the one who took the playbook?” Tommy asked. “To get back at Coach Quinn for letting Speedy pitch instead of me?”

  “No!” Joe said. “I just—”

  Tommy started to turn back to his locker. Frank saw the movement from the corner of his eye as he rooted around for the playbook, but it was too late. Tommy was going to catch him in the act.

  “No way, man!” Joe exclaimed, grabbing Tommy’s shoulders so he couldn’t turn. “I would never think that, Tommy!”

  Frank snatched his hand back from the locker and leaned against the wall as he tried to catch his breath. He didn’t know how real private investigators like his dad handled all this excitement!

  Joe found him there a minute later after saying good-bye to Tommy.

  “Did you find anything?” Joe asked.

  Frank shook his head. “The playbook might have been in there, if he buried it at the bottom of the mess, but I didn’t see it.”

  “I don’t know about this, Frank,” Joe said. “Tommy seemed really upset at me for thinking he’d taken the playbook. It didn’t seem like an act.”

  “I know what you mean,” Frank said, “but right now, we don’t have any other suspects. Tommy had the opportunity to take it and a motive. He’s the only one we can think of with any reason to want the playbook to disappear.”

  Joe frowned. “We’ve got to be missing something.”

  “I agree,” Frank said. “But what?”

  Chapter 9

  HIDING SPOT

  Frank and Joe decided to take a break from the case for the rest of the day. They were a little stumped and didn’t know what to do next. Their dad always said that sometimes the best thing you could do was to think about something else for a while instead. After baseball practice—which Chet attended to get some pictures of the team in action—Frank asked him if they could hang out that afternoon.

  “That would be great!” Chet said. “Want to come to my house? We can play Ultimate Driver again.”

  “Sounds good!” Frank and Joe said.

  The three boys went over to Chet’s house, and Frank called his mom to let her know where they were before they sat in the living room to play Chet’s new racing game. Chet wasn’t very good at sports like Frank and Joe, but he was awesome at video games. In fact, he was crushing them. His red car zoomed ahead of their green and blue ones, tearing around corners and flying over obstacles. At one point Iola came into the living room to watch.

  “Come on, Frank!” she cheered. She always rooted for the underdog, and Frank’s green car was at the back of the pack. “You can do it!”

  “Hey!” Joe complained. “What about me?”

  “Or me?” Chet asked. “I’m your brother!”

  “Sorry,” Iola replied. “Frank needs my cheers the most!”

  “Ha-ha, thanks a lot,” Frank said, but he secretly appreciated her support.

  Unfortunately, Iola’s cheers couldn’t make Frank’s car move faster. Chet’s car raced across the finish line first, and Frank was a distant third.

  “Yes!” Chet shouted, pumping his fist in the air. Frank and Joe both gave him high fives.

  Mrs. Morton appeared in the doorway. “Anyone want a snack?”

  “Yes, please!” everyone said.

  Mrs. Morton brought them a plate of apple slices with peanut butter. Mimi, with her pink backpack on, followed her into the living room.

  “Chet, Iola,” Mrs. Morton said. “Can you keep an eye on your sister for a minute? Jeanine from next door is having some kind of baking emergency and needs my help.”

  “Sure thing, Mom,” Chet said.

  After they’d eaten the apple slices, Joe challenged Chet and Frank to an Ultimate Driver rematch. Iola decided she wanted to play too and chose a yellow car to drive. They offered to let Mimi join the game, but she wasn’t interested. Instead she unzipped her backpack and turned it upside down. A small avalanche of toys, crayons, and coloring books came tumbling out of it. Mimi selected an orange crayon and began to color in a picture of a giraffe.

  “I’m going to get you this time, Chet!” Joe said as the race began. Chet’s red car zoomed into the lead, but halfway down the course, Joe took a tight turn on the racetrack that cut his lead in half. Joe was almost as good at video games as Chet was.

  “Keep dreaming, Joe!” Chet teased. “You’ll never beat me!”

  Out of nowhere, Iola’s yellow car passed everyone else.

  “Take that, boys!” she said, laughing.

  Meanwhile, Frank accidentally crashed his car into a tree and fell farther behind. “Oh man!” he said.

  Joe, Chet, and Iola were locked in a fierce battle for first place. Frank was working hard to catch up, but he knew it was hopeless. The finish line approached, and Joe’s car inched ahead. Frank could see that Joe was crossing his fingers, which made it hard for him to hold the controller.

  “Come on!” Joe said, urging his car forward.

  Joe’s car raced across the finish line first, and he jumped up and did a victory dance. Frank and Chet groaned good-naturedly, while Iola laughed and threw a couch cushion at him.

  “Good race, guys,” Chet said.

  “Thanks,” Joe said. “Want to go again?”

  “Yeah!” Iola said.

  “I’m going to take a break this round,” Frank said.

  “What, are you chicken?” Chet teased.

  Frank made a squawking sound, and everyone laughed. While they cued up the game, he sat next to Mimi on the carpet.

  “Hey, Mimi,” he said. “Have you started preschool yet?” He remembered that was why her parents had bought her the backpack in the first place. She’d been so excited to start school when he’d last seen her, at the Bandits’ party.

  Mimi nodded without looking up from her picture. “Yeah
, I started this week.”

  The others had begun another race and were whooping, hollering, and teasing one another. Frank picked up a green crayon.

  “Do you mind?” he asked, pointing to the tree the giraffe was eating from. It hadn’t been colored in yet.

  “Go ahead,” Mimi said.

  “So, are you liking school?” Frank asked as he started to color in the leaves of the tree.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” Mimi said.

  “Are you learning to read?” Frank asked.

  “Not yet,” she said, “but we’re learning letters, and we play lots of games, and there’s recess and snack, and my best friend Jill is in my class, and my teacher is really nice. . . .”

  Mimi talked nonstop about school after that. She could give Speedy a run for her money when it came to words spoken per minute. Together she and Frank colored in the giraffe picture and another one that featured two lions drinking from a watering hole. Chet, Iola, and Joe were playing another round of Ultimate Driver when Mrs. Morton came home from the baking emergency next door.

  “Mimi,” she said, “it’s almost time for ballet. Better start getting ready.”

  “Okay, Mom,” Mimi said. She scooped up all the toys and crayons and shoved them into her backpack. Then she ran out of the room to get ready for her dance class.

  Frank moved back to where the others sat in front of the television. They’d had enough of Ultimate Driver and were putting in a different video game. But something was bugging Frank as he tried to beat the evil lizard king in the new game. Something he couldn’t put into words yet, something that had struck him when he’d seen Mimi picking up her toys earlier. . . .

  “Earth to Frank!” Iola said. “Are you going to pick up that power crystal or just stare at it?”

  Then, all of a sudden, it became clear. Frank dropped his controller.

  “I know what happened to the playbook!” he exclaimed.