Trouble at the Arcade (3 page)

“Yo!” he cried. “Beat that score, everyone!”

He was only joking. His score was terrible.

There was a teenage attendant keeping track of the scores. He looked much more cheerful than Darryl Moore. “Don't forget your prize tickets,” he said. “Um, I mean ticket.”

The machine had just spit out a single ticket. Chet shrugged and grabbed it. “One's better than none, right?” he joked.

Next a girl stepped up to the game. “Who's that?” Joe wondered.

“She's in my class,” Frank said. “She's new. I forget her name.”

Iola heard him and turned around again. “It's Callie,” she said. “Her family just moved to Bayport. She's really nice.”

Joe didn't care how nice the new girl was. He only cared about her score. When she finished her turn, a whole bunch of tickets spit out of the machine.

“Good going!” the attendant said after he checked the results. “You're in second place!”

“Congratulations,” Frank said to Callie as she walked by.

“Thanks,” she responded in a quiet voice.

“Yeah, pretty good job,” said Joe. “But don't get too excited about it. I'm going to double your score!”

“Don't listen to him,” Frank told her. “I'm the one who's going to win today.”

Up ahead, Adam Ackerman was taking his place at the game. “Ugh,” Joe whispered to Frank. “I didn't know he was here.”

Adam was at the game for a long time. When he finally finished, he was grinning. “Beat that score!” he bragged.

Unlike Chet, he wasn't joking. Adam's score was really high.

The attendant looked at it. Then he checked his list. “Congratulations,” he told Adam. “You have the high score of the day so far!”

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Frank stared at Adam's name. The attendant had just written it in big letters at the top of the high-scores list.

“This stinks,” Joe whispered. “It means rotten Adam will definitely be in the finals.”

“I know.” Frank watched as a whole line of tickets poured out of the machine. The higher your score, the more tickets you got. And Adam was getting a
lot
of tickets.

Adam smirked as he grabbed the tickets and
stuck them in his pocket. “Wow,” he said loudly. “I hope I can figure out how to spend all these tickets! I'll probably have to buy out the whole prize counter!”

Chet wandered over to where the Hardys were standing. “Can you believe Adam's winning?” he whispered, looking nervous. Adam picked on him a lot. “This is going to make him brag even more than he already does.”

“I know.” Frank watched a kid from another school take his place at the machine. “I hope someone beats his score soon.”

“Yeah,” Joe agreed. “That'll wipe the stupid smile off his face.”

But the next three or four people fell short. Each time the attendant announced the score, Adam looked even more smug.

Finally he yawned loudly. “This is getting boring,” he announced. “I think I'll go trade a couple
of my tickets for a soda. Call me when it's time for me to come back and win the finals.”

Joe gritted his teeth. “We have to beat him!” he growled.

“We?” Frank echoed. “I thought we weren't working together.”

“Hey, Iola's next,” said Chet, elbowing Frank in the side. “She's awesome at this game. She always beats me.”

“That's not saying much,” Joe said with a grin.

Chet laughed. “I know,” he admitted. “But she's really good. You'll see.”

They all turned to watch. Chet was right. His sister
was
really good. But finally Iola got creamed by a purple blob monster in level six. That meant she was twenty points short of Adam's score.

“Great job. You're in second place,” the attendant said. He wrote Iola's name on the high-scores list right below Adam's.

“At least she'll be in the finals,” Chet said.

Frank nodded. “Maybe she'll beat Adam then.”

“Chet! Iola! Where are you?” Mimi Morton yelled as she came running in. Mimi was Chet and Iola's four-year-old sister. She had a round face, blond hair, freckles like Chet, and bright green eyes like Iola.

“I didn't know Mimi was here,” Joe said.

Chet looked guilty. “I sort of forgot she was,” he admitted. “Iola and I are supposed to be
watching her while Mom runs some errands at the shopping center across the street.”

Mimi spotted Chet and skipped over. She always loved wearing bright colors and goofy outfits. But today she looked even weirder than usual. She had at least six beaded bracelets on each arm, seven or eight necklaces draped around her neck, and plastic rings on every finger. She even had several butterfly barrettes stuck in her wispy hair.

“Hey, Mimi, where'd you get all that stuff?” Iola asked, walking over to join them.

Mimi held out her arms to admire her bracelets. “A lady never gives away her fashion secrets,” she said.

Joe rolled his eyes at Frank. Mimi was a pretty strange kid. She was always saying stuff like that. She liked to make up stories and pretend she was a princess or a movie star.

Chet poked her in the arm. “Come on,” he said.
“There's no way you won enough tickets for all that stuff yourself. Where'd you get it?”

“I didn't win the tickets, I found them,” Mimi said proudly.

“Found them?” Iola echoed. “Found them where?”

“On the floor.” Mimi waved one arm around. That made her new bracelets jingle. “They were just lying there, so I picked them up.”

Chet looked worried. “That's not right,” he scolded her. “Someone probably dropped them and is looking for them. You should have turned them in at the front office.”

“No way!” Mimi shook her head so hard her barrettes bounced. “I didn't want to go there. I don't like that mean boy.”

“Mean boy?” said Frank. “You mean Darryl?”

“He chased me away before,” Mimi said with a shudder. “All I wanted was some tickets!” She
giggled and started playing with one of her necklaces. “Lucky for me some tickets found me! They walked right up to me and jumped into my hand.”

“Don't be dumb,” said Chet, sounding annoyed.

Joe wasn't paying much attention to Mimi. “Hey, check it out,” he said. “I'm up next.” He rubbed his hands together and cracked his knuckles. “Prepare to be amazed!”

Chet and Iola laughed, but Frank shook his head. “Don't get too cocky,” he told Joe. “That'll just make you more likely to mess up.”

“Next!” the attendant called.

“Here I go,” Joe said eagerly. He rushed over and stuck a ticket into the machine. Then he pressed the start button.

The alien blobs started coming. Joe took the controls and started blasting them. He was doing great.

“Take that, alien scum!” he yelled as he dropped
rocks on a whole row of aliens. Now he was at level two.

“Go, Joe!” Iola cheered. “Don't forget to watch out for the goo spitters.”

Joe just nodded. He was totally focused on the
game. Soon he was at level three. Then level four. Level five . . .

“Attention, everyone!” a loud adult voice rang out. “May I have your attention, please! We have a very serious problem. The entrance money from the office is missing!”

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