“You two made it back just in time. You were almost too late.” Dad rushed out to greet us as we pulled into the driveway of our big house on our bikes. That’s my all-time favorite perk of being a secret ATAC operative—Joe and I both have super-cool, state-of-the-art motorcycles. If you’ve ever dreamed of a high-tech gadget that could go on a bike, our motorcycles have it.
I yanked my helmet off. “What’s wrong?” From the tone of Dad’s voice, it sounded like an urgent ATAC type of problem.
“Did E. J. have an accomplice? Is someone here?” Joe was already off his bike, looking around for trouble.
Dad is the only one of the adults in our family who knows we’re with ATAC. And he only knows because he was one of the founders of American Teens Against Crime. After he retired from the New York City police force, he’d come up with the idea of using teenagers to help fight crime on the local level all across the country. But the way he worries about Joe and me, I figure he sometimes thinks he did the wrong thing by recruiting us to the agency.
He grabbed my overly alert brother by the collar and pulled him in for a hug to muffle what he was saying. “Shhh! No. Your mother’s about to go off to a conference for the next week. She’s been calling you on your cell phones and waiting for you to get back.” He whispered over Joe’s shoulder so only the two of us could hear.
I grimaced. I’d been so focused on our mission that I’d totally spaced on Mom’s trip.
Behind Dad, Mom and Aunt Trudy came out of the house, each lugging a large suitcase.
“Boys, you made it back!” Mom’s face broke into a huge smile. She was excited to see us.
Aunt Trudy frowned at us. “Where have you been?” she cried. “Your poor mother has been worried sick thinking she might not see you before she left.” No one could try to make you feel guilty with as much self-confidence as Aunt Trudy. If only we could tell her we were protecting our nation’s coastline!
“That’s not important. We need to get your mother on the road, so go wish her a good conference,” Dad intervened. He’s smooth when it comes to keeping our cover.
Joe smiled broadly and hurried across the front lawn to Mom. “Sorry we’re so late. We got caught up . . .”
He’d gotten ahead of himself—as usual—and didn’t have a full excuse in mind. That’s my brother. His philosophy is always leap first, and look later.
“. . . at school,” he finished lamely.
Mom is a research librarian with a giant, always accessible hard drive for a brain. My brother and I know we’re always tempting fate trying to pull the wool over her eyes. Good thing Dad’s there to step in with a cover when we need it. Without his help, she would have found out about ATAC ages ago!
“Since you’re finally back, you boys can carry these bags,” Aunt Trudy huffed at us, still put out. “I’m going to go in and see about making you something to eat.” She turned and tromped purposefully into the house. Joe and I laughed. So did Mom. Once Aunt Trudy started pushing food on us, we all knew she’d forgiven whatever horrible thing we’d done to get on her bad side.
“Here, Mom, let me get that.” Joe reached out and took the bag Mom was dragging. He nearly fell over from the weight. “Whoa!”
I reached down to pick up the bag that Aunt Trudy had abandoned. It was really heavy too. “How long is this conference you’re going to, Mom?” I swung the suitcase up and followed Joe to the Volvo. It sagged noticeably when we put the suitcases into the trunk.
“Just a week.” Mom came over to make sure the bags were safe inside. “But there are all kinds of source materials I’ll need to read to keep up with the lectures.”
“And by ‘source materials,’ you mean bowling balls and cast iron pans, right?” Joe asked as she fussed with the suitcases, tugging on the zippers to make sure they were shut.
“Your mother is being modest,” Dad said. “She’s not just keeping up with the other lectures. She’s also presenting one of her own.”
“That’s great, Mom,” I said. “Are you talking to them about the work you’ve done in cluster analysis improving archival search times?”
Joe stared at me like I was speaking Elvish or something.
“What?” I asked. “With all the information floating around in databases and on the Internet, it’s hard to find what you want when you want it. Mom is making serious headway in solving the problem.”
Joe rolled his eyes, but Mom beamed at me. “And people say teens never listen to their parents,” she said. She gave Dad a hug and a kiss good-bye, then turned to us. “Now, since I know both of you are listening: I expect a phone call every night. Be good. And listen to your dad and Aunt Trudy.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Joe said. “And our bedtime is seven thirty, and we shouldn’t eat junk food,” he joked.
“Don’t worry, honey. Trudy and I will keep them in line.” Dad helpfully cut short the “be responsible” portion of the good-bye talk. “Why don’t you boys go inside? I think there’s a package waiting for you in the living room. Your mother and I have a few more things to talk about before she goes.”
“Bye, Mom.” I kissed her on the cheek. So did Joe. Dad took Mom’s hand and walked her to the car.
We were already speeding toward the house. “All right! Mystery package for the Hardys,” Joe exclaimed happily.
“Yeah—inside with Aunt Trudy,” I whispered to him.
Joe’s eyes widened. “I guess we better go ATAC it!” He elbowed me in the ribs, faking a laugh, and ran into the house.
I rolled my eyes and followed my superlame comedian brother inside.
On the kitchen table sat a large box wrapped in brown paper.
“Stupid bird! Off the box! Stupid bird! Off the box!” Our parrot Playback shuffled back and forth along the edge of the package, keeping his eyes fixed on Aunt Trudy. She took a step toward the box. Playback flung out his wings, puffing the feathers out and squawking loudly. She stepped back with a cry. Joe and I chuckled. Trudy and Playback have a love/hate relationship. This didn’t seem to be a “love” day.
“Who’s sending you boys such big packages?” Aunt Trudy demanded. The sandwiches she’d come in to make for us lay half prepared on the counter. Curiosity had obviously gotten the better of her. Thankfully Playback had been there to keep her at bay.
“Well . . . um . . . I think probably it’s . . .” Nothing sprang to mind. I knew this package had come from ATAC. Which meant I had no idea at all what was in the box. It could be anything. And, more importantly, whatever it was shouldn’t opened in front of Aunt Trudy.
This time Joe had more luck than me in coming up with a white lie for Aunt Trudy. “It’s just something we sent away for. We’ll open it upstairs. I’m sure you don’t want it cluttering up the kitchen.” He stepped up to the box and shooed Playback off of it. Playback flapped to the back of one of the kitchen chairs and began to chant, “Open it. Open it.”
“Why not just open it here?” With Playback safely off the box, Aunt Trudy was bolder. “Anything two teen boys send away for should probably be opened in front of one responsible adult. Here, let me get the tape.” She pulled the kitchen shears out of a nearby drawer.
Joe and I stood helpless as she cut through the brown tape sealing the box. We looked at each other, panicked. This was worse than nearly getting shot by E. J.
“There you go.” Aunt Trudy stepped back, leaving us to unpack our own disaster. “Did you get what you wanted?”
We had no choice. Slowly I reached out and opened the top flaps of the box. Please let it be something innocent looking, I thought.
I glanced down and saw two white karate outfits with white belts.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but not this. As I lifted the uniforms from the box, Joe reached in and pulled out a karate book and a martial-arts-themed video game. Other karate gear had been packed in under the book—exercise mats for falling and sparring gloves.
“Yeah, Aunt Trudy, this is pretty much what we ordered. It’s, um . . . karate stuff,” I finished, hoping there would be no further inquiry.
“I can see that. But why?” Aunt Trudy never backed down easily.
“Actually, Trudy, this is my doing,” Dad said, coming into the kitchen just in time. “The boys mentioned they were interested in learning more about martial arts, so I ordered them this stuff online.”
“I thought you boys said you sent away for this karate . . . paraphernalia,” Aunt Trudy said to Joe. I had to hand it to her—you couldn’t slip anything past Trudy.
But Dad recovered quickly. “They were covering for me. I told them you might not be happy with them learning to fight.”
“Yeah,” I said teasingly. “We didn’t want Dad to have to face the wrath of Aunt Trudy.”
“But the martial arts are all about discipline,” Dad went on. “And you always say the boys need more of that, right?”
Aunt Trudy crossed her arms and glared at all three of us. I could tell she felt outnumbered without Mom in the house. “Fine. Learn to fight. Just don’t do it in the house.” Shaking her head, she turned back to the sandwiches.
Joe gave me a look. He gestured toward the box. For the first time I noticed that there was something else inside. Folded into the pages of the book was a stack of fifty-dollar bills. Joe quickly threw everything back in the box.
“Thanks, Dad.” I gave Joe a hand with the box.
Dad shot us a thumbs-up as we quickly left the room.
“We’ll be back for sandwiches in a little while, Aunt Trudy,” Joe called out as we ran up the stairs to my room.
“I think she’s getting more suspicious as she gets older,” I said to Joe as I closed my bedroom door behind us. Joe dumped the box down on my bed and immediately pawed through it to find the video game. That’s how our ATAC missions come—disguised as games. Joe flipped the disc to me.
“I can’t wait to hear what the new mission is,” Joe said. “Anything that involves martial arts has got to be cool.” He reached in and pulled out the karate robes while I stuck the disc, labeled MARTIAL LAW, into my gaming system. Joe slipped on one of the black jackets and tied the white belt around his waist. “What do you think? Stylin’, right?”
I ignored him and watched the monitor. Rows of guys in black uniforms appeared on the screen. In unison, they stepped forward and shot out their right fists. With one voice they cried, “Hy-yah!” An unseen male caller yelled out a command. The boys moved again, pivoting on their front foot and stepping backward with the other. They bent their back legs, moving into a low crouch.
“Martial arts have been practiced as a form of self-discipline and self-defense for centuries,” the deep voice of one of the mysterious ATAC mission narrators droned over this scene. Onscreen, the guys shot out of their crouch into a vicious kick. “Hy-yah!” That cry was closer by. I whipped around to find Joe, with sparring gloves on, mimicking the moves from the video.
“Joe, get serious and pay attention.” I grabbed his white belt and pulled him to sit down in front of the screen.
“I was watching,” he protested.
Onscreen, the camera panned up from the boys to the grand master calling out the moves, and the voice continued: “There are many types of martial arts—tae kwon do, karate, ninpo taijutsu, kung fu. When taught and learned correctly, they can train the mind as well as the body. When taught and learned with the wrong intent”—the boys gave an extra loud “HY-YAH!” and the scene faded out to black—“they can cause great harm.” The screen filtered into an image of a man lying crumpled on the ground.
“The Rising Phoenix Martial Arts School in Holtsville opened its doors just over one year ago.” The image of a one-story, stand-alone building appeared. The floor-to-ceiling storefront-style windows allowed a clear view of the dojo inside, where a class of teens worked on one-on-one drills. The entrance doorway had been outfitted with a giant red archway, with golden dragons sitting on either side.
“Shouldn’t those be phoenixes?” Joe asked. “I mean, it’s not called the Rising Dragon.”
“Phoenix is the plural of phoenix, Joe. And shhh,” I replied.
A photograph of an Asian man in his late twenties appeared. “Paul Huang is the owner and sole proprietor of the Rising Phoenix.” Paul wore a white robe with a black belt and stood in a classic “don’t mess with me” Bruce Lee pose. “Huang teaches karate to the teens of Holtsville and the surrounding towns. Since the Rising Phoenix opened, its student body has grown quickly and now includes over one hundred part-time students of varying skill levels.”
Joe sighed and rolled his eyes. “I feel a giant ‘so what’ coming on.”
“Huang is ambitious. He plans to open a chain of karate studios throughout the Northeast. These plans recently got a significant boost when InSight Investments, a financing group, entered into talks with Huang. It is expected that they will agree to fund his expansion.”
Joe faked a sneeze, masking his “So what?”
The announcer answered. “Over the past month, two students at the Rising Phoenix school have ended up in the hospital.” The screen was filled with pictures of two boys. The one on the left was thin with acne and a mop of dark brown hair, the one on the right was a small boy with neatly cropped blond hair. “The picture on your left is of John Mangione. A student at Rising Phoenix since it opened, John collapsed last week and was clinically dead for a few moments before his heart was restarted. Russell Olwell turned up at the local emergency room badly beaten a few days ago.”
I shot a look at Joe. He’d dropped his attitude and was paying close attention. “If kids are getting hurt because of this school, a whole chain of them could be a disaster,” I said.
“Your mission is to look into the school. We here at ATAC believe it is more than simple coincidence that two students of this school were badly hurt. You boys have to get close to the school and find out if it is dangerous before Paul Huang succeeds in expanding it.”
“Now these are the kind of lessons I can get into.” Joe jumped back up and into his pseudo-karate moves. I had to agree with him. Math lessons were okay and all, but karate lessons? Much cooler.
“This mission, like every mission, is top secret,” the announcer finished. “In five seconds, this disc will be reformatted into a regular CD.”
Five seconds later, Carl Douglas’s 1970s hit “Kung Fu Fighting” blared from the computer’s speakers.