Author's Note: I'd like to thank you all in advance for reading this story and for reading and reviewing my past stories. In the short time that I've been publishing on this website, I've already received so much support from so many of you. I really appreciate it.

This story is the beginning of a trilogy which will include both the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, although Nancy's part in the story doesn't begin to pick up until Part 2. As I plan to post three chapters a week, it will take a while for all the questions that are going to arise to get answered.

Just as a warning, there is some violence and emotional trauma throughout this trilogy.

Chapter I

"Hey, Joe, wait up!" sixteen-year-old Iola Morton called, waving her hand and quickening her steps as she trotted down one of the hallways in Bayport High School.

Joe Hardy, a blond seventeen-year-old, looked over his shoulder at her and stopped walking to let her catch up. The two had been friends almost as long as they could remember, but that friendship had gotten more complicated three or four years ago when Joe had first developed what would turn into a monster crush on Iola. For all those years, every time he was around her, it was a constant struggle between wanting to tell her how he felt and being terrified that doing so would ruin their friendship.

Iola was a little out of breath by the time she reached Joe. Her cheeks flushed and she grinned with a bit of embarrassment. "Oh, wow. I feel dumb and out-of-shape now."

"That's not what you wanted to tell me about, was it?" Joe asked.

"No. No, it's not." Iola shook her head as she collected her thoughts. "Actually, I wanted to ask you for a huge favor. I mean, really huge. It's totally okay if you say no. I'd understand."

"You'll have to tell me what it is before I can say either yes or no," Joe said. He was kidding more than anything – he already knew perfectly well that he'd say yes no matter what Iola asked of him.

Iola took a deep breath. "You know the school play?" She paused and it wasn't until Joe said, "Uh huh," that she continued. "Well, you know that Mrs. Certner, the drama teacher, you know, wanted to have the play one hundred percent student produced. Kayla Martinez and Pam Springer wrote the script, and Julie McVera is the director, and Chris Havens is the producer, and I'm the assistant director."

As she paused again for breath, Joe said, "Yeah. You were telling us all of this the other day at Callie's party."

"Right," Iola replied. "It's a great play. I mean, it's Peter Pan, which isn't the most original idea ever, but it's still going to be great. We just have run into a huge problem, and I don't know of anyone else who can help us out besides you. You see, we decided, as an extra challenge – which honestly was kind of a bad idea to throw any extra challenges at ourselves – we decided to make it a musical. Trevor Gardiner wrote all the songs and he was going to do the music for them, but his parents up and decided to move within the next couple weeks."

"Can't Trevor record the music?" Joe asked.

"He was going to," Iola told him. "You know, just in case something happened and he couldn't play the music live like we wanted him to. But now, what with getting ready to move and everything, he just doesn't have time to do even that. So what I wanted to ask you was if you would be willing to do the music. We can just record it if you don't want to play it live. It's already written and everything. You just need to play it."

Joe didn't even hesitate to say, "Sure, Iola. I'd be glad to. And I'm game to play it live, if that's what you guys want."

"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" Iola punctuated the sentiment by giving him a quick hug, causing Joe to blush in spite of himself. "Could you come to the rehearsal tonight? It'll give you a feel for the play."

"Sure thing," Joe said. "I'll see you there."

HBHBHBHBHB

Joe felt awkward as he slipped into the cafeteria where the drama club held their meetings and rehearsals since the school had never given them their own room. He didn't know very many of the kids in drama well. He knew Iola, of course, and Callie Shaw, who dated Joe's older brother Frank. Otherwise, the drama kids were their own clique who didn't seem to care to mix with the other kids. Especially the athletic kids, who were more the group that Joe usually mingled with.

Joe was relieved, then, when he was greeted enthusiastically by several of the members of the drama club. Granted, Iola and Callie were the most enthusiastic, but Joe felt that most of the others were sincere. He had a good instinct for such things, which had come in handy many times as an amateur detective.

Both Joe and his brother Frank, who was a year older than him, loved nothing better than solving mysteries, which was no doubt something that they had inherited from their father. Fenton Hardy was a renowned detective who had started out as an NYPD police officer before starting a private business in the much smaller city of Bayport.

"You can just watch, Joe," Iola told him. "It's just about time for us to get down to business anyway."

"Oh, sure, whatever," Joe replied, sitting down at one of the tables. Callie sat down next to him, which surprised him. "Don't you need to rehearse, too?"
"They're not working on any of my scenes tonight," Callie explained. "I just have a small part – as one of the mermaids. I'm in charge of designing the backdrops, so I like to watch the rehearsals for all of the scenes to help me come up with ideas."

"Well, the play's bound to be great with Iola as the assistant director and you painting the backdrops," Joe said.

"And you doing the music," Callie added. "Honestly, we all kind of panicked when Trevor had to bail on us. We've had several bumps already – which isn't unusual when you're putting on a play! But this is the biggest one so far, and we were all afraid it would wreck the whole show."

"I'm not so sure it still won't," a boy's voice broke in from behind them.

Joe and Callie both turned to look at the speaker.

Callie glanced back at Joe apologetically, and then met the other boy's eyes again. "It's not going to, Evan. Joe's going to do just fine with the music."

"It's the first time I've ever hear of a jock who could tell the difference between a treble cleft and a B sharp," Evan replied.

Joe lowered his eyebrows and drew his mouth into a line. "Believe it or not, theater people aren't the only sort of people with multiple talents."

Something in the way he said it must have warned Evan not to carry this conversation any further. "Hey, no offense, man. We're all just jumpy, I guess. I'm starting to think this play is cursed." He chuckled. "You haven't heard anyone mentioning the Scottish play, have you, Callie?"

Callie rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. Nothing more has gone wrong with this play than any other production."

"Hold on," Joe said. "I think I missed something. What's the Scottish play?"

"It's an old theater superstition," Callie explained. "The story goes that if you mention the name of a particular Shakespeare play, the production you're working on will be cursed."

"Which play is that?" Joe asked, intrigued as always by stories of curses. He didn't believe in them, but they always kicked him into detective gear.

"Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble," Evan quoted.

"You mean Macbeth?" Joe surmised.

Evan's eyes opened wider. "Joe, you shouldn't have said that."

"What?" Joe shook his head in bewilderment. "You're not saying you actually believe in that whole curse thing, are you?"

"Well, no, not exactly," Evan said. "But I don't see any point in taking chances. We don't want any more problems."

"Oh, come on, Evan," Callie broke in. "It's just a story. We all know that curses and stuff like that aren't real. And don't go around telling anyone about this. Sometimes when people think something bad is going to happen they unconsciously do things that cause it to happen. That's the only real danger a curse could cause us."

"Chillax, Cal." Evan grinned, but it looked forced. "I'm just kidding Joe around. You don't think we can let him into our club without any kind of initiation."

"Well, if being teased about bringing a curse down on this play is the only initiation I get, I guess I can live with that," Joe said. "But it had better be the only initiation."

"Wow, I knew you jocks could be uptight, but –" Evan shook his head as he walked away, leaving his sentence unfinished.

"Are there very many people in this club like him?" Joe asked Callie as they watched him go.

Callie sighed. "There's one in every group. Most of the kids are great, though, and they're super grateful to you for helping us out. Who knows? We just might get you to join the drama club yet."

Joe grinned. "I wouldn't count on it. Between school and homework and sports and solving mysteries and taking a few hours a night for sleep, I don't have time for acting."

Callie laughed. "You've got a point there. Maybe we should bring it up to the school board that in the interest of diversifying the students' interests they should shorten the school day and not allow teachers to assign so much homework."

"I wish," Joe said. "I don't think the board will go for it, though."

"Probably not," Callie replied.

"Callie." Iola scurried up to them. "Have you seen Jason anywhere today? He's not here."

"Which Jason?" Joe asked as Callie shook her head.

"Jason Reid," Iola told him. "He's our Peter Pan." She sighed. "I guess we'll just have to get someone to stand in for him until he gets here. I've already texted him to get over here ASAP."

"Joe could stand in," Callie suggested. "That'd be better than me. Some of the kids have a hard time keeping a straight face when a girl is reading a guy's lines."

"Would you, Joe?" Iola asked, clasping her hands hopefully.

"Sure, why not?" Joe replied.

Iola got a script for him and showed him the scene that they were working on. Because they were still in the early stages of the rehearsals, they hadn't done much in the way of blocking yet.

Julie, the director, positioned Joe right in front of the lunch counter. "You can just stand here and read the lines. Don't worry about doing any acting." She turned to Iola. "Have you heard from Jason yet?"

"No, not yet," Iola replied.

Standing in for the lead actor, Joe had a lot of lines to read. It was the first time since about the fifth grade that he had done any acting like this, and he had forgotten how much fun being part of a play could be.

The only thing marring the fun was the bad attitude of a few of the kids. Evidently, they resented Joe's presence and particularly his standing in for the lead role. The main one causing issues was Clarissa Margot, a junior who was convinced she was going to be this generation's Audrey Hepburn one day. She was the only one who thought so, though. The others considered her immensely rude and egotistic, with very little talent.

In the middle of one scene, she threw her script on the floor and crossed her arms with an angry huff.

"What is it now?" Julie asked, making no effort to disguise her annoyance.

"I can't act with this idiot," Clarissa said, gesturing at Joe.

Joe was taken aback. Everyone else in the room fell silent as well, except for one girl somewhere behind Joe who muttered just loud enough for him to hear, "You can't act anyway."

Julie opened her mouth to say something, but Clarissa jumped in to interrupt. "Literally anyone would be better. Even Evan. Can't he stand in? He's not in this scene."

"He's rehearsing his own scene on the other side of the room," Julie reminded her.

Terry Shanth, one of the actors, whispered to Joe, "That's some insult if she'd prefer Evan Donahue to you."

"Why do you say that?" Joe asked, also in a quiet voice.

"She hates his guts," Terry told him. "Some feud between her parents and his."

"Clarissa," Julie was saying sternly, about to spell out just how unacceptable the actress's behavior was.

She didn't get a chance to. She was suddenly interrupted by a small explosion that sounded almost exactly like a gunshot.