The Red Trailer Mystery Read online

  Honey was sleepily buttoning the front of her thin cotton shirt the tail of which she had tucked inside her seersucker shorts. “It’s too hot for a jersey and slacks,” she told Trixie. “I advise you to wear the coolest things you can find, and let’s open all the windows. It’s stifling in here.”

  Trixie slipped into a white playsuit and helped Miss Trask open the windows they had closed during the rain in the night. Then they shut the dogs inside the trailer.

  “One good thing about Reddy,” Trixie said as they hurried over to the hot-dog stand, “is that he won’t try to jump through those screens and follow us. But he did go right through a window once. Remember, Honey?”

  Honey nodded. “I don’t think either of them will try to leave the trailer till we get back. At least I hope not. They’ve caused enough delays as it is.”

  Honey sounded so hot and cross and Miss Trask seemed to be in such a hurry to get started that Trixie decided not to tell them about the sobbing she had heard from the next trailer until later. As she drank her orange juice and ate her cereal, everything seemed so peaceful and quiet in the trailer camp that Trixie began to wonder if perhaps she had dreamed the mysterious conversation she had half listened to the night before.

  When they came out of the hot-dog stand, she saw at once that the red trailer, which only a few minutes ago had been parked beside the Swan, was gone. And bounding across the mud puddles in the rutted road was Reddy, joyfully barking a greeting.

  “Now how did he get out of the trailer?” Honey demanded. “Honestly, Trixie, that dog is more trouble than a dozen puppies.”

  Trixie laughed good-naturedly. “He’s nothing but an overgrown puppy, I guess. I sure hope he didn’t go through a screen. The mosquitoes will eat us alive tonight if he did.”

  Miss Trask frowned as they hurried across the road to the Swan. “I locked the door,” she said, “and it’s still locked. Oh, dear, look. One of the screens has been raised. We must have overlooked it when we opened the windows, Trixie.”

  Trixie stared at the low, screenless window. “I could have sworn they were all shut,” she said thoughtfully. “And they must have been. None of us has had any reason to raise a screen since we started on the trip, and Regan checked them all before we left.”

  “That’s right,” Honey said. “I checked them all myself because one single buzzing mosquito can keep me awake all night.” She followed Miss Trask inside the trailer with Trixie right behind her. “Oh, dear,” she admitted after a quick look around, “Now I’m not sure that either Regan or I did check that little window. We hardly ever open it because it’s so small and it’s so low it just lets in a lot of dust without cooling off the place enough to make it worth while. Wouldn’t you know,” she finished impatiently, “that Reddy would smell out the one open window?”

  Trixie grinned. “How about Buddy? I don’t see any sign of your pup, Honey!”

  Honey’s eyes widened. “Why, that’s true! Now where can he be?”

  She began to whistle and call, but there was no answering bark from the little black cocker spaniel.

  “Oh, dear,” Miss Trask complained. “It was a mistake taking those dogs with us. Another early start ruined!”

  Honey looked as though she were going to cry. “I know something awful has happened to him! He might have got run over by one of those big heavy trailers that left while we were having breakfast.”

  “Don’t even think of such a thing,” Trixie said with quick sympathy. “He’s probably playing with some little boy or girl in the camp. You know how he loves children and how they love him, Honey.”

  But a door-to-door questioning of all their neighbors proved fruitless. Nobody had seen the black puppy. At ten o’clock even Honey gave up.

  “He may have wandered off into the woods,” Miss Trask said finally, glancing at her wrist watch. “If so, he’ll come back when he gets hungry. I’ll leave the Autoville phone number with the proprietor of this camp so he can call us when Buddy does turn up.”

  Honey was trying hard to keep back the tears. “Let’s tack up a reward notice in the cafeteria,” she said. “Then if anyone finds him they’ll be sure to let us know.”

  Trixie, who had been staring down at the mud in front of the Swan, said, “Look at these footprints! They’re too small to be Reddy’s and they go back and forth between here and where the red trailer was parked.” She straightened. “You know what I think? I think Buddy got confused when the Robin left camp. He may have followed the red trailer thinking we were in it and had gone off and left him. Puppies often do that sort of thing, Honey, and Buddy had hardly had time yet to realize that the Swan is his home.”

  Honey immediately brightened. “Then maybe we’ll find him somewhere along the Post Road?”

  “That’s right,” Trixie said comfortingly.

  Miss Trask came back then from talking with the proprietor in the hot-dog stand, and in a few minutes the Swan was on its way again. Trixie and Honey kept their eyes glued to the road, hoping for some sign of the little black puppy. By noon Honey had given up all hope.

  “He’s too little to have traveled this far,” she said mournfully. “Oh, Trixie, I know we’ll never see him again.”

  “Oh, yes, we will,” Trixie said firmly. “You never had a dog before so you don’t understand them. If Bud found he couldn’t keep up with the Robin, he probably turned around and went back to the trailer camp. He may even have gone all the way back home. Dogs are awfully smart about directions, you know.”

  Honey blinked back her tears. “You mean like the dog in Lassie Come Home?”

  Trixie nodded briskly. “That’s one of my favorite books. Do you remember, the collie traveled a thousand miles to get back to her master?”

  “You’re right, Trixie,” Miss Trask said. “When we arrive at Autoville we’ll put through a call to Regan at once. And now let’s decide where we want to have lunch. There’s a picnic ground beside a lake not far from here. Wouldn’t you girls like to take a swim and cool off before we eat?”

  Honey, in spite of her worries about Buddy, enthusiastically agreed to this plan. At the next intersection Miss Trask drove off to the right and up a wooded hill to the public picnic grounds. She parked beside a rustic table flanked by two weather-beaten benches and pointed to a nearby outdoor oven.

  “I’ll roast potatoes while you’re swimming,” she said. “Then you can broil those hamburgers I bought at the hot-dog stand, and toast marshmallows for dessert.”

  “Wonderful,” Honey cried, cheering up at the thought.

  But Trixie wasn’t listening. She was staring across the lake shading her blue eyes from the sun. “Do you see what I see?” she said in a low voice to Honey. “Isn’t that a red trailer over there parked under the trees? Doesn’t it look like the Robin to you?”

  Honey squinted in the direction Trixie was pointing. “Why yes,” she said after a moment. “I’m sure it’s the Robin! Oh, Trixie, maybe they discovered Buddy was following them and picked him up. Let’s go right over and ask them.”

  Miss Trask had disappeared into the woods to gather kindling so the girls called out, “We’ll be right back,” and started along the path that wound around the lake.

  As they hurried toward the other shore, Trixie told Honey about the mysterious conversation she had overheard the night before.

  “And then,” she finished, “there was the awful sound of a man crying, Honey. Do you think they could have kidnaped somebody?”

  “It certainly sounds like it,” Honey said and then stopped. “Look who’s in wading. Isn’t that Sally?”

  The little girl saw them before Trixie could reply and immediately began to wave and splash her way across the lake in their direction.

  “For a little girl who’s not supposed to speak to strangers,” Trixie giggled, “she certainly is friendly.”

  “I wish she’d stay closer to shore,” Honey said nervously. “Lakes have a way of dropping off suddenly from a two-foot depth to—” She
ended in a stifled scream as the child’s head suddenly disappeared under the water as though her body had been sucked down by a deep-sea monster.

  Trixie stood rooted to the spot with horror. Sally would certainly drown if they took the time to run around the lake to the shallow water where she had been wading. The child’s head bobbed up and down again as the thin little arms helplessly flailed the water.

  Trixie started for the lake. There was only one thing to do. They must try to swim across and save the child before it was too late.

  But Honey, several yards ahead of Trixie, had already kicked off her moccasins and was tearing off her shirt as she ran through the water. Then, hitting the deep part of the lake, she began to swim with clean, fast strokes toward the little girl, holding the collar of her shirt in her mouth.

  Trixie, knowing that Honey was a much better swimmer than she was, watched and waited, holding her breath. When Honey got near enough to those pathetic, flailing arms, she seized the collar of her shirt with one hand and threw the tail of it to Sally.

  Sally grabbed and hung on. “Lie on your back and float,” Honey ordered, and the little girl obeyed. It had all happened so quickly she had not had time to become badly frightened, so it was an easy matter for Honey to tow her into shallow water.

  Trixie waded out to meet them and, waist deep, gathered the little girl into her arms. Sally’s face was puckered up as though she were going to cry, but instead she began to laugh. “Daddy taught me how to float,” she said proudly. “But I sort of forgot how until she,” pointing to Honey, “threw me her shirt. I can swim too,” she went on, wriggling away from Trixie and dog-paddling the rest of the way to shore just as though she hadn’t been on the verge of drowning a minute before. “But,” the little girl admitted as she climbed up on the bank again, “I don’t like to swim in deep water.”

  Trixie looked at Honey and laughed. “So that’s all the thanks you get.”

  Honey, in her wet vest and shorts, leaned over to twist the water out of her hair. Then she slipped into her shirt, laughing. “It feels fine to be cold for a change, but I think we’d all better go home and put on dry clothes. Do you feel all right, Sally?”

  But Sally had already started to trot along the path toward the red trailer. “Course I feel all right,” she said over one shoulder. “But I’d better not let Daddy catch me talking to you ’trangers.”

  “You were wonderful, Honey,” Trixie said admiringly as they set off in the opposite direction. “Where did you learn that life-saving trick with a shirt?”

  “At camp,” Honey told her. “And it’s a good one to know about because there’s very little danger of being choked or kicked by the person you’re trying to rescue. Sally is so young I was sure she’d get panicky and grab me around the neck if I got too close. But there was nothing to that rescue as soon as she turned on her back and floated.”

  “I wish I were as level-headed as you,” Trixie said ruefully. “I got so excited I barged right into the lake with my shoes on.” Water sloshed out of her moccasins. “And,” she added, “I wish I could swim as well as you do, Honey.”

  Honey smiled. “If you’d gone to camp as many years as I have, you’d be much better than I am. Look how quickly you learned to ride. Regan thinks you’re the best pupil he ever had. You’ll be riding circles around me soon.”

  Trixie flushed with pleasure. “It’ll be years before I catch up with you and Jim. You’re both marvelous.”

  Honey, embarrassed, quickly changed the subject.

  “That shaggy-haired man couldn’t be too mean a father, Trixie,” she said. “Not if he went to all the trouble of teaching his little girl to float. And she didn’t talk as though she were the least bit afraid of him. I’m beginning to think—” She stopped as they heard footsteps on the path behind them.

  Both girls turned around and there, hurrying after them, was Joeanne, her pigtails flying. Cuddled in her arms, as happy as though he belonged there, was the black cocker spaniel puppy.

  “Buddy!” Honey gasped. “Then he did follow you?”

  Joeanne shook her head soberly as she handed the puppy to Honey. “No. Somehow or other my little sister hid him in the trailer just before we left camp this morning. We didn’t find him till we stopped for lunch. I’m awfully sorry it happened.”

  She turned to go but Honey stopped her with an impulsive gesture. “Oh, don’t be sorry,” she cried generously. “If Sally loves Buddy that much I think she should have him. I can get another dog. Please, take him back to your little sister.”

  Joeanne pulled away and set her shoulders stiffly. “No thank you. Sally should be punished for taking him away from you. You must have been awfully worried about him.”

  “But maybe he followed her inside your trailer,” Honey pointed out. “I don’t think she should be punished. It was our fault for leaving a window open.”

  Joeanne frowned as though she were holding back hot tears. “I don’t think you left a window open,” she said evenly. “I think Sally climbed in your trailer and took him. Anyway,” she finished in a rush of words, “we can’t keep him. We couldn’t afford to feed him.”

  Then before they could stop her, she buried her face in the crook of her arm and stumbled into the woods. Trixie and Honey watched her until she disappeared down a path that wound around the hill and away from where the red trailer was parked.

  Chapter 4

  An Awkward Moment

  The girls put on their bathing suits, took a quick swim in the lake, then dressed in dry playsuits. The roast potatoes Miss Trask had cooked were delicious with the broiled hamburgers and tomatoes. They toasted marshmallows on long sticks and ate so many of them Miss Trask said they would be sick.

  “I can’t get used to Honey’s new appetite,” she told Trixie. “Before she met you she hardly ate a thing.”

  Honey smiled, her mouth too full to speak, and Trixie said, “I wonder what the red trailer family had for lunch. They all look half-starved.”

  “I wish we could do something for them,” Honey said. “I couldn’t bear it when Joeanne stumbled off in the woods crying. What do you suppose makes them so unhappy?”

  “I can’t understand any of it,” Trixie said as she burned the paper plates and wiped the forks with a paper napkin.

  They threw dirt on the dying embers of the fire to make sure it was out, then Miss Trask said, “Why don’t you two ride in the trailer? Perhaps you could take naps. Nobody had much sleep last night.”

  “All right,” Trixie and Honey agreed, and in a few minutes they were ready to start. They had just got the dogs safely inside when they saw the red trailer coming around the lake. It stopped beside the Swan and the shaggy-haired man got out. He walked a few steps toward the girls, then hesitated and turned to go back.

  “Hello,” Honey called. “Can we do anything for you?”

  He wheeled, stared at them for a minute as though trying to make up his mind about something, then came closer.

  “Did you see my little girl?” he asked in a queer, low voice. “The one with the black braids?”

  “Yes,” Honey and Trixie said together. “She brought back the puppy just before lunch.”

  The man nodded. “We haven’t seen her since then. Did you notice where she went?”

  “Through the woods,” Trixie said, pointing. “We wondered why she went off in the opposite direction from where you were parked.”

  The man’s shoulders slumped. “Then she meant what she said,” he sighed, more to himself than to them. “I didn’t think she’d do it.” His face was expressionless, but he let out a groan of despair as he turned and walked slowly back to the Robin. He climbed into the driver’s seat, said something to his wife which they couldn’t hear, and drove away down the road.

  Honey and Trixie stared at each other in amazement. “He’s gone off and left her wandering around in the woods,” she gasped. “Oh, Trixie, what’ll we do?”

  “We can’t do anything,” Trixie said. “We�
�d never find her in those thick woods, especially since it looks as though she doesn’t want to be found!”

  Miss Trask called to them from the tow car. “All aboard, you two! We must get started if we want to reach Autoville before dark.”

  Trixie and Honey climbed aboard the Swan and Honey stretched out on the davenport. Trixie clambered up to her bunk.

  “You watch from your window,” Trixie said. “And I’ll watch from mine. Maybe we’ll pass Joeanne on the road. If she’s run away from her family she may have hidden beside the main highway until she saw the Robin go past. It would be easier walking on the road than through the woods.”

  “But we don’t know which direction she’ll take,” Honey said sadly. “If she goes south we’ll never find her.”

  “Well, she was going north when we saw her last,” Trixie pointed out.

  “Why do you suppose she ran away, if she did?” Honey wondered out loud.

  “The only reason I can think of,” Trixie said after thinking for a minute, “is that her father must be so cruel to her she couldn’t bear it any longer.”

  “I don’t think he is cruel,” Honey broke in. “He didn’t look mean when he asked us if we’d seen her back at the lake. He looked—well, sort of beaten. I felt sorry for him.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” Trixie said briskly. “He had no business driving off and leaving an eleven-year-old girl.”

  “I know,” Honey argued, “but if Joeanne ran away there was nothing else for him to do. You said yourself nobody could find her in those woods.”

  “He could notify the police,” Trixie said. “That’s what our family would do if we ran away and they couldn’t wait for us to come back.”

  “Maybe he did,” Honey said. “Maybe he stopped at the next town.” She looked relieved at the thought. “The state troopers are probably combing the woods for Joeanne right now.”

  “I wish I thought so,” Trixie said. “They’re so wonderful they’d find her right away. But somehow I have a feeling that shaggy-haired man doesn’t want to have anything to do with the police. There’s something mysterious going on inside that trailer. I’m going to keep watching out the window for Joeanne.”