hardy boys fan fiction
THE TROUBLE WITH RED
hardy boys nancy drew fan fiction
by
Phoenix
Chapter 7
hardy boys fan fiction
THE CHAPTERS
“Joe, take off the hat.” Frank said as he glanced at his brother. He, Joe and Tony were squished together in the back of a patrol car, getting a ride home with a couple of police officers they knew. Both the Hardys’ vehicle and Tony’s were out of commission for now.
The younger Hardy was sitting in the middle and the wide brimmed hat he was using to hide his flaming locks tickled Frank’s nose.
“No,” Joe refused, crossing his arms gingerly over his chest in a text book defiant pose.
“Why not?” the older teen pressed.
“Ah...hello?” The sarcasm was hard to miss. “What part of my scarlet locks have you forgotten about?”
“Joe, its just red—”
“Not just red,” the younger boy refuted. “It’s flaming, glow in the dark, fire engine red and if that wasn’t bad enough it’s now stuck straight up on end and—” he suddenly clamped his jaw shut mid-sentence.
“And?” Frank asked, peering around the hat to get a good look at his brother’s face. He grimaced when he saw the bruised jaw now had scratches and an ugly, but minor, gash to go with it. If they ran into very many more problems between here and home, the eighteen-year-old was afraid Joe wasn’t going to make it. This drive was turning out to be downright dangerous!!
“And nothing,” Joe denied. “I never said anything. Just drop it.”
Tony couldn’t help but get in on the fun. “Hmmm,” he said looking around Joe and at Frank. He winked. “The lad does protest too much…”
“Shut up.” Joe gave his friend a significant look and the Italian teen just laughed and sat back.
“C’mon Joe,” Frank implored, determined to find out what Joe was going to say. “We won’t laugh!”
“Of course you won’t,” the younger boy agreed. “’Cause I’m not going to tell you.”
“Joe—”
“No.”
“Kiddo—”
“Joe can’t hear you. Joe is asleep.” To punctuate his assertion, the teen closed his eyes and ‘snored.’
“Since when did you start referring to yourself in the third person?” Frank couldn’t keep the amusement out of his voice, and before his sibling could answer, he grabbed the hat and yanked it off Joe’s head. And then just stared in shock.
“Oh my.”
Stuck to the back of Joe’s head, firmly entangled in the hair was a lollipop…a yellow, sticky, half-sucked lollipop.
“FRANK!” Joe shrieked, grabbing the hat, putting it forcefully back on his head and slinking down in the seat. “You are such a jerk!”
“Oh Joe—” To give Frank some credit, he attempted to sound sympathetic but it was completely lost to the shaking of his shoulders as he tried to keep the laughter in. “I’m” snort “sorry” another snort “kid!”
Joe glared at him and then raised his finger in warning when Tony started to add something, most likely his own bout of insincere condolences. The blond – oops…red- haired boy leaned forward to talk to the men in the front seat; when he spoke, he sounded absolutely miserable. “Excuse me, guys, but can this thing go any faster? I really need to get home!”
The driver looked at his partner, they were both grinning. “Do you want us to use the siren?”
Absolute horror filled Joe’s face.
“Well it is a hair emergency,” Frank quipped from the backseat, earning him a glare as he held his side, his laughter stitching almost painfully now.
Thankfully enough though, the cops had mercy on the distressed teen. The car shot forward and the siren stayed off.
…
“So Joe,” the older Hardy started casually as they pulled up in front of Tony’s house, “Exactly where did that lollipop come from?”
“I hate you all,” Joe grumbled as a chortling Tony got out of the cruiser, said his goodbyes and hurried up the walk towards his house, his laughter resonating loudly as he went.
Scowling for a moment, the younger teen moved over into the empty spot, leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. He sighed heavily. What a horrible day…
Frank looked at his brother, taking in the inherent weariness on the bruised face, and this time he spoke with genuine sympathy. “Oh kid—” he said softly as he shook his head. “Take the hat off and lean forward. Let’s see what we can do about this…”
Joe opened his eyes and stared at his brother but instead of mirth, Frank’s dark brown eyes only reflected concern. Swallowing hard, Joe pulled the hat off his head. “Please,” was all he said.
Getting the sticky treat out of the younger boy’s hair turned out to be a bit more difficult than Frank had been anticipating. It was as if it had fused to the hairs on Joe’s head and he hated to tug at it, but had no choice.
“This is going to hurt,” he tried to warn and felt his brother tense. “We could wait until we get home and cut it out—”
Joe shook his head slightly. His voice was muffled, “Just do it, Frank.”
“Okay then.” Taking a settling breath as much to steel his own nerves as to give the other teen a moment, Frank grasped the end of the stick. “On the count of three – one. Two. THREE!” And yanked.
The expletive Joe yelled would have made a sailor blush.
Frank winced and eyed his brother cautiously. “You okay?” he asked.
“Mmhmm,” was all he got and from the amount of dyed hair stuck to the sucker, the older boy decided that was about as good as he was going to get.
Reaching over, he patted Joe’s knee awkwardly. “We’re almost home, kiddo. Just hang in there.”
Joe really wanted to say something, possibly even thank his brother for ‘helping,’ however right now he was too busy trying to blink the world back into focus. That had hurt! In fact, it still hurt and he resisted the strong temptation to rub the back of his head, not in any particular hurry to find out if there was any scalp left.
‘Damn lollipop,’ he mentally griped, barely aware of the police car slowing down outside their house, ‘Mental note to self: In the event of any future consumption of said product, the injured party will not adhere to the ten-second rule and will finish the dang thing even if was on the floor for longer than that!!’
“You getting out?”
The sound of Frank’s voice startled the younger boy and Joe looked up to see that not only had his brother gotten out of the car but he was now standing by Joe’s open door, looking at him expectedly. When did that happen?
Shaking his head, the teen pulled his exhausted body out of the car and slowly made his way up to the front door, his fingers absently still clutching the woman’s straw sun hat. Maybe his mother would want it...
He barely heard Frank thanking the officers for the ride when he reached to open the door, only to have it yanked open from the inside.
“Aunt Gertrude—” he started as the woman stood before him, but before he could get his greeting out, her eyes widened in alarm, quickly turned to anger and she slapped him!
“You brute!” she chastised before she swiftly turned on her heels and went back inside, slamming the door and leaving a reeling Joe to stare dumb-faced at the door. The hat slipped from his fingers.
Somewhere behind him, he heard Frank saying something but for the life of him he had no idea what….
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Disclaimer
The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.