Rocky Road Read online

  The door swung open, and there stood a fire-breathing dragon. No, not really. It was only Brian and Belinda’s mom—but she had a smelly cigar in her hand, and her eyes and face were red and swollen. She’d either been drinking or crying, or else she was just plain poisoned by the cigar smoke.

  Whatever.

  She took in the sight of me as if I were a six-foot-tall cockroach and said, “Yeah? Whaddaya want?”

  “Um, I was looking for Brian?” I said, trying not to use too much breath. Otherwise, I might have to inhale.

  “Oh, yeah? And who are you?”

  Only now did I notice that she had a toilet plunger in her free hand—the one that wasn’t holding the cigar. I knew instantly what it was for: bopping unwelcome visitors (like me) over the head.

  “I’m Joe Hardy—a classmate of Brian’s.”

  Obviously, no classmate of Brian’s had ever come to his house before, and I could see why not. The place looked like a bomb hit it, his mother was a repulsive witch . . . and that was just the beginning.

  Mrs. Conrad moved aside to let me in. Just as I stepped past her into the hallway, she yelled right in my ear: “HEY, BRIAN! SOMEONE’S HERE TO SEE YOU!”

  I saw Brian’s head poking out of a doorway at the top of the stairs. “Shut up!” he yelled at his mother before spotting me.

  My presence seemed to throw him off balance, but only for a second. “Well, well, well,” he said as an evil grin spread over his mean, ugly face. “Joe Hardy. What do you want?”

  “Just to talk. I have a few questions I want to ask you.”

  “Me? You sure you aren’t here looking for my sister?”

  “No,” I assured him. “But tell her I said hi.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, right. I’ll be sure to do that.”

  “Hey,” Brian’s mother said to him, “I wasn’t expecting visitors. You wanna have visitors, you better clean up this dump.”

  Brian sneered at her, then back at me. “Come on up, Hardy,” he said. “We can talk in my room.”

  “It’s your mess—you clean it!” his mom screamed at him as I went up the stairs.

  Ugh. If I say pigsty, you won’t get how truly disgusting Brian’s room was. I didn’t dare sit down, either on the chairs or the bed. Old food was everywhere, with flies dive-bombing it . . . you get the picture.

  Dead things were pinned to all the walls. Insects, sure, but also mice, small birds, and some larger things that were hard to identify, but might have been squirrels.

  Oh, boy. This kid was truly demented.

  “So where’s your brother? Where’s Mr. Lover Boy?” he asked, shutting the door behind us.

  “He couldn’t make it.”

  Brian laughed. “Oh, yeah, sure—he’s just afraid I’ll ram his nose into his skull, that’s all.” Then he looked me up and down. “So he sends you to fight his battles for him, huh? I guess you’ve got more guts than he does.”

  “I’m not afraid of you, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Well, maybe you should be.”

  He cracked his knuckles menacingly.

  “I didn’t come here to fight you, Conrad,” I said.

  “I came to ask you a few questions about stuff that’s been going down.”

  That caught him by surprise. “What stuff is that?”

  “I thought you’d know all about it.”

  “I haven’t got a clue. Why don’t you tell me?”

  I folded my arms on my chest and waited.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “I did hear something about school buses and some other stuff. Is that it?”

  “You heard about it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “From who?”

  “Like I would ever tell you.” He laughed and shook his head. “Listen, Hardy, if you think I did something naughty, why don’t you tell your friends the cops, so they can come arrest me?”

  No, Brian doesn’t know about ATAC—of course he doesn’t. But everyone at Bayport High knows Frank and I are amateur detectives. Our relationship with the local police is an open secret.

  “It’s because you’ve got no evidence against me. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Am I right?”

  He had me, and he knew it.

  Luckily, just at that moment, the door to his room popped open and Belinda poked her gorgeous blond head in. “Joe! Hi! I thought I heard your voice!”

  “Hi, Belinda,” I said, a dreamy smile coming over my face.

  She is so hot. Not even the presence of Brian could ruin that moment for me.

  “Where’s Frank? Did he come with you?” she asked hopefully, looking around the room for him.

  “Um, not this time,” I said, and watched the light go out of her eyes.

  “Oh. Well, tell him I said hi, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Bye. I’ve got to go to my voice lesson.”

  Yeah, she sings, too. Like a bird. Amazing, isn’t it, how such an awful house can contain someone like Belinda? It’s like they stole her from some other family and brought her home to brighten their dismal lives.

  Actually, that’s not so far-fetched. Not once you’ve been to their house.

  Belinda’s brief visit seemed to put Brian in a bad mood. As soon as she was gone, his phony smile vanished.

  “You know, Hardy, you’ve got some nerve coming over to my house like this.” He started advancing on me. His hands were balled into fists, and I expected to see them fly at me any second. “I want you to know, I don’t like being accused of stuff.” He pounded his fist down on an end table, sending stuff crashing to the floor. “I’m always being accused of stuff! Always! Even when I didn’t do anything. It’s totally unfair!”

  I didn’t back down. “It just seems to me and Frank that whoever is trashing school property doesn’t want school to open on time. And we figured you fit the bill.”

  He grabbed me by my shirt and slammed me into the door. “It’s you and your brother’s fault I’m always getting blamed for everything! Because of you, I’ve got a bad reputation at school!”

  “Oh, I see. You had nothing to do with it.”

  I knew I was risking a punch in the face, but I just had to say it.

  “Shut up!” he screamed.

  I did. He was mad enough already.

  “Sure, I hate school,” he said, his face inches from mine. “But you know what? Staying at home is even worse! It’s dead boring, and it’s depressing the heck out of me! I can’t wait to go back and start annoying the teachers and kids again.”

  Guess what? I believed him.

  Being in the Conrad house was the most depressing ten minutes I’d spent in years. I couldn’t imagine how Belinda put up with it. No wonder she joined every club at school and was always taking lessons outside the house!

  The poor kid . . .

  “Now you get out of here,” Brian whispered in my ear, “before I—”

  “HEY, BRIAN!!”

  His mother’s voice shook the whole house.

  “WHAT?!”

  “GET DOWN HERE AND HELP ME PLUNGE THE TOILET!”

  Oh. So that’s why she was holding the plunger!

  “DO IT YOURSELF!”

  “I SAID GET DOWN HERE! NOW!!!”

  Brian’s frustration boiled over. As he left the room, he gave me a shove and released my shirt. I slammed into the doorway, but at least I was free now.

  Free to go.

  Free to get out of there and breathe again.

  “Thanks for your time,” I told him as I followed him down the stairs.

  “Yeah, and don’t come back!” he said. “You’re lucky I let you off so easy. Next time you won’t be so lucky. Now run along home before I change my mind and make you pay.”

  I took my time getting to the front door. Nobody was going to make me hurry.

  I was going to show him I wasn’t scared of him. I let myself out the door to the sound of a toilet flushing.

  Out on the front lawn I took a deep breath of fresh air. You know, you ne
ver really appreciate air until you’re forced to breathe something else—like whatever was perfuming the inside of the Conrad house.

  I turned and walked toward the curb, where my bike was still parked.

  “Hey, Hardy!”

  It was Brian’s voice, calling to me from behind. I turned and saw him positioned at the front door—with a gun in his hands!

  This is it! I thought. I’m going to die. Right now.

  I was hit before I heard the shot. Smack in the center of my chest. The impact sent me rocking backward, and I tumbled to the ground!

  I looked down at my shirt. It was splattered and soaked in red.

  But why wasn’t I dead? Why didn’t it even hurt?

  And then I realized—it was a paintball gun!

  I shook my fist at Brian, who was cackling with glee, laughing his fool head off.

  I felt like strangling him. But I could hear my father’s voice in my ear, telling me to be smart. And my mother’s, telling me not to let my feelings get the better of me.

  Yeah, I felt like killing him. And I could have too.

  But instead, I got on my bike and rode away, with Brian’s laughter echoing in my ears.

  12.

  DEEP FREEZE

  When Joe walked in the door, I thought he’d been shot. All that red paint sure looked like blood—at least until you looked at it closely.

  But Joe wasn’t hurt, he was just angry. And when he told me what Brian had done, I was even angrier.

  “We could have him hauled in by the police for that. Let’s do it, Joe. Let’s call Con Reilly and have him put the cuffs on Brian, take him down to headquarters, and grill him for an hour or so.”

  For once, it was Joe calming me down, instead of the other way around. “Come on, Frank, what good would that do? You think it’s going to teach Brian not to be such a dillweed?”

  “It would serve him right, anyway.”

  “Sure, but he’d only come back worse than before.”

  “True. I guess you’re right. What would be the use?”

  “There you go.” Joe took off his paint-soaked shirt and threw it in a plastic bag for neat disposal.

  “You know, Joe, if he’s the one behind all the vandalism, it would mean reform school for him.”

  “You think Brian can be reformed?”

  “Mmmm . . . maybe not. Anyway, now that you’ve talked to him, do you think he did it?”

  “He sure got insulted when I suggested it,” Joe said, taking a washcloth to himself.

  “Truth hurts.”

  “He actually said he couldn’t wait to go back to school.”

  “And you believe that?”

  To my total surprise, Joe said, “Yeah, I think I do. Spending the whole summer at his house would be pretty depressing.”

  I had never been to the Conrad house. But I found it hard to believe Brian would rather go to school than be there.

  “You know,” Joe said, pulling a fresh T-shirt over his head, “we should go back to Bayport High and have another look around. We never did go inside the other day.”

  “The whole place is probably all cleaned up by now,” I pointed out. “We should have gone in before the trail went cold. We had our chance.”

  “Yeah, but all our friends were there. It would have been very uncool to break in with them there.”

  “We trespassed on school grounds and didn’t think anything of it.”

  “Yeah, but there’s breaking the law, and then there’s breaking the law.”

  “Why, Joe. I’m surprised at you,” I said with a laugh.

  “Come on, you dweeb,” he said, giving me a little shove. “Let’s get over there. Maybe there are still some clues left to find.”

  The yellow crime scene tape was gone from the cafeteria entrance. A new lock had been installed, and a new coat of paint slapped on to cover the scratches the crowbar had made. “Whoever broke in here,” I said, “sure didn’t know how to pick a lock—otherwise they wouldn’t have needed a crowbar.”

  “So you’re saying . . . ?”

  “Seems like an amateur thief—or anyway, someone who isn’t that experienced.”

  The new lock was digital. “Joe, where’s that gizmo Dad gave you?”

  He handed me the microwave flashlight, and I turned it on the lock, frying its settings. The door popped open, and we were inside.

  “That’s vandalism, you know,” Joe told me.

  “I’ll be sure to pay them back,” I said.

  I meant it too. I mean, I still had money from ATAC. And I hated to ruin the new lock—but this was important.

  The school was empty and silent. Creepy, in fact. It was a weird feeling, being here when there were no kids, no teachers, and absolutely no noise.

  Everything looked strangely normal, though. Lockers lined the halls, the floors looked mopped and swept—no sign of broken glass like in the elementary schools, where, according to Iola, lots of windows had been broken.

  Nothing looked out of place here.

  Except the whole huge room looked like a bomb had hit it!

  There were tables overturned, chairs smashed and scattered everywhere—and a wide variety of rotting foods all over the floor.

  And the smell was not to be believed.

  “Yuck!” Joe said, covering his nose and mouth. “I can’t breathe!”

  Neither could I. But we had to check the crime scene out. Obviously, the police must have been over it with a fine-tooth comb. Still, in a mess like this, it would be easy to miss a clue. Even an important one.

  We used our flashlights—the regular ones we always carry—and scoped out the place. Joe put a napkin over his face, but I doubt if it helped much.

  As for me, I was feeling a strong urge to puke. If I had, it would have blended right in with the mess, I promise you.

  “Chet said a lot of food was stolen,” Joe said, between gasps for air. “They sure left a lot behind.”

  “You’d think someone would be in here to clean it all up.”

  “Yeah—some industrial-strength cleaning service.”

  “They must have stripped the shelves clean,” I said. “Because they’re empty now.”

  “Didn’t Chet say something about them delivering a big load of food and supplies for the start of school?”

  “That’s right. But unless they had a big truck of their own, whoever broke in here couldn’t have taken it all with them.”

  “Maybe they just threw it all on the floor,” Joe said, “and didn’t take anything with them.”

  “They probably hit the freezer, too.”

  “Let’s check and see.”

  The door to the walk-in freezer was locked, but unlike the outside door to the cafeteria, this lock wasn’t anything special. I had the door open in less than thirty seconds.

  We pointed our flashlights inside. There were metal shelves lining each side of the long, dark room. The shelves were mostly empty, but there were quite a few boxes of frozen food scattered on the floor—most of them broken open and ruined.

  “Hey, Frank. You know, the rain washed away all the footprints from outside—but there might be some in here, preserved in the frost!”

  A long shot, true, but still, it was a shot.

  We moved on into the pitch-dark freezer room, playing our flashlights on the floor.

  We were almost to the back wall when I heard the creaking of the heavy metal door behind us.

  It slammed shut with a sickening thud. Then I heard the lock click into place.

  And something else—laughter.

  13.

  COLD, COLD HEART

  If you’ve never been locked inside a walk-in freezer before, let me save you some time and a lot of discomfort—don’t try it.

  These walk-in babies are deep-freezes, with the emphasis on deep. Food stored in them can last for a year or more. As for human life, well, Frank and I would be lucky if we lasted an hour.

  It was COLD in there! COLDCOLDCOLD-COLD!!!!!

  I
n less than a minute, I was shivering so hard, with my whole body, that you would have thought I was having a seizure.

  I’m sure Frank was feeling the same way. He was busy playing his flashlight all over the walls, looking for an escape switch that would trigger the freezer door to open.

  You’d think a school system, of all places, would build in a safety escape switch. But if there was one, we sure couldn’t find it.

  “Um, Joe? I think we might be in trouble here,” Frank finally said.

  I tried ramming the door, but it didn’t give, and I knew it wasn’t going to, no matter how many times I tried.

  Ow. The pain. The cold. Brrrrrr. . .

  And on top of everything, the total humiliation of it! After all the times we’d cheated death, to go down in such a lame way . . .

  Just think—when school finally started, the cafeteria workers would open the freezer door and find us with icicles hanging from our noses, frozen solid like a pair of gigantic popsicles! Not to mention dead. Talk about embarrassing!

  “Heeellllp!!!” I screamed. “HEEELLLLP!!!”

  Frank joined in, and we made one heck of a chorus—but who exactly did we think was going to help us? The fiend who’d locked us in?

  I could hear him now, on the other side of the heavy steel door, laughing his head off.

  The laughter was high-pitched, I noticed. So high-pitched you’d have thought it was a woman out there. . . .

  “Ha-ha! I’ve got you now!”

  It was a woman!

  “Let us out of here!” Frank yelled. “You don’t want to be facing murder charges, do you?”

  More laughter. Then, “Yeah, right. I’m not worried about it.”

  There was something familiar about that voice. Where had I heard it before?

  “You’re not getting out until the cops get here,” said the voice. “I’m gonna go call them right now, and you’re gonna get what’s coming to you.”

  The cops?

  “Hey . . . who is that?” Frank asked me.

  “So what did you think, you could get away with breaking in here twice in one week?”

  So she thought we were the bad guys!

  Finally, I recognized the voice. “Loretta? Is that you?”

  Silence from our school custodian. Then, “Who is that in there?”

  “It’s us, Loretta—Frank and Joe Hardy!”