She sat down dramatically on one of the chairs.
Frank shrugged.
“What about you?” Joe yelled out to Todd.
“Me?” Todd seemed surprised anyone would talk to him. Apparently, he was used to Melissa getting all the attention.
“Did you see anything strange?”
But before Todd could answer, Melissa was back on her feet.
“It was horrible! Simply horrible. There I was, ready for my big number, when that frog hit me smack in the face! It was cold and wet and awful. And I know Principal Butler thinks it was a prank on the talent show, but I know I was the target. Whoever did it must have read the interview I gave to the school newspaper, where I talked about my love of frogs and how I would never want to see them hurt. Did you read that issue? I have signed copies if you want one. When I’m famous—I mean, more famous than I am now—I’m going to start a charity for frogs.”
Once Melissa started talking, there was no stopping her. Frank tried to jump in, but Melissa just kept going.
“It must be one of those crazy stalkers that celebrities get. I guess this is going to be my life from now on, so I had better get used to it. It’s the price of fame.”
Melissa paused to take a breath, and Frank jumped in.
“But where did the frogs come from? Did you see anything?” If they could figure out where the frogs had come from, maybe they could find some evidence of who brought them in the first place.
“What? I—I don’t remember.” Melissa was stumped.
“Did someone throw them from the audience? Or from backstage?”
Todd had been lingering in the background, listening to their conversation. Now he jumped in.
“They weren’t thrown,” he said. “I saw the one that hit Melissa fall from a crack in the ceiling—right up there.”
Todd pointed above their heads. Frank and Joe peered up at the ceiling. It was too dark to make out much of anything all the way up there. It must have been thirty feet above their heads! But if that was where the frogs came from, that was where they had to go. Now, how could they get up there?
8
The Case Takes a Turn …
Frank and Joe split up and searched around the auditorium for a way to get to the ceiling. For a few minutes neither of them said anything. Then Joe yelled out. “Over here!” He’d found something.
There were no stairs leading up, but at the back of the stage, behind the curtain, there was a tall metal structure, like a jungle gym. It was used to hang the lights for the plays. It went all the way up to the ceiling. It wouldn’t be an easy climb. The bars were spaced too far apart, since it was made for adults. But if they stood on tiptoes and reached high above their heads, Frank and Joe could just barely reach the next metal bar above their heads. Slowly they began to pull themselves up.
“Whoa!” Halfway, Frank’s hand slipped. For a moment he hung in midair. One hand wasn’t enough to hold himself up, though. He could feel his fingers slipping off the smooth, cold metal. He looked down. The ground was a long way away… .
“Gotcha!” Joe reached down and grabbed Frank by the wrist. This was the way their dad had taught them. Grabbing someone by the hand made it possible for them to slip out of your grip. But if you grabbed their wrist, the narrowest part of the arm, their hand acted like a stopper and kept them from slipping free. Carefully, Joe pulled Frank back up, until he could grab the bar with both hands.
“Thanks, Joe.”
“Don’t mention it. Now let’s hurry!”
Thankfully, Frank and Joe had a lot of experience climbing things. Their dad had built them a tree house. In there, they wrote up all the cases they had solved, and in the summer they would often climb out onto the high branches.
Finally, they got to the top of the scaffolding. They both scrambled up over the side and found themselves on a small platform.
“Someone could have stood up here and thrown down the frogs,” said Joe.
“True,” said Frank. He looked around him carefully. “But the floor is made out of metal grating, and anyone who looked up would have seen them. Plus, it would be really hard to carry all the frogs up here!”
The boys looked around. You could see the whole auditorium from up here. They were lucky neither of them was afraid of heights. At least, neither of them was very afraid of heights. They both stayed well away from the edge of the platform, just in case.
Then Joe noticed something. “Look! Over there!”
Above the platform, right at one edge, was a broken grate! It was hanging down slightly from the ceiling. It was open just far enough that something the size of a frog could have slipped through it.
“They’re everywhere,” said Frank. He pointed around the auditorium. Sure enough, it looked like all the vents in the ceiling had busted grates—as though a whole lot of something had fallen through them recently.
“That must be how they got in!” said Joe.
“Wherever those grates lead … ,” said Frank.
“That’s where the frogs came from,” finished Joe.
“Where do you think they lead?”
“Only one way to find out.”
They both looked at the nearest grate. Even standing on tiptoe, there was no way they could reach it alone.
“Here,” said Frank. “Get up on my shoulders.”
Frank squatted down and held out his hand. Carefully, Joe stepped up, first on Frank’s hip, then on his shoulder. Joe used Frank’s hand to steady himself. Once he was firmly in place, the front of his shins pressing against the back of Frank’s head, Frank stood up. He let go of Joe’s hands and held him by the backs of the legs instead, which steadied Joe.
“You okay up there?” Frank asked.
“Yup!” said Joe.
Slowly, Frank made his way over to the edge of the platform.
“I can almost reach it!” said Joe, straining up to catch the edges of the vent beyond the grate.
Frank took another step forward. Now his toes were right up against the edge of the platform.
“Almost—just a little farther.”
Frank took a tiny half step. Now his toes were sticking out over the edge, but Joe’s weight helped keep him from tipping forward.
“I can’t go any farther!” said Frank.
“Got it!” Joe pulled himself up. There were a few seconds of banging, and then Joe’s arms reached out from inside the vent.
“Grab my hands,” he said.
Frank leaned as far forward as he could, then reached up and grabbed Joe’s wrists.
“Ready?” said Frank.
“On the count of three,” said Joe.
“One … two … three!”
On “three,” Frank jumped up. Joe pulled as hard as he could. For a second, Frank seemed to hang in the air. Then zoom! —up he went into the vent, like a piece of lint being sucked into a vacuum cleaner.
Inside, the vent was dark. There were little patches of light where the grates were, but aside from that, it was a long, dark, narrow tunnel, just wide enough for Frank and Joe to crawl in. Joe began creeping forward, careful not to put any weight on the vents, since they could fall open and send the boys tumbling onto the ground below.
Frank followed Joe, then paused.
“Hey, Joe?”
“Yeah, Frank?”
“How are we going to get back down?”
There was a long pause.
“I hadn’t thought about that,” said Joe.
After a minute the boys continued crawling. All they could hope for was that the vent would let them out somewhere safe … eventually.
In the dark the tunnel got narrower and then wider again. It turned to the left and the right and the left again. It seemed to twist back on itself sometimes. Frank and Joe lost all sense of direction. Once, they came to a ladder and had to climb ten more feet. Eventually, it seemed to get brighter.
“I think there’s a way out up ahead!” said Joe. He began to crawl faster. Finally, the boys coul
d make out a square opening at the end of the tunnel. There should have been a grate, like at all the other openings, but this one was missing.
Joe stuck his head out of the hole.
“It’s a classroom,” he said.
After a few seconds he managed to pull himself entirely out of the vent. Frank was right behind him—too close behind him. Frank’s arm got tangled up with Joe’s leg, and instead of carefully climbing out, the two boys fell out with a loud crash!
BRAACKSSH!
They knocked over a desk, and the sound of the metal against the tiled floor was deafening in the quiet room.
Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps approaching. The boys looked up and saw a man in a white lab coat running toward them.
“What are you boys doing?” the man demanded. “Are you with that girl? What did she do with my frogs?”
9
Science to the Rescue!
Mr. Willis!” said Frank. The man in the lab coat was the fifth-grade science teacher, Mr. Willis. Neither Joe nor Frank had had him as a teacher yet, but Frank knew him from doing extra-credit projects for the science fair.
“Well, my word. Frank Hardy! What are you doing in my classroom?”
“We didn’t mean to end up here, sir.” Even though he was one of the younger teachers, Mr. Willis was one of those old-school types who liked to be called “sir” and thought politeness was superimportant.
“Yeah,” Joe said, “we were lost in the vents.”
Mr. Willis turned to Joe. “And you are … ?” he asked.
“Joe. Joe Hardy. Frank’s brother.”
Mr. Willis continued to stare at him.
“Sir,” Joe added. Mr. Willis nodded.
“Well, Joe Hardy. What were you boys doing in the vents? I’m fairly certain those are not open to the public.”
“Well, sir, it’s about the talent show …”
“The talent show!” Mr. Willis slapped his forehead. “Oh dear. I forgot that was today. And your talent was climbing through the vents?” Mr. Willis had a reputation for being absentminded.
Joe and Frank explained what had happened during the show. While they talked, Mr. Willis straightened up the desk they had knocked over. Finally, after they were done talking, Frank asked him about the girl he had mentioned.
“What girl?” said Mr. Willis.
“The one you mentioned earlier? The girl with the frogs?” said Joe. He was watching the clock at the front of the classroom. Time was running out. In fifteen minutes Principal Butler would call Adam’s parents, and then it would all be over.
“Oh yes!” said Mr. Willis. “I was working on an experiment, to try to figure out the different temperatures at which materials burn. I had set up a very interesting array of things. I had four candles and a Bunsen burner prepared. The idea was to take different fabrics, and—”
“Mr. Willis?” Frank interrupted him. “What about the girl?”
“Right!” says Mr. Willis. “Some girl came in because she’d seen the frogs in the aquarium.” He pointed to a glass case that sat to the left of the vent the boys had come out of. It was empty.
“She was upset that I was keeping them trapped in here. I explained to her that they had a good life and were safer than they would be in the wild, where predators could get them. Then I turned my back for one minute, and the next thing I know she’s gone—and so were my frogs!”
“They must be the frogs that ended up falling on the talent show,” said Joe.
“I knew Adam didn’t do it!” said Frank.
“Oh dear! I hope the frogs weren’t injured. Do you know where they are now? I need them for class tomorrow,” said Mr. Willis.
“Principal Butler has them in her office, I think.”
“That is great news! I’m going to go get them now.”
Mr. Willis turned away from Frank and Joe. He nearly ran out of the room.
“Wait!” yelled Joe. “The girl—who was it?”
“She didn’t introduce herself, I’m afraid.”
“What did she look like, sir?” asked Joe.
“Well … she was short. And had hair. You know. Like a girl.”
That wasn’t going to be enough to go on. Joe tried again. “Was there anything different about her? Anything that would help you find her again?”
Mr. Willis thought for a moment. He pulled his long hair distractedly.
“Oh yes! She was dressed funny—like a bumblebee. Now I really must go find my frogs. Good-bye, boys!”
Mr. Willis ran out of the room.
“Dressed like a bumblebee?” said Frank. “Who could that be? Was anyone wearing wings for the talent show?”
“No,” said Joe. “But Melissa was dressed in yellow and black! And she said she loves frogs.”
Was Melissa responsible for ruining her own number?
10
The Show Must Go On
Excuse me! Sorry! Coming through!”
Frank and Joe ran through the halls of Bayport Elementary as fast as they could go. They had to talk to Melissa before Principal Butler got out of her meeting. When they got to the door to the auditorium, they could hear singing coming from inside. They were in luck! Melissa was still rehearsing.
They burst through the doors. Melissa and Todd stopped singing. Before they could say anything, Frank burst out with, “Did you take the frogs from Mr. Willis’s classroom?”
Melissa looked stunned. “No! I didn’t … take them.”
Something about the way she said it told Frank she was lying.
“Did you touch them?”
“It wasn’t my fault! They were being kept imprisoned! I was going to take them outside, but then Mr. Willis came running in and yelled at me, and I turned around to grab them off the counter where I had put them, and they were gone!” Melissa had started crying. This time, Frank believed her.
“They must have hopped off the counter, into the open vent!” said Joe.
“I just wanted them to be free!” said Melissa.
“You’re going to have to tell Principal Butler,” said Frank.
“But I didn’t bring them to the talent show. Adam said he did it!” Melissa didn’t want to get in trouble.
Frank and Joe explained their theory: The frogs had escaped into the system of vents. When they reached the auditorium, they had broken the grates and fallen through.
“Oh no!” said Melissa. “It is all my fault.”
Together, Melissa, Todd, Frank, and Joe headed to Principal Butler’s office. When they arrived, Principal Butler was just about to call Adam’s parents. Adam and Mina were sitting in the office with her.
Melissa, Frank, and Joe explained what had happened.
“I’m sorry, Principal Butler! I just love frogs so much,” Melissa cried.
Principal Butler pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and thought for a second.
“I believe you, Melissa. Since this was an accident, and the only performance you ruined was your own, I’m not going to call your parents. Instead, you will be volunteering with Mr. Willis for the rest of the school year. Your job will be to take care of the frogs.”
“Really? Oh, wow!” Melissa said. Frank and Joe had never seen her this excited—even when her Tasty, Tasty Treats Ice Cream commercial was aired for the first time!
“As for you, Mr. Ackerman, you will explain yourself right now.”
Adam looked down at his shoes and said nothing. Mina jumped in.
“He just didn’t want anyone to know that he couldn’t have thrown the frogs, because he was singing to me! I got so scared to perform, I hid in the janitor’s closet. Adam came and sang to me, like he used to when I was little and scared of the dark.”
Even Principal Butler smiled at what Mina had to say. It seemed no one believed Adam’s denial. The big, bad bully, singing to his sister? No wonder he would rather have confessed to a crime he didn’t commit!
“That’s not true!” Adam yelled. “I don’t sing! Never! And if you tell any
one, I’m totally going to get you!”
Adam stomped out of Principal Butler’s office. Principal Butler stood up from behind her desk.
“Well, now that all of that is cleared up, let’s get the talent show back on!”
“Yay!” Everyone cheered.
The rest of the talent show went smoothly. Melissa and Todd got to perform their number—without any frogs this time. They were great, as usual. Then the boys were up. With all of the crime solving, they’d almost forgotten they were going to perform! Everyone loved their sword fighting, and they got a big round of applause when they finished. There were a few more acts after them, and then finally, it was time to vote.
Everyone was given a little slip of paper with all the acts listed. It was hard to vote for just one, but both Frank and Joe knew who their favorite was—Cissy! It would be wrong to vote for themselves, and Cissy deserved it the most. Her juggling was so incredible.
It seemed like Frank and Joe weren’t the only ones who loved Cissy’s act. When the votes were counted, she was in first place!
“Wow!” she screamed. This was the first time in years that anyone other than Melissa and Todd had gotten first place. Cissy couldn’t stop thanking everyone all the way to the winner’s platform. “This is amazing. I mean, I never expected to win. Thank you all so much! Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Melissa and Todd came in second. Melissa was so excited about getting to take care of the frogs that she didn’t even seem upset that she hadn’t won first place. Then Principal Butler read off the third-place winner.
“In third place, Frank and Joe Hardy!”
Third place? Wow! Who would have guessed? Today was the best day ever!
• • • •
After all the excitement of the day, Frank and Joe were happy to get back to their tree house. On their big blackboard, they wrote Secret Files Case #4: Solved! They were just about to pin their winner’s ribbon up on the wall when someone crawled up the ladder and into the tree house with them.
Hopping Mad Page 3
