The alarm was so loud I could barely hear what Joe shouted in my ear.
I think he said, “Frank! There they are!”
He pointed at the jewel counter across the room. An older bald gentleman stood with his hands in the air, trembling and shaking his head.
In front of him stood two teenage boys.
Our evil twins.
They were the same height and build as Joe and myself, one blond, the other dark-haired. And yes, they looked a lot like us.
The evil “Joe” was holding open a burlap sack while the evil “Frank” scooped in jewelry from the glass case. They looked up and saw us.
“What are you clowns looking at?” barked the older teenager.
I had almost forgotten about our disguises.
But hey, they seemed to work. Our diabolical doubles didn’t seem to realize who we were.
Until Joe shouted at them. “Imposters! Stop impersonating us!”
“Joe” and “Frank” stopped loading the sack with jewels.
“It’s them,” growled the younger boy. Closing his sack and digging in his heels, he charged at my brother.
The other one came after me.
“Out of our way, clowns!” yelled my look-alike.
WHAM!
The pair of robbers slammed into us like a wall of defensive linemen in a football game.
CRASH!
Joe and I staggering backward, knocking over two glass cases filled with diamond necklaces. The jewelry spilled across the floor at our feet.
“We’ll take those,” said the older boy, snatching up a handful of necklaces.
Then he and his blond-haired partner turned and ran from the store.
I tried to get up as fast as I could—which was hard to do in a baggy clown suit and floppy shoes. Joe was pinned beneath the fallen display case, his fuzzy red wig flattened against the glass. Lifting the corner, I was able to free him.
“Quick! They’re getting away!” Joe shouted.
We turned toward the front door and stopped.
“Freeze! You’re under arrest!”
Two police officers blocked the doorway.
Joe slapped my arm and dashed to the back of the store. I had no idea what he was doing but followed along anyway. First he pushed past the baldheaded storeowner and ran into the stockroom. Then he kicked open the rear fire exit and dashed out into a back alley.
“Good job,” I said, rushing after him.
We slammed the fire door shut and pushed a couple of garbage cans in front of it. We could hear the two cops pounding on the other side of the door.
“Stop in the name of the law!”
Spinning around, we searched for an escape route.
Easier said than done.
Another pair of police officers ran straight toward us down the alley. Joe and I turned and ran the other way, our floppy clown shoes slapping hard on the concrete street. I could hear the two officers right behind us—so I knocked a few trash cans into their path.
“Oof! Augh!”
The cops stumbled and fell—splat—into a heaping pile of steaming garbage.
“Way to go,” Joe yelled, glancing back.
Running after him, I looked down toward the other end of the alley—and winced.
We were heading right into the middle of the parade.
Now, I hate parades. But hey, it’s better to be in a parade than in jail, right?
Charging full steam ahead, Joe and I bounded out of the alley—and straight into a marching band. The band members were wearing Bayport High School Band uniforms and playing “Seventy-Six Trombones.” They were well trained, marching in perfect unison. But they weren’t prepared for two clowns like Joe and me.
“Whoa! Look out!”
Joe collided belly-first with a tuba player. I got poked in the red rubber nose by a flutist. Bouncing off her, I spun around and slammed into a tiny clarinetist—who was not amused.
“Sorry,” I said, trying to get in line—and in step—with the rest of the band.
Joe was trying to do the same thing, but a nerdy-looking trumpeter kept knocking him out of the way.
I glanced at the crowds of people on either side of the parade route. Everyone was cheering and clapping—except for a bunch of cops who were heading right for us.
“Joe! Run!” I yelled.
Using our oversize wigs like battering rams, we plowed our way through the marching band until we reached the last column of marchers. Then we found ourselves face-to-face with a fire truck.
“Look out, Frank!” Joe yelled.
The fire truck blared its horn. I jumped out of the way in the nick of time. Joe grabbed my arm, and we started to run along the length of the fire truck. But we smashed into a human blockade of four burly police officers.
We had nowhere to go—but up.
I grabbed my squeeze horn and honked it in the officer’s faces. Then I spun around and started to climb up the side of the fire truck. Joe was already ahead of me. He reached down and gave me a hand, hauling me up on top of the moving truck.
The crowd cheered.
And, since we were dressed like clowns, we acted like clowns. I honked my horn at the kids and Joe juggled his balls while we carefully made our way to the back of the truck. A couple of cops started climbing up the sides.
“Hurry!” Joe yelled. “This way! Jump!”
I didn’t know what my brother was talking about—until I watched him run the full length of the engine’s ladder and dive through air.
A cop grabbed my ankle, but I shook it off. And I didn’t waste any time getting off that fire truck, either. In those big floppy shoes, I made a mad dash across the ladder, diving off the end and . . .
SPLAT!
I landed next to Joe on a huge flower-covered float. Petals flew everywhere.
“Glad you could join me,” said Joe.
I was about to answer him when a giant archway of roses collapsed on top of us.
WHUMP!
There were flowers everywhere—in the air, in my mouth, in our wigs. But that was the least of our problems.
A police officer was climbing up onto the float.
“Freeze!”
Yeah, right.
Two undercover agents wearing wigs and greasepaint on a hot summer day are not going to freeze.
Instead, we lifted the rose-petal arch up, up, and over until—BAM—it clobbered the officer in the head and knocked him down.
Joe and I tried to stand up on the moving float—it wasn’t easy. But running on a moving float is pretty easy when you see a bunch of cops coming after you.
We scrambled to the back of the float—and leaped.
WHAM! WHAM!
Both of us belly flopped onto the front hood of a big, shiny convertible. It was one of those cars they use in parades to drive around celebrities who wave at the crowd. And sure enough, this one featured the Bayport homecoming queen and prom queen.
The two girls started screaming when Joe and I scrambled over the windshield and into the car.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
They started beating us with bouquets of flowers. I honked back at them with my horn. The driver, who sat next to us in the front seat, seemed to be in a state of shock. Joe grabbed the wheel from him.
“Sorry, but we’re in a hurry, man,” he told the driver. “Step on it.”
Joe slammed his big, floppy shoe down on the accelerator, shoving the other guy’s foot out of the way. The car jerked and jumped forward, spinning off the street and onto the curb.
“Lookout!”
The crowd screamed and leaped out of the way. The homecoming queen and prom queen ducked down in the backseat, and the car surged forward.
CRUNCH!
The front fender of the convertible crashed through the police barricade. The whole car bounced up onto the sidewalk and careened toward the middle of the town square.
“Joe! Look out!” I yelled.
It was too late. We were barreling straight for the huge fountain in the square.
SPLASH!
The whole car lurched forward—and plunged into the fountain. Water sprayed through the air, dousing us in a geyser and flooding the wrecked vehicle.
“My hair! It’s ruined!” wailed one of the queens.
“Your hair? What about my dress?” shouted the other queen.
The girls turned and glared at Joe and me.
“Who are you clowns?” asked the prom queen.
We weren’t about to stick around to answer her question—not when a whole squadron of cops was racing toward the fountain.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
Joe and I hopped out of the car and waded through the fountain. A crowd of people had gathered around, and we had to push our way through to get out.
“Stop them! Stop those clowns!”
The police started sprinting after us. Joe and I stumbled through the crowd, looking for a way to escape. A baby screamed as I ran by, and its mother yelled after us, “You should be ashamed of yourselves!”
Don’t worry, lady, I thought. This is the most shameful day of my life.
I thought we were done for. The police were closing in on us. The parade had come to a halt. People were pushing and shoving, left and right. There was nowhere left to hide.
And then a miracle happened.
A troupe of clowns appeared in front of us.
“Joe!” I shouted. “Head for the clowns!”
Holding on to our wigs, we dove into the middle of the troupe. The clowns scattered as the police swarmed around us.
“No, that’s not him!”
“Him?”
“No! The suspect has a red nose, not a blue one!”
“But almost all of them have red noses!”
It was total chaos—and a perfect opportunity for Joe and me to slip away. Sneaking past a confused cop, we tiptoed onto the sidewalk and ducked into an alley.
“Hurry!” Joe shouted. “We can outrun them!”
“In these shoes?”
“Sure! Come on!”
I followed him down the alley and started running. We glanced over our shoulders to make sure we weren’t being followed.
No such luck.
“There they are! They’re getting away!” an officer shouted behind me. He started chasing after us.
“Relax,” said another cop. “They’re not getting away.”
I didn’t understand his comment—until I turned my head and looked down the alley.
It was a dead end.