Bound for Danger Read online

  There was an audible gasp from the whole team. “No!” cried Steve. And Ty shook his head, saying, “This can’t be. This can’t be.”

  But Coach Perotta didn’t falter. “And,” he said, “because Jayden is on camera hazing, he will be brought before Principal Gerther and put up for suspension.”

  “But he was one of the victims!” I cried. “They set him up! They said he could avoid the abuse if he helped abuse the others—but they had to film him, so they had a scapegoat! You’re playing right into their hands!”

  Coach Perotta turned his hard stare on me, and for a minute my blood ran cold. Dude could be really scary when he wanted to be.

  “I have to uphold the rules,” he snarled. “If anyone wants to come forward with the masked guys’ identities, they can. But for now, I’m doing what I can to stop this.”

  Frank shook his head. “But that won’t stop anything! You’re only punishing the victims!”

  Coach turned to him, his eyes burning with anger, and exploded. “You listen to me! You and your brother can’t come in here and tell me how to run my team after three days! Everything was fine before you Hardy boys showed up!” He threw his arm toward Frank, and for a minute I thought he was actually going to hit him. Instead he pointed, from Frank to me. “You’re out! Both of you! Get out of my gym! ”

  Frank looked nervously back at me, and I stood and began walking to the door. Coach didn’t have to tell me twice. Heck, it was kind of a relief to have official orders to get out of here.

  Frank, Ty, and Jayden followed, each carrying bags with their things. When we got outside the gym, I turned back to face them all. Ty and Jayden looked miserable. They were both staring at the ground.

  “We can’t let this happen,” I said. “We all know what really went down last night. There has to be some way to get the real culprits punished!”

  “How?” Jayden looked up at me and shrugged. “The hazing’s been going on all season, but no one knows who’s really behind it. I’ve heard rumors that maybe it’s Jason, but there’s no proof—there’s a reason they all wear masks.”

  Ty hoisted his bag higher on his back. “Frankly, I should’ve known something was up when the nosy Hardy boys joined the team out of nowhere. You two always say you want to help, but you didn’t help anyone here, did you?”

  He stomped off, and after a few seconds, Jayden followed.

  I looked at Frank. He looked completely, totally miserable.

  “What’s going on?” a female voice asked from behind me. “You guys look like someone ran over your puppy with a garbage truck.”

  That’s an oddly specific comparison. I turned to see Kelly Pritzky. She was carrying a big gym bag—the girls’ team had practice after ours—and wearing a concerned expression.

  “Oh, uh, it’s nothing,” I said. And then I realized, if hazing was such a problem on the boys’ team, could it be happening on the girls’ team too? “There’s this . . . hazing thing happening on the boys’ team. We actually just got kicked off because of it.”

  Kelly looked at me like I was nuts. “You guys were hazing people?”

  “No.” Frank shook his head adamantly. “We were the victims. But it sort of doesn’t matter.”

  “Why doesn’t it matter?” Kelly scrunched up her eyebrows.

  “Because we’re off the team,” I said, “and it’s someone else’s problem to solve now. See you around.”

  We started walking, and Kelly watched us go. “See you around,” she said quietly. Then, when we were a few yards away, she called, “Hey! Was Jason involved? In the hazing, I mean?”

  I turned around. “Why do you ask?”

  She shrugged. “His scholarship, you know. He’s like a superstar. I’d hate . . .” She trailed off.

  “We don’t know whether he was involved,” Frank said. “He’s not in trouble, though. We are.”

  Kelly nodded slowly. “I’m sorry,” she said. She looked sincere.

  “It’s cool,” I said. “Basketball was never our sport.”

  With that, Frank and I walked out of the building and turned toward the parking lot.

  “Let’s go home,” he said. “Maybe Aunt Trudy made lasagna.”

  “Not likely,” I pointed out. “She made lasagna last night.”

  “Don’t kill the last hope I have, okay?”

  We walked down the long row toward our car. I was pretty sure we were at our lowest low. We’d persevered so long, we’d made the coaches aware of the problem, and somehow it had all blown up in our faces. The good guys got punished, and evil won.

  I was pretty sure we couldn’t feel any worse until we got to our car.

  Someone had slashed all four tires.

  11

  TEAM PLAYERS

  FRANK

  JOE WAS RIGHT. AUNT TRUDY had not made lasagna again.

  She had made her famous turkey meat loaf, which was almost as exciting. I had three pieces.

  “And then,” Joe was saying as I cut my third piece, “he says that Jayden has to go before Principal Gerther to talk about suspension.” He shook his head. “It’s like, unreal. It was like this totally dystopian society.”

  Mom had looked notably unpleased while listening to this whole story. “Well, listen,” she said, forking a brussels sprout, “I’m sorry this has been such a horrible case for you, but honestly, I’m glad you’re off it. Whatever Principal Gerther was trying to accomplish, I can’t imagine he knew it would get this bad.”

  “If you still need extracurriculars,” Aunt Trudy added, “maybe you can join the Culinary Society. I can always use some hands in the kitchen.”

  “Speaking of Principal Gerther,” my dad said, “do you think I can invoice him for eight new tires?” He’d very nicely picked us up from school that afternoon and arranged to have the car towed and new tires installed.

  I wanted to match his light, jokey tone, but the truth was I was too depressed to even answer.

  Yes, it was a relief to be off the basketball team, especially since I really stunk at basketball even before I was being beaten up on the regular. And yes, it was good to think that we’d escape further harassment now, because we’d finally done what the masked hazers wanted and left the basketball team—though technically, I guess, we were kicked off.

  But I haaaaaaaaaaate to leave a case unsolved. And we still didn’t know what was really happening on the team. Was Coach Perotta in on the hazing or not? Was Jason Bound really pulling the strings, trying to protect his scholarship by any means necessary?

  • • •

  Later that night, I sat at my desk, supposedly working on some extra credit to save my grade in English, but really staring into space and pondering the unfairness of the universe. That’s when the phone rang. It was the house landline, which has this ridiculously loud, old-school ring.

  “Frank!” yelled Mom from the living room. “It’s for you!”

  Who would call me on the landline? Had I won a cruise to the Bahamas? Had my ancient granny decided it was time for a semiannual check-in?

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Frank Hardy?” a male voice replied. “This is Principal Gerther.”

  It took me a minute to recognize the voice, because on the phone, apparently, our principal doesn’t yell. “Principal Gerther!” I said with the same excitement that a six-year-old might have used speaking to Santa Claus. “We’ve been trying to reach you!”

  “Frank, I feel terrible,” Gerther went on. “I’ve been in the Poconos for my annual reunion with some of my buddies from ’Nam. I got home today and had about five messages from Coach Perotta. He’s explained the whole situation to me, and I . . . well, I feel I may have put you and Joe into a situation that was much worse than I thought.”

  “That’s okay, Principal Gerther,” I said, though it wasn’t. I was still covered in bruises. I was just feeling generous because the possibility of answers lurked ahead. “Could we, maybe . . . talk to you about it? I think Joe and I would love to know w
hat you know. We’re just . . . kind of confused about the whole thing.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Gerther. “Are you free now? I could meet you at the Athens Diner. Don’t worry about homework. I’ll give an explanation to your teachers.”

  “That would be great, Principal Gerther. See you there in twenty minutes?”

  When he agreed and we’d hung up, I felt about fifty pounds lighter. I leaped out of my chair and walked down the hall to Joe’s room, where I pushed open the door. Joe was sprawled on his bed, watching an old Muppets movie on his laptop.

  Yep, that’s how he unwinds.

  He looked at me. “What’s up?” he asked. “Please don’t tell me you want to talk about it. I’m not ready to talk about it.”

  “Better yet,” I said, “We’re going to talk about it with someone else. Put on your shoes. We have a date at the Athens Diner.”

  “With who?” Joe asked.

  “Principal Gerther!” I said cheerfully.

  I got a brief glance at Joe’s flabbergasted face before I closed the door on my way out.

  • • •

  The Athens Diner is the kind of place that’s always moderately busy, whether it’s six a.m. or eleven o’clock at night. When we walked in, Joe tugged my arm and pointed to a booth in the back, where Principal Gerther’s familiar gray hair floated over the back of the bench.

  We walked over. Our principal smiled at us. He was wearing a brown velour zip-up lounge suit, which made me feel weird on multiple levels. And sitting in front of him were three slices of lemon meringue pie.

  “I ordered you boys pie,” he said, sliding two plates across the booth to us. “I think I at least owe you dessert.”

  “Thanks,” Joe said, taking a seat opposite the principal. I slid in next to my brother.

  “So,” Principal Gerther began, looking from me to Joe. “Joe, I’ve told your brother, but I just want to stress to both of you how very sorry I am that the two of you got as caught up in this as you did. Oh, that reminds me.” He turned to me. “Frank, I got a call from Mr. Porter that you got an in-school suspension for turning in some absurdly misogynistic paper. That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “It wasn’t, sir,” I said. “I think whoever’s behind all the bad stuff on the basketball team set me up.”

  He nodded gravely. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Joe looked up from his pie. “My girlfriend also broke up with me,” he said. “Same reason.”

  Principal Gerther looked a little confused. “Would you like me to talk to her?”

  Joe shrugged, turning back to his pie. “I guess not. But I would like to know what you know about what’s happening on the basketball team.”

  The principal put down his fork. “Well,” he said, “a couple months ago I got a call from the parents of a boy who’d dropped off the team. They said he wouldn’t give them any details, but they had the sense he’d been scared off the team—forced to quit to avoid some kind of abuse.” He paused. “I didn’t think much of it, honestly, because Coach Perotta has such a sterling record. I talked to him about it, but he said the claims were absurd.”

  I nodded, remembering how the coach had told me he’d heard nothing about any hazing before we came to him. Then I recalled how he paused when I’d asked him. Did that mean he knew? Did that mean he was involved? I looked at the principal. “But then . . . ,” I supplied.

  Principal Gerther sighed. “But then a sophomore came to me about two weeks later,” he said. “He thought a friend of his was being hazed by someone on the basketball team. I looked into it and couldn’t get any answers—the boy was either terrified of telling me the truth, or nothing was going on.”

  Joe had been devouring his pie while intently listening to Gerther’s story, but now he’d hit the crust and put down his fork. “So what happened to make you decide to get us involved?”

  “It was something I learned from Janitor Ed, actually,” Principal Gerther said. “He was cleaning out the boys’ locker room and came across one that had been left unlocked. Inside, he found black robes—the kind a judge might wear. And a pile of these strange, homemade plaster masks with—”

  “With creepy designs on them?” I asked. “Painted in white?”

  Gerther looked at me and nodded. “Bingo,” he said. “It reminded me of something the boys’ parents had told me—that the hazers wore masks to avoid being identified.”

  “So what did you do then?” asked Joe. “Is that when you called us?”

  Gerther shook his head. “No. I looked up the locker number where Ed had found the masks and robes, and it belonged to one Jason Bound.”

  Interesting. “The star of the team,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Gerther. “I’ll admit, boys, I didn’t want to believe he had anything to do with this. But I called a meeting with him and his parents.” He paused.

  “It didn’t go well?” Joe asked.

  “It went terribly,” Principal Gerther said. “As soon as I mentioned the possibility that Jason might know something about a hazing problem on the basketball team, his father reminded me that he is very wealthy—he invented the selfie stick, you know—and has access to some very high-priced lawyers.”

  “Did Jason say anything useful?” I asked.

  “He didn’t get a chance,” Principal Gerther said. “His father took over the conversation, saying that he was quite sure Jason didn’t know anything, and that if I wanted to accuse his son and jeopardize his scholarship, that I’d better have very clear evidence—or it would mean a lawsuit for the school.” He paused and scowled. “You know, BHS is still paying off that girl who claimed she found a rat tooth in her daily special from the cafeteria.”

  “I suspected that the rumor was true,” I said. One of the many reasons I think Joe is nuts to order the daily special every day.

  Gerther frowned at me. “I’m not at liberty to discuss it further,” he said. “My point is, we don’t have the money to be sued by David Bound of Bound Industries. Soooo . . .” He held out his hands, indicating the two of us.

  “So you had us join the team,” Joe supplied.

  “Exactly,” Gerther said. “I know you boys are good at solving mysteries.”

  “But you didn’t tell us anything about your hazing suspicions,” I pointed out. “You sort of sent us in blind.”

  “I know, and I regret that now,” Principal Gerther said, poking at his pie remnants with his fork. “I didn’t want to prejudice you. I wanted any evidence you brought to me to be pure enough to stand up in a court of law.” He paused, frowning. “But in trying to achieve that, I put you two at risk. You have my sincere apologies for that.”

  “Accepted,” I said. Joe looked at me with a little surprise, but I saw no point in holding grudges. It was clear Principal Gerther now saw just how dangerous the hazing situation was.

  “Hey,” Joe said suddenly, “you’re not yelling anymore.”

  “Excuse me?” asked Principal Gerther.

  Joe was right. “You usually speak at a . . . higher volume,” I said. “Sometimes it seems like you might have trouble hearing us.”

  “Oh.” Principal Gerther’s eyes widened in recognition. “Well, to be honest, boys, my wife has told me for some time that she thinks I have a hearing loss and should look into a hearing aid. I always resisted, because I didn’t want to look like an old fogey. But one of my ’Nam buddies, Herb, showed me this little tiny thing he inserts into his ear every day, that makes everything sound clear as a bell. You can’t even see it!” He tapped his ear. “I decided to give it a try.”

  “Wow,” Joe and I murmured at the same time. A Principal Gerther who admits he was wrong, cares about our well-being, and speaks at a normal volume? The times they were a-changin’.

  We were quiet for a minute, absorbing this news, when suddenly Joe straightened in his seat. “So what now?” he asked.

  “Now,” Gerther said, “I think I have no choice but to suspend the basketball team until Coach Per
otta can work with me to get to the bottom of this.”

  “But that punishes the whole team!” I pointed out. “I don’t think everybody is involved.”

  “But it seems that everybody is aware,” Principal Gerther said. “Everyone knows about the problem, and no one has reported it. That goes against the BHS honor code, right there.”

  “I think they’re afraid,” Joe said quietly. “The masked guys are pretty . . . scary.”

  “And the people who made it through the hazing,” I added, “have convinced themselves it was worth the struggle. It’s a psychological phenomenon called ‘cognitive dissonance.’”

  A brief shadow passed over Principal Gerther’s face, like he had just remembered I was annoying.

  “Listen,” I said, leaning forward, “can you just overturn Perotta’s punishment and get us back on the team?”

  “What?” Gerther asked.

  “What?” Joe echoed, looking at me like I was insane.

  “Of course I could,” Principal Gerther went on. “I am the principal. But is that really a good idea? I don’t want to expose you boys to further risk.”

  I looked at Joe, trying to use my brother-telepathy to say: We’re so close. Let’s just finish this.

  At least some of that must have landed, because Joe turned to the principal with a new sense of determination. “Frank’s right,” he said. “We’re so close to figuring out what’s really going on. Let us get to the bottom of this. We’ll get you proof. Something incriminating, on film or video.”

  Gerther looked from him to me, wearing a dubious expression. He shook his head. Finally he said, “All right—but I’m sending you back in with a bodyguard of sorts.”

  A bodyguard?

  “Whatever,” Joe said. “As long as you get us back on the team.”

  “Along with Ty, Pete, and Jayden,” I added. They have a right to play in the championship game they helped get to.

  Principal Gerther nodded. “Consider it done.” He looked at us seriously over our near-empty plates. “I feel like up to this point, I’ve underestimated both of you. You’re good boys. Your parents raised you right.”