Secret of the Red Arrow (7 page)

Seth looked from Joe to me, his expression squirrelly. He was kind of a squirrelly guy in general, but this was a particularly squirrelly moment. “You guys have never seen that symbol before?” he asked.

“What does that mean?” Joe asked.

“What does what mean?” asked Seth. He gave an exaggerated shrug. “Where did you see it?”

“Over Neal’s bedroom door,” I said.

Recognition sparked in Seth’s eyes, as if what we were telling him suddenly made sense. But just as quickly as it appeared, Seth buried it. “Well, I don’t know what it is,” he repeated. “Look, if you’ll excuse me, I want to eat my ravioli now.” He picked up his tray, and before Joe or I could decide whether to stop him, took off in the direction of the AV room.

Y
OU SAW IT, RIGHT?” I ASKED MY BROTHER
as we finally settled down at the table in the back of the cafeteria with our food. My peas were cold.

“What am I, blind?” asked Frank, poking at his turkey sandwich. Frank has this inexplicable distaste for the hot food in the cafeteria. He doesn’t know what he’s missing, in my opinion. “Of course I saw it. He was scared. The minute you showed him that symbol, whatever it is, he got scared.”

I forked a few more peas, then tapped them against the tray. I was about to respond when Janine Kornbluth walked by on her way out of the cafeteria. When she saw me, she smiled and gave a little wave. I stared after her, unable to pull myself together enough to wave back.

I’ll admit it wasn’t the first time I’d been distracted by the thought of Janine Kornbluth. I’d noticed her a few weeks ago, her dark hair and pale face with the little crease between her eyebrows that meant she was thinking. We were in the same French class. I liked how quietly she did everything. Right down to the way she closed her locker, which she did quietly, instead of slamming it like I always did.

Good sense told me she was completely out of my league. I was too noisy, for one thing. But still, there had to be some way I could “sell her” on Joe Hardy. Although the perfect idea hadn’t occurred to me yet, I was actively brainstorming.

“Joe?” Frank was saying. “JOE? HELLO?”

“Right. Sure. Triangle with legs,” I responded, hoping he hadn’t totally changed the subject and started talking about electrons or something. (This was Frank, after all.)

Frank looked amused. I was pretty sure he’d seen Janine pass by. “So we’ll take a cab ride this afternoon,” he said, and took a sip of lemonade.

Cab ride. Oh,
right
. “Sure,” I said.

A cab ride was definitely in order to get to the bottom of this whole triangle business.

•   •   •

After school, Frank and I parked the car near the bus station, then hoofed it over to the cab stand. Bayport’s bus station is not exactly a metropolitan hub, so it was quiet, between buses, and Frank and I were the only ones waiting for a cab. We had to wave away a couple (that is a surefire
way to annoy a cabbie, by the way) before the cab we were looking for, from the Red Apple fleet, medallion number N567, pulled up to the curb.

Frank slid into the backseat, and I followed.

“One conference fare, please,” Frank said as I slammed the door behind us.

The driver pulled the cab back onto Main Street, then drove slowly out of the downtown area, toward the more woodsy part of town where houses were few and far between.

“What can I help you boys with?” Professor Al-Hejin said after about ten minutes.

Professor Al-Hejin has been a trusted friend and confidant to Frank and me since we were just starting out this investigation thing. As a full-time cabdriver, the prof hears all the town’s most salacious dirt. He knows everything about everything in Bayport. And he’s usually willing to share it with Frank and me, because he knows we’ll use it for good.

“If I show you a symbol,” I said, “can you tell me if you’ve ever seen it before?”

Professor Al-Hejin met my eyes in the rearview mirror, thoughtful. “I believe so,” he said. “Shall I pull over so you can hand it to me?”

I nodded. He pulled into the driveway of an abandoned house, as though he was going to turn around, then idled near the overgrown lawn. I pulled out my triangle-with-legs sketch from lunch that day and passed it through the glass divider to the prof.

Professor Al-Hejin held the napkin up so he could see it. He made no reaction at all. He didn’t jump, or gasp, or turn around. In the rearview mirror we could see that his eyes were serious, completely focused on the drawing.

After a few seconds he took his hand off the wheel and very carefully folded the drawing in half. He handed it back to me through the divider, sketch on the inside, not meeting my eyes.

He put the cab in gear and was back on the road, headed back into town, before I could get the question out.

“Professor Al-Hejin? What is it?”

He didn’t answer for a few seconds. I could see that his expression was grave, his mouth pulled into a tight line. “I will drop you back off at the bus station,” he said quietly.

“What? Why?” asked Frank.

Silence. The woods whizzed by.

“Professor Al-Hejin, please talk to us,” I begged as we drew closer to town.

More silence. I looked at Frank, and he looked as confused as I felt. What was going on?

“Professor Al-Hejin,” said Frank, “if we insulted you, we didn’t mean to. We’re just trying to figure out what this symbol means.”

“We have no idea,” I added.

Professor Al-Hejin remained silent. After a few seconds, though, he pulled over to the side of the road. He sat still for a moment before catching my eye in the rearview mirror.

“Where did you see this symbol?”

I leaned forward. “Over the doorway to our friend’s bedroom,” I replied.

He looked stung, like that was terrible news. He shook his head, reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped his forehead.

Frank and I were quiet for a while, wanting to give him whatever time he needed.

Finally he cleared his throat. “This is a bad symbol,” he said simply.

“But what does it mean?” Frank asked.

The prof just shook his head. “Bad men,” he said.

“What bad men?” I asked.

Professor Al-Hejin sighed loudly and took his foot off the brake. Within seconds we were back on the road to town.

“Professor,” I pleaded as we sailed past factories and warehouses, “whatever you know, you can tell us. Whatever you’re afraid of, we don’t know anything about.”

“We’re just hoping to find out what the symbol means,” Frank added, “so we can help our friend.”

Professor Al-Hejin seemed to think that over. After a minute or so, he looked in the rearview mirror again. “Do you know what it means,” he said quietly, “to be marked?”

“Marked, like, for punishment?” I asked. “For death or—I don’t know—”

“Your friend is marked,” the professor said, just as quietly. “You had best steer clear of him.”

I met Frank’s eye:
What?

“How do you know about being marked?” Frank asked. “Were you marked?”

The cab jerked as Professor Al-Hejin suddenly pulled into a gas station. He pulled up to the convenience store and hit the brakes.

“You get out here,” he said simply.

I looked at Frank. I had never seen the professor like this. He usually answered all our questions without hesitation. He knew us.

But now I didn’t even think it was worth arguing. I’d never seen the professor so spooked.

“Okay,” said Frank. He dug a few of Aunt Trudy’s famous homemade health bars—these were cranberry with cashews and sesame seeds—out of a pocket in his backpack and handed them through the divider. The prof never let us pay him for the ride. But we liked to give him something for his time and trouble.

Now he hesitated, looking at the bars, then out the window. Frank pushed them forward again, as if to say,
Take them
.

“Please,” Frank said. “I’m sorry if we made you uncomfortable.”

Professor Al-Hejin slowly took the bars, then caught Frank’s eye in the mirror and nodded.

“Bye, Prof,” I said, opening my door and scooting out.

The professor nodded again and bit into one of the health
bars. As soon as Frank got out and shut the door behind him, the cab pulled off.

“I guess we’re walking back to the station,” I said, watching the cab disappear.

“I guess so,” said Frank. “Good thing we’re only a mile or two away.”

I nodded. Slowly we made our way out of the gas station and started walking down the street in the direction of downtown.

“So what do you think?” I asked after a few minutes. We’d both been silent, lost in our own thoughts.

“I think,” Frank said, looking serious, “that whatever this is, it’s a lot bigger and more dangerous than what happened to Neanderthal.”

M
Y BROTHER AND I HAVE ALWAYS HAD
kind of a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy with our father about investigation, or at least we did up until the Deal went into effect. We never told him about cases we were investigating, nor did we ask for his help or advice based on his years of experience as one of the area’s top detectives. In return, he never grilled us about how, exactly, we were spending all our free time, or whether we were breaking any laws to do whatever it was we were doing.

As Joe and I returned from our Cab Ride to Nowhere, however, we were both feeling like it might be time to get some advice from Dad. He was nothing if not plugged into the town of Bayport. If this triangle with legs really was as
sinister as the professor had implied to us, surely Fenton Hardy had run across it at some point during his career.

When we got home, my mom was in the kitchen, frowning at some photos of a house she was getting ready to show. “No, no, no!” she was saying, circling things in the photo with a black Sharpie. “Not enough lighting! Too much clutter! People, get your shoes into a closet!”

“Got a tough one on your hands, Mom?” Joe asked gently. We Hardys all seem to be Serious about Something. Dad is Serious about the Law. Aunt Trudy is Serious about Food. Joe and I are Serious about Justice. And Mom is Serious about Real Estate.

Mom looked up with a smile. “Boys!” she said. “How have you been? Is your friend feeling better today?”

We’d told our parents that we left in the middle of the night to check on a classmate who’d been in a car accident and was rushed to the hospital. Broken leg, concussion, nothing serious.

“Yeah, great,” Joe said. “Already hobbling around on crutches. Hey, Mom, is Dad around?”

Mom gestured to his study. “In his study with the door closed,” she replied. “He’s been in there all day. Says he’s wrestling with a chapter on the Articles of Confederation. It’s fighting back, I’m afraid.”

Great. So Dad would be in a terrific mood. “Thanks, Mom.” I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, and Joe and I walked over to Dad’s study and knocked on the door.

“Come in!” Dad’s tone was smack in the middle between
Leave me alone
and
Oh please, please, come in here and distract me from this horrible mess
.

“Hi, Dad,” I said, pushing open the door and walking in with Joe behind me. Dad was sitting behind his desk, his shirt rumpled, his hair looking like he’d recently been trying to tear it out. (He doesn’t have much, either, so that’s just an indication of how tough this chapter must have been.)

“Boys,” he said, sighing and leaning back in his chair. “Oh, why did I decide to make my career in writing? What demons were possessing me?”

Joe and I were silent. Actually, our dad had left his long career as a detective and taken up writing as part of the Deal. So arguably, the demons in question were Joe and me.

Which didn’t exactly make us feel great.

“Dad,” I said, deciding to get to the point, “I think Joe and I need to ask you something.”

Dad looked at me, suddenly serious. I don’t think we’d come in to “ask him something” in a long time . . . probably not since the legal troubles we’d had leading up to the Deal. He sat up straight in his chair, pushing his mouse and keyboard away.

“Sounds serious,” he said. “What is it, boys?”

I looked at Joe and nodded. Slowly, he pulled out the napkin he’d sketched the triangle-with-legs symbol on and unfolded it, then pushed it to my father’s side of the desk. Dad looked down at it, recognition dawning on his face and then, just as quickly, fear.

“Where did you boys get this?” he demanded in a tight voice.

I cleared my throat, suddenly nervous. “We saw it painted on the wall at a friend’s house.”

Dad took in a breath, and relief seemed to wash over his face. He grabbed the napkin, balled it up, and threw it in the wastebasket under his desk. “Then this is not something to concern yourselves with.”

I looked at Joe.
What?

“What if we think it’s . . . um . . . causing problems for a friend?” Joe asked.

“Who is this friend?” Dad asked, turning his Detective Laser Gaze on my brother. “What has he—or she—gotten himself involved in?”

“Does it matter?” I asked, and then instantly regretted it when the Laser Gaze was pointed at me. I cleared my throat and then continued, more gently, “Is this symbol . . . is it a punishment of some kind? Does it mean someone’s marked you?”

Dad sat back in his chair and sighed. He ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up more. “Every town has its dark side,” he said, looking up at the ceiling and then back at us. “Why are you asking? What’s going on with you boys? You’re not investigating again, are you?”

“Of course not,” Joe said quickly, reflexively.

I shook my head. “We understand the Deal,” I said, not meeting Dad’s eye.

“It’s just . . .” Joe sat forward in his chair, beseeching Dad.
“This friend of ours. Bad things are happening to him, and he doesn’t know why. Is it because of this mark?”

Dad leveled his gaze at Joe, his face neutral. “It could be,” he said quietly. Then louder: “Listen, boys, under the circumstances, and with the troubles you’re already facing, it is extremely important not to let it get around town that you’re asking questions about this . . . this issue. Okay?”