turps | Snowflake Challenge Day 3

Day 3

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I looked at the challenge for today and ran through a few different tv shows I love, but in the end decided to go back to what could probably be said to be my very first fannish beginnings, before I knew what fandom and fic was, even.

I was a huge Hardy Boys fan. I collected all of the books and had a big thing for Joe Hardy. Not an attraction thing as such as I was young at the time, but I thought he was amazing. And okay, I admit it, since then, when I arrived in fandom, I have looked up Hardy Boys slash fic, and I have read Hardy Boys slash fic. I have no shame about this in the slightest. I may have also written what would be my first ever fic totally ripping off the Hardy Boys in my first year senior school English lit class. Not that I knew what fic was then, I just knew they wanted a story and something about characters called Frank and Joe being kidnapped would fit the bill beautifully.

But back to when I was a young Terri. My nanna used to take me to Newcastle every Christmas and birthday to buy a new Hardy Boys book, and I also started to collect them second hand myself. Not-so interesting fact. I have all the books, and the follow up case files stores in my spare bedroom, except for one book I could never find because back in those days the internet didn't exist so I couldn't get my hands on a copy.

Going back to the challenge. The Hardy Boys pretty much formed my h/c love. Frank and Joe were always getting knocked out and bashed up and I ate that up with a spoon, and then there was this.

Frank turned around and went ahead, increasing speed, and snapped on his head lamp. Presently he noticed a slight glitter over the center of the highway. As the reflection grew nearer, alarm coursed through his body.

Strung chest-high across the entire highway was a fine steel-wire net!

It was too late to stop. Frank ducked and closed his eyes, yelling as loudly as he could at the same time. "Joe, look out!"

CHAPTER XI

FRANK swerved to safety an instant before his brother's motorcycle crashed into the glistening wire. Joe flew into the air, as his vehicle twisted and smashed into a tree to which the net was tied.

"Joe!" cried Frank, leaping off his cycle and running to the still form in the roadway. Joe lay unconscious, blood oozing from his head.

Both of Joe's legs were badly bruised, and Frank feared he might have suffered a concussion. Frantically Frank waved down an oncoming car. The driver offered to take Joe to Bayport Hospital. Frank followed on his motorcycle. Joe's motorcycle lay in a tangled heap of gray steel and chrome.

An hour later Frank, Mrs. Hardy, and Aunt Gertrude stood at Joe's bedside in the hospital. A physician watched Joe as he mumbled, moving his head slightly.

"He has had a nasty shock, but he should be coming out of it soon," he reassured the others before stepping quietly from the room. "Just see that Joe gets plenty of rest in the next few days."

After spending the night at the hospital, Joe was moved home. He had a slight limp and wore a large bandage on his head.
"

You don't want to know how many times I read that scene, so often that the book used to flop open at those pages. In fact, it says everything that I've just been able to look the book up online -- the Shore Road Mystery for those that are interested -- download a copy and then pick out that passage within five minutes.

What can I say. Joe Hardy and a head injury was like catnip to the bb!me.

So yes, I blame the Hardy Boys for sparking my h/c obsession. Stupid brothers and their need to investigate mysteries and always get themselves hurt.