Carolyn Keene - Two Points to Murder

Most of the players had already arrived. Ned was there, his gym bag at his feet. He nodded as Nancy walked up but said nothing until Howie Little joined them. “Hey, Socks,” Ned said.

“Socks?” Nancy asked.

“They call me that on account of the lucky pair I wear during games.”

Nancy recalled seeing Howie’s oddly colored socks two nights before. She was surprised to learn that he was superstitious.

“Hey, I’ve got the highest scoring average in the division. The best foul-shot percentage, too,” he explained. “I’d say I’m entitled to wear any kind of socks I want to!”

“I guess you are!” Nancy laughed.

A minute later, the team manager told everyone to get on the bus.

“Won’t Coach Burnett be riding with us?” Nancy asked as she climbed aboard.

Ned shook his head. “He rides to games with the assistant coaches.”

“What about Mike? I don’t see him, either.”

“He’s driving to Haviland by himself,” Ned said carefully. “He . . . he told me that he needs some time to think.”

About what? Nancy wondered. His next practical joke? Where to spend his money?

She decided not to sit with Ned. The only topic she wanted to discuss was the illegal payments, but this wasn’t the right time, she knew. Instead, she sat with George in the seat right behind the driver.

The door closed with a hiss, and a second later they were off. It was a two-hour drive to Haviland. Nancy wondered how she would stand it. Her doubts about Ned were making her so unhappy that she could hardly sit still.

Fortunately, George didn’t notice her anguish. Her friend was excited about the upcoming game. She knew a lot about basketball and filled the time by explaining the game’s fine points.

“. . . so you see, just before the final buzzer the losing team will commit a foul on purpose. That way they can—”

Her lecture was interrupted by a cry of rage from the back of the bus. Twisting around, Nancy tried to see what was happening.

It was Howie. The center was squatting in the aisle, emptying his gym bag onto the floor. “I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it!” he said over and over.

“What happened?” Ned shouted to him.

“Some bozo stole my lucky socks outta my bag!”

An angry murmur swept through the bus. The practical joker had struck again! Was the Wildcats’ luck ever going to change?

Just then, George touched her arm. “Nancy, look . . . that Camaro! Isn’t that like the one you saw last night?”

Nancy turned to the left and looked out her window. A Camaro was cruising next to the bus in the fastest lane of the four-lane highway. It was black. It had smoked windows. Its hubcaps were flashing, exactly like—

In a flash, she realized that it wasn’t like the killer Camaro—it was the killer Camaro! What was it doing here?

As she watched, horrified, the car moved into position alongside the bus’s front wheel. Then its window powered down. A gun barrel appeared. There was a burst of flame, followed by a loud pop and a deafening hiss.

The front of the bus began to shudder wildly. The tire was out! The driver gave a panicky cry and stomped on the brake. In no time the bus skidded to the right, swinging across two entire lanes of the highway and narrowly missing the other traffic.

A loud screech came next. Screams and shouts filled the air as the bus started to tip over!

Chapter Eight

They were done for, Nancy was certain of it! She braced for the impact, gripping her armrests tightly.

At the last second, however, the driver swung the wheel in the direction of the skid. The bus teetered crazily but slid to a halt without overturning.

Pandemonium broke loose. Amid the commotion, Nancy heard Ned shout, “Stay calm! Stay in your seats! Is everyone okay?”

A quick survey showed that no one was injured. Nerves were frayed, though, and it took several minutes for everyone to calm down enough to stop yelling.

Nancy checked the driver. He was unhurt but badly shaken.

“It’s my fault,” he said. “I shouldn’t have hit the brakes.”

“Don’t worry about it. Everything turned out all right,” she told him.

“Everything except the tire. What a time to have a blowout!”

Didn’t he know that the tire had been shot out? Obviously not. Nancy wondered whether to tell him, but decided against it. What good would it do? The Camaro was gone, and spreading the story would only make the players more upset than they were already.

The driver used an emergency roadside phone to call for another bus. It arrived an hour later, and the team transferred into it. When they reached the Haviland gym it was just minutes before the game was due to start.

“Those guys are really shaken up,” Bess said as the girls took their seats in the bleachers. She had been sitting in the back of the bus with cute Craig Watson and looked pretty shaken herself. “Do you think they’ll win?”

“Let’s hope so,” Nancy said.

George added, “If they don’t, it’s goodbye playoffs!”

At first, the game looked like a rout. Emerson ran fast and hard, and quickly built a twenty-five point lead. The trouble came in the second half. With just ten minutes to go, the Wildcats began to slip. Scoring opportunities went unnoticed. Foul shots missed. In no time, their lead faded to just twelve points.

Was it the shock of the near-disaster finally catching up with them? Nancy wondered. Probably. She cheered loudly, but her mind wasn’t really on the game. Instead, she was brooding about the black Camaro. First it had turned up at the scene of an assault, and then it had been used to shoot out the bus’s tire!

In her mind, that could mean only one thing: The beatings and the practical jokes against the team were connected. But how? And why? She had no idea.

When the final buzzer sounded, Emerson had won the game by nine points.

On the return trip Nancy reversed two of the seats so that she, George, Bess, and Ned could sit together. Softly, so that the other team members wouldn’t hear, they discussed the case. Ned was shocked when he heard about the Camaro and its part in the accident.

“Nancy, you should have called the police!” he said.

“There wasn’t any point. I missed the license number again. Anyway, why delay the trip even more by bringing in the cops? We almost missed the start of the game as it was!”

“True.”

Nancy slumped in her seat. “The real issue is that Camaro driver. Why would someone who likes to beat up people also pull a practical joke? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Some practical joke,” Bess muttered. “That bullet almost got us killed!”

“Not true. Think about it . . . it wasn’t the shot that almost spilled the bus, but the way the driver hit the brakes.”

“Oh, sure. If that Camaro guy wasn’t trying to kill us, then what was he trying to do?”

“Slow us down,” Nancy explained. “He wanted the team to arrive late . . . maybe even late enough to make them forfeit the game.”

“Hmmm . . .”

George was puzzled about something else. “I don’t understand . . . why do you think it’s weird that the same guy is responsible for both the pranks and the assaults?”

“Yeah, it makes perfect sense to me,” Ned agreed.

Nancy shook her head. “Beating people up and playing jokes on them are two different things. One involves direct physical contact, while the other involves watching from a distance.”

“But the Camaro definitely ties the two cases together,” Ned pointed out.

“You’re right, it does.”

“Who do you think was driving it?” George asked next.

Nancy shrugged. “That’s the big question. I don’t know.”