Chapter #44The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (1) by: Seuzz   You lay the book aside with a sigh. It's certainly action-packed, but you've read it before and there are no surprises. You understand the story's appeal, but Frank and Joe Durras have had more exciting adventures. A story about them—
You sit up straight. Joe actually did start writing a story based loosely on one of their adventures. He (and you) can barely remember it. He started it during one of their "vacation" periods back in Olympia, when Frank had challenged him to write something "better" after Joe had made some off-hand criticism about the low quality of the Hardy Boys books. Frank really liked them; Joe did too, but he had few illusions, even at the age of fourteen, about their merits.
You pad into the living room and turn the laptop on, curious to know if the story is still on the drive. A few minutes searching turns it up in an obscure folder: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard. You open it. As you read, you're amused to notice how bowdlerized the characters' language is, and for no reason you can see. Everyone who knows Joe and Frank knows how foul-mouthed they are in real life.
* * * * *
Chapter One
The Flying Sedan
"Watch where you're going, you jerk!" Joe Brennan yelled at the retreating automobile. He spun his motorcycle to a halt. "You moron! I oughta—!" He gunned his engine and leaned forward in the saddle. It would be the work of only a second to catch up to the daredevil driver who had almost forced him off the road.
"Don't do it, Joe," his adoptive brother Frank warned. He pulled his own motor bike onto the shoulder and laid a firm hand on Joe's shoulder. "What would you do if you caught him?"
"Mess his face up for him!" Joe retorted. He tried pulling away, but Frank's hand was like iron. "Guys like that—"
"Shut up. He's probably bigger than you anyway."
Joe glared at Frank. "Whose side are you on? He didn't almost knock you over the ravine, I noticed." Joe nodded his chin at the embankment, which lacked a guardrail even though it fell steeply away into the canyon below.
"I wasn't hotdogging in the middle of the highway, either," Frank retorted. "The driver's probably still yelling at his friend about the 'dumb kid' he almost ran over."
Joe didn't bother to hide his sneer. "Some junior detective you are. There was only one guy in the car."
Frank's smile was brittle. "You didn't get a good look, did you? There were two men in the front seat."
"Are you high?" Joe cried. "He was coming right at me. I think I woulda noticed if there were two guys in that car."
"Care to lay a small wager?" Frank put out his hand.
Joe's eyes narrowed. "How much?"
"Chores for a week."
Joe snorted. "Dad won't go for that. Money or nothing."
"Okay, bragging rights."
"Still got your eye on that weight set, huh?" Joe grinned. "I'll wager everything I got saved up for the telescope against everything you've saved up for that weight set."
"The weights would be for both of us, Joe."
"Telescope could be for both of us too. Oh, I forgot, the only moon you're interested in looking at is Kimberley Reynolds', when she's—"
Frank smacked his brother on the side of the head. "Just for that, smart guy, you're on." He spat into his palm, and crushed Joe's hand in his.
The two boys raced off, winding back down the hill in the direction they had come. Joe pulled ahead of Frank, but his brother quickly caught up. "No speeding!" he shouted to Joe.
"How are we supposed to catch him, then?" Joe shouted back over the onrushing wind.
"The regular way! No tricks!"
"Then you can't use any tricks when we catch up to him!"
"Deal!"
Joe grimaced. Sometimes Frank, despite himself, managed to outsmart him. It would be just the two boys, with only their fists and wits, against the reckless driver. At least the driver will be alone, Joe grinned to himself. He was sure of that.
They were on the road that wound through the hills to connect the small mountain town of Olympia to the state highway below. It was a Sunday, and the boys were enjoying the day's respite from studying by taking a motorcycle run through the hills. They had been returning home when they had spotted the dark green sedan approaching from the direction of town, taking the hairpin turns at a reckless speed. Joe had had to veer sharply to avoid being tossed over its hood.
"Pick up the pace," Joe shouted to his brother. "You got the better engine on your machine!"
Frank gunned his motor and crept ahead of Joe. Joe pressed forward too, pushing his motorcycle as hard as he could without giving it any of the extra "juice" he could pour into it. Still, Frank managed to stay ahead.
The road swung crazily in great arcs, and the boys had to slow occasionally when they approached a blind curve, but they met no other vehicles. Nor did they ever catch sight of their quarry. They raced along for several miles before they came to a spot where they could see the road spread out below them in great serpentine coils. It was empty.
Frank veered to a halt. "What are you stopping for?" Joe demanded. "He's getting away!"
"Use your eyes," Frank snapped. "Oh wait, we've already established you're blind." He nodded at the road ahead. "He's not down there."
"He was going fast, and we were jerking around while he made off," Joe said. "Come on!"
But Frank looked back up the road. "He must have turned off somewhere."
"There aren't any turn offs, Frank," Joe said, sighing heavily. "Not between 101 and Crenshaw."
"Then maybe he went over the edge," Frank said. "He was driving like the devil was after him. We should check the ground below, in case he had an accident."
"Serve him right if he did," Joe grumbled. He was still unconvinced that their quarry wasn't putting more miles between them as he shot away from town, but he followed Frank as the latter went slowly back up the mountain, peering over the ravine in every place there wasn't a guardrail.
Thirty minutes later they were back at their starting point without being any closer to finding the sedan or its occupants. Frank glared at the asphalt, as though trying to bore a hole in it.
"Let's just go home," Joe sighed. "We're not catching him now."
"There was an accident, Joe, I'm sure of it," Frank said. "Look at the skid marks where he swerved to miss you."
"Swerved to hit me, you mean," Joe muttered. He could still see the face of the driver, and the maniacal gleam in his eyes. The maniacal gleam in the eyes of the solitary occupant of the car.
"People drive carefully around here," Frank said. "And these skid marks are fresh. We passed some other skid marks, but I wasn't paying attention." He turned around and went back down the hill.
Joe growled and slapped at his own head in frustration. His older brother was like a bulldog when he got in these moods.
"You're not getting any money out of me even if we find him and it's two guys," Joe said after he'd caught up. "I only have five dollars saved up for that telescope."
"That's two dollars more than I've got saved for the weight set."
"What? You told me you had almost a hundred!"
"That was before Kimberley—" Frank abruptly snapped his mouth shut.
"Before Kimberley what?"
"Never mind!" Frank turned very red.
Joe gaped. "You fat-head! You blind, blundering idiot! You—"
Frank swung a fist at Joe. Almost six feet separated them, but Joe ducked and yelled as he felt something very cold and hard, like a mailed fist, brush his cheek. "You said no tricks!"
"I said no tricks on the jerks we're chasing. No one said I couldn't use 'em on you." Frank flexed his fingers meaningfully.
Joe felt his eyes begin to glow. "I should leave you here," he snarled. "I should run home and pee in your bed!"
"You'd leave now?" Frank asked. "When we've found what we're looking for?" He cast his eyes downward at the road surface. Black streaks curved to the side and turned to tire tracks on the shoulder before disappearing over the edge.
Joe gasped, for the tracks led to a terrible drop. He instantly leaped from his bike and began scrambling down the slope. Frank followed more carefully.
But though the ground was open for nearly a mile around, they found no sign of the car: no wreck and no further marks on the ground. It was as though the car had taken wing and flown away.
"These are definitely fresh marks," Joe said after they had clambered back up to their bikes and examined the evidence more closely. "It has to have been our guy."
"Our guys," Frank corrected him.
"There was only one!"
"Two!"
They continued to argue all the way back home. There was nothing else to discuss, for the mysterious sedan had gotten away without leaving any kind of clue behind.
* * * * *
It all reads very fresh to you, and you find yourself wondering what happens next, since the incident with the sedan is not something Frank and Joe experienced.  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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