Hopping Mad (5 page)

Frank and Joe split up and searched around the auditorium for a way to get to the ceiling. For a few minutes neither of them said anything. Then Joe yelled out. “Over here!” He'd found something.

There were no stairs leading up, but at the back of the stage, behind the curtain, there was a tall metal structure, like a jungle gym. It was used to hang the lights for the plays. It went all the way up to the ceiling. It wouldn't be an easy climb. The
bars were spaced too far apart, since it was made for adults. But if they stood on tiptoes and reached high above their heads, Frank and Joe could just barely reach the next metal bar above their heads. Slowly they began to pull themselves up.

“Whoa!” Halfway, Frank's hand slipped. For a moment he hung in midair. One hand wasn't enough to hold himself up, though. He could feel his fingers slipping off the smooth, cold metal. He looked down. The ground was a long way away… .

“Gotcha!” Joe reached down and grabbed Frank by the wrist. This was the way their dad had taught them. Grabbing someone by the hand made it possible for them to slip out of your grip. But if you grabbed their wrist, the narrowest part of the arm, their hand acted like a stopper and kept them from slipping free. Carefully, Joe pulled Frank back up, until he could grab the bar with both hands.

“Thanks, Joe.”

“Don't mention it. Now let's hurry!”

Thankfully, Frank and Joe had a lot of experience climbing things. Their dad had built them a tree house. In there, they wrote up all the cases they had solved, and in the summer they would often climb out onto the high branches.

Finally, they got to the top of the scaffolding. They both scrambled up over the side and found themselves on a small platform.

“Someone could have stood up here and thrown down the frogs,” said Joe.

“True,” said Frank. He looked around him carefully. “But the floor is made out of metal grating, and anyone who looked up would have seen them. Plus, it would be really hard to carry all the frogs up here!”

The boys looked around. You could see the whole auditorium from up here. They were lucky neither of them was afraid of heights. At least,
neither of them was
very
afraid of heights. They both stayed well away from the edge of the platform, just in case.

Then Joe noticed something. “Look! Over there!”

Above the platform, right at one edge, was a broken grate! It was hanging down slightly from the ceiling. It was open just far enough that something the size of a frog could have slipped through it.

“They're everywhere,” said Frank. He pointed around the auditorium. Sure enough, it looked like
all
the vents in
the ceiling had busted grates—as though a whole lot of something had fallen through them recently.

“That must be how they got in!” said Joe.

“Wherever those grates lead … ,” said Frank.

“That's where the frogs came from,” finished Joe.

“Where do you think they lead?”

“Only one way to find out.”

They both looked at the nearest grate. Even standing on tiptoe, there was no way they could reach it alone.

“Here,” said Frank. “Get up on my shoulders.”

Frank squatted down and held out his hand. Carefully, Joe stepped up, first on Frank's hip, then on his shoulder. Joe used Frank's hand to steady himself. Once he was firmly in place, the front of his shins pressing against the back of Frank's head, Frank stood up. He let go of Joe's hands and held him by the backs of the legs instead, which steadied Joe.

“You okay up there?” Frank asked.

“Yup!” said Joe.

Slowly, Frank made his way over to the edge of the platform.

“I can almost reach it!” said Joe, straining up to catch the edges of the vent beyond the grate.

Frank took another step forward. Now his toes were right up against the edge of the platform.

“Almost—just a little farther.”

Frank took a tiny half step. Now his toes were sticking out over the edge, but Joe's weight helped keep him from tipping forward.

“I can't go any farther!” said Frank.

“Got it!” Joe pulled himself up. There were a few seconds of banging, and then Joe's arms reached out from inside the vent.

“Grab my hands,” he said.

Frank leaned as far forward as he could, then reached up and grabbed Joe's wrists.

“Ready?” said Frank.

“On the count of three,” said Joe.

“One … two … three!”

On “three,” Frank jumped up. Joe pulled as hard as he could. For a second, Frank seemed to hang in the air. Then
zoom!
—up he went into the vent, like a piece of lint being sucked into a vacuum cleaner.

Inside, the vent was dark. There were little patches of light where the grates were, but aside from that, it was a long, dark, narrow tunnel, just wide enough for Frank and Joe to crawl in. Joe began creeping forward, careful not to put any weight on the vents, since they could fall open and send the boys tumbling onto the ground below.

Frank followed Joe, then paused.

“Hey, Joe?”

“Yeah, Frank?”

“How are we going to get back down?”

There was a long pause.

“I hadn't thought about that,” said Joe.

After a minute the boys continued crawling. All they could hope for was that the vent would let them out somewhere safe … eventually.

In the dark the tunnel got narrower and then wider again. It turned to the left and the right and the left again. It seemed to twist back on itself sometimes. Frank and Joe lost all sense of direction. Once, they came to a ladder and had to climb ten more feet. Eventually, it seemed to get brighter.

“I think there's a way out up ahead!” said Joe. He began to crawl faster. Finally, the boys could make out a square opening at the end of the tunnel. There should have been a grate, like at all the other openings, but this one was missing.

Joe stuck his head out of the hole.

“It's a classroom,” he said.

After a few seconds he managed to pull
himself entirely out of the vent. Frank was right behind him—too close behind him. Frank's arm got tangled up with Joe's leg, and instead of carefully climbing out, the two boys fell out with a loud crash!

BRAACKSSH!

They knocked over a desk, and the sound of the metal against the tiled floor was deafening in the quiet room.

Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps approaching. The boys looked up and saw a man in a white lab coat running toward them.

“What are you boys doing?” the man demanded. “Are you with that girl? What did she do with my frogs?”

Mr. Willis!” said Frank. The man in the lab coat was the fifth-grade science teacher, Mr. Willis. Neither Joe nor Frank had had him as a teacher yet, but Frank knew him from doing extra-credit projects for the science fair.

“Well, my word. Frank Hardy! What are you doing in my classroom?”

“We didn't mean to end up here, sir.” Even though he was one of the younger teachers, Mr. Willis was one of those old-school types who liked to be called “sir” and thought politeness was superimportant.

“Yeah,” Joe said, “we were lost in the vents.”

Mr. Willis turned to Joe. “And you are … ?” he asked.

“Joe. Joe Hardy. Frank's brother.”

Mr. Willis continued to stare at him.

“Sir,” Joe added. Mr. Willis nodded.

“Well, Joe Hardy. What were you boys doing in the vents? I'm fairly certain those are not open to the public.”

“Well, sir, it's about the talent show …”

“The talent show!” Mr. Willis slapped his forehead. “Oh dear. I forgot that was today. And your talent was climbing through the vents?” Mr. Willis had a reputation for being absentminded.

Joe and Frank explained what had happened during the show. While they talked, Mr. Willis straightened up the desk they had knocked over. Finally, after they were done talking, Frank asked him about the girl he had mentioned.

“What girl?” said Mr. Willis.

“The one you mentioned earlier? The girl with the frogs?” said Joe. He was watching the clock at the front of the classroom. Time was running out. In fifteen minutes Principal Butler would call
Adam's parents, and then it would all be over.

“Oh yes!” said Mr. Willis. “I was working on an experiment, to try to figure out the different temperatures at which materials burn. I had set up a very interesting array of things. I had four candles and a Bunsen burner prepared. The idea was to take different fabrics, and—”

“Mr. Willis?” Frank interrupted him. “What about the girl?”

“Right!” says Mr. Willis. “Some girl came in because she'd seen the frogs in the aquarium.” He pointed to a glass case that sat to the left of the vent the boys had come out of. It was empty.

“She was upset that I was keeping them trapped in here. I explained to her that they had a good life and were safer than they would be in the wild, where predators could get them. Then I turned my back for one minute, and the next thing I know she's gone—and so were my frogs!”

“They must be the frogs that ended up falling on the talent show,” said Joe.

“I knew Adam didn't do it!” said Frank.

“Oh dear! I hope the frogs weren't injured. Do you know where they are now? I need them for class tomorrow,” said Mr. Willis.

“Principal Butler has them in her office, I think.”

“That is great news! I'm going to go get them now.”

Mr. Willis turned away from Frank and Joe. He nearly ran out of the room.

“Wait!” yelled Joe. “The girl—who was it?”

“She didn't introduce herself, I'm afraid.”

“What did she look like, sir?” asked Joe.

“Well … she was short. And had hair. You know. Like a girl.”

That wasn't going to be enough to go on. Joe tried again. “Was there anything different about her? Anything that would help you find her again?”