Amos's Killer Concert Caper Read Free Page A

was a song about growing up in Roy’s hometown. Amos started playing air guitar again. He was really getting into it. He moved up on thestage and twirled around. He accidentally tripped over Roy’s guitar cord, pulling it out of the amp.
    The music stopped short. Roy spun around to see what had happened just as a huge spotlight came hurtling down from the ceiling at him. Turning to look at Amos moved him sideways just enough to escape being hit as the spotlight smashed into the stage.

• 5
    â€œAre you all right?” Dunc helped Roy to his feet.
    â€œI think so.” Roy brushed pieces of glass out of his hair. “That was too close for comfort.”
    â€œSorry about unplugging your guitar cord,” Amos said. “I guess I got a little carried away.”
    Roy looked at the heavy spotlight that was now lodged halfway through the stage floor. “I’m not sorry, Amos. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be dead meat right now.”
    Amos strained, trying to lift the spotlight. “I wonder what caused it to fall?”
    Dunc examined the part that was sticking up. “Look at this. The bolts are gone, and the wires have all been cut. This was no accident, someone intended for it to fall.”
    Roy scratched his head. “Why would anybody want to do a thing like that?”
    Dunc whipped a small note pad out of his shirt pocket and flipped it open. “Amos tells me you’ve been having a lot of unusual things happen to you lately.”
    â€œThat’s true, but nothing like this. Unless you count the time in Los Angeles when the backdrop came loose and fell forward over the top of us.”
    Dunc was writing furiously. “When did you first notice these strange occurrences?”
    Roy rested his chin in his hand. “The first one was about a month ago, right before a concert. When our lead guitar player, Hairball, turned on his amp, we heard people talking on CB’s. Someone had rewired his amplifier to pick up radio waves. We had to delay the concert.”
    Dunc looked up. “Do you always travel with the same band?”
    Roy nodded. “Yup. These guys have been with me from the start. So has our manager, Mange. He’s the one who put us together and came up with the name.”
    â€œHmmm.”
    Amos sat down beside Roy and sighed. “There he goes with that noise again.”
    Roy raised one eyebrow. “Is that bad?”
    â€œDepends on if you’re his best friend or not. If you happen to have the misfortune of being his best friend, then it means he’s about to get you in some serious trouble.”
    Roy looked confused.
    Amos waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Dunc thinks he’s some kind of junior private eye. He goes around digging up imaginary cases to solve.”
    â€œThis one doesn’t sound so imaginary.” Dunc closed his notebook. “Somebody wants to put a stop to Raunchy Roy and Road Kill. And today they almost put a stop to Roy—permanently.”

• 6
    â€œHow should I word this?” Amos was at his desk trying to compose a letter to Melissa. His plan was to drop the letter and the ticket in her mailbox later that afternoon, ring the doorbell, and run away.
    Dunc was sitting on the floor concentrating on a formula for solving the case. He had chosen the floor because right now it was the safest place in Amos’s room. There were piles of stuff everywhere. Amos’s mom had told him to get his room organized or else plan on living at the YMCA. So he decidedto put everything into piles according to size or possible use. He had a pile of paper wads for shooting at the trash, a pile of dirty socks, a pile of moldy food he was saving for Dunc’s experiment, and several other piles that fell into the category of miscellaneous junk.
    Dunc had to move the dirty jean pile next to the soda can pile before he could sit down. “Why don’t you just tell Melissa that you