The Deadliest Dare

"Ah-ah-choo!" That's how it started—with a sneeze. Quite a few sneezes, actually. But Frank Hardy didn't hear them over the loud music he was dancing to. The Cellar was Bayport's newest rock club — somebody had redone the cellar of an abandoned mill on the outskirts of town. The dark brick walls and pillared arches were right out of an old monster movie, but the lights and special effects were strictly science fiction.

Frank just let his tall, lean body go with the pulsing beat, but his girlfriend, Callie Shaw, tried out some serious moves. Frank's dark eyes gleamed as he watched her blond hair fly wildly in the multicolored glare of pulsating strobe lights.

"So what do you think?" Callie yelled over the blast of the hugely amplified live music.

"Eh?" he inquired, cupping his ear. "Can't hear you over all this noise."

"Yes, you can," she accused, poking him in the ribs with her forefinger. "I was asking you how you liked the group. That's why we're here, remember, to hear this group?"

"Our buddy Biff Hooper seems to be enjoying them," Frank said, leaning in toward Callie. "I noticed Biff and his date dancing really close to a slow song a while ago. Any group that can make Biff feel romantic must be okay." "But what do you think? Come on, Frank." With a laugh, he danced closer and took Callie in his arms. "Me? I always feel romantic." He looked across the crowded dance floor to the bandstand, where laser lights flashed overhead in time to the music. They glowed eerily as fog was blown across the dancers. "Which one is your friend again?" "Mandy, the bass player. She's — " The rest of Callie's reply was cut off when somebody sneezed nearby.

"Oh, the one with the purple hair. Very nice." Frank looked up. The sneezing seemed to be coming nearer.

"It's only a wig. Don't judge her musical ability by — excuse me—" Callie's nose wrinkled, and she brushed at its tip. Then she tilted her head back, leaned over, and sneezed. She sneezed again, then twice more. At the same instant the thickset young man dancing beside them began wheezing, then let off a thunderous sneeze. The single gold ring in his ear jingled as he put his hand to his chest, then sneezed again.

Frank stopped dancing and started staring. He wasn't alone. Out on the foggy floor, dancing couples were halting and stumbling. Most of them were sneezing now and coughing, wiping at their watery eyes. " Frank took a moment to glance around and see how Biff and his dark-haired date were doing. But he couldn't spot them in the crowd. As Callie tugged a tissue out of the pocket of her jeans, she asked him, "Wha - wha - CHOO! What's going on?"

Frank was busy staring over her head. "There it is—see up there?"

Drifting out of the vents near the arched ceiling of the club was some kind of silvery powder. Frank watched it flicker and glisten in the colored lights until it mingled with the fog down closer to the floor.

Frank put his arm protectively around Callie's slim shoulders. "Somebody's managed to slip a little whoopee powder into the air system," he said, guiding her through the wheezing crowd. "We have to get some fresh air, Callie. I'm going to sneeze, too." And he did.

Callie took a deep breath through her half-open mouth. "I sure do need — " She sneezed again. "Excuse me. I can use some fresh air, yes."

Frank tapped a few shoulders and made follow-me gestures. When they reached the rainy parking lot at the side of the club, they were leading a good-size group—with more people joining them every minute.

"Well, at least there's not a wild rush for the doors," Frank said. "Maybe I should go back in there to warn the management."

"Don't, Frank." Callie caught his arm and took off for her car to get out of the rain. "They must be getting the message by now."

Still more couples were coming out of the place, most of them sneezing and crying, searching for clean air.

"You know, there've been quite a few dumb practical jokes like this around town lately," said Frank, jogging beside her. "I'd like to find out just what — "

"Frank, I know you're a great detective, but do me a favor and cool it for now." Callie put the speed on and ran full-out to the far end of the parking lot. "I happen to have met the folks who run the Cellar. They're not really nice guys—and they might think you're the prankster if you go poking around."

Frank had to grin at the way Callie had pegged him so quickly. Frank and Joe Hardy were brothers and known for solving mysteries. Their last case, Thick As Thieves, had sent Frank and Joe on a wild cross-country chase to stop the heist of the century. But his smile softened as he looked into his girlfriend's tearing eyes.

"Okay — I guess I can pass up getting to the bottom of the case of the Perilous Prankster. Maybe the guy was just a music critic."

"Ha, ha," Callie told him, wiping a finger under her eye. "I don't think I can drive in this downpour. And I would like to go home."

Frank opened the door on the passenger side of the car, and Callie gratefully ducked inside. "Give me the keys and I'll play chauffeur."

She started to smile appreciatively, but was cut short by two new sneezes. "Anyway, did you like Mandy's group or not?"

"I don't think tonight's show — or at least the way it ended—helped them any. It pretty much cleaned out the place."

Frank climbed in and headed out of the parking lot. The rain was coming down heavily now, and Frank slowed the car on the winding hillside road that cut through forest on both sides. "There's a pattern all right," he was saying, "but I'm just not sure what it is."

Callie touched at her nose with a fresh tissue. "It does seem like we're in the middle of an epidemic of pranks and practical jokes, doesn't it?"

"It started about three weeks ago, right after the start of school vacation," he said. "A little graffiti on the school gym, then came the box of frogs that mysteriously opened in the middle of the library. There've been others as well. Joe already thought all the pranks were tied together somehow."

"Why didn't he come to the Cellar tonight, by the way?"

"He said he'd heard your friend Mandy's band already." Frank gracefully guided the car around another curve of the woodland road.

"You and your brother have absolutely no musical taste."

Frank said, "This powder thing tonight at the club—in a way it's more than a simple joke."

"Because it hurt Mandy and her group?"

"More than that—it could have caused panic. People could have gotten hurt."

"Well, a lot of practical jokes have a nasty side," Callie said. "They're not always good, clean fun."

"That's one of the things that worries me."

Frank stared out the rain-whipped windshield.

, "Maybe what we've got out there is someone or a group that gets its fun by hurting people. What scares me is that they're eventually going to get bored with just jokes."

Callie leaned back in her seat. "Well, it still could be nothing more than some goons who don't realize they've gone too far with their idea of humor."

"I hope so. But I have a hunch it's — " He cut off his speech just then as the car hopped, then whipped in zigzags back and forth across the dark, slippery road. It wobbled, rattled, bumped, and slid.

"Rear tire," Frank muttered, his grip tightening on the wheel. "It's flat."

He didn't hit the brakes but struggled to control the fishtailing vehicle, steering with the skid as much as possible.

"Those trees, Frank!" warned Callie in a high, choked voice.

The car's course was going to take it smack into a stand of heavy, dark oak trees close to the edge of the road. Frank desperately fought the steering wheel, but the car wouldn't respond.

It hurtled off the slippery road, and for several awful seconds it seemed to float in air. Then the car smashed head-on into one of the big, old trees.

Joe Hardy sat at the desk usually occupied by his father. Before leaving with Mrs. Hardy for a brief vacation in Florida, Fenton Hardy had asked his sons to update some of his reference files.

While that kind of organizational job was more up Frank's alley, Joe had decided to take it on that night. He'd had a few run-ins with Callie's friend Mandy and didn't want to hear her band again.

As he worked, Joe grew more and more fascinated. Fenton Hardy was a first-rate private investigator, and his files were full of valuable reports on crime syndicates, felons, pending court cases, and state statutes. Joe knew that such information could make—or break—a serious investigation.

Joe had both elbows resting on the desktop and was just finishing sorting through a stack of memos sent on by some of his father's government agency contacts. After pausing to take a sip from his mug of cocoa, Joe started on another stack of the memos.

The rain was hitting hard at the windows of the house — Joe could hear it even in the basement office. Every once in a while, the night wind rattled tree branches, which caught and scratched against the walls.

Hanging around this basement is more interesting, Joe told himself, than a trip to the Cellar.

One of the many confidential memos in this stack caught his attention. It was from the Federal Crime Bureau and concerned a man named Curt Branders. He was alleged to be an international hit man, specializing in assassinations of high-level government and industrial figures around the world. One of the sentences on his background form caught Joe's eye. It was a town name—Kirkland, which was only ten miles from Bayport. Kirkland was Branders's hometown. He still had a younger brother, Kevin Branders, living there.

Kevin Branders? Joe leaned back in his father's swivel chair, ignoring the squeaking sound it made. I met him at a party once, I think. He frowned at the memory. Yeah, a thin, blond guy — nasty, not very likable.

Then he shrugged. Having an older brother who was a fugitive international killer would make anybody nasty.

Even having an easygoing older brother like Frank could be a pain sometimes.

Joe hunched his shoulders slightly, rereading the memo about Curt Branders. Nodding to himself, he slipped it into the proper manila folder and continued on with the stack.

The phone rang.

Joe grabbed the receiver. "Hello?"

"Joe Hardy?"

"Speaking."

"This is Officer Hunsberger of the Highway Patrol. I'm at the emergency room of the Bayport Hospital — "

"What's wrong?" asked Joe, swallowing hard.

"I didn't mean to upset you, Joe. I don't think it's anything serious," said the patrolman. "But your brother and Callie Shaw had a slight ... urn ... accident."

"But they're okay?" -

"Frank is fine, but Callie has a mild concussion. Your brother's in the emergency room with her now, so he asked me to call you."

"I remember you now. You're a friend of his, right?" Joe said. "Did I hear you wrong or do you suspect this wasn't really an accident?"

"If it had been only Frank and Callie's car, we'd probably have written it off as an accident," answered Hunsberger. "But there were a lot of others. Frank will explain."

"I'm on my way." Joe charged out into the slashing rain, hopped into the boys' van, and headed for the hospital.

After a short drive he was rushing through the emergency room entrance.

"Hey, kid," warned the hospital security guard, "slow down. We've got enough banged-up kids around here tonight."

"Sorry." Joe slowed his pace slightly as he headed for the reception desk.

There were three kids that he knew sitting on uncomfortable red molded-plastic chairs. One girl had a large bandage across half her pale forehead. There were lots of other kids he didn't know — an overflow crowd, it looked like.

The white door to the emergency room swung open and Frank stepped through it. "I'm not hurt, Joe," he said, coming up to his brother.

Joe eyed him up and down. "You sure? You're pretty muddy."

"Haven't had time to clean up."

"What about Callie — how serious is it?"

"Her seat belt came loose, and she hit her head against the dashboard." Frank put his hand on Joe's shoulder, led him over to a quiet corner. "The doctor — a Dr. Emerson, a resident—wants to keep her overnight. Her folks are on their way over. They want to see how she is and talk to the doc."

"Who was driving?"

"I was, but it wasn't an accident."

"Yeah, that's what your friend Patrolman Hunsberger told me. But he didn't go into details."

Frank made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "There have been seven other car accidents tonight so far."

"Too many to be a coincidence."

"Exactly," Frank said in a level, angry voice. "And when I looked at Callie's tire that had gone flat, I found a small piece of plywood with nails hammered into it caught in the treads. Ride on that long enough, and any tire will go. I'm betting all the other cars had these little presents, too."

Snapping his fingers, Joe said, "The pranksters. What do you think?"

"It's got to be."