The Chase for the Mystery Twister (2 page)

“Snicker-snack, snicker-snack!” Phil replied into the CB microphone. Frank and Joe looked at each other, puzzled.

“It's code,” Phil said, nodding toward the black monster truck across the ditch, “so that we don't fall for Greg Glover's false reports.”

“Is that who the first voice was?” Joe asked.

“You guessed it,” Phil replied. “Now I'm talking with Mr. Jansen.”

“Doppler shows continued northwesterly movement,” the low voice replied.

“Got it, Wind One,” Phil replied. “I have friends in tow.”

“Roger that, Wind Six,” came the reply. “Back off to a safe distance. Do not attempt to intercept.”

“Roger. Wind Six out,” Phil said, replacing the microphone in its cradle and slowing down the truck. “Sorry, but Mr. Jansen wants us to give up the pursuit.”

Joe frowned. “I was having fun. Too bad we couldn't have gotten a little closer to it.”

“We may not have a choice. Look!” Frank said, pointing to a man in a broad-brimmed hat and overalls standing in a field in the path of the tornado. The man's hands were cupped around his mouth, as if he was shouting something.

“Why isn't he looking for cover?” Joe wondered aloud.

The man suddenly ran toward a lone oak tree and picked up something that was lying beneath it.

“Looks like he's got a big dog in his arms!” Frank shouted over the howling wind.

“I'll radio Mr. Jansen,” Phil said.

“He'll never make it!” Joe shouted. “And Glover is ignoring the man. We're the only ones close enough to get to him before the twister does!”

Frank nodded his agreement. “There's a bridge across the ditch about a quarter of a mile ahead.”

“Okay, guys,” Phil said. “Hang on to your heads.”

“You mean our hats?” Joe asked.

“If we only lose our hats, we'll be lucky!” Phil replied loudly as he turned off the dirt road and crossed the bridge into the gourd field beyond.

The man was running toward a farmhouse but was slowed by the weight of the dog he was carrying. The sound of the tornado grew deafening as they got closer. Frank thought it sounded like a thousand freight trains running through his head.

The blue pickup was at the outer edge of whirling debris surrounding the twister. The windshield was suddenly splattered in a deluge of black.

“It must be oil from the derrick it tore down!” Frank shouted.

Beside Frank, Joe nodded. But Phil, only a few feet away in the driver's seat, shook his head, unable to hear. The windshield wipers only spread the mess, and now they couldn't see at all.

Frank pointed to himself and then his window. After rolling it down, Frank kneeled on the seat and stuck his torso out the window. His vision was still obscured, but Frank could see enough to know they were off course and headed directly for the funnel of the storm.

“Turn left!” Frank shouted.

“Turn left!” Joe screamed into Phil's ear, relaying the message.

Frank caught sight of the man's silhouette through the dust-filled air.

“Stop!” Frank shouted at the top of his lungs.

Phil must have heard Frank, because he stomped his foot hard on the brakes, nearly tossing Frank out the window. Frank opened the door and ran to the man and his dog, leading them back to the truck. Joe took the hound dog and passed it on to Phil, while Frank pushed the man up onto the seat and then squeezed in behind him.

“I don't think this truck cab was made to fit four men and a dog,” Joe said, his head pressed against the roof and his face squashed against the dog, which was licking Joe's cheek.

The farmer Frank had rescued looked to be about twenty and was tall and slim, with sandy blond hair and a pointed nose. “We have to make
it to the storm shelter beside my house!” the young farmer shouted as Phil stepped on the gas.

Joe looked through the back windshield. They were gaining a little ground on the whirling menace, which Joe felt was following their every move.

“Get ready to abandon ship!” Frank shouted, spotting the doors to the underground storm shelter.

As Phil brought the truck to a halt, they flung open the doors and made a run for the shelter. Joe grabbed the dog. The wind whipped the dust at such high speeds, it felt like hundreds of pins pricking Joe in the face.

Frank helped the farmer open the shelter door, beneath which was a set of stairs leading down fifteen feet to a storage area.

“Here, Joe!” Frank shouted, guiding his brother and the dog to the entrance and down the steps.

Once they were down, the farmer slammed and locked the door behind them. Immediately, the door shuddered from the impact of the tornado, which seemed to be passing Within a few feet of them.

Frank and the young farmer held fast to the inside handles of the shelter door, pulling with all their might against the powerful updraft threatening to tear the door off its hinges.

The next twenty seconds lasted forever, Frank thought. Then the roar died to a low din, and the
door stopped shaking. The farmer lit a lantern, revealing a room filled with canned foods and emergency supplies. Phil coughed up dust. Joe could barely open his eyes, they were so caked with dirt. The dog sneezed.

“Bless you, Bullet,” the farmer said to his dog. He turned to Frank, Joe, and Phil. “I'm Snowdon Parlette. I don't know who you guys are, but me and my dog thank you.”

“I'm Frank Hardy, and this is my brother, Joe,” Frank said, looking for a clean part of his sleeve to wipe his face.

“I'm Phil Cohen,” Phil said with a slight wheeze.

“I've seen you in town,” Snowdon told Phil. “Hanging out with that storm-chaser guy.”

Frank patted Bullet's head “Maybe next time you'll know to come when your master calls you.”

“Oh, he knows,” Snowdon said, rubbing his dog's ear. “He just can't hear too well anymore. Can't see, neither. But his nose is just as keen as when he was a pup.”

“Let's talk more outside,” Joe suggested, starting up the steps.

“I wouldn't advise it,” Snowdon warned. Suddenly, the door began to shake as the roaring wind returned. Startled, Joe stumbled back down the stairs.

“We were in the center of the funnel,” Snowdon explained, once again gripping and tugging the door handle to keep the shelter sealed. The
howling of the wind began to fade, and after another ten seconds, it was gone. “Now it's passed,” Snowdon said.

They waited another five minutes to be sure, then emerged from the shelter.

Mr. Jansen's red bus and the other Windstormer vehicles were all around, and the team had already begun to record data.

Frank looked in every direction. The twister had vanished. “What happened to the tornado?” he asked Phil.

“It died out. Small ones don't usually last long,” Phil said.

“Small ones?” Frank repeated in disbelief.

“Yeah, that was probably an F two,” Phil explained, surveying the damage around them. “An F five is the biggest. The funnel can be more than three miles across.”

“I'm sure glad we brought our heavy-duty suitcase,” Joe said, walking away from his brother.

“Where are you going?” Frank asked.

“To get our luggage,” Joe replied, pointing to their bags, which had been carried out of the back of the pickup and dropped in the field at least fifty yards away.

As Joe was returning with the suitcases, a man with a bass voice, a brown beard, and wearing glasses strolled over. “Are you all right, Phil?” he asked, seeming preoccupied with the clipboard on which he was feverishly writing.

“Fine, Mr. Jansen,” Phil said, coughing again. “A little dusty.”

Phil introduced Frank, Joe, and Snowdon.

“Welcome to Twister Alley,” Jansen said.

“Thanks, we're glad to . . .” Joe began to reply, but Jansen had moved on, calling out instructions to another member of his team.

“Do you own this farm?” Frank asked Snowdon.

“I wish,” Snowdon replied. “It's my dad's. But he's down in Dallas on business.” Snowdon looked around at the damage caused by the tornado. “Boy, is he in for a surprise when he gets back.”

The Parlette barn was lying upside down in the middle of an okra field. “I'm just glad that Dad was able to buy tornado insurance last month from good ol' Toby Gill,” Snowdon added.

A young woman with long black hair, and wearing faded blue jeans and an untucked flannel shirt, walked up. “Phil, would you mind getting the video camera out of Wind Three?”

“My pleasure, Diana” Phil replied, then introduced Diana Lucas to his friends.

“So, Diana, how do you like Oklahoma Tech?” Frank asked.

“Fine,” Diana replied, arching her eyebrows, curious.

“You're a senior majoring in physics,” Frank continued.

“Yeah. How did you know? Are you a mind reader?” Diana wondered.

“No,” Frank said, smiling. “I got all that from the college ring on your finger. The symbol for physics on one side, your class year on the other.”

“Frank and Joe's dad is a private detective back in our hometown of Bayport, New York,” Phil said to Diana.

“And you two are following in his footsteps?” Diana finished the thought.

“You could say that,” Joe replied. “But right now, we're just here on spring break to visit Phil.”

“Then welcome to Oklahoma,” Diana said, gesturing to the destruction around them and smiling. She turned to Phil. “Let's get some videotape of the debris pattern starting at the property line and running to the overturned barn.”

Phil nodded and headed off toward a dented gray off-road vehicle that the Hardys assumed was Wind Three.

“What do you mean by debris patterns?” Joe wondered.

“Can you see the track that the tornado took?” Diana asked, pointing and tracing the path the tornado had taken.

“Yeah,” Joe replied. “It kind of looks like slightly overlapping letter
C
's.”

“Right. Notice where it deposited ninety-five
percent of all the junk that it tore up?” Diana asked him.

Joe hesitated, then realized. “To the left of the tornado's path!”

“Correct,” Diana explained. “And that's how the debris pattern is every time. By studying it—”

“Not every time,” a voice interrupted her. It was Lemar Jansen, who had overheard the conversation while passing by. “Five years ago, in New Mexico, I studied the aftermath of a twister that destroyed an isolated ranch house in the desert. The entire contents of the place had been hurled in every direction. I never have figured that one out.”

“A mystery twister,” Frank said.

“A mystery twister,” Jansen repeated, looking at Frank closely. “I like that.”

“I need to get into town to talk with Toby Gill, the insurance man,” Snowdon said. “Why don't you and Joe come on in and clean up?” he said to Frank.

“Thanks,” Frank replied, looking at their wet, muddy clothes. “I think we'll take you up on that.”

As the Hardys followed Snowdon around the side of the farmhouse, Joe saw a strange, hairless creature scamper by, clucking.

“Looks like the tornado hit our hen house,” Snowdon grumbled, pointing to the remains of a small wooden structure.

“That was a hen?” Joe asked. “What happened to all its feathers?”

“Plucked. That's what tornado winds can do,” Snowdon replied as he opened the door to his blue pickup.

“I'm afraid the winds did more than de-feather your chickens,” Frank said, nodding toward some rusty nails that had pierced and flattened two of Snowdon's tires.

“Well, doesn't that just beat all,” Snowdon said, shaking his head and throwing his hat on the ground.

“Maybe Phil can give you a ride into town,” Joe suggested.

Just then Phil came running around the corner of the farmhouse, shouting with excitement. “Mr. Jansen got a phone call from Tulip. Another tornado just touched down. I need to assist him on the remote weather station,” Phil added, referring to the red bus that had pulled around the house to pick him up.

“We'd better stay here and help Snowdon,” Frank said. “Can we borrow the Blue Bomber?”

“Sure thing,” Phil replied, tossing Frank the keys as he ran to board the bus.

The Hardys watched as the bus and four other vehicles sped up the dirt road leading from the Parlette farm and pulled out onto the highway, headed back toward Tulip.

“So much for small-town life being quiet,” Joe said. “We've been here an hour, and we've
already had more excitement than we've seen in Bayport all year!”

•  •  •

The town of Lone Wolf, Oklahoma, was indeed small, and it was ghostly, too, Joe thought. They drove by several ruins left by past tornadoes, including a crumbled brick house that had posted in front of it a hand-painted sign that read: Used to Be 125 Main Street.

A van from Channel 9 News, Lone Wolf, buzzed past them, headed back toward Tulip.

“There's Mr. Gill's place,” Snowdon said, pointing to a small office tucked among the old-time storefronts along Main Street. Frank parked in front, and the Hardys and Snowdon entered the insurance office, the little bells on the door jingling behind them.

“Whoa,” Joe said, looking around the small office. “It looks like a tornado hit in here, too.”

The drawers of Gill's desk were hanging open, as were the drawers to his filing cabinet. Papers were strewn across the room, and a broken desk lamp lay on the floor.

“This couldn't be tornado damage,” Snowdon said. “The doors were closed, and none of the windows is broken.”

Frank heard a beeping noise and traced it to Gill's telephone, which was lying on the floor under the desk. Snowdon reached to hang it up. “Don't!” Frank warned. “We don't want to touch anything. We need to get fingerprints.”

Joe found that the back door to the office had been left ajar and led to an alleyway. A man with gray-streaked long black hair was parked there in a green station wagon. Seeing Joe, the man burned rubber and sped off just as Frank and Snowdon stepped into the alley.