Trouble at the Arcade (4 page)

The announcement broke Joe's focus. He looked around and saw Mr. Fun, the owner of Fun World, standing in the middle of the arcade. He was frowning and looked very upset.

BLURP!

“Rats!” Joe exclaimed, looking back at the screen. An alien had just blobbed him. Game over.

“Good job,” the attendant said. “You're in fourth place. You'll probably make the finals.”

Joe didn't say anything. Fourth place wasn't good enough. He wanted to be first!

Tickets came spitting out of the machine. Joe took them and stuck them in his pocket.

Meanwhile, Frank was looking over at Mr. Fun. So were most of the other kids.

“What do you mean, the money is missing?” someone called out.

Mr. Fun didn't look like he was having much fun. His face was red and angry.

“I just went over to the office to collect today's entrance money,” he said. “But it wasn't there!”

“What did Darryl say?” Frank called out. “Isn't he still in the office?”

Mr. Fun glanced at him. “He wasn't there. I guess he stepped away for a moment.”

A boy from Joe's class shrugged. “If nobody was in the office, anyone could've come in off the street and grabbed the money.”

“Yeah,” Iola put in. “There wasn't even a lid on the box.”

Mr. Fun shook his head. “Impossible,” he said. “The front door was locked. Darryl knows better than to step away from the office without locking up.” He glared around at all the kids. “It had to be someone inside Fun World who took the cash.”

That made everyone start talking at once. Most of the kids in the arcade were gathered around by now. Joe saw Adam in the crowd, along with the new girl, Callie, and some other kids from school.

“Wow,” Chet commented to the Hardys. “Too bad your dad isn't here. He'd be able to crack the case for sure.”

“Yeah,” Joe agreed. “Maybe we should call him.”

“Wait, we should find out more first,” Frank said. “What if that money just fell on the floor or something? Like Iola said, the box didn't have a lid. And when we came in, it was right on the corner of the table. Darryl might have knocked it off on his way to lock the door.”

Joe raised his head. “Hey, Mr. Moore—I mean, Mr. Fun,” he called out. “Did you check on the floor under the table?”

“Of course I did.” Mr. Fun sounded kind of
annoyed. “That was the first place I looked. The cash wasn't there.”

Some of the other kids started asking him questions. As Mr. Fun turned away to talk to them, Adam came swaggering over to the Hardys. He was staring at the list of top scores with a smirk on his face.

“Hey, Joe,” he said. “Looks like you couldn't even come close to my incredible awesomeness. As usual.”

Joe frowned. “That was only the qualifying round,” he said. “I'm saving my best game for the finals.”

“Yeah, right.” Adam snorted. “With a score like that, you'll be lucky to even
make
the finals.”

“Oh, shut up and drink your stupid soda,” Joe snapped.

“What soda?” said Frank.

Joe realized that Adam wasn't holding anything.
“Oh,” he said. “I thought he went to get a soda. What happened, Adam? Were you so obnoxious that someone poured it over your head?”

“Just keep making jokes, Hardy,” Adam said with an even bigger smirk. “We'll see if you're still laughing when I totally destroy you in the finals and take home the prize.”

Mr. Fun heard them. He looked over with a frown. “Don't get too excited about that, boys,” he warned. “I'm shutting down the video game tournament until whoever took that money returns it. And if the cash isn't back within one hour, the contest is off for good!”

5

Shut down the tournament?” Joe exclaimed. “No way!”

“You can't do that!” someone else called out. “Most of us already did the first round!”

“Yeah,” a third kid cried. “It's not fair!”

“Tell that to whoever took the money,” said Mr. Fun. “As soon as I get it back, the contest's back on.”

A bunch of other kids started muttering and staring at one another. Frank glanced over at
Adam. He expected Adam to be the most upset of all, since he was winning the contest so far. But Adam wasn't saying anything.

Iola noticed too. “Aren't you upset?” she challenged him. “Or are you not so sure you're going to win that video game system after all?”

Adam just shrugged. “Oh, I'm sure,” he said. “But it's not a big deal.”

At that moment Frank noticed a sudden movement at the edge of the crowd. He turned just in time to see someone disappearing through one of the archways. But the person was moving too fast for him to see more than a sneaker and a flash of blue jeans.

“Hey.” Frank elbowed Joe. “Check it out. Someone just ran out of here at top speed!”

“Let's follow them,” said Joe. “Maybe it's the thief!”

“Hey!” Chet called from behind them, sounding confused. “What's going on?”

“Come on,” Iola said. “Let's go with them.”

Frank glanced back and saw Iola and Chet running after them with Mimi trailing close behind. A few other kids were joining in the chase too, and even Mr. Fun was starting after them.

But he didn't have time to worry about them. Not if he and Joe wanted to catch up to whoever had just run away.

“I see someone!” Joe yelled, pointing ahead. “Up there! I think whoever it is just left the arcade.”

Soon both Hardys were racing through the doorway leading into the rest of the Fun World
complex. The first area they came to was the bumper cars arena. It wasn't very busy, but there were about five or six bumper cars out on the floor. Frank spotted a kid in jeans on the far side, heading for another door.

“Come on!” he shouted. “He's got a head start—we've got to catch up!”

“Let's take a shortcut,” Joe said. He ran to the wall of the bumper car arena and vaulted over it.

Frank followed. The floor was pretty slippery, and when he landed he almost skidded out. But he caught himself and ran after Joe.

“Coming through!” Joe yelled as he ran.

A teenage boy was driving one of the bumper cars. When he saw the Hardys, his face lit up.

“Whoa!” he called to his friends in the other cars. “Let's get them!”

He aimed his car straight at Frank. “Hey!” Frank shouted. “Quit that!”

But the teenager just laughed. Frank had to jump aside to avoid the bumper car. It skidded past him and crashed into the wall. That made all the teenagers laugh.

Luckily, by then the brothers were both across. “Whew!” said Frank as he jumped over the other wall. “That was close.”

Joe was staring ahead. “Through there,” he panted. “Come on!”

They dashed through another doorway and found themselves in the Skee-Ball room. The long, narrow room was pretty
crowded. There were a lot of kindergartners running around, plus several adults pushing strollers. When Joe saw them all, he groaned.

“We'll never get through here!” he exclaimed.

Frank had just spotted a flash of blue up ahead on the far side of the crowd. He was pretty sure it was the kid they were chasing. But how were they going to catch up without knocking aside a bunch of little kids and babies?

Then he had an idea. “This way!” he yelled.

He led the way to the Skee-Ball lanes. They were like miniature bowling alleys, but raised up a foot or two off the ground. People were supposed to roll wooden balls up and into the holes at the top.

Frank jumped onto the end of the first lane. “Hey!” the kid playing there protested.

“Sorry!” Joe said as he followed Frank. “Just taking a shortcut.”

They ran across the bottom part of all the lanes. Lots of people started yelling at them, but Frank tried to ignore them. Behind him, he heard a shout.

“Coming through! Pardon me, please!”

“That sounds like Mr. Fun,” said Joe breathlessly as he ran.