The Mystery Off Glen Road Read online

  “We can get some the very first thing from Mr. Lytell,” Trixie said. “He’ll give us neighbors priority.”

  “That’s true,” her father agreed, “and he’s open on Sundays. I think I’ll drive to his store now and buy several gallons.” He started for the kitchen door. “When the boys get back,” he said to his wife, “send them right out for wood and water. Trixie can help by carrying a light for them. I’ll try to buy some flashlight batteries from Mr. Lytell, too.”

  After he had gone, Bobby announced, “I’ll holp. I can carry my very own flashlight, ’cept that there’s only one battery in it. Why do flashlights have to have two batteries, Trix?”

  “I don’t know, Bobby,” Trixie said impatiently. “Ask Brian or Mart. The whole business about electricity is over my head. I don’t even understand what makes an automobile run.”

  “I don’t either,” Mrs. Belden said with a rueful smile.

  “Oh, Moms,” Trixie cried, “you’re forever making our cars run by doing something to the spark plugs with a bobby pin.”

  “I don’t really know what I’m doing though,” Mrs. Belden said. “But Brian does. What he doesn’t know about cars isn’t worth knowing. I’m so glad he has at last earned the money to buy that old car Mr. Lytell wants to sell. If ever a boy deserves to own a car of his own, that boy is Brian Belden.”

  Trixie nodded. “And Tom Delanoy says it’s a wonderful buy at fifty dollars. Mr. Lytell’s jalopy, I mean. If Mr. Lytell sold it to a secondhand dealer, that’s all he’d get, but if Brian wanted to buy it from the dealer, he’d have to pay eighty or a hundred dollars for it. It’s one of the breaks of a lifetime, Tom says.”

  “And Tom knows what he’s talking about,” Mrs. Belden agreed. “He knows as much about cars as Regan does about horses.” She stared out of the kitchen window. “I’m worried about the honeymooners, Trixie. They were driving to Canada, you know. The last thing we heard over the radio before the power failed was that falling trees were making the highways so dangerous that motorists were warned to stay off them.” She lowered her voice. “I’m worried about your father and the boys, too, Trixie, for the same reason. I wish they were safe at home.”

  “Home, down in this hollow,” Trixie agreed, “is the safest place to be. Now that all of the ancient crabapples are gone, I don’t think we’ll lose any more trees, do you, Moms?”

  “I don’t know, Trixie,” her mother replied. “The wind has been rising steadily during the last half hour. Just listen to it! I think we missed the eye of the storm, but we’re going to get the tail end of it. Which can be the very worst of all. You know what I mean, Trixie. You’ve played the game Crack the Whip often enough to know that the last person is the one who gets jerked around the most. If we get the whiplash of the storm, we’re bound to lose some good, sturdy trees.” She sank down on the kitchen stool and covered her pretty face with her hands. “I don’t think I can bear it if we lose our lovely dogwoods and white birches.”

  Trixie swallowed hard. She realized suddenly that she had been very selfish to think only about what might happen to the clubhouse. The same tragedy, on a much, much larger scale, might be happening to the Manor House and to Crabapple Farm. Moms loved all of the trees and shrubs almost as much as she loved her children. She had cared for a great many of them herself from the day that Dad had brought them home from the nearby nursery. And Mr. Wheeler was probably equally worried about his game preserve. Falling trees could wreck in a few minutes all of the bird and animal-feeding stations Mr. Fleagle had erected. And most of the paths were probably blocked now so that nothing could be done in the way of repair work for weeks and weeks.

  At that moment Brian and Mart came in. They had groped their way down from the Manor House with the aid of a flashlight that had very dim batteries, and they looked tired, dirty, and depressed.

  Brian went right to the kitchen sink and turned on the tap with the hope of washing his grimy hands. Nothing came out except a gasping, moist bubble. “Oh,” he said, chagrined, “I forgot that we’re completely dependent upon electricity for light, heat, and water. You can’t even cook, can you, Moms? And I’m starving.”

  “Me, too,” Bobby chimed in.

  “I,” said Mart, “am not starving; I am ravenous.”

  Mrs. Belden laughed. “What on earth happened to all of that delicious food you consumed at the wedding breakfast? But it doesn’t matter. We can cook on top of the kerosene heater and broil chops over the fire in the living-room. Which reminds me. You boys must bring in some wood and water right away.” She turned away from the window and Trixie heard her say to herself, “I hate to have you boys go out in that awful wind but it just can’t be helped.”

  Mr. Belden came back then with a five-gallon can of kerosene and some flashlight batteries. “It sounds worse than it really is,” he said cheerfully. When he and the older boys, with Trixie helping, had brought in a good supply of water, kindling wood, and logs, he said to Brian:

  “Mr. Lytell showed me your jalopy. It’s a good buy, son, and I’m glad you’re going to get it. Unless this storm delays everything, your registration plate should arrive in the mail tomorrow.”

  “And then,” Brian said dreamily, “I can drive my car home. Gosh, I just can’t believe it, Dad. My car. My very own car!”

  “You deserve it,” his father said, placing one hand on Brian’s shoulder. “You started out with two dollars and slowly but surely built it up to fifty. That took courage and perseverance.”

  “It was more than fifty dollars,” Mrs. Belden pointed out, and even in the dim light of the kitchen, Trixie could see that her mother was very proud of Brian. “You’re forgetting that he had to earn the money for the registration plate and the insurance, too, Peter.” She smiled up at her husband. “Do you remember the ancient car we bought for our honeymoon?”

  Mr. Belden roared with laughter. “If only we’d had Brian along to tell us what was wrong with it when it kept breaking down!”

  Brian’s handsome face was flushed with pleasure. “Ah, gee, Dad,” he mumbled, “I’m not that good a mechanic.”

  But he was, Trixie knew, and he had worked very hard to earn the money so that tomorrow he could drive his car home from Mr. Lytell’s store. She began to hope then that the registration plate would arrive, and that the old saying about the men who carried the United States mail was true: Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night can stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

  Chapter 4

  A Box of Toothpicks

  Bobby was the only member of the Belden household who slept well that night. Every hour or so the wind swooped down into the hollow and seized the little white frame house in its teeth. At times it seemed as though the panes would be rattled right out of the windows.

  Trixie dozed fitfully, and every now and then was startled into wide-awakeness by the sound of crashing trees. Around midnight the furiously lashing tail of the storm left that section of the Hudson River Valley and went northward to create more havoc. The temperature rose, and a gentle, soothing rain began to patter on the roof. Trixie slept soundly after that, and when she awoke the sun was streaming through her bedroom window.

  Trixie scrambled out of bed, thinking, Creepers! We’ve all overslept! I’ll bet the school bus has already gone by.

  But just then Bobby came dancing into the room, singing at the top of his lungs:

  “No school today. No school today!”

  “How do you know?” Trixie demanded. “Did the siren blow?”

  He nodded his curly blond head up and down emphatically. “It blewed while I was having dry cereal with so much ’densed milk on it, it wasn’t dry any more.” He made a face. “It was awful gooky stuff, Trix, so I gived it to Reddy. Reddy just ’dored it.”

  Trixie laughed. Any time Bobby was given something to eat which he didn’t like, the Beldens’ beautiful but harum-scarum Irish setter was called in to lick the plate or bowl clean. Moms was the only member of the h
ousehold who was not aware of this scheme, and so she was often amazed when Bobby frequently complained of hunger such a short while after supposedly finishing a huge meal. On those occasions Bobby demanded—and got—thick sandwiches made of bread, butter, peanut butter, and jam. Trixie and her older brothers liked these between-meal snacks as much as Bobby did and they had named the sandwiches the Crabapple Farm Specials.

  Right now Bobby was gripping in both of his plump hands a partially eaten “special” and a great deal of the filling was on his eyebrows, cheeks, and chin. In spite of that, Trixie gave the little boy a big hug. “You’re a fiend, Bobby,” she said, “but you’re so cute. Did you really hear the no-school siren? Are you sure it wasn’t a fire-alarm siren?”

  Bobby crammed a large portion of the “special” into his mouth and said something unintelligible. As though in answer to Trixie’s question, Mart came in then. He was wearing a heavy wool sweater, jeans, high wool socks, and rubberized hunting boots. Trixie suddenly realized that, dressed as she was in nothing but flannel pajamas, she was very cold. Her teeth began to chatter, and she popped back into bed, drawing the covers up to her chin.

  “Go away,” she said to Mart. “If there’s no school today, I may as well sleep some more.”

  “Not so,” he said, and yanked the blankets and comforter from her bed. “Rise and shine, squaw. Or should I say witch? In my humble opinion, you should be burned at the stake.”

  Trixie shivered and donned a warm bathrobe. “I can’t think of anything more pleasant,” she said. “The sooner and closer I can get to a roaring fire, the happier I’ll be. But why do you say I’m a witch?”

  He sat on the foot of her bed and pulled Bobby onto his lap. “Because your dire predictions of yesterday have come true. Or should I say, maledictions?”

  “Oh, stop asking me silly questions,” Trixie cried impatiently. “Try to speak in words of one syllable, Mart. What’s happened?”

  Mart didn’t say anything for a long minute. Trixie stared at him and now she could see that although he had been talking lightly the expression on his face was one of abject misery. “Mart,” she cried again, “what’s happened?”

  He buried his face in Bobby’s plump neck and said in a muffled voice, “The clubhouse. It’s not exactly a box of toothpicks, but a near thing.”

  “Oh, no,” Trixie moaned, pulling a blanket over her knees. “The blue spruce—?”

  Mart nodded. “It wasn’t completely uprooted, thank heavens, but it gave the roof an awful beating and tore out the whole back wall. The rain didn’t help matters either. Everything is soaked.”

  Trixie was too horrified to speak, but Bobby squirmed away from Mart and began to chant:

  “I want to see. Hey! I want to see. Is there a great big ’normous hole in the roof, Mart? As big as the hole in my panda’s head?”

  “Yes,” Mart said sadly. “Relatively speaking, the storm scalped our clubhouse as efficiently as you scalped your panda.” He turned to Trixie. “Brian’s down there with Jim and Honey now. Jim says it’ll cost fifty bucks to fix the roof and the wall. And not one of us, except Brian, has a dime.”

  “Brian hasn’t got a dime either,” Trixie said staunchly. “That money he saved really belongs to Mr. Lytell. For the jalopy, you know.”

  “I know,” Mart admitted, “but Brian feels differently now. You know how Brian is. ‘United we stand; divided we fall.’ E pluribus unum, and all that sort of stuff. Sickening, but true. How unselfish can you get, we all kept asking him!”

  Trixie swallowed hard. “Jim and Brian are sickening,” she finally got out. “They are always so honorable all over the place. It gets dull.” She scrambled to her feet. “Anyway, Mart, Brian has just got to buy that jalopy. No matter what he says, we Bob-Whites can’t touch a penny of his money.”

  “I got money,” Bobby chanted. “I got five pennies.” He reached into the pocket of his overalls and produced three very dull pennies. After counting them carefully in a loud, surprised voice, he shouted, “Hey! I losted two whole cents. Do you s’pose there’s a hole in my pocket?”

  “No,” Trixie said firmly. “You know perfectly well that Dad pays Honey for keeping you in pockets and shoulder straps. You lost that money because you’re forever turning somersaults. Now run along, Bobby. When Moms empties the vacuum cleaner bag she’ll find your pennies.”

  He raced off, and Mart said to Trixie, “Get dressed and meet us at the Manor House soon as you can. We’re invited to a breakfast of yesterday’s leftovers on the veranda.”

  “Yummy-yum,” Trixie said hungrily. “But what about our chores? We can’t leave Moms—”

  “There are no chores,” Mart interrupted. “The phone’s working now, and the electric company says the current will be turned on early this afternoon. Until that happens, Moms says there’s no sense in doing anything in the way of chores.”

  “Thank goodness our mother is such a good sport,” said Trixie. “I couldn’t possibly dust without the vacuum because when the wind roared down the chimney it blew ashes all over the floors and furniture, an inch thick. And it’ll be much easier to wash all of the dishes at once when we have hot water again.”

  Mart started for the door. “Moms is a good sport,” he said, “so I guess we can’t blame Brian for being one, too. It sort of runs in the family. Present company excluded, of course.” He chuckled and disappeared down the hall.

  Trixie donned dungarees, a warm sweater, wool socks, and sneakers. She hurried downstairs and out to the back terrace where she found her parents and Bobby.

  “No school today for me either,” Mr. Belden said cheerfully. “Even if the bank weren’t closed on account of the current failure, I couldn’t get into the village without wings. There are huge trees blocking every one of the roads.”

  “But,” Mrs. Belden put in, “the repair crews have been working since midnight so everything will be back to normal soon. Run along, dear,” she added to Trixie, “and have fun. As soon as we have electricity we’re both going to have to work like beavers.”

  Trixie gratefully scampered off up the path to the Manor House. The other Bob-Whites were on the veranda munching large turkey sandwiches. They all looked so dismal that Trixie couldn’t help greeting them with:

  “Yesterday was a wedding; today there’s a wake.”

  “If you’re referring to the wake of the storm,” Jim said sourly, “you’re right.” He moved closer to Honey to make room for Trixie on the glider. “Here I am, loaded with money, but I can’t get hold of a cent until Dad comes back from Florida.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Jim,” Brian exploded, “don’t start all that again. Sure, we all know that you’re rich, but you inherited that money. Why do you keep on forgetting that the rule of our club is that we can’t use any money that one of us didn’t earn?”

  Jim grinned. “I’m not forgetting, Brian, old boy. But the money you want to donate, you earned for the purpose of buying a car. Not for the purpose of repairing one slightly wrecked clubhouse.”

  “That’s right,” Honey said. “Brian’s just got to have that car. When Daddy realizes that it was our clubhouse that kept the blue spruce from being blown to the ground and uprooted, he’ll give us all the money we want for fixing it up. The clubhouse, I mean. Not the spruce.” She jumped up. “I’m going to borrow the money from Miss Trask right now and stop all this silly arguing.”

  Gently Jim pulled her back down beside him. “You’ll do nothing of the kind, little stepsister,” he said.

  “I’m not your stepsister!”

  Trixie could tell that kindhearted Honey was very close to tears. Trixie herself felt like crying. They couldn’t accept the money which Brian had saved for his jalopy, and yet what else could they do?

  “I’m your very own full-blooded adopted sister,” Honey was storming. As usual, when she was on the verge of tears, she wasn’t making much sense. “What I mean is,” she told Jim, “when we formed our club we decided that we’d all be brothers and
sisters. One big family was what we said, so—”

  “Exactly,” Brian interrupted quietly. “So, Honey, my fifty bucks belongs to all of us. A jalopy wouldn’t do all of us any good because I’m the only one who has a junior driver’s license.” He started for the French doors to the study where the phone was. “I’m going to call up and order the wood and shingles we’ll need right now. A lot of homes were damaged by that storm. If we don’t get our little order in right away, it may be months before we get any supplies. What with snow and sleet—” He shrugged, went inside, and closed the doors behind him.

  “Well, that’s that,” Mart said. “Mr. Lytell said he’d only hold the car until next Saturday. Even if all of us could get fabulously high-paying jobs for working after school between now and then, we couldn’t earn fifty smackers.”

  “We could rob a bank,” Honey suggested tearfully. “In fact, I think I will. All by myself. I’ll use Bobby’s water pistol. It’s been done before, according to what I’ve read in the newspapers.”

  “Oh, fine,” Jim said sarcastically. “Then we’ll have to raise bail in order to get you out of jail.”

  “This is no time for rhymes,” Trixie interrupted. “I have a plan which makes sense.”

  Mart covered his face with both hands. “Oh, no, Sis, not one of those. We’ll all end in jail.”

  “That’s right,” Jim agreed. “Every time Trixie even thinks, we all get involved in a mystery—”

  “Which,” Honey put in emphatically, “Trixie always seems to solve along with our problems. I think we ought to listen to her plan. Since you won’t let me borrow the money from Miss Trask or rob a bank—”

  Brian came back then, and Trixie said quickly, “Borrowing from Miss Trask is what gave me the idea. Mr. Fleagle is quitting, isn’t he?”

  “That’s right,” Jim said. “He left bag and baggage last evening during the lull in the storm.”

  “Well,” Trixie continued, “what’s to prevent us from taking over his job? For a week, anyway, until Miss Trask and Regan can hire another gamekeeper.”