Kickoff to Danger (3 page)

Frank Hardy came home after his college class to find his supper waiting on the kitchen table. He pretty much expected that. His mom and aunt Gertrude had gotten used to his new schedule.

What he didn't expect to find was Callie Shaw sitting at the table with his math book.

“I forgot mine,” she said, embarrassed. “And I needed to get the problems Mr. Patel assigned.”

Frank grinned. “Not to mention a blow-by-blow of what happened to Joe.”

Callie looked a little more embarrassed but nodded her head. “I guess Golden was sweet as anything when Liz Webling interviewed him for the school paper, but we saw how rotten he was to Joe on the field,” Callie finished. “Everyone's calling him Dr. Golden and Mr. Hyde.”

Frank started eating. “Joe can deal with him.”

Callie shook her head, her blue eyes troubled.

“I'm not worried about you or Joe around this guy. But he's gathering a crew, a gang, and they're beginning to pick on people.”

A forkful of food stopped on the way to Frank's mouth. “What people?”

“Ask your brother,” Callie said.

Frank put down his fork and went upstairs to Joe's room. Joe sat on the edge of his bed, doing
forearm curls with a dumbbell in time to music from the radio.

That was a bad sign. Joe usually went in for that kind of exercise to work off a bad mood.

“Saw your little run-in with Terry Golden today.” Frank expected Joe to complain about being deserted. That's what he'd been saying since Frank had started his computer course and left the team.

Joe only shrugged his shoulders, still working the weight. “I guess he's what people call a necessary evil. We need him to win games, but I don't have to like him.”

Joe stopped his exercises and gave Frank a sour smile. “And I suppose it's just as well you got off the team when you did. It's hard enough listening to Eddie Taplinger explain why he passes to Golden instead of me. It would be harder hearing that from my own brother.”

Frank felt a little relief when he heard that. “I hear Golden is collecting some sort of crew.”

Joe nodded. “Some guys on the team seem to think that if they act like Golden, a little of his success might rub off on them.”

“And since he's acting like a real nimrod, so are they?”

“Man, are they!” Joe burst out. “Golden had a run-in with Dan Freeman but ended up looking like a complete jerk. The golden one then tried to
take it out on Chet Morton…with lots of help from his crew.” Joe frowned. “It was almost like a lynch mob. You wouldn't believe it.”

Frank asked, “Don't you think you're being a little too dramatic?”

“How's this for dramatic? Biff Hooper joined in the towel snapping against Chet. He and Chet have been friends since they were kids,” Joe said. “B.G.—before Golden.”

Frank tried to shrug off the story, but Joe's last line troubled him.

Things only got worse the next morning. Frank and Biff shared an English class along with Dan Freeman and Terry Golden—English, with Mr. Weeks.

Mr. Weeks was having his usual hard time controlling the rowdy kids. But Terry Golden was more than rowdy, he was downright belligerent.

He slammed his poetry book shut. “Why should I be interested in some dusty old sonnet?” Terry challenged the teacher.

“Surprise, surprise, Golden,” Dan Freeman spoke up. “There are a few other things to learn besides how to catch a ball.”

Golden swung round in his desk as if someone had smacked him. “Typical nerd,” he sneered.

“Yeah,” Dan replied pleasantly. “It's how this nerd will be accepted at Harvard while you go to
some cow college with a major in football. If you're lucky and don't get injured, maybe—
maybe
you'll get a shot at pro ball.”

Freeman continued to smile at the fuming jock. “Come to my law office when you're thirty-five and too old to play anymore. You'll need all the help you can get in your new career as a hasbeen.”

Golden scowled. “You think you're smart, Freeman, but all you've got is a smart mouth.”

“I'm still looking for
anything
on you that's smart,” Dan shot back.

Golden's desk clattered to the floor, knocked over as the jock jumped up.

Mr. Weeks rushed over. “Sit down, Terence.”

Terry ignored the order. “I'm going to teach that little snot-nose a lesson.”

“You and the rest of what muscle-bound army?” Dan Freeman challenged. He, too, scrambled up out of his seat.

Dan's got nerve, Frank thought. I just hope he's not depending on Mr. Weak to protect him.

Weeks tried to catch Terry Golden's arm as he drew it back to let fly with a punch. Frank shook his head when the teacher missed. There's a useless move. Golden spends every day practicing how to get past guys who want to stop him.

“I want both of you back at your desks—now!”

The stern command would have sounded better if Weeks's voice hadn't cracked.

Terry Golden took another step forward, his arm still cocked.

“You're looking at detention,” Weeks warned. “Both of you.”

The jock stared at his teacher with scorn. “You think Coach Devlin will let that happen? I'm too important to the team to be sidelined.”

“Sit down!” Weeks was now shaking with anger. Frank noticed the teacher wasn't talking about detention anymore.

Terry Golden spread his hands. “Hey, chill out, Mr.
Weak…sss
.”

He swaggered back to his desk as if he'd won this round, but the look he sent to Dan Freeman said that the fight was far from over.

Joe Hardy stared at his brother across the cafeteria table. “Did they actually start swinging at each other?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I never get any interesting classes.”

“It didn't go that far,” Frank admitted. “Not that Mr. Weeks was able to do anything. He threatened Golden with detention but only got laughed at.”

Slumped in his seat at the lunch table, Chet Morton didn't say a thing. Frank noticed that Chet was not eating, only playing with the spaghetti on his plate.

Golden must really be getting to him, Frank thought. Mention the guy's name, and Chet loses his appetite.

Joe tried a joke. “Well, with a nickname like Mr. Weak—” He broke off, staring at the lunch line. “Check it out,” he muttered.

Terry Golden made his way through the long cafeteria line, cutting in to grab whatever he wanted. He stepped away with his tray as if he were leading a victory parade.

“Yo! Golden!” Wendell Logan called from the table where he sat with a couple of other muscular linemen.

Golden didn't respond to Logan's invitation. Instead, he took his tray to the table the Hardys shared with Chet.

“Join you for a minute?” Golden didn't wait for an answer. He just planted himself at the one empty seat.

Frank watched his brother toss his sandwich down. Golden should rent himself out as a miracle diet, Frank thought. He kills appetites wherever he goes.

Chet, on the other hand, was frozen like a deer caught in headlights.

“So, how do we rate the honor of a lunch visit?” Frank tried to keep his voice light. He wasn't sure he succeeded.

“Hey, I'm not a guy to hang around where he's
not wanted,” Terry said. “I only came over because I'm concerned about Chet.”

Chet stared at him. “C-concerned?”

“Yeah. I worry about you.” Golden gave Chet a big smile. “I couldn't help noticing you had something dangerous on your tray.”

“D-dangerous?” Chet began to sound like a stuttering echo. He looked down at his tray as if he expected to find a bomb on it.

Golden pointed to the piece of chocolate cake beside the plate of spaghetti. “I'm talking about that!”

Chet stared, his mouth hanging open.

Terry reached over, grabbed the cake, and stuffed most of it into his mouth. “ 'Sbad fuh yuh,” he said, chewing noisily.

Chet looked as if he didn't believe what was happening.

Frank was having a hard time believing it, too.

Golden scraped chocolate frosting off his hand, using the edge of Chet's tray. “Got to watch that waistline, Chet boy.”

He leaned over again. This time he ground his thumb into what was left of Chet's cake.

At last Chet began to come out of his trance. “Hey, you—”

“What are you going to do, fat boy?” Golden's sneer dared Chet to try something. “I've got
teachers
afraid to go up against me.” He gave Frank and
Joe a smug grin. “You should think about joining a winner's team.”

Laughing, Golden picked up his tray and headed over to the table of football players.

“Can you believe that?” Frank asked, shaking his head.

“And he actually asked us to go in with him!” Joe said in disbelief.

Chet sat up straight. “I'm doing it!”

Joe and Frank just stared at him. “What?” the Hardys said together.

“I'm going in with the Golden Boys!” Chet's round face looked determined. “I'm tired of being left to hang by myself. There's safety in numbers.”

His expression turned bitter as he looked over at the table where Golden and his newly recruited crew were being rowdy.

“And the numbers are all around Terry Golden.”

“You can't be serious!” Joe burst out as Chet started to get up from his seat. “Golden leans all over you, and you're going to try to go in with him?”

“Biff told me that's how you get into the Golden Boys. Everybody has to give you a rough time—at first.” Chet shrugged. “It's sort of like an initiation.”

“Oh, yeah?” Frank asked. “How about Dan Freeman? Is Golden initiating him, too?”

“That—that's different,” Chet said. “He tangled with Terry.”

“Only after Terry started it.” Joe was about to argue some more until he saw the stubborn expression on Chet's face.

Instead Joe sank back in his seat, sighing. “I hope you know what you're getting into.”

“I know what I'm getting out of.” Leaving his tray, Chet walked over to Golden and his boys. Terry seemed to be in a good mood. After ribbing him a little, he sent Chet off to get him a soda. Chet seemed to be relieved as he went on the errand. He couldn't see the look Wendell Logan sent after him.

“Trouble,” Joe said, shaking his head. “This is going to mean trouble.”

Trouble was the last thing on Frank's mind as he fought the mob scene in the halls at dismissal. The school had just about cleared out by the time he strolled to his locker.

He was in no hurry today. His college course didn't meet on Thursdays, and he'd caught up on all his classwork. For once, Frank had a free afternoon. So, of course, Callie
wasn't
free.

“I made plans with Iola Morton to go to the library,” Callie told him. “Both of us have projects we need to research. And since you're never around, I figured it would be all right.”

Frank didn't want to spend his afternoon in the library, even to be with Callie. And most of his buddies—Joe, Chet, Biff Hooper—were on the football team.

I suppose I could hang out in the bleachers and
watch them practice. Frank shook that thought away. That would also mean watching Terry Golden.

Frank reran the scene from lunch in his head. He'd wanted to do something when Golden started in on Chet, but what? Fighting with Terry would land them both in the assistant principal's office.

Frank could just imagine the look on Mr. Sheldrake's face. “Chocolate cake? The two of you got into a fight over someone else's chocolate cake?”

So Frank had done nothing. The memory made him feel a little sick.

Guess feeling that way kills the idea of hanging out with Tony Prito at Mr. Pizza, he thought.

Frank was walking down the main hall of the oldest part of the school. The wall tiles had faded to an off-yellow color. The next turn would take him into the south wing, with its newer, shinier walls—where his locker was located.

He stopped before he came to the turn, though, cocking his head. What was that?

The muffled, thumping noise sounded again.

Curious, Frank leaned around the corner.

He stared in shock.

The sound came from Dan Freeman, clumping along on only one shoe. That wasn't all he was missing. Spindly legs poked out from under his shirttails like a pair of toothpicks.

Dan wasn't wearing pants!

“Freeman—Dan!” Frank's words stumbled over themselves in surprise. “What happened?”

“A couple of gorillas happened.” Dan's usually pale face was bright red. “I got pantsed!”

He looked down at his bare legs. “How am I supposed to get home like this?”

“My locker is right here,” Frank said. “Let's see what I've got.”

Unfortunately, Frank's gym clothes were at home in the wash. He did offer his jacket to Dan, who tied it around his waist.

“That's a little better,” Dan said.

“Did Terry Golden do this to you?” Frank asked.

“You were in English class,” Dan replied bitterly. “What do you think?” He shook his head. “Actually, it was a couple of guys from his goon squad. That animal Logan, Biff Hooper . . .”

“They probably just tossed your pants somewhere,” Frank interrupted. “Maybe we can find them before someone else does.”

“Find what, Mr. Hardy?”

The voice came from around the corner, but Frank knew to whom it belonged. A second later Mr. Sheldrake came into view. Tall and pale, he was the assistant principal, in charge of school discipline. The kids called him Old Beady Eyes.

His eyes were pretty wide now as he took in Dan Freeman.

“I always take a quick look around the halls after school.” Sheldrake shook his head. “You never know what you'll find.”

He turned to Frank. “Mr. Hardy?”