An Unexpected occurrence
(Originally by: Sofer )By: Serpentinia Malfoy
BIG thanks to Sofer for letting me adopt this story! This first chapter is a Sofer original but the rest of it is mine!
"Fraaank!"
Frank Hardy woke with a start. He knew how it went. If he didn't wake up, his aunt Trudy would march upstairs (rather too loudly, he thought), and yell at him for another minute. If he still didn't wake up, Trudy would yank the warm, protective covers off him. If he still didn't wake up, his sweet aunt would get a bottle of ice cold water and dump it all on his head. He knew this from experience.
Unlike his brother Joe, Frank thought before he did anything. Remembering the other day, he jumped out of bed and hollered a good morning to Aunt Trudy, so as to assure her that he was indeed awake and therefore prevent any freezing water getting anywhere near him.
Frank was sorely tempted to let Joe get a mouthful of water. He needed the wash anyway, as he could smell the dirty socks even from the other side of the door, but he knew Joe would get back at him some way or another. He certainly was capable of that, given their line of work.
Pinching his nose, he threw Joe's door open and stomped to Joe's bed. Joe ignored him. So Frank leaned down and did something he took great pleasure in. He screamed in Joe's ear.
"Jesus Christ Superstar! Mother of all that's holy! What the hell! Who…?"
Frank chuckled as he watched a very disoriented Joe get up of the floor and slowly turn to face him.
"Frank." Joe narrowed his eyes and took a step forward." I should have known. Frank."
Joe tackled Frank to the floor, but he only laughed. He knew his brother all too well. He had expected that. As he had expected the string of curse words and death threats which followed. What would you expect from a high school junior?
"Honestly, you would think that one day of the week you'd let me have a little sleep, but nooooooooo…"
Joe was babbling now, but then he said something which caught Frank's attention.
"I mean, it's only the weekend! I understand on a school day, but a weekend? That's just plain cruel…"
Huh. He was right. Why would Trudy threaten wake them at… What was it? Jesus Christ, six! Why would she wake them at six in the morning? She was cruel, but not that cruel. She usually let them sleep in until nine on weekends, and then she would threaten them with cold water.
He couldn't think with Joe insulting him, so Frank said, "Aunt Trudy," and Joe shut up, with a grave expression on his face.
"Frank, Joe! There's a package for you!" Trudy yelled from downstairs and Frank and Joe both froze, then turned to look at each other. Well. This changed everything. A package. They both knew what that meant.
All was quiet for about three seconds, and then there was a sudden rush for the door.
"Ow, Joe get off, we've got to get down there!"
"Well if you would just get your knee away from my head!"
"Quit suffocating me if you want to move!"
"You think you're sooooo much better because your one year older than me. One year!"
"Shut up, Joe."
They argued for a bit, then scrambled to the door. If that package was from who they thought it was from, then it was far more important than any sibling squabbles.
Frank and Joe raced down the stairs. Well, Joe raced down the stairs after having tripped Frank, and Frank raced down the stairs after getting over the pain in his ankle and mumbling about immature younger hooligans.
"We're HE-ERE Aunt Trudy!" Joe announced after flying into the kitchen.
Trudy spun around on her heels after quickly putting away the scissors she was using to rip open Frank and Joe's package. She looked at them, annoyed, then huffed something about crazy door-to-door people. "Who do those people think they are? I mean honestly, they come ringing the doorbell and demand to see 'A mister frank or Joe Hardy', with absolutely NO consideration whatsoever for other peoples beauty sleep!" Gertrude Hardy was not a morning person.'"What did you order anyway? And what did you order that would come at 6 in the morning, more importantly? It wasn't online, was it? Oh boys, don't tell me it was online! You know those people always rip you off! Tell me it wasn't online!"
Frank stumbled through the doorway and he and Joe exchanged an amused look. "No, Aunt Trudy, It wasn't online."
"Well? Then what is it, Joe?" Trudy demanded, and the Hardy family's extremely annoying parrot, Playback, repeated her.
"What is it Joe? What is it?" Joe was really beginning to regret taking playback in.
Joe and Frank exchanged another look, this time a panicked one. Their work required absolute secrecy, except from their father, of course, and they couldn't tell Trudy what was really in that package. They looked around the kitchen, and chose objects.
"Magnets!" Frank said.
"Spoons!" Joe said at the same time.
Trudy looked at them incredulously. "Spagoonets? You ordered spagoonets? What on earth are spagoonets? And why did you order them?"
"Um…" Frank said. "For school." That excuse was really getting boring."They're magnets."
"They're spoons," said Joe, who liked spoons much more than he liked magnets.
"They're magnetic spoons." Frank growled, glaring at Joe. Joe shrugged. He lunged forward and grabbed the box.
"Bye, Auntie!"
Frank and Joe raced back up the stairs, and this time Joe was too preoccupied with the package to trip Frank.
The boys went into Frank's room and tore open the package. It was full of spoons.
Joe smirked an evil little smirk and was about to say, 'I told you so' before Frank interrupted him. "Whatever, Joe," he said, being as mature and cultured as he was. "Look under the spoons."
Joe huffed, but smiled when he dug out a small C.D. disk.
"Look at this, Frank." He held up the C.D. The cover read, "ATAC spoons make your life easier!"
Frank grinned. Not because the slogan was so bad it was funny, but because it wasn't a spoon selling company that had sent the package to them at all.
It was the secret detective agency their father had founded, the one he and Joe happened to work for.
A.T.A.C. American Teens Against Crime. One of the few jobs in which you were equally likely to be worrying about acne one day and an evil mastermind the next. As the title suggested, only teens were employed, because it was teens which could pass inconspicuously under criminal's noses. Where adults couldn't do the job, teenagers could, a fact which ATAC had exploited for a while now. Frank and Joe had gotten the job mostly due to their father, Fenton Hardy, being one of the founders of the organization, but the two brothers had quickly proved themselves as invaluable operatives, solving case after case as a team. Sure, it could be dangerous. And frightening. And tedious. But, at the end of the day, both Frank and Joe knew they wouldn't trade it for the world.
ATAC usually alerted Frank and Joe of their missions by sending them a disk disguised as an ordinary item, although they had tried out more embarrassing methods before.
Thankfully, this time, the pickup had gone easily enough, and without Aunt Trudy getting (too) suspicious. Although Frank had a few questions about the spoons…
Anyway, Joe popped the disk into Frank's computer. A screen immediately came up, and on it is said,
"Press spacebar to accept your new case. Press backspace to decline."
As per usual, Joe lunged for the space bar without asking Frank, and they both sat patiently as they waited for their next case.
Miles away, in London, England, in the Royal and General Bank, The head and second in command of MI6: Special Operations were once again planning the course of events which would once again drag a certain Alex Rider into the world he thought he'd left behind.