Wednesday, September 20, 2000 (5:15 PM)

       “What’s going on, Samantha?” Frank demanded of his girlfriend.  “What’s wrong with Joe?”

       “Two big guys are beating on him,” Samantha told Frank.  “Come on, we need to go find help.”

       “Just tell me where they are,” Frank said as he lowered his book bag to the ground and took a firm grip on his cane. 

       “Frank, you can’t!” Samantha told him as she held more tightly to his arm.  “You can’t even see them, Frank!  You’ll get yourself killed!”

       “Or I’ll sit here and let them beat up my brother,” Frank said.  “Not likely.  Just tell me how far away they are.  Then go and find help.”

       Samantha shook in Frank’s arm but finally said,  “About fifteen feet ahead of us, Frank.  Joe’s more in the back, the two guys have their back to you.  Please, please, be careful!”

       “I will,” Frank promised her.  “Take my bag with you.”

       He walked forward, not using his cane to even point out stumbling blocks on the ground between where he stood and two thugs who attacked his brother.  Frank almost stumbled, not once but twice, but managed to keep his feet both times, until, by the sounds of things, he was close enough.

       “Joe, stay out of the way,” Frank said, as he swung out with the cane he carried.  It connected and Frank didn’t hesitate in making another swing with it.  That one, too, connected, but after that, the cane got knocked out of Frank’s hands.

       “To your right,” Joe whispered to him in a voice straining to have to speak.  “To your right, Frank.  Get him.”

       Frank swung to his right and his fist connected again with someone.  Then he felt someone pull at his legs and he fell to the ground, rolling for a few feet before he came to a stop at the bottom of a small decline.  He felt around himself and brushed against a shirt.  The guy he was fighting lunged at him again and connected with his shoulder.  Frank grimaced as he was knocked flat again.  He felt a rush of wind a moment later and a startled exclamation of a ‘whoomph’, probably from the guy that he had just been fighting and the sounds of more hitting.

       “You all right?” a friendly and vaguely familiar voice asked Frank a moment later.  “Frank?”

       “Fine,” Frank said, though his breath came in gasps.  “Who…?”

       “It’s Jase,” the voice said to him.  “Samantha came pounding on all of the doors on our floor.  When I came out, she told me that you were trying to fight some guys who attacked Joe.  I came as fast as I could.”

       “Thanks,” Frank said.

       “Hey, you aren’t going anywhere!” Jase exclaimed suddenly and he was off and running again, leaving Frank sitting where he had been knocked earlier. 

       “My hand’s in front of you,” Samantha said to him a minute or so later and he reached out and Samantha took his hand into her own and helped him to his feet.  She brushed off the grass and dirt on his trousers and shirt.  She sounded relieved to see him in one piece and breathless, perhaps from the flight to find help. “Are you OK, Frank?”

       “I think so,” Frank told her.  “My shoulder hurts a little but I didn’t break anything.  Where’s Joe?”

       Frank flexed his shoulders and stretched his arms and back slowly.  He decided a moment later that he came through it all right.

       “Up top,” Samantha said and she led him up the incline he’d rolled down.  He remembered the incline from his seeing days; it led from one section of the sidewalk behind Tauhausen down to a flat area that went for about ten feet, then another sloping area that ended up at the fence that went around the pond.  He half-pulled Samantha up the steep but mercifully short incline to the top and stopped at the top while Samantha caught her breath again.

       “And here… I thought… I was in shape!” Samantha gasped.  “I really have to work out more!”

       Frank laughed as he stood solicitously beside her and rubbed her back.  He felt her straighten a few moments later and then she wrapped her arms fiercely about Frank and buried her head into his shoulder.

       “You scared me out of ten years of my life, Frank Hardy,” she said in a coarse voice.  “Don’t do that again!”

       “I’ll try not to,” Frank smiled down at her.  “Where’s Joe?”

       “There,” Samantha said and Frank merely gazed at her for a second or two.  “Oh, sorry, he’s not too far.  Come on.”

       Samantha brought Frank over to his brother.  Joe panted, Frank could tell that much, and from the occasional sharp intakes of breath, he obviously hurt a rib or maybe his stomach.  Frank reached his hand down in the direction of his brother’s breathing.

       “Can you stand?” he asked.

       Joe’s hand grasped his and Frank pulled his brother up to his feet and listened as Joe continued to pant.

       “Nothing a mile of wrapping tape can’t cure,” Joe said, panting.  “But what did you think you were doing, Frank? Trying to get yourself killed?”

       “No,” Frank said, mildly.  “I was trying to save your butt from getting killed.”

       Joe said nothing for a moment, and then started chuckling.  “Well, I have to admit, you wield a pretty mean cane, there, brother.  I’m just glad you warned me to duck because I think you would have taken my head off with that swing if you hadn’t.”

       “Glad to help,” Frank grinned.  “Uh, do any of you see my sunglasses anywhere?  Or my cane?”

       Samantha let go of his arm to go look and came back in a few minutes, took Frank’s hand and dropped something into it.  She draped Frank’s cane on Frank’s upturned wrist.

       “This is what’s left of them,” Samantha said, apologetically.  “Sorry, Frank.”

       “Ah, well, I’ll have to get another pair,” Frank said with a sigh.  “Would you like to help me pick-out a new pair?  I think I can trust you not to get me ones with a big nose attached to them.”

       “I promise, Frank, no big noses,” Samantha said, solemnly, a barely restrained giggle just under the current of solemnity.    “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up, oh brave warrior, you owe me a dinner out.”

       She draped Frank’s book bag back over his shoulder and then took his arm again to finish leading him back into his dorm.  They took the steps up to the top floor slowly.  Joe grumbled the whole way, complaining that the Coach was going to kill him if he didn’t get to practice.

       “And that was still dumb, Frank,” Joe pointed out yet again.  “For some reason, having to explain to mom and dad that I got you put in the hospital again doesn’t thrill me.”

       “I knew what I was doing,” Frank said in a tone so like Joe’s usual bravado that both brothers burst out laughing a moment later and clapped each other on the back.

       “Nice try,” Joe said when he could talk again.  “Next time, though, put a little more oomph behind your bravado.  Oh and you have to have this outraged look on your face, like I can’t believe you doubted me.”

       “I’ll try to remember that,” Frank shook his head and laughed again. 

       “We’re blocking traffic,” Samantha reminded the two boys.  “Come on, men, get a move on.”

       “I just thought of something,” Frank said as he frowned over at Joe.  “Why aren’t you at football practice?”

       “Coach cancelled for most of the squad,” Joe told his brother.  “All of the assistant coaches but Meyers is out sick with the flu bug.  Welch showed up to run the kickers and punters through their paces but Coach didn’t want him affecting the rest of us.  He kept Connor, Eric, Coonby and a couple of the blockers to work with Coonby.  He’s convinced he can make Coonby a decent backup.  He’ll make it up at the end of the week.  That’s when I’ll wish I weren’t alive.”

       “That’s odd,” Frank frowned in concentration.  “That’s not normal is it?  I mean, I thought he never cancelled practices.”

       “Me too,” Joe said.  “Come on, let’s get out of the hall.  I need to clean up, I feel like I took on the whole defensive line myself.”

       “What was that about?” Frank asked his brother as they continued the trek up the stairs. “Were those the same guys from before?”

       “They didn’t look like the same guys, but they had the same colors,” Joe told his brother.  “And they said something to me about sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong.  I politely tried to remind them that if anyone’s nose was where it didn’t belong, it was theirs.  I go to school here, after all, and I doubt any of them have finished high school!”

       “Joe, you might want to report them to campus security before this goes too far,” Frank told him.  “You know what these gangs are like, they could do things to you that would make Attila the Hun look honorable.”

       “Maybe,” Joe said.  “But I don’t like to bring my fights to other people.  I’d rather take care of this myself.”

       “We should figure out why they’re on campus,” Frank said.  “They’re only here because they’re after something.”

       “If I turn them in, we won’t ever find that out, now will we?” Joe asked, pointedly.  “Besides, I doubt they’ll try anything else.  They know they’re on a short leash now and they know that the students aren’t going to just let them take over our campus.  I doubt we’ll see much more of them.”

       Frank frowned, not agreeing but not willing to argue the point either.  He didn’t admit to knowing everything there was to know about street gangs when he’d grown up on one of the safest streets in America but he knew a little, just from past cases.  Gangs stuck to their own turf, their own area of the city where they lived.  Venturing off meant they were looking for trouble, or looking for something or, in rare cases, working for someone.  If those boys were gang members then that meant they were after something on campus and not just looking for trouble.

       Still, he forced himself to not dwell on potential trouble and to concentrate, instead, on the evening to come.  He needed to shower and change clothes, always a feat to accomplish these days.  He asked Samantha to pick out some clothes for him while he disappeared into his bathroom to take a shower.  That was accomplished all by feel.  Connor always made sure that his toiletries were always in the same place, in the same order.  He knew his shampoo would be the first bottle and that his conditioner was the second bottle.  The bar of soap was the first one on the side shelf. 

       Frank showered quickly, for him, and grabbed the towel he had carefully draped over one of the towel racks beside the shower.  He felt his way carefully out of the shower, stepping slowly until his feet hit the bath rug on the floor.

       “Frank? I set your clothes on the corner of the sink,” Samantha’s voice floated in from the bedroom. 

       One thing Frank was determined to change was that other people had to pick out his clothing for him.  He, Connor and Joe were working out a system that would put clothes of a certain color in certain parts of his closet or his dresser.  Not that he relished the idea of going outside wearing a purple shirt with green slacks, but he very strongly felt a loss of style when other people chose his clothes for him. 

      

       An hour later, after a stop to buy Frank another pair of sunglasses, Frank directed Sam to the restaurant he had chosen.  Frank grinned as he reached up to her face and felt her smile.  She seemed to enjoy her surprise for the day.  Samantha was not from Bayport and Frank always enjoyed bringing her to new places. 

       “It’s so cute!” Samantha said with a delighted laugh.  “I would never have known this was here!  Is their food any good?”

       “It’s the very best,” Frank promised her.  He climbed out of the car on his own and waited for Samantha to come take his hand before he moved.  She wrapped her arm through his elbow and quietly negotiated them up the steps to the front door of the restaurant.  A brief breeze rustled past them and Frank shivered slightly.

       “Good evening, Mr. Hardy,” the host, Miguel Sancho, greeted them and stopped short. 

       “Hello, Miguel,” Frank said to him, trying to put him at ease.  “How are you?”

       “It’s been too long, Frank,” Miguel said, finally.  “Might I inquire…?”

       Hearing formal English spoken with a Spanish accent really brought it all home to Frank.  Miguel had to be the most proper host in all of Bayport, for all he worked at a very small restaurant. 

       “I had a bit of an… accident… a couple of weeks ago,” Frank told him.  “This is my girlfriend, Samantha Ellington.  Sam, this is Miguel Sancho, the host here at the Casa de Nueva.  They serve the best Mexican food in all of Bayport and maybe in all of the Barmet Bay area.”

       “Ah, you are too kind, Senior Frank,” Miguel said.  “If entirely correct.  Please, follow me, I have just the table for you.”

       Unless they changed the layout of the place, and if Frank’s visual memory served him correctly, they hadn’t, Miguel was seating them in the best table in the place.  It was packed, as it usually was any time of the night, any day.  Samantha released Frank’s hand and he slid carefully into the booth seat.  He heard Miguel set a menu in front of Samantha and turn away.

       “Frank!” another voice called out to them, this one belonging to the restaurants best waitress, Melina.  “Dear lad, you have been too long away from us, my boy.  How are those people at college treating you?”

       “Just fine,” Frank turned his face in Melina’s direction and smiled at her, or at least he hoped he smiled at her.  “Melina, this is my girlfriend, Samantha Ellington.  Sam, this is Melina Rodriguez.”

       “Hello,” Sam said warmly to Melina.  “Pleased to meet you.  I had no idea this place was here.”

       “Senior Frank has been most remiss in his duties to you then,” Melina chided Frank.  “What would you like to drink?  Would it be the quac tea for you, Senor Frank?”

       “Er, no, I think I’ll go straight 7-up tonight, Melina, and a glass of water, both with straws if you don’t mind?” Frank said.

       “I’ll take an alcohol-free raspberry margarita, if that’s all right,” Samantha said to Melina.  “I’m in the mood for something fruity.”

       “We make the very best,” Melina promised Samantha.  “Now, Senor Frank, why do you hide your beautiful brown eyes from those of us who would wish to admire them?  That is very poor unkind of you.”

       “Well, there’s a reason,” Frank said, softly and he swallowed as he reached up to remove the sunglasses from his face.  He stared out at the nothingness for a few seconds before putting them back on.  “It’s just more comfortable this way.”

       “Senor Frank!” Melina declared.  “What has been done to you?  Who has made you be this way?”

       “It was something that happened at school, Melina.  Don’t worry about it, I’m adjusting.”

       “But how long has it been so?” Melina demanded and Frank found himself giving her more details than he liked, just so she would go and get their drinks for them.

       “Do you need me to read the menu to you?” Samantha asked him with a small laugh after Melina finally swept away. 

       “No, I already have a good idea what I want,” Frank told her.  “Everything they make is good, so don’t worry about getting something you won’t like.”

       “All right,” Samantha agreed and when Melina returned they both told her their choices and she disappeared again.  “Is she always that… talkative?”

       Frank grinned and nodded.  “She’s not only one of the best waitresses in Bayport, she’s also the nosiest in Bayport.  But Joe and I have been coming here since I was about ten and she’s and Miguel have been here the whole time.  I’m just sorry I never got a chance to bring you here last year.  This is my favorite restaurant in the whole of Bayport, but we were so busy last year, well, I never got to add this one onto the list of places to go.  Probably because between all of the conversations you have with Miguel and Melina, you never get out of here in less than two hours.”

       “I haven’t had authentic Mexican food since I went to Mexico.  It smells divine!” Samantha declared and Frank felt her touch his hand.  “I bet you can hear my stomach growling.”

       Frank grinned again.  “So I can.  I can also hear the food sizzling in the back.  I normally have fajitas when I come here but I didn’t feel up to tackling something that’s not already put together.  The chimichangas are out of this world, too.”

       “Someone else’s stomach seems to be growling,” Samantha chuckled.  “You know, Frank, you scared the life out of me when I saw you at the bottom of that hill.  I’m really glad you came out of that OK.  I don’t think I could handle anymore scares like when you were in the hospital.”

       Frank wished he could see her face just then, but he settled for squeezing her hand.

       “Scared me too,” he said, softly.  “I really wasn’t ready for stuff like that, I just couldn’t let them hurt Joe.  I’m thinking about talking to my sensei, to see if he has any recommendations for me.  It seems, no matter where we go, Joe and I can’t get away from the fights.”

       “Just be prepared to have me chew you out when you get into them and we’ll get along all right,” Samantha said and a moment later she was kissing him.  Her mouth tasted sort of fruity, like the margarita that she was drinking.  “Because, my lad, I love you and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

       Frank managed to wrap his arm around her shoulders and he found her lips to return the kiss.  “I love you too,” he told her and separated from her only when the food arrived and Melina cleared her throat.

       “For the lady, the burritos and tamale plate,” Melina said and Frank heard a plate slide in place in front of Samantha.  “And for Senor, his chimichangas.  You have your chimichanga at 6 o’clock, Frank, the rice is at 10 o’clock and the beans are at 2 o’clock.”

       Both Frank and Samantha looked up at her in surprise.

       “My youngest brother is blind, Senor Frank,” Melina told him.  “It is why I know how to serve our sight-impaired guests that come into the restaurant.  We like to think we are prepared for any customer here and they will feel as though they are eating at home.”

       “That’s how I feel all right,” Samantha agreed, again softly and warmly.  “It all smells divine.”

       “You will find our food is the best,” Melina agreed.  “Enjoy.  I shall be back to check on you.”

       “Thank you, Melina,” Frank told her, sincerely and he took up his fork to dig in. 

      

       They were about three-quarters of the way through their food when the bell above the door jangled again, signifying the entry of another guest to the restaurant.  Frank ignored it, intent on taking another bite of rice without spilling all or most of it on his shirt and stopped only when he heard a voice call out,

       “Nobody move.  This is a stick-up.  Everyone cooperate and you’ll all have a very good day.  Try any funny stuff and someone’s going to get hurt!”

       Frank froze in place, his fork half-filled with rice stuck between his mouth and his plate.  He lowered the fork back to the plate and reached to grab his cane again.  Samantha held tightly to his hand, her breath coming in small gasps.

       “Breathe,” Frank whispered to her.  “Don’t panic, Sam, just stay calm.”

       He was rewarded when he heard her take a deep breath and he forced himself to relax.  Frank held his cane just underneath the table, ready to use it against the thieves if they tried to hurt anyone. 

       “Open that cash register, put all the money in this here bag,” one of the robbers said to someone, probably Miguel.  “Take it slow and easy.  No sudden moves or I’ll plug ya!”

       The cash register went ‘ching’ and a moment later Frank heard the sound of coins tinkling all together.  Frank frowned as he continued to listen and he tightened his grip on his cane. 

He heard the robbers on the other side of the small restaurant, ordering the people there to put their money and jewelry into a bag.  Sam’s hand squeezed harder as the robbers drew closer to them.  Frank squeezed her hand in return; his thumb stroked the back of her hand to reassure her.  They would be all right.   Finally, he felt a hard thump on the table they were sitting at.

       “All right, lovebirds, time for your donations to the cause,” the man said.  “I’ll take those nice specs, too, man.  I know you’re looking forward to a generous donation.”

       The man had a low, nasal voice, a voice that Frank was determined not to forget.  He dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet and fumbled it twice before handing it over to Samantha to let her get the money out.  He tried not to make a show of handing the thief his sunglasses but regretted their loss almost more than the money.  The robber snatched them out of his hand in his haste to move on, then stopped, suddenly.

       “What have we here?” he said with a laugh.  “We got us a gen-u-ine blind fella over here.  What’s doin’, blind man.  How did someone like you manage to score such a hot number for a date?  She taking pity cases?”

       Frank felt the blood rise in his cheeks and his hand tightened even harder on his cane. 

       “Why don’t you come with us, sweet thing, and see what real men are like,” the thief said to Sam.  She let out a startled scream a moment later and, suddenly, Frank lifted the cane and swung it with all his might out beside him.  It connected, hard, against the robber’s back and he grunted and landed hard enough for Frank to hear. 

       Suddenly, a shot rang out in the air and Samantha screamed.  Something hard impacted with Frank’s cheek and he fell to the ground.  

 

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The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. I've only borrowed them to play with for a while but I promise to return them whenever I've finished with them.  (I make no promises as to condition, that's entirely up to them).  I promise, I'm only writing for fun and I'm not making a single dime off of this (unless you count personal fulfillment).