Stage Fright (Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Book 6)
Read Stage Fright (Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Book 6) Online
Authors: Carolyn Keene,Franklin W. Dixon
The fiery prop plane was now belching out great clouds of smoke,
flying over the audience and the stage in a big figure eight. No one else seemed to
notice. Even just a ten-foot plane would kill someone if it landed on them! Joe and
I had to do something before it came crashing to the stage—or worse!
“The Hardys are working on a new case
that involves this show on Broadway. The lead actress has been receiving death
threats.”
“So they want you to be her
understudy?” said George.
“Yes. But they’ve promised me I
won’t have to go onstage.” I could imagine a few things worse than
having to sing on a Broadway stage—but they all involved tarring and
feathering.
Can the three supersleuths stop the series of
mysterious accidents plaguing Broadway’s latest blockbuster, or will the
curtain close for good?
STAGE FRIGHT
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ALADDIN
Simon & Schuster, New York / Cover
designed by Karina Granda
Cover photograph copyright © 2012 by
Michael Frost/Thinkstock
Ages 8–12
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALADDIN
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First Aladdin paperback edition July 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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Designed by Sammy Yuen Jr.
The text of this book was set in Meridien.
Library of Congress Control Number 2012933198
ISBN 978-1-4424-5681-5
ISBN 978-1-4424-5682-2 (eBook)
7 My Cup Runneth Over …
with Poison!
JOE
LUCK O’ THE IRISH
“Canya dew any bett’r?” said Frank. Listening to him,
I had to admit I was impressed. His Irish accent was impossible to understand. That
afternoon he had spent watching and rewatching
The Commitments
had paid off.
We were sitting in the small backroom of a gas station on the western
coast of Ireland, across a wide wooden table from three men who couldn’t have
looked more like stereotypical Irish gangsters if they tried. Each guy was shorter,
skinnier, and tougher looking than the next. All three wore brown newsboy caps. They
looked so much alike they had to be brothers, or a father and two sons, or a
grandfather, father, and son. The only way I could tell them apart was their hair. In my
head, I’d dubbed them “Black,” “Gray,” and
“Salt-’n’-Pepper.”
They huddled together and whispered furiously. Then
Salt-’n’-Pepper turned back to us.
“No,” he said.
“Yer a man of few words,” I said. “I loik that in a
fella.”
No one said a thing.
So much for that famous
“gift o’ the gab” the Irish are supposed to have,
I
thought.
“Right ye are then,” said Frank. “A mil.”
He pulled a small bag from beneath his chair and popped the lid, showing
the neat stacks of euros, one atop the other, inside—or rather, four neat stacks
of just euros and beneath them four more stacks, one of which also held a tracking
device. Once this sale was complete, these guys would be going to jail for a good long
time. We just had to get one thing out of harm’s way first.
Black picked up a stack of euros and flipped through them, making sure
they were real. Then he nodded to Salt-’n’-Pepper, who pulled a medium-sized
black box out from behind him. He placed it on the table and slowly removed the lid to
reveal a two-foot tall, incredibly delicate gold statue of a woman—a woman with
six arms! Her lips were curled in a snarl, and a chain of skulls hung around her neck.
It was gross and cool all at the same time. I decided it would make the best Halloween
costume ever—if I were a girl, that was. What was it the briefing had called her?
Kali! “An Indian goddess
in charge of time, and change, and
death.” She was definitely hard-core.
“Whoa!” I said as I admired the statue. “That is
awwwwwe-some.”
Salt-’n’-Pepper froze. Frank kicked me under the table.
“Uh … I mean … brill?” I tried to cover, but it
didn’t work. I could see it on their faces. Our cover was blown.
Salt-’n’-Pepper slammed the cover back down over the statue,
but Frank grabbed it by the base and yanked it out from under him. Black and Gray were
getting to their feet, reaching inside their jackets for something. I was pretty sure
they weren’t about to offer me a piece of gum.
I kicked up as hard as I could. The heel of my boot caught the table by
the edge and flipped it over, sending it slamming down hard on the toes of Black and
Gray. They howled in shock. A million euros were suddenly flying through the air. Black
was hopping on one leg and trying to grab the money with his free hand, while Gray was
on his knees, cradling his foot.
“Git ’em!” screamed Salt-’n’-Pepper.
“We been had!”
“Window!” I yelled to Frank.
Thankfully, we’d already scoped out the exits before we even got to
the meet. The gas station was a front. The clerk behind the counter? She was an assassin
on Interpol’s most-wanted list. Going back out the door
we came
through was a one-way ticket—and not back to Bayport. But the small window on the
other side of the room seemed to be just wide enough for us. Or at least, for me. Frank
had been eating a lot of junk food recently and …
Smash!
Frank hit the window like a football quarterback aiming for a touchdown,
his body curled protectively around the statue of Kali. The glass, the frame, and part
of the wall exploded outward in a rain of shrapnel. I was right behind him. And right
behind me was Salt-’n’-Pepper.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
“I thought they didn’t have guns over here!” I yelled,
as we ducked and wove across a long grassy field.
“The police don’t!” Frank yelled back. “But no one
said anything about the criminals. Here, catch!”
Frank tossed Kali up in the air. She shimmered in the sunlight as she spun
end over end. I squinted, my vision blurred by the bright light, but Frank’s aim
was perfect. All I had to do was open my hand, and Kali fell right into it.
“Good throw!” I yelled to Frank, holding the statue aloft.
Then a bullet nearly took one of her six arms off, and I stuffed her into a specially
designed pocket inside my coat. I glanced back. Salt-’n’-Pepper was pretty
spry for his age! He wasn’t far behind us. And in front of us …
“Uh, Frank?” I said. “I think we have a
problem.”
Frank was silent. I looked over at him. He’d
swung his backpack around to his front, like all the Spanish high school tourists did at
the airport. He was fiddling with it somehow, and it looked like the bag was starting to
come apart in his hands. I could see the metal rods that made up its frame, and
something heavy and black inside it. Now was so not the time for fabric origami.
Bam!
Salt-’n’-Pepper took another
potshot at us, but I guess he’d realized he didn’t need to shoot us. We were
running out of options—literally.
“Frank? Hey! FRANK!” I yelled. “Look up.”
Finally, Frank did. We were thirty feet from the edge of one of the
biggest cliffs I’d ever seen in my life. It plunged straight down into the ocean,
hundreds of feet below. And it extended as far as I could see in either direction!
Salt-’n’-Pepper had us trapped.