Thrill Ride

by Franklin W. Dixon

  “Give me the first number,” I said, picking up the phone.

  I got an answering machine.

  But when I called the second number, a woman picked up. Maybe it was Chris Oberlander’s mother.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to sound younger. “Is Chris there?”

  “No, he’s not,” she said. “He went to the gym. Is this Ryan?”

  “Um, no. This is his friend Frank,” I told her. “Chris goes to Gold’s Gym, right?”

  “Planet Fitness,” she corrected me. “Should I tell Chris you called, Frank?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll probably see him at the gym. Thanks!”

  I hung up and gave Joe a thumbs-up. “Planet Fitness, here we come.” We paid at the counter and hurried out to our bikes. It took twenty minutes to find Planet Fitness. We could have used the hypersensitive GPS on our bikes to find the gym, but it’s much more fun to ride around on the motorcycles and just look for places. When I’m on my bike, I never want to get off it.

  But soon enough we spotted the gym. It was a medium-sized building with floor-to-ceiling windows in the front. Inside I saw the usual assortment of exercise machines, free weights, and cardio equipment.

  “I wonder if Chris Oberlander is a musclehead,” Joe said. “That could be bad if he really has it in for Little Bernie.”

  On the front door was a flyer advertising free introductory sessions at the gym. I pointed it out to Joe on the way in.

  “Hi! Welcome to Planet Fitness!” the girl at the front desk chirped. “How can I help you guys?”

  “We’re interested in the free introductory session,” I told her. “We’re thinking of joining.”

  “Great!” she said. “Just fill out these forms and you can use the facilities for the next hour.”

  “Thanks.” I took the forms and we filled in our names and put fake addresses in Holyoke. The whole time I kept looking around the gym. Which of these bodybuilders was Chris Oberlander? None of them looked young enough to be in school with Little Bernie.

  “Maybe Chris is a high schooler who knows Little Bernie,” I suggested to Joe.

  “Could be. At least there are two of us if we have to fight a bodybuilder,” he joked.

  We handed our forms to the girl at the desk. “Hey, can you tell us if Chris Oberlander is around?” Joe asked her.

  “Sure,” she said. “He’s over there in Free Weights.”

  I looked where she was pointing. There were three huge guys lifting weights on the blue mats in the corner. “Which one?” I asked. “We’re new in town and Chris is a friend of our father’s. We’re supposed to meet him here.”

  The girl smiled. “He’s the one in the green shirt.”

  “Thanks.” We headed over toward the big guys and the free weights. None of them wore a green shirt.

  But the skinny little geek hidden behind them did.

  Joe stopped short. “That little kid?” he asked.

  I checked the guy out. He didn’t look like he could lift a telephone off a receiver, much less a barbell. He was struggling to do a bicep curl with what had to be a two-pound weight.

  “He’s no killer,” Joe said. “Let’s just go question him.”

  “No, we should watch him first,” I replied. “Just because he’s a twerp doesn’t make him harmless. None of the things that happened at Uncle Bernie’s Fun Park required strength to pull off.”

  “True. So let’s work out.” Joe headed over to one of the treadmills, and I got on a stationary bike. From there we could keep an eye on Chris without him noticing us.

  The kid was scrawny, but he was determined. His puny biceps bulged as he lifted his little weight over and over again. His eyes never left the image of his arms in the mirror. His face wore an expression of grim determination.

  I was impressed. He was a skinny little kid, but he was trying really hard.

  He worked out for another fifteen minutes, sweat pouring down his face. Then, exhausted, he dropped the dumbbell back down onto the rack and went to get a drink from the water fountain.

  “I think he’s done,” I told Joe. “Let’s go.”

  As we slowed down and got off our machines, Chris pulled a gym bag out of one of the lockers near the door. He took off his sweaty T-shirt, pulled a dry one out of the bag, put it on, and stuffed his wet shirt into a pocket on the bag. He then left the building. Joe and I followed.

  Outside, Chris headed toward the bike rack. “Excuse me, Chris?” I called.

  He jumped, glanced over his shoulder … and took off!

  Joe shot me a surprised look, then ran after him. We followed him around the corner and halfway down the side street. He wasn’t hard to catch—his legs were pretty short, after all.

  But just as I reached out to grab him, Chris ducked under my hand and cut right. He sprinted into someone’s yard.

  I ran after him.

  He jumped over a chain-link fence and circled back around toward the gym. “He’s going for his bike,” I called to my brother.

  Joe nodded and ran back toward the gym while I followed Chris through an alleyway and up to Planet Fitness from behind. When he got back to the parking lot, Joe was there waiting for him.

  Chris turned—and stopped short when he saw me behind him. He was cornered.

  “Don’t hurt me!” he wailed.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I told him. “We just want to ask you some questions.”

  “Do you always run when somebody calls your name?” Joe asked.

  “You would too if people were always beating you up,” Chris snapped. “Who are you guys?”

  “My name is Frank and this is my brother, Joe,” I said. “We were hoping we could talk to you about Little Bernie Flaherty.”

  “Little Bernie sent you?” Chris dropped his gym bag with a thud. He stuck his hands up in front of him, curled into fists. “What, now he’s getting other people to come after me? He can’t do it himself?”

  “Chill,” Joe said. “We’re not gonna fight you. Put your hands down.”

  Chris kept his fists up and glared at us. “If you’re friends with Little Bernie, that means you’re jerks. Because nobody decent would hang out with that idiot.”

  “We don’t hang out with him,” I explained. “We’re just trying to figure out who might want to hurt him.”

  “That’s easy,” Chris said, “I want to hurt him!”

  “You do?” Joe asked skeptically. “Why?”

  “Because he’s been picking on me since kindergarten,” Chris said. “He’s a big bully. I’m sick of it. Why do you think I’m working out?”

  He bent down and unzipped his gym bag.

  “Look,” he said. He pulled out a huge bottle of vitamin supplements that read BUILD MUSCLE in huge type across the front. “I’m taking these, and I have this creatine powder that’s supposed to help me bulk up.…” He pawed through a jumble of protein powders and other bodybuilding supplements. “One of these days I’m gonna be big enough to get back at Bernie.”

  I thought about Little Bernie. He was the biggest twelve-year-old I’d ever seen. Somehow I didn’t think Chris Oberlander would ever be that big.

  “How else are you trying to get back at him?” I asked.

  Chris stopped looking through his bag. “Huh?” he said.

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Christopher Oberlander

  Hometoen: Holyoke, Massachusetts

  Physical description: Age, 12, 5’, 98 lbs. skinny. wears thick glasses with black frames.

  Occupation: Middle, school student

  Background. Grew up formenting by little Bernie.

  Suspicious behavior: Heard to say that to hurt Little Bernie.

  Suspected of: Sabotaging the Doom Rider roller coaster and the carousel. Poisoning Little Bernie.

  Possible motives: Hates Little Bernie. Wants revenge for Little Bernie throwing him out Bernie’s Fun park.

  “We heard Little Bernie threw you out of the amusement park for making a scene
a little while back,” Joe said. “Have you tried to get revenge for that?”

  “He’s the one who made a scene,” Chris grumbled. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “But you’re still mad at him, right?” I said. “Mad enough to try to kill him?”

  Chris stared at me, confused. “Huh?” he said again.

  “Someone has been tampering with the rides at Uncle Bernie’s. Yesterday Little Bernie got a hot dog that may have been poisoned.” I watched Chris’s face for any sign of guilt. But he just looked surprised.

  “He was poisoned? Did he die?” Chris asked hopefully.

  “No!” Joe snapped. “Were you trying to kill him?”

  “No way,” Chris said. “I didn’t know anything about it. I’m not even allowed back into the park—how could I have done any of that stuff?” He zipped his gym bag and stood up. “But if someone is trying to kill him, I hope it works.”

  Joe looked at me and shrugged. We obviously weren’t going to get anything more out of this kid. I had a feeling that he was telling the truth, but you never know.

  “Listen, stop taking those bodybuilding supplements,” I told Chris. “You’re never going to beat Little Bernie physically. The only way to deal with a bully is to stand up to him. Once you show him you’re not afraid, he’ll leave you alone.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Chris muttered.

  “Seriously, those supplements are bad for you,” Joe said. “They don’t really help, and some of them have dangerous side effects. You’ll be much better off if you just eat right and keep working out. One of these days you’ll have a growth spurt.”

  I grinned. He sounded just like Mom!

  “And take some karate classes,” Joe added. “If you know martial arts, it doesn’t matter how big you are.”

  Okay, that didn’t sound like Mom.

  Chris headed off to the bicycle rack, and we went over to our motorcycles. Someone had stuffed a flyer into the seat of mine. I pulled it out.

  “What next? Should we go find Little Bernie’s mother?” Joe asked, straddling his bike.

  “No,” I said slowly. “We should go to the amusement park.”

  “How come?” Joe asked.

  I showed him the piece of paper. It was no flyer. It was a note.

  And it read, THE EVIDENCE YOU’RE LOOKING FOR IS IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE—A FRIEND.

  “It could be a trap,” I said into the microphone in my bike helmet. Frank and I can talk to each other through our wireless mikes when we ride, and the noise-canceling helmets make it as simple and quiet as having a normal conversation. Well, a normal conversation while flying down the road with the wind in our faces and 130 horsepower between our legs. “Sometimes when you get a note from ‘A Friend,’ it’s really from an enemy.”

  “I know,” Frank’s voice came through the speaker in my helmet. “But we have no choice. All we know so far is that everybody hates Uncle Bernie and Little Bernie, and lots of people would like to close the park down. But there’s no smoking gun to lead us to one suspect.”

  “Then we’d better hope our smoking gun is in the haunted house,” I said. “I love haunted houses, anyway.”

  I turned my bike into the parking lot of Uncle Bernie’s Fun Park.

  It was still pretty early—not even noon. The park wasn’t crowded yet. The only line I saw was the line at the carousel. It was mostly teenagers. I guess everyone wanted to try out the wild merry-go-round after yesterday. I just hoped there wouldn’t be a repeat of that unpleasant incident.

  We made our way to the haunted house. The neon HALL OF HORROR sign was on, but there was no line. There wasn’t even a park worker in sight.

  “Do you think it’s open?” Frank asked.

  “It looks pretty deserted,” I said. “But maybe our ‘friend’ wants it that way.”

  “Okay, let’s go in.” Frank led the way.

  It was dark inside, like all haunted houses. But somehow after our adventure in the pitch-black Wormhole the day before, this darkness didn’t seem so scary.

  Spooky organ music drifted in through hidden speakers, and every so often a scream pierced the air. Usually in a haunted house, you hear other people screaming. But these were the canned screams that were part of the prerecorded soundtrack. As far as I could tell, we were alone in the Hall of Horror.

  Something grabbed my arm.

  I jumped and spun around.

  There was nothing there.

  “Cool,” I said, relaxing a little. Have I mentioned that I love haunted houses?

  “Check it out,” Frank said. In the dim light, I could see him pointing to the right. I looked over there and saw a dinner table all set up with fancy china dishes. In the middle was a man lying on a platter. His mouth was open, and an apple was stuck in it like he was the pig at a pig roast.

  I chuckled. “That’s gross,” I said appreciatively.

  “We’re here to look for evidence, not to enjoy the haunted house,” Frank reminded me.

  “Oh. Right.” I studied the fake dinner set for any sign of the evidence our “friend” had mentioned. But the table and chairs looked just like normal props. The man was obviously made of plastic.

  Maybe the apple in his mouth was a reference to Little Bernie’s poisoned hot dog? I shook my head. I was really grasping here to find whatever hint our “friend” had left for us.

  I left the pathway and stepped over onto the dinner set to check it out.

  “We’re not supposed to go over there,” Frank pointed out.

  “No one else is here,” I said. “And we’re investigating, remember?”

  “Just hurry up,” he replied.

  I got up close to the table and peered down at the apple. It was made of wax, like the fake fruits our Great Aunt May keeps in a bowl on her living room coffee table.

  “Nothing here,” I said, returning to the pathway.

  We kept going.

  I passed a portrait of a pretty girl hanging on the wall. It was lit by a small spotlight coming from the bottom.

  I checked it out, because the girl was pretty.

  But when I got up next to it, her face turned into the wrinkled face of an old hag. Then the flesh dropped off the face and it became a skeleton.

  “Cool,” I said.

  I stopped to look at the picture more closely.

  It changed back to the young girl, waited for about ten seconds, and then went through the girl-hag-skeleton process again.

  I turned away. The effect was fun one time. But when you saw the whole thing happen again, it kind of lost its interest.

  In front of me, a figure lunged from the darkness and grabbed Frank.

  He let out a yell.

  I ran to catch up, but by the time I got there the figure was gone.

  “Who was that?” I asked. “Our friend?”

  “No, it was a Frankenstein,” Frank said. “Or maybe a werewolf. I couldn’t tell.”

  I grinned. Haunted houses usually had a few park workers in them who would dress up as monsters so they could jump out and scare you. I’d always thought that would be a cool job to have.

  I heard a hissing sound, and suddenly the room was filled with smoke.

  Was this the trap?

  I took a shallow breath. It was only fog from a fog machine. I had a hard time seeing Frank through the haze. And if there were any clues in this room, I couldn’t see those, either.

  “Joe, in here!” Frank called.

  His voice was coming from the left. I moved that way. Soon enough, I spotted him to my right. I stopped, confused.

  “Frank?”

  “Over here.” His voice was still coming from the left, but I could see him standing on the right, gesturing to me with his hand.

  I walked toward him—and smacked into a wall.

  Not a wall. A mirror.

  “All right!” I cried happily. “A hall of mirrors!”

  “I still haven’t seen anything unusual,” Frank said from behind me. When I turned around, he was
gone.

  He appeared again to the left. “What kind of evidence do you think we’re looking for?”

  I moved left, and hit another mirror. Where was Frank?

  When I turned around, I saw a room filled with … me. Reflections of myself looked back at me from every direction. “Who knows?” I answered Frank. “I figure we’ll recognize it when we see it.”

  Suddenly a tall man appeared in the mirrors, standing right behind me.

  I spun around, freaked out. No one was there.

  “Hello?” I called. “Is someone else here?”

  A deep, maniacal laugh echoed through the room. But all I could see was myself, everywhere.

  “Frank?” I said. “Are you still in here?”

  No answer.

  “Frank?”

  Someone grabbed my arm. I jumped and let out a yell.

  It was Frank.

  “There’s nothing here,” he said. “Let’s keep going.”

  The next hallway was pitch black. It had slimy things hanging from the ceiling and something that felt like cobwebs stretched across the center. I sighed. “These haunted houses are all the same,” I complained. “I was hoping for something scarier.”

  “I was hoping for some evidence,” Frank said.

  A woman dressed like a vampire appeared and screamed in my face.

  I didn’t even gasp. I was getting bored.

  “Maybe we should try to go backstage, or whatever they call it in haunted houses,” I suggested to Frank. “Our friend didn’t say the evidence would be part of the attraction. Maybe there’s something hidden through that back door we saw yesterday.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Frank said, pushing his way past a suit of armor that had suddenly started moving. “Let’s get through the rest of this thing, get outside, and circle around the back.”

  “Okay.” A zombie jumped out in front of me.

  I waited for it to leave.

  It waved its arms and let out a growl.

  “Aaahhh,” I yelled halfheartedly. Maybe it would move on now.

  “Joe, come on,” Frank said from the other side of the zombie.

  “Uh, excuse me,” I told the zombie. I stepped around it.

  As I joined Frank on the other side, the zombie roared again.