Facing the Fugitive: The Brady Street Boys Book Two: Brady Street Boys Midwest Adventure Series

By Katrina Hoover Lee

A quest for clues leads to an exciting adventure. When a trickster tries to pull the wool over their eyes, can three brothers thwart the crook?

 

Indiana, 1987. Thirteen-year-old Gary Fitzpatrick is anxious for answers. Frustrated that he's no closer to the truth about his amputated leg, the determined boy hops the train to Chicago with his family to take in the sights and hunt for elusive information. And when news breaks of an international criminal with a taste for antiquities, he's suspicious of a fellow passenger wanting museum access to draw an ancient cup.

 

Arriving in the city only to find no helpful threads about his lost limb, the downcast youngster and his siblings head to the famous Oriental Institute to see the exhibitions. But when Gary crosses paths with the sketchy young artist from before, the junior sleuth is startled when the building goes on alert.

 

Can he stop the theft of a priceless treasure?

 

Facing the Fugitive is the exciting second book in The Brady Street Boys Adventure Series. If you or your child like wholesome entertainment, learning from mistakes, and positive family fun, then you'll love Katrina Hoover Lee's cat-and-mouse tale.

 

Buy Facing the Fugitive to expose the bad guy today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katrina Lee
• Release date: Sep 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735903569

Book preview

1

Painting the Porch

L ook out! Terry yelled.

Larry and I turned toward him, both holding paintbrushes. Terry balanced on Dad’s stepladder, painting the ceiling of our front porch. He had placed the paint can on the ladder’s top step. As he reached to paint the farthest corner, the ladder shifted and the can of paint began to slide.

I wasn’t sure why he was yelling a warning to us because we were both five feet away from him, on opposite sides of the porch. Moral support, perhaps? He made a wild grab for the can of paint, and caught it, with only a small wave of paint spilling over onto his fingers. However, his brush, which he had just loaded with white paint, slipped out of his hand, shot into the air, and came back down on top of him, right through his curly hair and down his face.

For a moment, Larry and I stood as still as ice sculptures on either side of the porch, our mouths hanging open. Suddenly Larry choked, and I knew it was over for me too. Larry’s slender body convulsed as he tried to control a surge of laughter. His yellow hair vibrated as he shook.

I have a complete inability to keep from laughing when one of my brothers starts, so I gave up and howled along with Larry.

After reaching for the paint can and stopping its slide, Terry had leaped from the ladder to the porch. He now stood glaring at us from behind a skunk-like white stripe. Not only the curls of his hair but also his eyelashes had changed color.

Seriously. White flecks of paint sprayed off Terry’s mouth as he talked. Here I am having a catastrophe, and you both stand there laughing like a couple of hyenas. Someone do something!

You’ve done quite enough, I think. Larry burst out laughing again and I followed, this time in wild gales that brought Mom to the front door.

Mom took in the scene with one glance and sighed. How does a punishment for these three boys create a punishment for me? she said to herself.

Terry shook himself and flicked his head a little, causing a few more droplets of paint to splatter on the porch like water from a wet dog.

Wrap this around yourself to walk inside. Mom handed him an extra piece of plastic draping. Get in the bathtub immediately.

I thought of complaining that we would have to finish without him. But it didn’t seem like good timing, and anyway, we had almost completed our punishment.

Just the week before, a professional thief disguised as an antique dealer gave us a mysterious map that showed tunnels in our neighborhood, and it led to us having an exciting and unfortunate adventure.

There are three of us:

1. Terry, the oldest and tallest, with curly hair and a knack for having accidents. He loves sports and ropes. He is 14.

2. Me, Gary, the ordinary one, except that I have a wooden leg. I love making lists and sketching. I’m 13.

3. Larry, our skinny younger brother with yellow hair, who almost died of pneumonia at four years of age, and almost died last week in the tunnel. He loves reading everything, including encyclopedias. He’s 12.

Anyway, we should have told our parents about the mysterious happenings. We did not. Mom had suggested we move away from our neighborhood because of suspicious activity she had seen next door. We didn’t want to move, so we kept quiet.

Our secret detective work turned out to be a dangerous plan because the thief named Harold trapped us in the tunnel after disguising himself as an antique dealer. Because of his breathing problems, the dust and claustrophobia in the tunnel almost suffocated Larry. Our parents weren’t home, and they didn’t know what we were doing. Terry and I were desperate for a few hours until our neighbor Raspy rescued us.

As a punishment for hiding our detective work from them, Dad and Mom told us we needed to paint the front porch of our house. Mom had been saving this job. She’s known us for a while and knew she would need a punishment for something, sometime.

And it wasn’t a two hour painting job. No, there must be one hundred spindles on our porch, and Dad instructed us that the whole thing, spindles and all, needed to be sanded first, then painted with primer, then painted with paint. Finally, on our fourth day of strenuous labor, we were nearly done.

Let’s go to the library this afternoon, Larry said from his end of the porch. I want to research about Chicago.

Why? I asked. No mysteries there. Well, I guess the missing doctor might be a mystery. But you won’t find anything about him.

It doesn’t have to be a mystery to make it interesting, Larry said, as he craned his body at an absurd angle to reach the outside trim. I just want to find when the University of Chicago started. Get a map of that area. And Mom said we might go to a museum, so I want to find a guidebook.

When we were young boys, we all wanted to be firefighters. After I lost my leg, I realized I could probably no longer hope for a job like that. With Larry’s lungs not being in great condition, he had to give up the dream as well, so that left Terry to rush up the stairways of burning buildings and rescue people.

Most days, I didn’t think too much about my wooden leg. But last week when Mom mentioned moving, I got angry at the thought of leaving the river. It was my favorite place to be, because rowing a boat doesn’t require two good legs. A surgeon amputated my leg to save my life. Or at least that’s what everyone says. But did he really need to do it?

When she heard how upset I was, Mom suggested we get an appointment with the surgeon. Perhaps if I heard the details from the doctor, now that I was older, I would understand the amputation was really necessary.

But when we contacted the doctor’s office, they said the surgeon didn’t work there anymore. They told us we could come on in for a visit and they would review my records. Dad and Mom said we would all take the South Shore train to Chicago and make a fun day of it, and that day was tomorrow.

Would I really get to talk to the surgeon who had amputated my leg so long ago? Would it help me feel better about going through life with a wooden leg? Would it help heal the ache of knowing I could never rescue people from burning buildings?

I shook myself as if to shake these thoughts away. I didn’t wish to discuss them with Larry. Not now.

Too bad we can’t take the new motorboat to the library, I said. Our neighbor Tina gave us her old motorboat after the tunnel mystery, because we did kind of save her house from being burglarized. But Dad, who runs a motorboat repair shop, was still getting the motorboat ready.

You prefer the rowboat anyway, Larry said. Whew! Done. Finally. He dropped his brush onto the plastic lining that protected the floorboards of the porch.

After inspecting our work, Mom gave us permission to go to the library. By the time we were ready to go, Terry had washed most of the paint out of his hair.

Mom suggested we take the map of tunnels and the leather bag that we had found in our own basement hideout during last week’s adventure and see if the library wanted to keep them as historical records.

And then this evening we are going to talk about your new ‘Fruit of the Spirit’ project, she told us.

Okay! Larry said.

If I feel full of joy, can I skip the project? Terry asked. He knew joy was the next fruit in the series, since the only one we did so far was about love.

Mom just laughed and waved us to the door.

Just like in the old days before Tina gave us a motorboat, I took the oars and middle seat of the boat, which we called the London. We rowed down the river, past the creepy Number Ten house that wasn’t so creepy anymore; past Tina’s old, rambling house with multiple sides and roofs; past Tina’s green boathouse, which had housed the old motorboat that we now owned; around the bend in the river and then past Dad’s motorboat shop. We pulled up at the dock of the ice cream shop and tied up our rowboat.

At the library we bypassed Mrs. Thomas, the curt librarian, and looked for Miss Penny. Miss Penny was a kind, red-haired librarian who always helped us.

Miss Penny, I asked when we found her by the magazine and newspaper racks. Can we show you our artifacts from last week?

We told her all about the mysterious antique dealer who had showed us the map and later ended up being a thief named Harold. We told her how the map helped us find the secret hideout in our own basement, and how we had found an old leather bag there with a matching map. Her eyes grew wide as we described Harold trapping us in the tunnel between Number Ten and Tina’s house. At last, the police had caught him and given Tina back the things he had stolen from her.

What a lot of adventures you had! Penny said with genuine anxiety in her eyes. I’m so glad you’re okay!

Penny stepped across to a stack of newspapers and picked one off the top. It was The Stratford Chronicles, the little newspaper for our small town along the St. Joseph River.

I read about an international fugitive that the police are looking for. Miss Penny held up the paper so we could see the headline. I don’t suppose this is the man who trapped you?

We read the headline together: International Fugitive May Be on the Loose Nearby.

Can’t be. I hoped I wasn’t contradicting Miss Penny. Harold’s not on the loose anymore!

What’s an international fugitive? Terry asked.

Penny considered. I think it’s a person who has committed crimes in multiple countries, she said, glancing at the article. So those countries are all trying to arrest him. It looks as though he’s embezzled money from banks in different countries and stolen valuable artifacts from museums. It says he is a master of disguise.

"What does embezzled mean? Larry wrinkled his forehead as if he was searching his brain for the definition. Stolen?"

Miss Penny tilted her head, considering the question. "Yes, stolen. But embezzle is a word for a special kind of stealing, not just stealing snacks from a fuel station. More like stealing from people who trusted you to take care of their money."

She continued scanning the newsprint. He’s wanted in the United States, but also in Italy and Switzerland.

And he’s here in our area? Larry asked. I couldn’t tell if the tremor in his voice showed fear or excitement. Harold said he wanted to go to Switzerland…

Come on, Larry, I said. Harold wouldn’t go to Switzerland if they were looking for him there. Just forget about this international fugitive. We’re going to Chicago tomorrow, so we won’t even be around here.

Going to Chicago? That sounds fun! Penny put the newspaper back on the stack. Where are you going in Chicago? It’s a big place, you know.

No one replied for a moment, so finally I spoke. It seemed Terry and Larry didn’t want to take the lead in a discussion about my appointment.

We’re going to the doctor’s office where I had the surgery to amputate my leg, I said. "For an