Trouble at the Arcade (8 page)

Frank shrugged. “Yeah. But I never could have done it if you hadn't caught up to Darryl on the bumper cars,” he said.

That made Joe feel a little better. He thought about the case as he and Frank hurried across the yard and ducked into the woods.

“I still don't get it,” he admitted. “I mean, I know Adam was the thief, since he confessed after we found the cash. But how'd you figure it out?”

Frank stepped ahead to pull down the ladder
for the tree house. “I'll tell youwhen we get up there.”

Soon they were in the tree house. Frank left Joe to pull the ladder up by himself, and he went straight to the whiteboard and wrote down four names.

Joe turned around and saw the names. “Darryl,
Adam, Mimi, and Callie,” he read aloud.

“Those were our only real suspects,” said Frank. “So the question was, which of them could have done it, and how?”

Joe flopped down on a floor cushion. “Okay. So what's the answer?”

“Well, after we talked to Mimi about her tickets, I remembered something kind of weird,” Frank said. “Adam won a ton of tickets from his round of Blob Blaster. We saw him put them in his pocket. But they weren't in his pockets anymore when he emptied them out for Mr. Fun.”

Joe gasped. “You're right!” he exclaimed. “I should have realized that too.”

“I didn't really notice at first either,” Frank admitted. “I only thought about it later when the Snack Shack lady said Adam was messing with the napkins. For a second I wondered if he'd stuck his
tickets in there for some reason, but then I realized the truth.”

“So Mimi spotted the cash on the floor after Darryl knocked it over,” Joe said. “Just like we thought.”

“Right. She must have picked it up, then been standing there in the hallway looking at it when Adam happened to walk past on his way to the Snack Shack,” Frank said. “He tricked her into giving him the money and gave her his tickets as a ‘reward.' ”

“But why didn't Mimi just tell us that?” Joe wondered.

Frank rolled his eyes. “This is Mimi we're talking about, remember? She probably thought Adam was King of Pluto or something. Or maybe he was the one who told her he was a secret prince, and that she shouldn't give away his secret.”

Joe laughed. “Okay. So then Adam knew everyone would suspect him right away, since he's bad news. . . .”

“Plus, he knew Mimi might tattle,” Frank added. “And also that Callie saw him with the cash. So he hid it in the napkin dispenser, planning to come back for it later.” He drew a circle around Adam's name on the dry-erase board. “But his plan didn't work.”

“Busted!” Joe exclaimed. “Still, I'm not sure I ever would have figured it out.”

“But you were the one who actually found the cash,” Frank reminded him. “I was about to give up when the snack bar lady started yelling.”

Joe laughed. “Maybe Dad's right. We do make a pretty good team.”

“Just like Dad and his friends on the force.” Frank held up his hand for a high five.

“Hardys rule!” Joe high-fived him back. “Hey, since we're such an awesome crime-fighting team,
maybe we should look for more mysteries to solve.”

Frank looked excited. “We could make the tree house our secret headquarters,” he said. “We can take notes on the dry-erase board and help people all over Bayport.”

“Sure,” Joe said with a laugh. “But only if
you
take all the notes!”

Frank smiled. “It's a deal.”

He wrote something else on the whiteboard. Joe leaned forward to read it, then grinned. It said: