Thrill Ride

by Franklin W. Dixon

“Saved by the bell,” Joe said. He rushed over and pulled open the front door.

  “Pizza delivery!” The teenage guy on the porch wore an idiotic red-and-white uniform with a big red scarf tied around his neck. He held up two pizza boxes. “Two cheese pies,” he announced with an Indian accent.

  “All right!” Joe cried. “Nice going, Aunt Trudy.”

  Aunt Trudy frowned so hard I thought her face might crack. “I didn’t order pizza. I made a big chef’s salad.”

  “Oh.” Joe turned away from the door, bummed.

  “Sorry,” I said to the pizza guy. “Looks like there was a mistake.”

  He shrugged. “Well, you can have the pies anyway. If I brought them back, they would just get cold.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Cool.”

  “Cool?” Aunt Trudy repeated. “You think a meal filled with enough cholesterol, saturated fat, and sodium to choke a horse is cool?”

  “Saturated fat!” squawked Playback. “Cool!”

  “Actually, if these are plain cheese pies, they’re not so bad,” Mom put in. “The extremely high levels of saturated fat and sodium are usually found in pizza that contains meat—you know, a sausage or pepperoni pie. A plain cheese is fine.” She winked at me. “As long as you don’t eat it every day.”

  “Well, I think we should leave the pizza to the boys,” Dad said, standing up. “Us old folks can dig into that salad.” He ushered Mom and Aunt Trudy toward the kitchen.

  That was weird. Dad loves pizza. Why would he want to let Joe and me have it all?

  I turned back to the guy at the door. He was watching our parents leave the room. As soon as the kitchen door swung closed behind them, his whole expression changed. With one hand, he pulled the dumb red scarf off his neck.

  “You’re not really a delivery guy, are you?” I asked.

  “Nope. I’m from ATAC,” he replied. “My name is Vijay Patel.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said, playing dumb. ATAC is a secret organization. This kid could be trying to get us to spill information about our work—and we had no way of knowing who he really worked for.

  “Oh. Sorry.” Vijay bent down and put the pizza boxes on the doormat. He stuck out his hand to shake.

  I grabbed on and did two hard up-and-down shakes followed by a wrist-grab, then a fist-touch, and finally one last up-and-down shake. “Okay, Vijay, you know the handshake,” I said. “So you must really work for ATAC.”

  “Yes. I’m still a trainee. In fact, you two are the first real ATAC agents I’ve met.” Vijay looked embarrassed. “I almost forgot that I had to identify myself with the secret handshake.”

  “No problem,” Joe said. “We just have to be careful. Sometimes people set traps for us.”

  “I know,” Vijay told us. “I’ve read about a lot of your cases in the ATAC files. You’re two of our top agents!”

  “Thanks,” Joe said with a big grin. “It’s nice to have a fan. How long have you been with the organization?”

  “For a year,” Vijay said. “I used to solve crimes in my neighborhood in Calcutta when I was little. I’ve always wanted to be a crime fighter.”

  “How long have you been in the United States?” I asked.

  “My family moved here from India when I was twelve,” Vijay said.

  I heard the sound of plates clanking in the kitchen. We had to finish up with Vijay before Mom decided to come back out. “I guess our father recognized you as a fellow ATAC-er,” I said. “Are you here on official business?”

  “Yes.” Vijay bent and opened the top pizza box. Inside was a video game disk. The title on the game read, THRILL RIDE.

  Vijay handed me the disk, while Joe groaned in disappointment. “That’s not real pizza?” he complained.

  “No, but this is.” Vijay picked up the second pizza box and gave it to Joe. “The folks at ATAC knew you’d be hungry after your last mission!”

  “They’re a class operation,” Joe said happily. He’s easy to please.

  “There’s one more thing,” Vijay added. He pulled a tiny metal square from the pocket of his uniform. “We just used these in my last training session. I thought you guys might like one—it could come in handy.”

  “What is it?” I asked, taking the little silver box. “Some kind of cell phone?”

  “No, it’s a pocket strobe,” Vijay explained. “Push this button on the side, and the box will emit a flash of powerful light. But only for a second.”

  “So it’s like a camera flash?” Joe asked.

  “If it’s a strobe light, it’s much more powerful than a camera flash,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’s really bright,” Vijay agreed. “But you never know when you need some light.”

  “Cool. Thanks, Vijay,” I said.

  He tucked the now-empty pizza box under his arm and gave us both the secret handshake again. “I can’t wait to tell the other trainees I met Frank and Joe Hardy,” he said. “You guys are legends.”

  “Legends,” Joe repeated as I closed the door behind Vijay. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Don’t get so full of yourself that you forget we have a new mission,” I told him. “Let’s go pop this disk in the system.”

  Upstairs in my room, Joe dug into the pizza while I stuck “Thrill Ride” into my gaming system.

  A video of a roller coaster came onto the TV screen. People screamed as they turned upside down on a wicked coaster loop. Another rockin’ coaster followed; then another.

  “I like this mission already,” Joe mumbled through a mouthful of pizza.

  “Amusement park rides are built to thrill,” a deep voice said over the coaster montage. “Gravity-defying turns and deadly dangerous drops. But it’s all fun and games. Isn’t it?”

  The image zoomed in on the screaming face of a young guy, swooping straight into his mouth, open in a yell of terror, and ending in blackness.

  “Uh-oh,” I murmured. I had a feeling this mission wasn’t going to be fun and games.

  The blackness turned gray, then lightened to a black-and-white still photo of an old amusement park on a paved lot. Judging from the grainy photo and the strange clothes the people wore, this picture had been taken at least seventy or eighty years ago.

  “Uncle Bernie’s Fun Park,” the deep voice announced. “Amusing and delighting the people of Holyoke, Massachusetts, since 1924.”

  The picture faded out and was replaced by a photo of a middle-aged woman smiling sweetly at the camera.

  “Maggie Soto,” the voice said. “Age forty-five, a schoolteacher and a mother of two. She was killed last week at Uncle Bernie’s Fun Park.”

  I heard Joe gasp. I put down the slice I’d been eating. Pizza didn’t seem so good all of a sudden. What had happened to this woman?

  As if he could read my mind, the announcer explained, “Maggie was riding on the Doom Rider roller coaster when the ride malfunctioned.”

  Maggie’s smiling face vanished and was replaced by a picture of the coaster. It looked just like any other medium-sized roller coaster. No loops, but a lot of big drops and a few tunnels.

  “In the second tunnel, a large piece of interior scenery broke off the ceiling,” the announcer said. “The collapse happened immediately above Maggie’s car. It injured her spine, and she died a few hours later.”

  “Aren’t roller coasters inspected for safety like every day?” Joe asked.

  “Uncle Bernie’s Fun Park is maintaining that Maggie’s death was an accident,” the announcer said. “Their safety inspections are up-to-date, safety inspectors found nothing wrong with the coaster tracks or the cart she was riding in, and the local police have determined that no one had a motive to harm Maggie Soto.”

  “So what’s our mission?” I asked. Sometimes the mission disks are so detailed that it almost seems like they’re interactive.

  Sure enough, the announcer answered as if he’d heard me.

  “Your mission is to check out the amusement park,” he said. “We here at ATAC ar
e not convinced that this incident was an accident. We suspect that there may have been foul play, and you boys have to find out for sure.”

  I shot a look at Joe. “Before something else happens,” I said.

  “Before someone else gets hurt,” the announcer finished. “This mission, like every mission, is top secret. In five seconds this disk will be reformatted into a regular CD.”

  Five seconds later, an old Aerosmith song blasted out of the TV speakers. But I was still thinking about Maggie Soto. What had really happened on that ride?

  “You boys be careful,” Dad said early the next morning.

  I was tempted to roll my eyes, but I held back. Dad says that every time we leave for a mission. You’d think he was a regular father, the way he worries. Not Fenton Hardy, ex-cop and cofounder of the coolest crime-fighting organization ever. Dad was the one who recruited Frank and me to the ATAC team, but I guess that doesn’t stop him from worrying about us.

  “I’m still allowed to be concerned for your safety,” Dad said. “Okay, Joe?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. Obviously he knew what I was thinking even if I didn’t roll my eyes. That’s because he’s such a great investigator—he can read people’s body language.

  Frank was still putting on his motorcycle helmet, but I was geared up and ready to go. I couldn’t wait to get on the road. Sitting on my tricked-out cycle in the driveway was no fun at all.

  “We’ll be careful,” Frank assured our father. “Are you going to tell Mom where we’re going?”

  “I’ll say you went to an amusement park,” Dad said. “I just won’t say why.”

  “Sounds good. See you later.” I revved up my bike, and Frank and I took off. In the sideview, I could see Dad standing in front of the house, watching us go.

  The truth is, I feel better knowing he’s got our backs. But I would never tell him that.

  It took us almost four hours to get to Holyoke, Massachusetts. But four hours on the bike feels like no time. I could ride that thing all day!

  We pulled into the parking lot of Uncle Bernie’s Fun Park. The photo on the mission disk had been really old, but the amusement park still looked exactly the same. The lot was paved with old white concrete, grass grew up between the cracks, and the boards that made up the welcome sign looked like they were ready to collapse into sawdust.

  “They haven’t updated this place much,” Frank commented.

  “Not since the Dark Ages.” I agreed. In fact, the only thing about the park that looked new—well, post-1970, anyway—was the roller coaster. It rose above the park, all gleaming metal and black paint. The way it loomed over the rinky-dink rides from the 1920s made the coaster look like some kind of monster.

  “Let’s go,” Frank said.

  I hopped off my bike and headed for the ticket booth. It was an old-fashioned wooden one that looked like a phone booth. “This is the best mission ever,” I said. “Can you believe we’ve been assigned to go on amusement park rides?” Even if Uncle Bernie’s was an old park, it would still be cool to go on the bumper cars and the slide.

  “Don’t get too excited,” Frank warned. “Remember, that poor lady died here last week. And she may have been murdered.”

  That’s my brother, always a downer. “I know,” I said. “And I intend to find out what really happened.” I couldn’t get Maggie Soto’s face out of my mind. If she’d been a victim of foul play, I wouldn’t rest until her killer was behind bars.

  “Let’s check out the place first, get a feel for who works here,” Frank suggested. He paid for two admissions to the park and led the way inside.

  The first attraction we came to was a flume ride. The cars were cool because they looked like real logs that had been carved into little canoes. But the water was only a foot deep and there were no big drops. I like a flume ride that dumps you fifty feet and creates a humongous splash. Still, the flume was packed with people, and the line had to be a half-hour wait. It was pretty hot out—I guess people like to get into whatever water they can find.

  “Look at the girl running the ride,” I said to Frank. She was about our age, with long dark hair pulled into two braids. That might have looked dorky on some girls, but she was gorgeous. On her the braids looked flirty and a little punk.

  “She doesn’t seem very suspicious,” Frank said. “She just looks bored.”

  The girl yawned as she pushed the button to start the next log flume on its way down the fake river.

  “I didn’t think she was suspicious. Just hot,” I informed my brother. He’s so dense when it comes to girls.

  “I think we should talk to that guy,” Frank said. He nodded toward a gangly looking man dressed in a blue-and-white striped suit. The dude was seriously tall. He must’ve been at least eight feet. He towered over the crowd as he walked forward. And there was something weird about his gait. There could only be one explanation: He was walking on stilts.

  As the crowd cleared in front of him, I could see that I was right—the bottom half of his wide striped pants fluttered in the breeze as he walked. The stilts underneath were connected to his super-big shoes.

  “Hey!” Frank called up to the guy. “You’re pretty good at that. How long have you been stilt-walking?”

  The guy peered down at us as if he was surprised that anyone was talking to him. I guess he didn’t get much conversation way up there.

  “Too long,” he said. “I’ve been working at Uncle Bernie’s for twelve summers now. This is my last one.”

  “How come?” I asked.

  The guy pulled off his straw hat and mopped his brow. “Twelve years, no raise,” he said. “I’m sick of it. Next summer I’m gonna find some other place to work. I could make more money with a traveling carnival.” He slapped the hat back on his head and stomped off through the crowded park.

  “O-kay,” I said. “He’s not too happy here. You think that makes him a suspect?”

  Frank shrugged. “We don’t even know if there was a crime yet. I don’t think we can start calling people suspects.”

  “Check out the haunted house,” I said. “I love haunted houses.”

  “That one looks pretty lame,” Frank replied. “The back door is even open.”

  Sure enough, one of the employee-access doors to the house stood open. The outside of the door was painted to look like a column that was part of the mansion, complete with a spiderweb stretched over the top. But with the door open, the whole illusion was ruined. We could see right into the darkness inside and hear the screams of the people within.

  As I watched, an elderly man in a faded blue jumpsuit came out of the haunted house. He was pushing a bucket with a mop sticking out of it. He let the door slam behind him without even caring about the noise it made.

  “I’d like to talk to him,” I said, following the old guy.

  We caught up to him in a tin maintenance shed behind the kiddie swing ride. “Excuse me,” I called.

  The old guy turned around, “Whaddya want?” he growled.

  “Uh … are you the janitor here?” I asked.

  “Not anymore,” he said. “Now I’m called the maintenance coordinator.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Why?” Frank asked.

  “Because I asked old Bernie for a raise,” the man said. “So he gave me a new job title instead.”

  “A new job title but no money?” I said. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Tell me about it. Bernie expected me to be thrilled. Seemed to think a new title would raise my self-esteem.” He broke into a dry laugh that sounded more like a cough. “I don’t care about self-esteem. I just wanted to make more than minimum wage.”

  “How long have you been working for Uncle Bernie?” Frank asked.

  The man squinted at him suspiciously. “Why are you kids so curious?” he asked.

  “We were thinking of applying for jobs here,” I said, thinking fast. “We figured we’d ask what kind of employer Uncle Bernie was.”

  “He’s the worst employer in
Massachusetts,” the man said. “Stingy and mean. Why, when that lady died on the coaster last week, all Bernie cared about was the bad publicity. He didn’t even call her family to say he was sorry.”

  “Wow,” Frank said. “Were you here when it happened?”

  “Of course,” the maintenance man said. “I’m always here. You think old Bernie gives us any time off?”

  “Did you see the accident?” I asked. “Do you know how it happened?”

  “Nah. I was clear across the park, cleaning up a milkshake that spilled on the teacup ride.” The man turned to go inside the shed. “My advice to you boys is to get a job somewhere else. Anywhere else.” He shut the door behind him.

  “One thing’s clear. Uncle Bernie isn’t very popular,” Frank said.

  “But that still doesn’t help us figure out what happened to Maggie Soto,” I said.

  “Let’s head over to the roller coaster,” Frank suggested. “We need to look at the scene of the crime … or the accident.”

  “Right.” I glanced up. It wasn’t hard to spot the coaster—the thing was the biggest ride in the park. You could see it from everywhere. I led the way toward it, past the game booths and around the carousel.

  “Hang on,” Frank said. “I need a drink after that long drive up here.” He got in line at an old-fashioned concession cart on wheels. A pretty Asian girl manned the cart while a big, muscular bald guy stood nearby. He was obviously the one who pushed the cart from place to place. One entire arm was covered in tattoos, while the other just had one, a picture of a cat with the name LULU underneath.

  “Hi. Two Cokes, please,” Frank told the girl when it was his turn.

  “Sure.” She reached into the portable ice chest to get them.

  “Hot out today, huh?” I said, flirting. “I hope you get a break soon.”

  The muscular guy snorted. “Yeah, right,” he said. “We don’t even know what a break is.”

  “Come on, Jonesy, it’s not that bad,” the girl replied. “We get time off for lunch.”

  “Ten minutes. Barely enough time to down a burger,” Jonesy muttered.

  Frank frowned. “You get only one ten-minute break a day? That’s illegal.”