Hardys Inn Danger by Ann ♥♪HB♪♥ – Chapter 32 – Joe

HARDYS INN DANGER by Ann

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

JOE   

   Nearly everything had been cleared up. Except for the pesky time travel situation. I was still looking for my phone, but there was no guarantee it would work even when I did find it.

   We were searching the borrowed 1927 Duesenberg when Frank found it.

   “Is this it?” he asked holding it up gingerly between two fingers.

   “Yes!” I reached over to accept the small rectangular flat object. “Awesome! Thanks!”

   “Now what?” Frank asked.

   I frowned. “I’m not sure it will even power on. Battery charged or not.”

   We were staring at it when we heard Phil calling to us. “Frank, Joe, I want to introduce you to my cousin, Professor Landau and his assistant, Gav.”

   After slipping the phone in my pocket, I greeted them as did Frank. Both had New York accents. That reminded me, I had asked Albert, who works with Nehemiah, what his accent was – Ecuadorian – when we met up with them at the Automat to give them the great news. They’d already heard, somehow, but they appreciated finding out the details. We didn’t have to meet at the Automat, I just wanted to before I went back to the 21st century. Assuming I would….

   “They’re on their way to New York City from New Jersey, traveling through this way to say hi to family,” Phil explained. “Gav is actually a bodyguard, too. Some people might be after their work concerning telecommunications and battery power.”

   “Maybe we could help,” my brother and I offered at the same time then looked at each other and laughed.

   The other three guys laughed, too, and Professor Landau told us, “I think you already did. We had determined that the threat was coming from a group. Today we found out they had been funded by Grant Notting. Now they are kaput.”

   “But we’re still going to be careful. Always nuts out there who want power to fuel their greed,” Gav stated.

   “Well said,” I commented with a nod.

   “So we wanted to say thank you.” Professor Landau shook our hands, as did Gav.

   “Our pleasure. It needed to be done,” Frank said.

   “Ultimately everyone has a choice on what they do. Each individual has power, to be used for good or bad. We choose good,” I said matter-of-factly.

“We’re glad you do,” Professor Landau stated.

   “Hey, guys,” called Chet. He greeted Professor Landau and Gav after Phil introduced them. Then he said to Frank and me, “Can I talk to you two a minute?”

   We excused ourselves and Chet started talking quickly and quietly.

   “You know I’ve been working on a secret project, right?” At our nods, he continued. “I’m pretty sure it’ll work, but I need a strong power source. Any ideas?”

   “Hmmm, well, Professor Landau and Gav could help with that,” Frank suggested.

   Turns out they were more than happy to help once we asked them. Chet’s request that they not know what his secret project was also worked out. Once he had everything set up with the borrowed power source of batteries at the Morton farm, he asked for a volunteer. I was willing to give it a try, as long as he input the year ‘2015’ to his time travel machine he’d built.

   I stepped into the tall box-like thing Chet had constructed in their work shed and stood there as he closed the door. It was going to be real interesting if I’d be able to tell what year I’d stepped into. Might still be 1927.

   Then I guess I fell asleep again. When I woke up, I was at the Morton farm and Chet, Frank, and I were wearing normal clothes. I heard Iola calling my name. She came into the shed – wearing normal clothes. It was 2015! Yes!

   But wouldn’t you know it, I had lost my phone. Again.

************

   “What happened next, Daddy?” asked Jonathan, my youngest, excitedly. He was never ready for stories to wrap up. “What about the time travel app? Did it zap 1927 you back to then?”

   I smiled at everyone anxiously listening. My wife, Iola, sat beside me and our kids were all around us. Our oldest at eight, serious Lev, our sweet six year old daughter Chaya and our super-energetic Jonathan, age five.

   Frank and his wife, Callie, sat on the love seat nearby. Their three kids, ten year old Joshua along with Micah and Clarice, seven year old twins, were mixed in with their cousins and Mom and Dad, all comfortable as everyone listened with great interest.

   While on vacation, we’d been recounting some of our past cases, plus throwing in a little science fiction with the time travel. Everything, except for that, had truly happened during several different mysteries we’d taken on.

   “Yep. The 1927 Hardy brothers were reunited and so were the 2015 Hardy brothers.” Frank smiled.

   “Cool!” Chaya and Micah exclaimed at the same time, smiling with delight, their eyes sparkling.

   “How did you prank Daddy back after he ‘borrowed’ your phone?” asked Joshua.

   Iola laughed. “You know him, don’t you? You didn’t ask ‘did he’, but ‘how’.” She winked at Joshua who nodded with a grin.

   “I just changed his password on his computer, so he couldn’t get into it.” I chuckled. “After he tried for a while to hack into his own computer, he finally asked me about it. I suggested he try this as a password: prankfrankprankfrank.”

   That got some laughs.

   “What about those hoods at the wharf that were in 2015, but looked like some of Nitti’s men from 1927? Had they time traveled, too?” my niece Clarice asked.

   “Nope,” I answered.

   She frowned for a moment, thinking. The kids love figuring stuff out and did so throughout the telling of this story. It’s in their blood. They did really well, I’m pleased to say. I could tell Clarice had been thinking on this a while and maybe had two theories.

   “They were related to them? Family resemblance?” she asked, her eyes sparkling as she hoped she’d gotten it correct. She had.

   “That’s it exactly,” I told her with a grin. “They could have broke free, they had a choice, but they continued to make the same ignorant mistakes since they didn’t have guts or backbone. Even if it comes at a cost, it’s always smartest to do the right thing.”

   “Like Lou changing his ways. Using his powers for goodness and niceness instead of for evil,” Lev spoke up. “Everyone can make choices to do good things.”

   Frank reached over and patted his back. “Yes, exactly.”

   Some things never change, thankfully. Things like love, loyalty, honesty, faith, truth, justice, even during ever present danger. Not all sayings are true, but one that is says that the more things change, the more things stay the same. Nothing new under the sun.

************

   It was time to travel to the annual Bayport Car and Air Show. All of us were camping out at Mom and Dad’s. The kids had come up with the idea of not using anything post-1927 for the whole event. They are Hardy kids and love adventure, so it’s possible that they’d stick with it.

   We’d found a cool wooden radio and Chet had fixed it up. As we got ready, a Fanny Brice song came on the radio, her soulful style putting emphasis in each and every note.

   Our friends Lou and Becky came by in their blue metallic 1927 Duesenberg. A youthful couple in their nineties, they have a lot of stories to tell. Our whole family loves Lou and Becky. Their dedication and bravery is the stuff of inspiration. They both have fought evil in nine decades, never once giving up and always realizing how precious freedom is. They reminded us many times to never sacrifice security and safety for convenience. Lou and Becky helped fight and defeat the Nazis as well as others like that hate-filled group.

   You see, that evil organization was a much bigger threat in the 1920s than bootleg alcohol or the stock market crash of 1929. It was an insidious poison gaining momentum in Europe and wanted to creep throughout the globe, but the faith, bravery, and strength of those fighting it didn’t waver. That’s true today as well. It’s important to be ever vigilant and stop evil as soon as possible to make sure that horror never again happens. And we don’t even have to wonder about the promised victory over evil.

 “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” Psalms/Tehillim 124:8

 “They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever.” Psalms/Tehillim 125:1

 “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved, he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.” Psalms/Tehillim 121: 1-8

NEVER THE END!

 {BONUS TEASER FOR FUTURE STORY!}

NANCY

   Seeing the phone laying there, I picked it up to see whom it belonged to so I could return it. I thought maybe it was Joe’s missing phone. The battery still had some charge left on it.

   “It’s locked,” I muttered to myself.

   No worries, Joe had given those of us he trusted the password. So I typed that in and it worked, confirming it as Joe’s. I was about to turn it off when an app caught my eye. Go Back in Time app. Hmmm. Curious, I tapped on it. Looked interesting. Nice, clean interface, cool graphics and sound. I typed in Chicago, Illinois – 1930.

   The next thing I knew, I must have fallen asleep….

NEVER THE END!