Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Chapter Nineteen: Mom’s Request

The next day started out in a perfectly normal manner. They always do, the days that change your life.

Dad wasn’t home when we got up, which was disappointing but not particularly surprising. After breakfast, Joe and I got delegated to do some of the yard work that had accumulated in the two weeks we were gone. Joe gave vent to his usual remarks about wishing we had a smaller yard; I retaliated with my usual defense that at least the lawn mower wasn’t the old-fashioned push type. It was the sort with a lever that you pulled to send it moving, rather like the gears on a car. Joe grumbled about wanting a ride-mower, as he called it; I had to laugh at the thought. Our yard’s just not big enough to justify one of those sit-and-steer machines.

“Do you know how silly you’d look, driving one of those on this lawn?”

“I don’t care; at least it’d be done faster,” my brother grumped. “And sitting, instead of walking back and forth and back and forth and-”

“Okay, okay, I get the idea. To and fro,” I teased. I was on my knees near one of the flowers and shrub beds that bordered the house. Several large piles of dandelions lay in clumps on the grass where I’d tossed them. “Don’t step on my trowel,” I warned as he hefted the bag and moved towards the backyard.

“Oh, oops, almost did. Glad it wasn’t the fork-thingy,” he answered absently.

“I left that downstairs, don’t need it.” I turned my attention back to the weeds and heard the mower start up again a few minutes later. That was the inconvenient thing about it: we had to turn it off each time we wanted to empty the bag, and turn it back on again when we’d replaced the bag. Otherwise, we might’ve lost a couple fingers.

By the time I finished all the weeding- both sides of the house, the smaller front-yard beds and the very small bed beside the back porch- I was so hot, sweaty and tired that the only thing I wanted to do was lie down in a cold bath and go to sleep. I decided, regretfully, that that would probably be risky, so I settled for a cool shower and felt immensely better when I was done. Lunch helped a lot, too; my energy level took a distinct lift after I’d eaten. Joe, who didn’t seem nearly as tired as I, was in an almost irritatingly cheerful mood and wanted to go do something else.

“Like what?” I asked when he came into my room with this suggestion. I had decided to read more of my book and was lying on my back, partially propped up on my pillow, when he bounced down on the side of the bed and made his suggestion.

“I dunno...we could go out and work on the Sleuth, it’s been three weeks-”

“More work?” I groaned. “Haven’t you had enough slave labor for one day? Especially in this heat? You think the yard was bad, at least we had trees! It’ll be full, blazing sun on the docks!”

Joe’s enthusiasm faded noticeably. “Well...I guess that’s true. But we do have to do something about the boat soon, Frank. She’ll rot in the water if we don’t.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” I offered. “And she won’t disintegrate on us that fast- it’d take a year or two, at least, for the salt water to work past the paint and protectant.”

Joe made a sort of noncommittal grumble, the noise he always makes when he’s caught in an exaggeration. “Okay. Well, then...we could do something else- we could take that oatmeal over to Biff!”

“Why don’t you do that?” I suggested. “That way you can do the driving.”

“What about you?”

“Me, I’m going to lie here and read,” I explained, holding up my book. “And listen to my back break in half,” I added. I’m not above a bit of exaggeration myself, especially when there might be a bit of compensation forthcoming.

“Aww...poor Frank. All that kneeling really got to you, didn’t it?” Joe teased.

“Hey, at least you got to stand upright! I had to hunch over like- like-”

“Igor.”

“Him. Or Quasimodo, either one... I really do ache.”

“Shoulda made it a hot shower, not a cold one,” Joe told me, standing up. “I’ll go take Biff his revolting oatmeal- and when I come back, I better find you lying on a hot water bottle or something.”

“It’s too hot for that now,” I complained. “I’ll just have to suffer till the sun goes down.”

He knew exactly what I was trying to do, of course; Joe has magic in his hands and when he decides to give someone a backrub- that’s it, they’re asleep, forgone conclusion. I’ve never yet seen him fail to put someone out like a light, and when you wake up, you feel marvelously relaxed.

“And you call me a manipulator,” he muttered, grinning at me.

“You are, mister puppy-dog-eyes,” I replied, smiling back. “Who d’you think I learned from?”

Joe laughed. “All right, I suppose I won’t have any peace till I give in to your so-called hints. So much for subtle. But I am going to take that oatmeal out of the house first. I don’t want to forget about it and then find Auntie G cooking it up and dishing it out, some day in the near future.”

“That’s the worthiest cause I’ve heard in a month!” I exclaimed, sitting up. “Go, hurry, get it out of here...you never know when she might show up!” It was just the sort of thing our great-aunt would do, too- make us all oatmeal for breakfast for weeks on end, buying new containers when the old one ran out. “Say hi to Biff for me- and ask him why he didn’t bring Sherlock with him on our trip.”

“You know, I wondered about that myself,” Joe agreed. Then he gave me a little wave. “See you in an hour or so. You know how he is.”

I nodded as my brother disappeared. Biff is not as talkative as Chet- few people are!- but whenever we visit him, or he us, we invariably end up taking a lot more time than we bargained for. A simple trip to drop the can of oatmeal off ought to take Joe maybe five minutes, not counting travel time, but it wouldn’t. It would devolve into Joe coming in out of the heat...and playing with Sherlock, Biff’s Great Dane...and the two of them talking about motorcycles or baseball or girls or...

Sometimes I think Biff and Joe would make better brothers than Joe and I. Not only are they both fair-haired and blue-eyed and muscular, they both have that whole lighthearted way about them. Always optimistic, always friendly and cheerful- and always ready to take a swing at anyone who threatens to push them or their friends around. I’ve never commented on it to Joe, though. I don’t want to take the chance of hearing him agree, even in the most joking manner. It’s not that I’m all that insecure, it’s just that the thought of not having Joe as my brother- or worse, of having anyone replace me in his life- well, neither is a pleasant thought, and I try to avoid them.

After Joe left, I opened my book and started reading again, leaning back against the pillow. I heard our car drive off, and then got absorbed in the intricacies of the ‘Alex Delaware’ novel. I got about six pages further along before there came a tap at my door. “Huh? Oh, hi, Mom. You just get back?” I hadn’t heard her car pull in, but that’s not unusual for me when I’m reading.

“Hey, honey. I got back while you were showering. They were out of the size of shelves we need, so they put an order in and we’ll have to go back and pick it up,” she explained with a grimace. “So I got home sooner than I expected.” Over the winter, there’d been an accidental spill of hot cider on one of our bookshelves, and the resulting stain was pretty impressive. But since it was in the den, which we don't use much, everyone kept forgetting about the need to replace the shelf. “Where’d your brother go?”

“Oh, taking that oatmeal over to Biff before Auntie Gertrude decides to do a random stop-in and cook it for us,” I replied, smiling, and she laughed.

“Good idea, I’m not too fond of the stuff myself. The yard looks great,” she went on, smiling.

“Thanks,” I said wryly. “Next time, I think we’ll delay our departure by a day so it’s not so strenuous when we get back.”

“Not such a bad idea.” Mom hesitated. “As long as we’ve both got a lull, Frank, I wanted to talk to you for a few minutes. About Joe.”

I put the book down- I’m never going to get through this chapter, at this rate- and sat up again. “Sure. Something wrong?”

“In....a sense, I guess,” Mom said slowly. “Frank- you have a lot of influence over your brother.”

A little warning bell started to go off in my head. “Up to a point,” I agreed carefully. “But even so, he’s pretty stubborn.”

“True. But he listens to you more than just about anyone else. And if you ask him to do things- or even suggest that he do things- he’s more likely to agree with you, follow your lead.”

I could have argued with that, but I didn’t. Joe’s one person I don’t mind leading, but it’s not because he follows me unhesitatingly. Our friends often do that, but Joe’s just the opposite: he makes me stop and think, questions me, adds his own suggestions to mine. Still, if I ask him to trust me, he does; if I tell him to back down and get a grip on himself, he does that, too. He warns me not to get so caught in logic that I disregard feelings and hunches, but not as often as I persuade him not to let his emotions run away with him, so on the surface, that does make me look like the leader of our little team. That, and I usually get stuck with the ‘debriefing’ or explaining aspects. People will assume that the one providing the explanations is the one in charge.

I nodded slowly at my mother as she paused, and waited for her to go on. I just knew she was going to ask me to persuade Joe into- or out of- something, and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like it at all. Neither, probably, was Joe.