Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Chapter Four: Hot Water

Joe pulled the car neatly into the garage, frowning with concentration. When he first started learning to drive, he nearly took out the shelves along the right-hand wall a few times; he was too used to our narrow speed bikes and had to learn to compensate for the width of the car. I still tease him about that- gotta keep whatever advantage I can get! Which isn’t much. I’ll never admit it to him, but he’s still better at handling our boat, the Sleuth, than I am, and he usually beats me when we race on the speed bikes. He’s been driving his bike since he was thirteen and the Sleuth since he was fourteen; I got my learner’s permit not long after we got the speed bikes, and had been driving a while before we got the Sleuth. So he’s definitely had the advantage of practice when it comes to driving things! I’m the better pilot in the air, though- Jack Wayne’s been teaching both of us to fly- and since I enjoy math and complicated calculations, I’ve been learning faster.

“I hope we’re not in for another lecture,” he remarked, shutting off the engine and remembering to turn off the headlights. “One a night is enough.”

“You really are an optimist, aren’t you?” I asked rhetorically. He was spotted in goo, I had a blackening eye, it was well after our midnight curfew, we’d forgotten to call and let Mom know what was going on- and he hoped not to be lectured. “We’ll be lucky not to be grounded,” I concluded aloud, pulling off my seat belt and getting out of the car. Then I braced myself and went inside, noting in passing that the kitchen-door alarm wasn’t set yet.

Mom was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, wearing her bathrobe, her arms folded. Her hair- a slightly darker blond than Joe’s- was loose; normally she wears it up. “Oh, good heavens!” was the first thing she said on seeing me, hurrying forward. “Frank, what happened? Where have you- oh!”

I figured she’d just gotten a glimpse of Joe, and I was right. “Hi, Mom,” he said from behind me, sounding a little sheepish. “I guess we forgot to call. Don’t worry, it’s just, um, oil spots.”

Mom looked from Joe to me and then back again, then sighed, shook her head and opened the freezer for a handful of ice cubes. I held out the plastic bag the police had given me, which was mostly water by now, and she dropped the cubes into it. I thanked her and held it to the side of my face. The fresh coldness felt good against the hot throbbing pain.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Mom asked, frowning as she looked me over. Then she looked at Joe. “And you?”

“I’m fine.” Joe didn’t mention his ribs.

“I just had a couple splinters. I think we got them all out,” I added. “There were a bunch of wooden crates, and I got knocked into one of them.” Let her think you got the black eye that way, too...

Mom hesitated a moment, then sighed again. “Well, so, what happened? And why didn’t you call me? I’ve been worrying for the past two hours, wondering if I should call the police and report you missing. Whatever did you get a cell phone for if you’re not going to use it?” She sounded a little irritable, but not nearly as mad as I’d expected. Now all we had to do was tell her what had happened without getting her any more worried, which might prove difficult. I was still enough on edge that I might slip and mention something best left unsaid.

While I stood hesitating, Joe jumped in and gave Mom an ultra-condensed version of our night, leaving it to me to decide what details to sprinkle in. She listened without saying anything for a while, then made a sort of resigned frown. “I suppose it did seem like common sense at the time,” she remarked. “But your father didn’t say anything about trailing the man, did he?”

“Uh, no,” I had to admit. We had rather exceeded our assignment, but I didn’t think Dad would scold us about that. Actually, he might approve of our initiative.

“It was one of those, ‘he didn’t say to, and he didn’t say not to’ things,” Joe chipped in helpfully. Mom looked at him for a moment, then shook her head again and smiled a little. When I saw the smile, I knew the lecture was pretty much over. I just wondered what the punishment was going to be.

“You two should be actors, the way you always improvise these assignments of yours,” she said wryly, and I nearly laughed. Sometimes, being a detective is being an actor. “Well...since you’ve decided not to put that cell phone of yours to proper use-”

“Actually, we did. We called the police with it,” I broke in, knowing what she was going to say and hoping to forestall it.

Mom paused. “Maybe a week of feeding quarters into phone booths will remind you to call home when you’re supposed to?” she suggested lightly, but her eyes were serious.

“More like we’ll call less often because we’ll have to go track down a phone booth,” Joe parried.

“Besides, we pay a lot more for the minutes than we would in a booth. Please, Mom? It’s not like we’ve forgotten every week or something, it’s just once,” I reminded her. It never hurts to grovel a little.

Mom rolled her eyes, and then she actually laughed. “You two,” she said fondly, coming closer. “You can talk your way out of virtually anything, can’t you?” She reached up to give me a kiss, then turned and looked at Joe critically. “Is there a clean spot on you?”

Joe looked down at himself. “Probably not,” he admitted ruefully. “I guess I better shower.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Mom asked ironically. Then she kissed his cheek anyway and gave him a playful push in the direction of the door. “Git. There’s chicken and noodles in the big container in the fridge, and some brownies on a plate in the pantry. Not that I should encourage brownies at this time of night, but I imagine you’d find them anyway,” she told me as Joe scooted out.

“Very likely,” I agreed. Then, as she was turning to leave, I said, “Thanks, Mom. Sorry we had you worrying- mostly it was the paperwork at the station that took so long and distracted us. I didn’t realize how much time was passing. And the Chief yelled at us good,” I finished with a grimace.

“I thought you had better grammar than that, Frank,” Mom queried, turning back around with a smile.

“Usually,” I answered with a grin. I heard water running through the pipes upstairs and hoped Joe wouldn’t use up all the hot water, the way he always does. “But getting stuck in a tiny little hot room and filling in forms with barely enough room for a fly to write, much less a human- I think it messed with my head.”

“What’s this?” Mom laughed, leaning against the door frame.

“Well, there’s a ton of blanks to fill in, but they’re very short blanks. Like, on the ‘describe alleged perpetrator’ question, the blank is about long enough for the word ‘male’. And I think they want more detail than that.”

“Oh, I see. They probably use some kind of code.” Mom held a hand in front of her mouth and tried to stifle a yawn- unsuccessfully, which set me off right away. “I’m going to bed,” she said dryly. She held out her hand and I came over to get a good-night hug. “Don’t stay up too much later.”

“I’ll try not to, but with The Human Sponge up there, soaking up all the hot water...”

“We do need to get a new water heater,” Mom agreed. “When your father gets home, we’ll look around for a good one.” She gave me another kiss, then pointed to the ice-bag, which I’d been forgetting to hold against my aching cheek. “Good night, honey.”

And she left. I watched her walk up the stairs, holding the banister with one hand, and wondered why- why, even when she was hugging me- why did I feel like she was never very interested in what I said or did?

Not indifferent- not when she frets about my bruise and reminds me to keep icing it- but not interested in talking, having a conversation... Don’t be an idiot, Frank, it’s one-thirty in the morning, she’s tired.

But if it had been Joe talking, making wry jokes- she would have been giggling, trying to outdo him. She wouldn’t have yawned and gone to bed.

Maybe she even would have pulled out the leftovers and prepared ‘em for him herself.

That last thought came rather bitterly as I opened the refrigerator. And Joe would have let her cater to him; he has a lazy streak and doesn’t mind being waited on now and then. Sometimes even more often than that. He doesn’t do that as much with me, because he knows I won’t indulge him the way Mom does. Neither does Dad, for that matter.

So is it true what they say about the baby of the family getting spoiled, being the pet? Or is it me- something about me that Mom’s not comfortable with? Maybe it’s because I’m not the rampant extrovert that Joe is. I don’t have his charisma, his light heart, his laughter. But that doesn’t make me worse, right? Just different.

Anyway, she does love me, she’s said so often enough. But- God- sometimes it makes it so hard not to resent both of them. Not that it’s Joe’s fault, I don’t think he’s even aware of it. Maybe I’m just paranoid. Imagining things, being a jealous big brother- no, a jealous son- it’s not Joe’s fault. Nobody treats their kids exactly the same. Maybe I should ask her about it...