Bound for Danger (2 page)

“There has to be
some
reason behind it,” I said mildly. “And I guess we'll find out soon enough.”

A
H, THE SMELL OF A SCHOOL
gym. The sweat, the tears, the forgotten lunch that's been moldering away in the locker room for a week.

When Frank and I arrived at the gym promptly after the end of school, a bunch of guys were already there wearing their gym clothes and practicing layups. I felt their curious eyes on my brother and me as we headed for the coach's office.

A light-haired, preppy-looking guy wearing a hoodie sat at the desk inside.

“Hi,” I greeted him.

He looked up with no recognition. “Hello,” he said a bit warily. “I'm Assistant Coach Noonan. Can I help you?”

“Um, we hope so,” Frank said. “We're Frank and Joe Hardy? We were told to come to the varsity team practice today. We're joining the team.”

Coach Noonan let out a tense little laugh. “Uh, you're
joining
the team?” he asked. “I'm afraid there's been some mistake. First of all, you have to
try out
to join the team. Secondly, the season is nearly over. Even if we were open to new members, you couldn't join now.”

I glanced at Frank.
Cool, can we leave then?

“That's what
we
thought,” Frank said with a friendly smile, “but Principal Gerther told us . . .”

Suddenly I heard footsteps behind me and then a taller, dark-haired guy wearing a baseball cap walked up. He had a BHS athletic jacket on and was twirling a whistle that hung around his neck. “Aha,” he said, looking at me and Frank with recognition, but no warmth. “Are you Frank and Joe Hardy?”

“That's us,” I said.

Coach Noonan stood and came out from behind the desk. “Rich, is there something I should know?” he asked.

Coach Perotta shook his head, and I caught a little blink-and-you'd-miss-it eye roll. “Joe and Frank are joining the team for the rest of the season, Bob. I've spoken to Principal Gerther about it and will explain it all later.”

Coach Noonan's face got all pinchy. “Rich, we have regional championships this Friday,” he said in a tight voice. “Do you think it's a good idea to introduce two new—”

“We'll
talk about it later,” Coach Perotta said smoothly. I caught Frank's eye:
The coaches don't want us here either. What's going on?
“Anyway, boys, did you bring anything else to wear?” He eyed our jeans, Frank's button-down, and my thick sweater.

We shook our heads. “We didn't exactly know we were coming here this morning,” Frank explained.

Coach Perotta let out a tiny sigh. “All right,” he said. “Let's get you guys some gym clothes, and then we can get started. I have a feeling you are going to need a lot of practice to get up to speed.”

• • •

“YOU NEED TO STAY ON THE BALL!” Coach Perotta screamed at my brother about an hour and a half later. Frank was sweaty and red-faced, doing his best, but his slow, high dribble was easily stolen by a kid named Dorian, who made a score. “Try it again. AGAIN!”

Dorian retrieved the ball and threw it back to Frank—a little too hard, in my opinion. “Sorry,” he said with a toothy smile that implied he wasn't sorry at all.

“Dude!” A kid whose name I didn't know yet shoved me forward, as another kid thrust the ball into my hands. I was in a line practicing three-point throws, across the gym from Frank. “It's your turn! You need to pay attention!”

Right!
I tried to line up the ball just right, but I could hear the other guys grumbling to themselves behind me.
I'm taking too long.
They worked like a well-oiled machine: catch,
aim, throw. Catch, aim, throw. I threw the ball, but all the tension had thrown me off and it sailed off to the left, not even hitting the backboard.

“Jeez!”
yelled the kid behind me. Charlie, I think. “How did you guys get on this team?”

I tried to ignore it and just walked to the back of the line, taking the opportunity to look over at Frank. He was trying to dribble lower but he was clearly exhausted; the ball darted away from him, bouncing out of bounds. I could hear the jeers and taunts from across the gym.

Basketball is hard.
That seemed to be the underlying message here. It wasn't the kind of skill you could learn in two hours, and it was clear that neither the coaches nor the players were willing to make any allowances for us being new. I was faring a little better than Frank, but not by much. It was
very
clear that neither one of us was ready to win any championships.

TWEET!
A whistle trilled through the gym, and I turned around to see Coach Perotta raising his hand. “All right, guys, enough drills for today. Let's have a quick meeting.”

I followed the other guys as they gathered in the center of the gym, sitting on the circle that surrounded the Bayport Tiger, our mascot.

Coach Perotta cleared his throat. “It's clear that we have a lot of work to do here,” he said, not even bothering to hide the fact that he was staring straight at Frank and me. “Wouldn't you agree, Coach Noonan?”

“Definitely,” said the assistant coach. His eyes looked slightly warmer than Perotta's, though. “It's going to take a lot of practice . . . but we need to stay positive.”

“Stay positive?” a worried voice piped up from the other side of the circle. I looked over:
Dorian
. “Can we be real for a minute?
Why
are these two guys joining the team right now? They weren't even on junior varsity.”

Coach Perotta cleared his throat. “Dorian, I've told you, it's complicated, but it's not up for debate. Frank and Joe are part of the team now.”

“They're going to bring us down,” another voice insisted, closer to me. I turned and saw a kid whose name I didn't know, but who was in the three-point drill with me. “They're going to cost us the state championship. It isn't fair!”

Other voices piped up in agreement, and soon the whole circle was chiming in with “That's right” and “It's not fair” and “Who are these guys, even?”

Coach Perotta looked like he was trying to figure out what to say. It wasn't hard to tell from his manner that he agreed with a lot of what the guys were saying. But for whatever reason, Principal Gerther had told him we had to join the team. Why?

It wasn't Coach Perotta who spoke next, but a guy sitting a few seats away from Frank.

“Guys, just chill,” he said. “You're being ugly to these guys. They really tried today. And if they're on the team for
sure now, then it's on us to help them get better, not make it harder for them.”

His name was Jason Bound. I knew because he was all over the morning announcements and the school newspaper. He was the team captain, star of the basketball team, and he had already secured a scholarship to Duke next year.

He'd seemed nice enough during practice, but his words still surprised me. I realized when he spoke that I'd sort of been agreeing with all the complaints. What
were
Frank and I doing here? Was it really fair to saddle this championship-bound team with two novice players who hadn't even tried out?

Jason's words reminded me that none of us really had a choice in the matter. We'd better make the best of it.

Coach Perotta looked at him gratefully. “Thank you, Jason. You make a good point—we're all in this together. Frank and Joe are on the team now, and that means we need to support them.”

Not long after that, Coach Perotta sent us back to the locker room to shower and change. None of the players said anything to us, but the grumbling and dirty looks seemed to have ceased for now. Frank and I showered and put our school clothes back on. By the time we were ready to go, most of the team had already left.

We walked in silence out of the gym and toward the student parking lot. Finally Frank said, “I think I'm going to be pretty sore tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That was really hard.”

“What do you think Principal Gerther's deal is?” Frank asked. “Does he
not
want the team to be state champions? Because it seems like a championship would look good for both him and the school, right?”

“And it seems like if he just didn't want them to win,” I said, “there are easier ways—”

“Hey, guys!”

I jumped a bit. I'd been so busy talking to Frank I hadn't noticed Jason walking through the parking lot toward us.

“Oh! Uh . . . hey, Jason.” I smiled. “Thanks for saying what you did back there. It was really nice of you.”

Jason shrugged. “It's no big thing. I meant what I said. We're a team, and if you're part of the team now, then we should support you.”

“Thanks.” Frank nodded at him. “It's great to get that kind of support from the team captain.”

Jason grinned. “Honestly, I was impressed by how you took everything back there. That was
not
an easy practice. Most people would have just given up and walked out the door. But you stuck with it. That says something about your character, I think. We can use guys like you on the team.”

I glanced at Frank. Jason's speech inside had impressed me, but this was even more surprising. Jason was the team captain and star player—he arguably had the most riding on the team's success this year. And yet he was going out of his way to be nice to us.

“Thanks, man,”
said Frank with a smile. “That means a lot, coming from you.”

“Tell you what,” Jason said. “I know the guys weren't super cool to you back there, but maybe they just need to get to know you better. One of our players, Steve, has a birthday tonight. We're meeting up at Paco's Pizza to celebrate. Six thirty. Want to come?”

I looked at Frank. I had a ton of homework, and after practice, we wouldn't get home till five. But an opportunity to bond with our teammates seemed too good to pass up.

“We'll be there,” said my brother.

“Great!” Jason flashed a huge smile at us. “See you then.”

He walked off in the direction of his car, and Frank and I headed to ours.

“Getting to know our teammates better can't be a bad thing,” I said.

“Yep,” Frank agreed, unlocking the doors. “And maybe it will bring us a little closer to figuring out why we're on the team in the first place.”

• • •

A couple of hours later, we pulled into the parking lot of Paco's Pizza. The shack-like restaurant was on the very edge of town, bordering an industrial area. We'd had to look it up on Google Maps, since we'd never heard of the place before.

“Why here?” Frank asked, looking around at the near-empty parking lot. “Everyone knows Pizza Palace has the best pizza in town.”

“That's
your
opinion,” I reminded him. “You'll recall that my heart belongs to Luigi's.”

“This just seems kind of . . . off the beaten path,” Frank mused, still staring.

He turned off the ignition. “Let's go in,” I said, unclipping my seat belt. “Maybe this place has the best Sicilian slice in town, and we just don't know it yet.”

“Color me dubious,” Frank replied, but he got out of the car anyway.

It was late winter, and still getting dark around six. There were few lights in the parking lot, but the inside of the restaurant was illuminated with warm yellow light.

“There's no one in there,” Frank pointed out.

I angled my head and tried to get a good look. “Are you sure?” I asked. “We can't see the back.”

“There's only one other car in the parking lot,” Frank said. “That's probably whoever's working. The place is empty.”

I glanced at my watch. “We're, like, two minutes early,” I said. “You know how people are. Let's just go in there and—”

That was when someone grabbed me from behind and shoved something over my head, and everything went black.

O
NCE THE BAGS WERE OVER
our heads, someone swiftly pulled my wrists behind my back and bound them with what felt like duct tape. Then whoever it was grabbed both of us up off our feet—there were clearly a bunch of them—and carried us far enough that we must have left the parking lot. I heard a car door opening, and then the
creeeeeeak
of a trunk lid. Then we were dumped inside the tight, cramped trunk, shoved into the fetal position. They bound our ankles in the same way as our wrists. The trunk lid shut heavily on top of us, and a minute or so later, the engine started and we were moving.

“What the . . . ?” Joe's voice came out muffled, but I could understand him. Luckily, they hadn't gagged us.

What the . . . ?
indeed. Whoever these guys were, they weren't the first to throw a bag over my head and dump me in a trunk, and they probably wouldn't be the last. Those are just the wages of being an amateur detective in a town filled with unoriginal crooks.

“Do you think Gerther is trying to kill us?” Joe asked.

“Doubtful,” I replied. “There are easier ways to do it. And that wouldn't explain the whole joining-the-basketball-team thing.”

“So did Jason Bound set us up?” Joe asked.

“Obviously,” I replied. “He told us to go to Paco's, right? Did you see anyone else there?”

“No.”

“So the birthday story was a setup. The only question is . . . why? What are they going to do to us?”

“I have a feeling we're about to find out,” Joe mumbled.

We drove around for what seemed like about twenty minutes. At first I closed my eyes and tried to keep track of the direction, so I'd have a rough idea where they were taking us. But soon I gave up. It's too hard to estimate distance with a bag over your head inside a locked trunk.