Deprivation House (2 page)

I stood up once I was sure I couldn't be seen by the kids. I didn't want to spoil the magic.

“I don't know why you thought we needed a map, anyway. This place is about the size of a mini-mart,” I complained.

“I want to find the evidence fast and get out of here,” Frank told me, shoving himself to his feet. “We don't know how many times the thieves make drops, and I'd rather not run into them if we can help it.”

Frank started forward, then made a left. I followed him. We hit a dingy room away from the sight line of the tracks. It was filled with junk that had clearly been part of the ride, but needed repairs.

“You don't think . . . ?” I asked, staring at a wheelbarrow full of chipped “gold nuggets.” They all had
a lot of white showing through the gold.

“Why not?” Frank asked.

“Because it's so incredibly cheesy,” I answered. “Hiding the stuff you steal from tourists with the fake gold.”

“Maybe when you work at Frontier Village, the cheesiness rubs off,” he suggested. He started unloading Styrofoam chunks.

I spotted something silver partway down. A large lockbox. I tried the lid. Unlocked. Because who would be looking for it in here, back where the props from the ride were repaired?

Frank opened the lid. I immediately recognized several pieces of jewelry. “I don't know why an East Asian diplomat would bring his family here,” I said.

“Well, he did. And this hilariously expensive owl pendant was stolen. But now it can be returned to its rightful owner. Case closed.” Frank shut the lockbox and picked it up.

“Put it down.”

I turned around and saw a guy dressed like a cowboy standing behind me. A sheriff with a handlebar mustache had his back.

“Wait. Isn't it supposed to be, ‘Stop right thar, pardner'?” I asked. Sometimes I try to be funny at the wrong times. This was one of them. The
cowboy responded to my attempt at humor by sucker punching me in the gut.

“It's over,” Frank said. “You've been caught. We know exactly how your operation works. Exactly who's involved. That's how we knew where to find your stash.”

“Right,” I added, my voice coming in that just-punched woof.

The cowboy and the sheriff moved in on Frank. “Put the box down,” the cowboy repeated.

Frank did. Which could only mean one thing.

Fight!

I grabbed a full-size plastic skeleton by the feet. I swung it like it was a baseball bat and the cowboy's head was the ball.

Didn't get a home run. It's hard to hit a homer with a plastic bat. But I did connect.

And now the cowboy was coming at me. That was basically my plan. Why should Frank get to fight
two
guys?

The cowboy gave a quick spin and caught me in the back of the knee with his boot. I stumbled forward. He took advantage of my position and grabbed me in a headlock.

You want to play that? Okay,
I thought.

I rotated my shoulder and got my arm in front of the cowboy's body. I slid my leg behind both of his.
Then I let myself fall backward, taking him with me. I slammed my elbow into his chest as we hit the ground.

I also leaned my head forward as we were falling. That's important. Otherwise, you can injure the all-important noggin.

Before the cowboy could recover, I twisted around and sat on him. I pressed his forearms to the ground with my hands. He struggled, but I had him pinned.

“Want some of this?” Frank asked. He held up some rope. There's always a bunch of rope around at Frontier Village. I realized he already had the sheriff tied up.

By the time the next mining cars went by the avalanche, we were ready to roll. We loaded cowboy and sheriff on board—the cars don't move at warp speed or anything—and took them to justice.

The lockbox held enough evidence to get them locked away. Heh, heh, heh.

A
hh. A little downtime. Signing on as an agent with American Teens Against Crime (ATAC) is basically the coolest thing I've ever done. Knowing that I've helped bring in murderers and thieves and arsonists is a rush. Doing that with an organization my dad started up after he retired is even better.

But once in a while, it's good to be able to kick back in one of my favorite places—the school library. The biggest crime that's going to go down in here is somebody turning a book in late. And that's not my department.

Plus, I'm an information junkie, and this place has all the facts you need. If not in one of the books, then on one of the computers. I—

JOE

Joe here. You want to know the real reason Frank loves the library so much? It's because he's compulsively organized. I'm talking compulsive as in a psychiatric disorder. His label maker is one of his favorite things in the world. The library, with that whole Dewey decimal system to keep things in order, is paradise for him. Which is pretty pathetic. My paradise would have—

FRANK

Not in my section, Joe. Out. Anyway, as I was saying, I was hanging out in the library before first period, catching up on some homework. Joe was catching up on some
z's
.

My neurons started firing a little faster as I spotted a dark-haired guy pushing a cart full of books our way. Vijay Patel. There was only one reason for him to be at our school. We were about to get our next ATAC assignment.

I gave Joe a kick to wake him up. “You're Frank Hardy, right?” Vijay asked. He knows who I am. Vijay's been with ATAC almost as long as Joe and I have. He's one of the intel guys, but he's trying to get moved up to fieldwork.

“That's me,” I answered.

“Here's the book you requested.” Vijay slapped a
bright blue book down in front of me, then rolled his cart away with a big grin on his face. I knew what the grin was about as soon as I read the book's title:
The Bonehead's Guide to Talking to Girls.

Joe gave a snort-laugh. “You so need that.”

Okay, so I sometimes have a tendency to blush when I'm talking to female types. But blushing is partially controlled by the automatic nervous system, although some volitional somatic control comes into play. So basically, a blush is not completely under the blusher's control. So I decided not to even answer Joe. Sometimes the best thing you can do with my younger brother is ignore him.

I cracked the cover of the book enough to see that the pages had been hollowed out. A game cartridge—our ATAC assignments always came in the form of game cartridges—some cash, and some ID and other background stuff were inside.

“Let's get out of here,” I told Joe. He swung his backpack over one shoulder and followed me out of the library, through the quad, and out into the parking lot. I figured we could sit in the car and watch the “game” on Joe's portable player.

“Conrad at three o' clock,” Joe warned me.

I adjusted the book Vijay had just given me so the title was absolutely hidden. If Brian Conrad saw it, I'd be hearing about it at least until graduation.
So would everybody else at school. Including the girls I already had enough trouble talking to!

“Thanks,” I said as I slid behind the wheel. I flipped Joe the game cartridge and he slid it into the player. We both stared at the blank screen expectantly. Hundred-dollar bills began to float from the top of the screen and land in piles at the bottom. To a
ka-ching, ka-ching
sound, a counter in the lower left tallied up the cash.

“Hello, Mr. Franklin.” Joe let out a low whistle when the counter reached $1,000,000.

“One million dollars could be yours—for living in this Mediterranean villa tucked away in exclusive Beverly Hills,”
a woman's voice purred as the pile of money faded and was replaced by a photo of a mansion.

“Do you think there's a catch?” asked Joe. He scratched his head. “I'm thinkin' maybe there's a catch.”

“Maybe one million dollars
could
be yours,” I suggested, taking in the fountain out front, the palm trees, the balconies on all levels, the arched doorways, the red tile roofs. “Except there'd still be a catch. That place has to be worth multiple millions. I'm guessing double-digit millions.”

“Send us a tape showing us why you think you're special enough to compete. Teenagers only, please.
And don't bother asking for more details. You won't get them.”
I could
almost hear the woman smirking as she said that.

“Thousands of teens sent in tapes,”
the deep voice of our ATAC contact told us. Different views of the mansion flicked across the screen. A massive room with a fireplace big enough to walk into that I thought might be a living room. A home theater. A kitchen that looked like it belonged in a five-star restaurant.

“Twelve were chosen to live at the villa beginning this weekend,”
our contact continued.
“And at least one of the twelve has received a death threat.”

The screen blackened for a minute, then the
Gossip Tonight
logo flashed on. A film clip of a tall girl strutting down a red carpet started up. Short dress. Big smile.

“The list of people who want her dead has got to be pretty long,” Joe commented.

“Why?” I asked. “And who is she anyway?” She looked sort of familiar. And she clearly had fans, but I couldn't come up with a name or what she had fans for.

“Ripley Lansing,” Joe answered. He did his trademark my-big-brother-is-a-big-dork eye roll. “Her father's the drummer for Tubskull, and her mom owns some huge makeup company.”

“Ripley Lansing received this letter yesterday,”
our contact went on, without emotion. A piece of deep
red paper filled the game player's screen. Letters from different newspapers and magazines had been glued on to form the message: “You win the $$$. You lose your life.”

“Her parents have requested security at the highest level for Ms. Lansing, so the police have opted to bring in ATAC agents. Your mission is to go undercover as participants in the contest—details will not be available until you arrive at the villa—and find out who has threatened to kill Ms. Lansing. You will also need to determine if any of the other contestants are in danger.”

The screen went blank and stayed blank. That was the only time we'd get our mission info. The cartridge erased itself after it was played once.

Joe picked up the book with the hollowed-out center and started flipping through the other stuff ATAC had sent us. “Tickets to L.A.,” he said. “Cash.” He raised his eyebrows. “You're not going to believe the cover story they came up with for us. It's like something out of a soap!”

He took a few more moments to scan the material. “Here's the deal. You and I are brothers.”

“That
is
hard to believe,” I commented. I reached over and brushed what I thought were some doughnut sprinkles off the front of Joe's shirt.

Joe ignored me. I guess that was only fair. “We got adopted by different families when we were
babies,” he explained. “We didn't even know about each other until a few months ago. I have really rich parents. Your family's more blue-collar.”