Free The Bicycle Thief by Franklin W. Dixon Page A

finish line drew closer. Cheering crowds surrounded it on each side, waiting to see who would win, Frank or Joe Hardy.
    POP!
    Suddenly there was a loud explosion, like a balloon breaking.
    â€œAAAAHHHHHHH!” Frank screamed.
    Joe looked ahead of him. There was the finish line. He looked back. Frank was gone. Joe stopped. The voices of the crowd faded. The finish line disappeared. The course behind them was the dirt path that led from the Hardy house down through Bayport Park, which was just outside downtown Bayport. But there was still no sign of Frank.
    â€œFrank? Where are you?” Joe yelled.
    â€œOver here,” came a weak voice.

                         2       
    Crash!
    A re you okay?”
    Joe peered down into the ditch on the side of the road. Frank lay on his side, half under his bike. Frank shook his head. Slowly he got up.
    â€œYeah, I think so,” he said.
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œMy bike blew a tire!” Frank pointed to the front wheel of his bike. Sure enough, there was a nail in it. The tire was as flat as a pancake. Therewas no way he’d be riding any farther until they fixed it. Then Joe noticed something else.
    â€œUh, Frank?”
    â€œYeah, Joe?”
    â€œYour arm—it’s bleeding!”
    Frank looked down at his arm. Joe was right. He had a long scratch running down his arm. It didn’t lookthat deep, but it was definitely bleeding. And it definitely hurt!

    â€œOw!” said Frank. “I better clean that.”
    â€œYeah,” said Joe. “First we’ll patch you up. Then we’ll patch the bike.”
    As the other racers started crossing the finish line, Frank pulled his backpack off. In a minute they would have Frank’s bike all fixed up—and Frank fixed up too!
    Joe opened the backpack for the first aid kit. The bag also had water, sandwiches, a tire patch kit, a Frisbee, a notebook (for any clues they might come across), a baseball (both Frank and Joe were on the local Little League team, the Bayport Bandits), and a mitt.
    Joe turned the backpack upside down and shook it. Out tumbled their mom’s lunch, her extra sweater, a bottle of water, and her planner!
    â€œOh no!” said Frank. “I grabbed the wrong bag!”
    The whole Hardy family had identical black bags, which their father had purchased for them years ago. This happened a lot. Joe had once had to make up show-and-tell from his Aunt Gertrude’s knitting collection, and Mr. Hardy had once brought Frank’s science project to an important meeting.
    â€œWe’ll just have to go get the spare patch kit from the garage,” said Joe. “Hopefully, Mom has some Band-Aids in here too!”
    Joe picked up the water bottle. Frank rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm.
    â€œReady?” Joe said. Frank nodded.
    Joe poured the clean water all over Frank’s cut.
    â€œOuch!” said Frank. “That stings.”
    It may have stung, but the water did its job, washing out all the dirt that had gotten into hiscut. Now that the wound was clean, Frank found a small first aid kit in a pocket of the bag. He dried his arm with a clean piece of gauze, then pulled out the Band-Aids. One by one he put them across his cut.
    â€œGood as new,” he said. “Now let’s get my tire fixed! But it would take me forever to wheel the bike back, and I might damage the tire even more. And we don’t have anything to lock them up with. So you’ll have to go get the kit, and I’ll wait here.”
    Joe nodded. He gathered up their mom’s stuff and put it all back into her bag. Then he hopped onto his bike and headed home.
    Frank sat down next to his bike to wait. It wouldn’t take Joe that long. A little farther into the park there was a water fountain. Frank hated to leave his bike alone, but he’d be able to see it from the