Scavenger Hunt Heist Read online

  Joe nodded. “The tracks are going the wrong way.”

  Lolly sighed. “What are you two talking about?” she asked. “And why aren’t we moving?”

  “The tracks aren’t leading deeper into the woods, the way they should be,” Frank explained.

  “Where are they leading?” Phil asked, looking horror-struck.

  “That’s what I plan to find out!” Frank said.

  With Frank leading the way, the whole team began to follow the bear tracks—very carefully. They walked off the path, through the thicket of trees and over fallen branches and logs. The sun streamed through the treetops, shining its light on the trail like a flashlight.

  “We’d better not get lost!” Lolly said. “Ranger Bo said not to go off the path.”

  “We’re not lost,” said Joe. “It’s kind of hard to see the tracks, though.” He pointed up ahead in the distance, to a big maple tree with polished-looking reddish-purple leaves. “I remember that tree! See how the one next to it has a big hole at the center of the trunk? I remember thinking it looked like a mouth, yawning.”

  “Where did we see that before?” Phil asked, scratching his head.

  Suddenly Frank gasped. “It’s where we found our first clue—the feather!”

  Lolly drew her eyebrows together in thought. “But that tree was behind the—”

  “The tracks are leading right to the visitors’ cabin!” Joe finished for her.

  “No way!” said Phil. His eyes grew wide.

  “I don’t like this,” Lolly said, her voice wobbling.

  “Oh no!” Frank said. “We’ve got to get back there and make sure our classmates aren’t in danger!”

  Joe leaned toward his brother and spoke in a low voice, so only Frank could hear. “But aren’t you afraid?”

  Frank tilted his chin up. “I’m still afraid. But we have to help the others.”

  Behind the group, a sound echoed through the woods—the sound of a twig snapping, then another.

  Someone was gaining on them! Or something . . .

  “Run!” Joe shouted, hooking his brother’s elbow with his own.

  Now that the noise was behind them, they ran toward the cabin. Even though it wasn’t that far, it felt like forever!

  Frank and Joe led the pack, vaulting over a fallen tree limb, then ducking beneath a low-hanging canopy of vines and leaves.

  “Don’t look back!” Frank told his team as footsteps pounded behind them. “It will only slow us down!”

  Thud, thud, thud.

  Phil gasped for air. “I don’t think I can run anymore!”

  “Yes, you can!” shouted Lolly. She grabbed his hand and pulled him forward, alongside her.

  “I see the cabin up ahead!” said Joe. “Just a little bit farther!”

  As they ran they began to see something yellow that had not been there earlier just off the path. At first it looked like it might be a patch of yellow dandelions, or some kind of wildflower blooming in time for spring.

  When they were closer, they saw it was ripped-up pieces of paper from the stolen piñata!

  “More piñata pieces!” Joe told Frank. “The paper trail is leading back out to the woods!”

  There was a low sound coming from behind them—a deep, rumbling roar.

  “Was that a growl?” Phil asked as he ran, the fear plain in his voice.

  Frank could almost reach out and touch the back doorknob of the visitors’ cabin—they were so close!

  The rumble sounded once again, this time louder.

  Grrrrrr. Grrrrrrr!

  “I heard it too!” said Lolly.

  “Everyone get inside,” Frank said, finally grabbing the doorknob and yanking it open. “Quick!”

  “Are you guys okay?” asked Ranger Bo from inside the cabin.

  “Shut the door, quick!” Frank told him. “Bear!”

  Ranger Bo pulled the door shut once Joe, Frank, Lolly, and Phil were all inside, safe. He peered out the window, the silver in his hair catching a glint in the sunlight.

  “Where did you see a bear?” he asked. The usually cheerful look on his face had turned serious.

  “We didn’t see it,” said Joe, “but we heard it!”

  On cue, the rumbling started back up outside.

  “There it is again!” Frank said.

  “That?” Ranger Bo said.

  Frank and Joe nodded. To their surprise, Ranger Bo started laughing a big, bearlike belly laugh.

  Frank narrowed his eyes. This was no laughing matter!

  “I’m sorry, kids,” said Ranger Bo. “What you heard isn’t a bear.”

  “It’s not?” asked Lolly.

  “Then what is it?” Joe asked, crossing his arms.

  “See for yourself,” Ranger Bo said. He opened the door, and right away, Frank heard the rumbling get louder.

  A small machine, about half the size of a car, moved across the grass slowly. There was a man behind the wheel.

  “A lawn mower?” Frank asked, embarrassed.

  Ranger Bo nodded.

  “But something was with us in the woods,” argued Lolly. “It was following us!”

  “Oh, that?” said a voice in the cabin.

  When Frank turned, he saw Adam Ackerman—looking very proud of himself. He smiled. “That was me.”

  “You chased us?” Frank said angrily. “Why?”

  Adam shrugged. “You always think you’re better than everyone else. With your stupid mystery club and your dumb notebook. I just wanted to prove that you aren’t as brave as you think you are!”

  Frank’s face burned. He had been pretty afraid; Adam was right about that.

  “You’re wrong,” said Lolly, taking a step toward Adam. “Frank is brave.”

  Frank looked at her, confused. “What do you mean?” he asked. “As soon as we heard those noises in the woods, I ran!”

  “Yeah,” Lolly said. “But even though you were afraid of the bear, you still followed the tracks to the cabin. You did it to make sure everyone was safe! That’s brave.”

  Ranger Bo stared. “Tracks?” he asked. But no one was paying attention.

  Adam sniffed. “Whatever. You still didn’t solve your stupid case.”

  Frank and Joe grinned at each other.

  “Do you want to tell him?” Joe asked. “Or should I?”

  “I’ll get this one,” Frank said, pulling his notebook out of his pants pocket and opening it up. “According to my ‘stupid notebook,’ ” he said, “we did solve the case.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Adam, looking doubtful. “Then who did it?”

  “No one.” Frank smiled. “At least, no one here.”

  THE HARDY BOYS—and

  YOU!

  CAN YOU SOLVE THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING PIÑATA?

  Grab a piece of paper and write your answers down. Or just turn the page to find out.

  1. Frank and Joe came up with a list of suspects. Can you think of more? List your suspects.

  2. How do you think the piñata disappeared from the cabin? Using the “proof” the boys have so far, write your ideas down!

  3. What clues helped you to solve the mystery? Write them down!

  Chapter 10

  THE BEAR TRUTH

  “It was . . . a bear!” Frank said.

  Ranger Bo chuckled, patting his chest as he did. “You boys are so funny. What a great joke!”

  “You are kidding, aren’t you?” asked Phil.

  Frank shook his head. “When we were looking for animal tracks, we found bear tracks. But they were going toward the cabin!”

  “And once we got closer to the cabin,” Joe said, “we found shredded bits of the piñata all over the ground, leading back out to the woods.”

  “Just like the pieces we found out by the tree when we found Heather trying to get better phone service,” Frank added.

  Ranger Bo frowned. “She is supposed to be helping out—she is on that phone way too much.”

  Proof! Frank thought, remembering what his da
d had told him earlier that morning. He was glad they hadn’t gone around accusing all the wrong people of stealing, now that he knew who had really done it. He knew his dad would be proud of him and Joe.

  Ranger Bo’s mouth dropped open. “But—that’s—how—?”

  “You said yourself not to feed the animals, right?” said Frank.

  “Well, yes,” he said.

  Frank pointed to the back door. “When we asked Lolly if she’d seen anyone in the cabin earlier—just before the piñata went missing—she said that she was here alone.”

  “She also said that the back door was open,” added Joe.

  Ranger Bo put his head in his hands. “Oh no!” he said.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Lolly.

  “I left the door open!” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I did that! I’m just so forgetful!”

  Frank and Joe remembered earlier in the day, when Ranger Bo had walked away looking for his hat—and it had been right on his head!

  “The bear must have been attracted to the candy!” Ranger Bo said. “You boys are right; the bear stole your prize candy!”

  “The bear ate all that candy,” Lolly said, looking impressed.

  “And the toys, too, probably,” added Phil.

  Just then Heather walked through the front door of the cabin. And in her arms was a great big chocolate-brown piñata—in the shape of a bear!

  “I finished filling it with the new candy and toys, Dad,” she announced, setting it on the table. “Do we have a winner yet?”

  The other teams had been trickling in slowly while Frank and Joe were talking to Ranger Bo. Now they all ran over to examine the new scavenger hunt prize.

  Ranger Bo gathered everyone in a circle. He asked them all to pull out their bags of collected clues.

  Ellie Freeman’s team had found all but the last set of tracks, and Elisa’s team had collected every single item, but their Y-shaped twig had broken during the hunt, so it wasn’t Y-shaped anymore.

  Adam’s team and Frank and Joe’s team had both collected all the items from the clues, but only one of them had taken pictures of two sets of animal tracks. Squirrel and bear tracks!

  Ranger Bo beamed down at Frank and Joe Hardy. “Congratulations, kids! It looks like your team gets the piñata!”

  Lolly was smiling so wide, it looked like her face would crack! And Phil and Frank were already talking about which toys they hoped would be inside.

  Once Heather had hung the piñata up in the middle of the room, she handed Frank a plastic baseball bat. “You think you can break it open?” she asked him.

  Frank looked at his team. “Does anyone else want to take the first swing?” he asked.

  “You should do it,” Lolly said. “You solved the mystery, and you were brave.”

  Frank tightened his grip on the baseball bat while Heather blindfolded him.

  Joe and Phil spun Frank in a circle—once, twice, three times.

  “Are you ready?” Ranger Bo asked.

  “I think so,” said Frank.

  He tried to retrace his steps to where he thought the piñata was. Then he swung the bat!

  On his first try, and his second, the bat didn’t even hit the piñata. But on the third try, he heard it connect with a soft thunk.

  The group cheered behind him.

  Next, Phil and Joe both got a turn. Phil didn’t even hit the piñata once, but Joe hit it twice! Still, it hadn’t broken open.

  It was Lolly’s turn.

  Once she was blindfolded and spun around three times, she gripped the bat and smiled. Then she took four small steps and swung the bat as hard as she could.

  She felt the bat connect to the piñata and, all at once, heard the rush of toys and candy spilling out of it, onto the floor!

  Frank and Joe Hardy were surrounded by a mountain of toys and prize candy.

  They were sitting in the secret tree house that their dad had built for them in the Hardys’ backyard. Joining them were Phil and the latest member of their mystery-solving club—Lolly Sugarman.

  “Ughhhh,” Joe groaned. “If I eat one more piece of candy, I’m going to puke!”

  Lolly popped a strawberry SugarPop lollipop into her mouth and shook her head. “You shouldn’t have tried to eat as much as me,” she told him, patting his shoulder. “It takes practice to eat as much as I do—at least, that’s what my mom tells me.”

  Phil and Frank were working together on a cube-shaped puzzle with lots of colors.

  “I can’t move,” Joe complained, slumping in his chair.

  Frank laughed. “But everything was deeee-licious!”

  “Looks like the Hardy boys have solved another mystery,” said Phil.

  “I’m proud of you, Frank,” said Joe. “Not only did we solve the case today, but you faced a really big fear!”

  “And lived to tell the tale.” Lolly grinned through her lollipop.

  “You weren’t afraid?” Frank asked Joe. “Not even once?”

  “Nope!” Joe placed his hands behind his head. “I guess I’m just not ever afraid.”

  Frank paused, turning to look out the window of the tree house. “Did you guys hear that?”

  “What?” Joe asked, sitting up.

  “That growling,” said Frank. “Shhhh . . . I think it’s a . . . BEAR ATTACK!” He turned toward his brother and ran at him with his hands up in the air like claws.

  “Ahhhh!” Joe screamed.

  Frank, Lolly, and Phil doubled over, laughing.

  “Our hero,” said Frank. “Nothing can scare him!”

  “Except my own brother,” Joe admitted, joining in the laughter. “And maybe Aunt Gertrude when she tells me to clean my room.”

  “I think I could get used to being a part of this club,” Lolly said, grinning.

  Another case solved!

  About the Author

  Franklin W. Dixon is the author of the ever-popular Hardy Boys series of books.

  Matt David is a part-time illustrator and full-time clue finder, and lives and works in San Francisco. He solves mysteries with his trusty pencil and the help of his wife, son, and clever cat.

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  Don’t miss any of the cases in the Hardy Boys Clue Book series!

  #1: The Video Game Bandit

  #2: The Missing Playbook

  #3: Water-Ski Wipeout

  #4: Talent Show Tricks

  Coming Soon

  #6: A Skateboard Cat-astrophe

  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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  First Aladdin paperback edition April 2017

  Text copyright © 2017 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Matt David

  Also available in an Aladdin hardcover edition.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ALADDIN and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Book designed by Karina Granda

  Jacket designed by Nina Simoneaux

  Jacket illustrations copyright © 2017 by Matt David

  The text of this book was set in Adobe Garamond Pro.

  Library of Congress Control Number 2016954902

  ISBN 978-1-4814-8517-3 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-8516-6 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-8518-0 (eBook)