Megan Stine - Long Shot

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

“So how do you like your classes?” Sarah asked. She looked away from him. “Wow, that’s a pretty dumb question.”

“I’ve heard dumber questions, lots of them,” Jupe said, with a smile.

“I’m... I mean... I’m a better listener than talker.”

“Uh, me too,” Jupe said quickly.

Sarah laughed. “Oh, you don’t like to listen. I heard you at the basketball game. You were so funny as the parrot.”

“Uh,” Jupe said. How could the guy with the largest vocabulary in the school forget every word he knew except “uh”?

Suddenly Jupe felt a large hand grabbing onto his shoulder and shaking him gently back and forth. He saw that Sarah also had a hand on her shoulder.

“How’s it going, guys?” said a dude with curly black hair that came down over his collar. He had a Texas accent and he was shouting in Jupe’s ear. He reeked of beer.

Oh, great, Jupe thought. Just what I need some big hunk coming over to put the moves on Sarah. How can I compete with him?

“Tim,” Sarah said, “you’ve had too much to drink.”

“Hey,” the guy said. “I paid for all the food and beer at this party. And there’s no law that says I can’t drink it all! Who’s your boyfriend?”

Sarah blushed and so did Jupe.

“Tim Frisch, this is Jupiter Jones.”

“Howdy. You got any brothers named Mars and Venus? Hahahaha!”

Jupiter smiled weakly. Finally he was meeting the last of the five starting basketball players. Tim had cut every one of his classes last week, so Jupe hadn’t been able to track him down. Now Jupe took in the whole picture. Tim was wearing expensive-looking clothes and bragging about buying all the beer. Maybe he was another player on Michael Anthony’s payroll.

“You mean you bought all the beer for this party yourself?” Jupe asked.

“You got that straight, Jack. If you want to have friends, you gotta spend some money on them — am I right or am I right?” Tim held up his hand for a high-five, but he couldn’t hold it steadily.

“Oh, you’re right,” Jupe said, slapping the big hand. “If you’ve got the money.” He smiled at Sarah as if he were just making conversation.

“I’ve got all I need,” Tim said with a goofy grin. “So, Jupe, buddy, what’s your sport?”

“Uh, my major is — ” Jupe wanted to say his major was taking chances, because he knew he was about to take a big one. But with Tim’s brain swimming around, it was an opportunity Jupe couldn’t resist. “It’s communications history,” Jupe said. “I’m studying the history of television, old TV shows. One of my favorites is The Millionaire .”

“Never heard of it,” Tim said.

“It had a character named Michael Anthony.” Jupe watched Tim’s face carefully — and he wasn’t disappointed.

“A show with Michael Anthony? For real?” Tim said with a laugh. “Hey, I’ll bet that show had a lot of Gravy Train commercials.” Tim laughed again, almost losing his balance.

“I don’t get the joke,” Jupe said. He was close. Jupe felt it. Just a little shove more and Tim Frisch would open up.

But just then Cory Brand came over to join the conversation.

“Hey, Cory, here’s a joke. You’ll like it,” Tim said. “There’s this TV show with a guy named Michael Anthony. And I said I bet it’s got a lot of Gravy Train commercials. You get it, don’t you? Jupiter doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it at all.”

Cory didn’t laugh. His face got serious fast. “Come on, Tim,” he said, pulling the big guy away from Jupe. “You’ve had too much to drink. You need some air.”

“I didn’t get it either,” said Sarah.

“Must be a private joke,” Jupe said, watching the evidence he almost had in his hands slip away.

“Telephone for Pete Crenshaw!” someone was shouting. “Yo! Pete Crenshaw! Is he here?”

Jupe watched Pete move through the crowd toward the guy with the phone.

“Well, Jupiter, are you going to ask me to dance?” Sarah said.

“Huh?” Jupe said. Suddenly his mind was split in two. Half of it wanted to dance with Sarah so badly he’d do anything—even go on the One-Quarter Diet if that would help. But the other half of his mind was watching Pete head for the phone. Who would be calling him — here ?

Sarah saw the faraway look on Jupe’s face and said, “Well, I guess you’re not interested.” Before Jupe could recover, she had walked away.

A moment later Pete came back to the living room, motioning for Jupe to join him.

“I just got a phone call,” Pete said. “Some guy gave me a warning. He said, ‘It’s not safe to snoop around other people’s business.’ ”

“Was the voice familiar?”

“Nope. He also said if I wanted to see what he meant, go look out the window.”

Jupe and Pete hurried out onto the balcony. Just as they reached the railing there was a huge booming fireball explosion — coming from a car on the street.

“Oh, no! My Porsche!” Pete shouted.

Pete watched the ball of fire turn into a cloud of black smoke. Pieces of the blue Porsche fell from the air. People on the street were running for cover.

Miraculously, no one had gotten hurt. But Jupe’s heart was pounding as if he had just barely escaped with his life.

“Call the police.” Jupe delivered it like an order, partly to steady his own nerves and partly to snap his friend out of his dazed stare. “Call the police, Pete!”

But Pete didn’t move. And people inside Cory Brand’s condo came rushing out onto the balcony to see what the noise was.

Jupe pushed his way back inside to call the cops himself. Cory’s apartment was in Rocky Beach, so Jupe knew the phone number by heart. How many times had Jupe called the police to ask for help in a case? Zillions. But he’d never had to report a car bombing before — not of Pete’s own car, anyway! He hurried back to Pete as soon as he hung up.

Pete was still staring, his hands gripping the balcony railing. Fire engines had arrived. The firefighters scrambled around, connecting hoses and squirting foam. Jupe’s stomach turned over when he saw how long the fire burned — and how hard it was to extinguish the flames.

The doorbell rang and Jupe saw a Rocky Beach police officer come into the condo.

“Hey — we weren’t making any noise,” Cory Brand said the minute the officer stepped in.

The officer surveyed the party scene. “Someone here phoned to report that car bombing.”

“That was I,” Jupe said. He spoke over the general mumbles of the group as he stepped from the balcony back into the living room.

“I’d like to speak to you,” said the officer, motioning Jupe toward the front doorway for a private conference.

Jupe tapped Pete, who still looked dazed, and got him to follow.

“I’m Jupiter Jones and this is my friend Pete Crenshaw. That’s his car that was blown up,” Jupe said, his voice cracking slightly on the last sentence.

“Do you have the registration?” the officer asked Pete.

“Well, no... ” Pete looked at Jupe for help. But before Jupe could explain, the officer took two pairs of handcuffs from a pouch on his belt.

“Hold out your hands, boys,” the officer said.

“Why? Hey, wait a minute. Jupe can explain!” Pete said.

The officer grabbed Jupe’s wrists and clamped on the cuffs.

“Wait a — ow! — what are you doing? This is absurd,” Jupe sputtered. “Do you know who you’re dealing with?”

“Yeah — you’re one of the Three Investigators, aren’t you?” the officer sneered.

Jupe pulled himself up to his full height.