Sea Life Secrets Read online

“I don’t even need to open the clue book to know we’re really out of suspects now.” Joe looked around the food court. “Mira’s Seymour cookie did make me kind of hungry, though.”

  “How can you think of food at a time like this? What about the real Seymour?” Frank asked. “We still have a mystery to solve!”

  “Detecting is harder on an empty stomach.” Joe rubbed his grumbling belly. “I can barely think, surrounded by all this yummy food.”

  Frank’s own belly rumbled back. “Well, I’m kind of hungry too. I guess we can talk about the case while we eat.”

  They looked around at the options. The food court had lots of different types of foods, but that wasn’t all it had. There was also a wall with a bunch of TV screens showing live cams of different exhibits so you could watch the animals while you ate. One of them had an underwater shot of the sharks swimming around Shark Row, and another showed Penguin Palace. The penguins on the screen were playing with a stuffed fish toy of their own. Next to the screens were framed pictures of some of the exhibits’ star attractions, including a frighteningly large snaggletooth shark named Smiley and their old friend, Lee the penguin.

  Joe looked from the picture of Lee to the ice-cream stand. A sign hanging from the ceiling above it advertised bird-shaped Penguin Pops.

  “Now, that looks like a tasty penguin,” he said, marching over to get one for himself. “Decision made!”

  Joe bought one for Frank, too.

  “Look! It has a paper wrapper instead of plastic.” Frank pointed to a tiny smiling turtle logo with the words 100% RECYCLABLE, COMPOSTABLE, AND BIODEGRADABLE printed on the Penguin Pop’s label. “As a Junior Marine Biologist in training, I know that a lot of regular plastic trash ends up in the ocean, where it can hurt sea creatures.”

  “Sweet! It’s tasty-looking and fish-friendly, too.” Joe tore off the wrapper and took a bite out of the penguin’s fudge-frosted noggin.

  “I feel like a better detective already,” he said through a mouthful of Penguin Pop. “Now, who else could have possibly stolen Seymour, and why?”

  Frank’s eyes lit up as he watched a drop of Joe’s ice cream drip off the penguin and fall onto the floor.

  “You were right about eating being good for detecting! I think your ice-cream pop may have just solved the mystery!”

  THE HARDY BOYS—and YOU!

  DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED to Seymour the chocolate chip sea star?

  Think like a Hardy Boy to crack the case. Write your answers down on a piece of paper. Or just turn the page to find out!

  Frank and Joe ruled out Brady, Pat, and Mira as suspects. Who else could have taken the sea star from the touch pool?

  Can you think of another way the sea star could have disappeared if none of the suspects took it?

  When Frank saw Joe eating the Penguin Pop, he thought of a new clue they hadn’t written down. Can you think of any clues they might have missed the first time?

  Frank and Joe got excited when they found out that the Penguin Pop had a fish-friendly paper wrapper instead of plastic. Can you think of other ways to use less plastic and help keep the ocean clean?

  RISING STAR

  “What if our who is also a what?” Frank asked, jumping up and down.

  “Huh?” Joe looked from Frank back to his Penguin Pop. He had no clue how his ice cream was a clue, but if he didn’t eat it fast, it would be a melty mess.

  “It didn’t pop into my head until I saw your Penguin Pop drip onto the floor.… Brady wasn’t the only one dripping when they left Tide Town.” Frank pointed at the framed animal portraits on the wall by the live cam of the penguins playing with their toy. “We’ve been trying to figure out which person had a reason to take Seymour, but the biggest troublemaker at Tide Town isn’t a person at all.”

  Joe thrust his Penguin Pop into the air. “It was a bird!”

  “We’d better make a beeline for the penguin exhibit.”

  Frank took off running, with Joe right behind him. They had just passed Tide Town when they saw Brady in front of a nearby octopus tank, drawing one of the eight-armed creatures in his sketchbook.

  “Brady!” Frank yelled.

  Brady threw his arms up in the air. “I didn’t do anything, I swear!”

  “It’s not you we’re after this time,” said Frank, skidding to a stop in front of the octopus tank. “We do need to borrow your lunch box, though. It’s for a good aquatic cause.”

  “As long as you bring it back, I guess that’s okay.” Brady picked his fish-tank-themed lunch box off the floor and held it out to Frank.

  “Deal!” Frank grabbed the lunch box and sprinted for the exit.

  “Penguins straight ahead!” Joe shouted as they burst through the door leading to the outside exhibits.

  The penguins from the live cam were still playing with their stuffed fish toy when the boys reached Penguin Palace. Mischief-maker Lee stood on the exhibit’s tallest rock, squawking down at them. Frank and Joe grabbed on to the railing and scanned the rocky beach.

  “I don’t see anything up here,” Frank said, leaning over to get a closer look.

  One of the penguins waddled past them to the water’s edge and dove in.

  “I think that one has the right idea. Let’s get a penguin’s-eye view of what’s under the water.”

  Joe led the way down the steps to the underwater part of the exhibit, where visitors could look through the glass at the penguins swimming around. There were more toys underwater, but it wasn’t the colorful plastic rings that got the boys’ attention. A strange, five-armed toy was slowly climbing up the glass.

  Frank jabbed his finger at the tank. “One of these toys is not like the others!”

  “Seymour!” Joe shouted, running up to the glass in front of the chocolate chip sea star.

  “What’s all the commotion about?” said a voice from behind them.

  “Benjamin!” Joe turned around and spotted the penguin keeper. “Your star penguin stole Mouna’s star sea star!”

  Benjamin saw Seymour climbing up the glass and gasped. “Lee did that?”

  “He must have mistaken Seymour for a fun toy when he was splashing around in Tide Town and carried him back here to the penguin exhibit,” Frank said. “With you and Mouna busy chasing the other penguins, it would have been easy for him to grab one of the creatures without anyone noticing.”

  Benjamin held his face in his hands. “Oh boy. I’d better get Seymour out of there and back to Tide Town right away.”

  He ran to a door that said AQUARIUM STAFF ONLY and opened it with his ID badge. He reappeared a couple of minutes later on the beach, wearing a wet suit. Frank and Joe watched through the underwater window as he dove into the tank and gently pulled Seymour from the glass.

  “He’s getting a free lift back to the surface! Let’s go meet them!” said Joe. He led the way up the stairs. They got there just as Benjamin poked his head out of the water.

  “I’d better lift him out of the water slowly so he has time to adjust,” Benjamin said. “Poor Seymour’s already been through a lot today!”

  “We can take it from there,” Frank said, opening Brady’s lunch box. All that was left inside was the leaky thermos. He took it out and held the empty lunch box over the rail for Benjamin. “If you fill this with water, we can carry it back to Mouna so you don’t have to leave the penguins.”

  “Good thinking! These penguins get into enough trouble even when I’m watching them. Who knows what they’d do on their own!” Benjamin grabbed the lunch box and scooped water into it. “It’s a quick trip to Tide Town, and Seymour seems to have gotten used to the penguins’ water just fine.” He placed Seymour inside and closed the lid, then handed the lunch box to Joe.

  “Brady’s fish-tank lunch box really does make a great portable fish tank.” Joe examined the container. “It’s a little leaky, but we don’t have far to go.”

  “Thanks, guys!” Benjamin called after Frank and Joe as they hurried back to the entrance. “You’re
real aquarium heroes. Seymour could have been lost forever if you hadn’t found him!”

  Benjamin wasn’t the only happy Bayport Aquarium employee.

  “Seymour!” Mouna shouted a few minutes later when Frank and Joe walked into Tide Town and popped open the lunch box.

  She carefully lifted the sea star out and put him back into the touch pool with the other Tide Town residents.

  “That’s the last time we’re going to let the penguins parade through Tide Town, that’s for sure,” she said when the Hardys told her how Lee had mistaken Seymour for a toy and smuggled him back to the penguin exhibit.

  Joe pulled the clue book out one last time and filled in the final two Ws.

  “Who? Lee the penguin. Why? Sea stars are fun!”

  “It’s time for me to write something down too,” Frank said, pulling out a notebook of his own. “My extra-credit list of Tide Town creatures!”

  “Hey, Frank,” Brady said from the Tide Town entrance. He was holding up the page of his sketchbook where he’d written down his list. “I was thinking maybe we could work together and compare notes. I mean, if you want to. That way, we’re both sure to get Junior Marine Biologist badges.”

  Frank smiled. “You got it, partner! It’s your lunch box that gave me the idea for how we could rescue Seymour, so we’re kind of working together already. It makes sense for us to team up on the extra-credit investigation, too.”

  Joe grinned and threw an arm around each of them. “The tide sure has turned on this case!”

  More from this Series

  Robot Rescue!

  Book 13

  The Video Game Bandit

  Book 1

  The Missing Playbook

  Book 2

  Water-Ski Wipeout

  Book 3

  Talent Show Tricks

  Book 4

  Scavenger Hunt Heist

  Book 5

  About the Author and Illustrator

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

  Santy Gutiérrez resides in the seaside city of La Coruña, Spain. He has won awards such as the Best Spanish Young Editorial Cartoonist and Best Galician Caricaturist, among others.

  Aladdin

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids

  www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Franklin-W-Dixon

  www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Santy-Gutiérrez

  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

  #5: Scavenger Hunt Heist

  #6: A Skateboard Cat-astrophe

  #7: The Pirate Ghost

  #8: The Time Warp Wonder

  #9: Who Let the Frogs Out?

  #10: The Great Pumpkin Smash

  #11: Bug-Napped

  Coming Soon

  #13: Robot Rescue!

  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.

  ALADDIN

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Aladdin paperback edition August 2020

  Text copyright © 2020 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Santy Gutiérrez

  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.

  THE HARDY BOYS and colophons are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  HARDY BOYS CLUE BOOK and colophons are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event.

  For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Series designed by Karina Granda

  Cover designed by Tiara Iandiorio

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Dixon, Franklin W., author. | Gutiérrez, Santy, 1971- illustrator.

  Title: Sea life secrets / by Franklin W. Dixon ; illustrated by Santy Gutiérrez.

  Description: First Aladdin hardcover edition. | New York : Aladdin, [2020] | Series: Hardy Boys clue book ; 12 | Audience: Ages 6-9. | Summary: Detective brothers Frank and Joe Hardy are on the case when a sea star goes missing during their school field trip to the Bayport Aquarium.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020016075 (print) | LCCN 2020016076 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9781534442580 (paperback) | ISBN 9781534442597 (hardcover) |

  ISBN 9781534442603 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Aquariums—Fiction. | School field trips—Fiction. | Aquarium animals—Fiction. | Penguins—Fiction. | Brothers—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.D644 Sbm 2020 (print) | LCC PZ7.D644 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016075