Hopping Mad (2 page)

Frank and Joe each picked up a tube. They took a few practice swings. The tubes were just the right length! And they wouldn't hurt as much when they accidentally got hit. This was perfect!

“Thanks, Aunt Gertrude,” the boys said together. Then Frank turned to face Joe. The backyard, Aunt Gertrude, and their mom disappeared from view. They were back on the rocky cliffside.

“En garde!” screamed Frank.

The battle was back on!

Finally, two days later, the day of the talent show arrived! The boys had spent every spare moment practicing with the cardboard tubes that their aunt Gertrude had given them. They didn't make the same clashing sound that the metal curtain rods had made, but with a little bit of silver spray paint, they looked right. Their father even helped them build hilts on the base, so they looked like real swords.

The whole school was gathered in the auditorium to watch the talent show. Class had been canceled for the entire day! It didn't get any better. Everyone participating in the talent show drew numbers backstage to determine who went first. Frank drew number seven.

“I'm glad we're not first,” said Joe.

“Scared?” said Frank.

“No!” said Joe. “I just don't want to intimidate the competition.” And maybe he had a little stage fright. But just a little.

The first person up was Adam Ackerman. Frank and Joe watched from backstage.

“Ugh,” said Joe. Adam was one of the school bullies, and he and the Hardys had never gotten along. He always had to be first at everything. Joe wouldn't have been surprised if he'd found a way to rig the drawing! All the other students in the talent show, along with Principal Butler, were waiting
offstage and behind the curtain. Adam walked out onstage.

“What's big and gray and has sixteen wheels?” Adam asked. He paused to let the audience think.

“A truck!” someone yelled.

“Nope,” said Adam. “An elephant on roller skates!”

As much as Frank hated to admit it, Adam's comedy routine was actually pretty funny. There was a reason he was one of the class clowns, after all. The audience was loving it. It seemed like they were going to have some stiff competition.

“What is green and smelly? The Hulk's farts.”

Uh-oh. Principal Butler didn't look happy about that joke. She was frowning and her face was turning red! But the audience was hooting and laughing.

“What's brown and sticky?” said Adam. The audience grew quiet. It seemed like Adam was getting into dangerous territory with his jokes.

“A stick!”

By the time Adam was finished with his third joke, Principal Butler was already running out onto the stage. She grabbed him by the collar and took the microphone away from him.

“That's enough of that kind of talk, Mr. Ackerman,” she said. “You are disqualified from this competition.”

Some of the kids in the audience booed, but Adam just grinned. He waited until Principal Butler's back was turned, and then stuck out his tongue at her. The audience laughed again. Principal Butler whirled around, but by the time she looked at him, Adam was walking off the stage with his head down. He seemed pretty happy to have been pulled off the stage. Joe would have bet his favorite baseball mitt that that had been Adam's goal from the very beginning.

Next up, three girls from the fifth grade did a dance routine to a Madonna song. It was pretty good, but the audience didn't love it as much as they had loved Adam's jokes. After them a boy played the violin. It was beautiful—but not the sort of thing that won a talent show. Frank and Joe were feeling pretty good about their odds of winning … and pretty nervous!

Behind him, Frank heard a strange noise. He
turned around and saw Mina, Adam's sister, crying on Principal Butler's shoulder.

“I can't do it!” she said. “I'm too scared.”

“It's okay,” said Principal Butler. “You don't have to go on if you don't want to.”

It seemed like she had a bad case of stage fright! Frank understood how she felt. Still, he wasn't going to give up yet. Principal Butler got Mina to stop crying and sent her back into the audience. That made one less performance.

Now it was Cissy's turn. She walked onstage wearing her Bayport Bandits hat and clutching a baseball in each hand. Her hands were so small, the baseballs barely fit. She was the shortest student in their entire grade, but she made up for it by being twice as fast as anyone else. Whether she was running, talking, or pitching, she did everything double time. She began to juggle the two balls in one hand. The audience was not impressed.

“I thought she was going to juggle four balls,” Joe whispered to Frank.

“Me too,” said Frank.

After a minute she looked over at Principal Butler and nodded her head. Principal Butler bent down and rolled a baseball toward her. Right as it got to her foot, Cissy kicked the ball like a Hacky Sack. It flipped up into the air—and she caught it! The audience cheered. Just like that, she went from juggling two balls to juggling three.

She juggled for a few minutes, sending the balls flying high and low. Sometimes she caught them under her legs or behind her back. She shifted the patterns they flew in. Each time she changed directions, the crowd cheered. She had them now!

Cissy switched to juggling all three balls with one hand. With her other, she reached up and pulled off her hat. Balanced on her head was the
fourth baseball. She plucked it off her head and began to juggle all four!

“Yay, Cissy!” yelled Frank and Joe. They'd known she was good with a baseball, but they'd never known she was this good! She was going to give them a run for their money—but they wouldn't be sad if they lost to her. She deserved it.

Finally, Cissy caught all four balls in her hands and bowed. The crowd cheered. She walked off the stage. The boys grabbed her and congratulated her. She was smiling so wide, she couldn't even speak. It was the first time the boys had ever seen her speechless.

Now there was just one more act before Frank and Joe. They peeked out from behind the curtain. The school auditorium was packed! There must have been hundreds of people there. They had never before realized just how big their school was… .

“We should get ready,” said Joe. Frank nodded.
But it wasn't until Melissa and Todd pushed past them that the boys were able to stop staring at the size of the audience.

“No competition here,” Melissa said with a sniff as she walked onstage. Todd nodded.

They were wearing matching gold and black outfits. They looked kind of like taxicabs. They didn't seem impressed with any of the other acts. They always thought they were the best—and usually they were. They'd won the last two school-wide talent competitions.

They took their places. Melissa was standing in the middle of the stage, and Todd was a little bit behind her. Sweeping music started pouring from the sound system. Melissa looked up toward the ceiling and opened her mouth to sing. Suddenly, a frog fell right on her face!

“AHHHHH!” she screamed. The frog ribbited loudly and hopped off her head and onto the
ground. The whole audience began to laugh, thinking this was part of their act. But then another frog fell from the sky and landed in the audience. Then another and another and another!

Frank and Joe stared out from behind the curtain. The music was still blasting from the
stereo. The audience was panicking. Todd looked stunned, like someone had hit him with a shovel. Melissa was screaming. Principal Butler was trying to get her to calm down.

What was going on?

Frank and Joe ran out from the behind the curtain to grab the frogs that had fallen onto the stage. Luckily, they had years of experience at catching frogs, and it only took them a few minutes to get them all.

“Please be calm and stay seated!” Principal Butler had taken one of the microphones and was trying to get everyone to quiet down. Some of the students were chasing the frogs that had fallen among the seats. Others were running away from them!

Finally, after fifteen minutes, all the frogs were rounded up. A teacher walked through the audience with a big plastic bag, and everyone put the frogs they had captured inside. There was a fish tank in one of the third-grade classrooms, and the frogs would be put there until someone figured out where they came from.

Melissa and Todd were still standing on the stage. Melissa looked angry and
upset. Todd still looked shocked. But neither of them was going to leave until they'd had a chance to perform. Once everyone was seated, Melissa tried to wave to the sound people to get the music to start again. No one was paying attention to them. Instead, everyone was staring at Principal Butler, who was still holding the microphone. She didn't look happy.

“I am giving the person or people responsible for this prank exactly two hours to come forward or I will be forced to cancel the talent show entirely,” she announced. Her face was so red it looked like a big tomato had been planted on her neck. Melissa and Todd gasped!

“Until that time, I am letting everyone out for an early recess. Anyone who has any information about this prank, please come talk to me in my office. You are dismissed.”

Some of the students in the crowd cheered. But
most of the students were upset. The annual talent show was a big deal at Bayport Elementary, and everyone wanted a chance to perform or watch their friends.

Melissa ran off the stage and pushed past Frank and Joe again. This time, she was crying.

“My big number!” she yelled. “Ruined! Why would someone do this to me?”

Frank and Joe looked at each other. They might not get a chance to show off their sword-fighting skills, but the Hardy Boys did have one other special talent—solving mysteries. And it looked like today was the day to show off that talent too.

“Who would want to ruin Melissa and Todd's big number?” said Joe.

“I don't know,” said Frank. “Sure, they're a little annoying with their constant bragging, but they're both really good, and sweet, too—when they're not superbusy trying to win.” Melissa and
Todd just got too competitive about things like this to remember that they were supposed to be fun. Maybe that attitude had rubbed someone the wrong way. Or maybe someone wanted to win the talent show this year and figured ruining Melissa and Todd's big number was the best way to do it. Either way, the boys had two hours to figure things out—before the talent show was canceled for good.

Frank pulled out his trusty notebook and pen.
The notebook was brown and battered from being carried in Frank's pocket all the time, but it had records of every crime they'd ever solved.