The Birthday Mystery
Disclaimer: With much regret I must say/I don't own the Bob-Whites in any way/If I did, then you would know/'Cause I'd shout the news from here to Idaho
Apology: Sorry for the repulsive poem. I still don't own Trixie Belden or any related characters.
Rating: This story is rated K+ for very mild language and very mild violence in some chapters.
Character Portrayal: The characters have been tweaked slightly—you know, just so that they can fit into the 21st century comfortably and without the Big Strong Men types having to rescue the girls all the time, and other such stuff. If anyone seems too OOC, however, that's probably because I haven't read the books in a couple of years and I'm writing this from memories of characters/places, etc.
Romance: Although (depending on how you read it) there might be one or two suggestions that Dan has a crush on Trixie and that Jim isn't all that happy about it, that's as far as the romance gets in this story.
Chapter One
Saturday, April 17
"Hey, Danno," Mart greeted his wood-chopping friend.
Dan whipped his head around to look in surprise at the blonde. He let out a sigh. "Geez, Mart, don't you know that it's not a good idea to startle someone with an axe?"
"My apologies," said Mart cheerfully.
Turning back to the piece of wood he was about to chop in half, he remarked semi-cheerfully that Belden did not sound sincere. "What do you want?"
"Daniel, I'm hurt! Why do you assume that I want something?"
Dan halved the wood and looked again to Mart. "It was just an expression. But now I'm suspicious. So what do you want?"
"Nothing, actually. I just came to inform you that we have decided upon the gifts that we intend to bestow upon my feminine sibling and, with your approval, we shall purchase said gifts."
"Would it really hurt you so much to speak like a normal person?"
"I am supernormal."
"I'd say subnormal but, you know, whatever." He put another piece of wood on the tree stump and halved it before asking, "So what are we getting Trixie?"
"Well, with everybody chipping in, our funds amount to fifty-five dollars. We're going to buy her three Lucy Radcliffe books—the nice-looking hardcover ones, since the paperback ones look kind of cheap and ugly."
"Sounds good."
"Oh, and we're giving her something else, too."
Silence.
More silence.
"This is where you want me to look like I'm dying of curiosity and ask you what it is, right?"
"Pretty much. But, my unenthusiastic compadre, I'll just tell you, anyway. We're giving her a mystery."
Dan raised one eyebrow quizzically, then asked in a suspicious tone, "Have you been exploring eBay again?"
"Nope. We're going to think up some kind of mystery for her to solve. Buried treasure—disappearing something-or-other—suspicious behavior—something like that. The Bob-Whites shall convene at the clubhouse at 1400 hours to discuss this mystery in further detail."
"If you're trying to confuse me, it's not working this time," Dan grinned triumphantly. "I'm up on my military timekeeping. Two o'clock, right?"
Mart nodded. "Felicitations, mein freund. Can you make it?"
Dan glanced at his watch. "I might be a little late but I'll come, soon as I'm finished my chores."
"Roger that. Want any help?"
"Nah, I've got it covered. Thanks."
"So, any mysterious ideas?" asked Jim of the other four Bob-Whites present in the clubhouse at two o'clock.
"I suppose a murder is out of the question," Mart joked.
"Yes," Brian said dryly, "unless you'd care to volunteer for the part of the corpse."
Diana giggled and Honey suggested, "How about a robbery? Then we can let Trixie have some fun chasing around a mysterious thief once or twice."
"It's kind of warm," Jim remarked.
"Short chases."
"Okay," Brian conceded. He shrugged to Jim, "She'd probably like 'the thrill of the chase', anyway. We'll make sure she stays hydrated."
"But what priceless possession will be purloined?" Mart queried.
"THE BOOKS!" Diana all but shrieked.
Everybody stared at her, some of them wincing at her high-pitched exclamation, others silently questioning her sanity.
Diana blushed and clarified, "The Lucy Radcliffe books we're going to give her. We can put them in a box and have the pretend-thief steal the box, so when she eventually catches the thief she can find her presents in the stolen box."
This idea was met with a chorus of approval.
"That's a great idea, Di," Brian nodded. He teased with a poorly hidden smile, "But I don't think it was exactly scream-worthy."
Mart thought that Diana's face might explode if it turned any redder, so he decided to save that pretty face by switching the subject back to the mystery at hand. "If it's a robbery," he said, "who's going to get robbed? Any volunteers?"
"How about Diana?" Honey suggested. "If we have the robbery at her house, Trixie can chase the thief down to the Manor House stables. It's not exactly a short run, but it isn't exactly long, either."
"How about it?" Jim asked Diana. "Feeling up to being robbed?"
Diana grinned, nodding. She said excitedly, "Real mysteries can be kind of scary, but this one is fun! I'll be a good victim, I promise. I'll scream and be panic-stricken and everything!"
"That's the spirit!" Mart said, punching the air with his fist.
"So Diana gets robbed," Honey murmured, evidently thinking out a plan as she spoke, "and the thief darts out the back door of her house, carrying the box. The thief runs toward the stables—"
"And keeps Trixie far enough behind that he or she can pause at the lake to catch his or her breath," Jim suggested. "We don't want Trixie or the thief getting overheated."
"Well, the thief might have to put up with being a little uncomfortable," Brian pointed out. "We can't just have him—we'll say it's a him—running around in a T-shirt and shorts. Trixie would recognize him in a second."
"How about that coat of yours, Jim? That pea coat that Trixie's never seen?" Honey asked. "Even if you're not the thief, it's big enough that it'll cover the thief enough to keep Trixie from immediately knowing who it is."
"Pea coat?" Diana wondered.
Jim explained, "It's a Navy jacket. Kind of like what you might picture on a salty sea captain. Mine's black, though."
"Black's nice and mysterious," remarked Di.
"A mysterious coat for a mysterious stranger," Mart grinned. "How about some sunglasses for our stranger? Nice big ones to mysteriously cover his face."
"That should do it," Brian nodded. "So what happens once the mysterious stranger-slash-box thief makes it to the stables?"
"Ooh, let's get Regan in on it!" urged Honey. "If the thief stays far enough ahead, we can have Regan let him into his apartment, and the thief can hide out up there while Trixie investigates the stables."
"Sounds good to me," Jim said. "We should probably tell everybody except for Trixie about the mystery, so they don't accidentally step in at an embarrassing moment and ruin the whole thing."
"Everybody except for Bobby and my brothers and sisters," Diana corrected. "They'd march straight up to her and tell her all about it."
"Okay, we'll make sure that everyone who should be in on it, is in on it," Brian said. "But before we get any farther, we should probably decide: who'll be our 'mysterious stranger'?"
"Someone who runs fast," Honey suggested. "We don't want Trixie to just pounce on the 'stranger' and end the mystery right away."
Jim replied, "Agreed. You're pretty fast, Honey, but you hang out with Trixie so much that she'll think it's weird if you suddenly aren't with her anymore. So I guess that takes you out of the running." He grinned. "Literally and figuratively."
"And I can't run for very long," Diana piped up. "Count me out. Please?"
Brian nodded. "You'll have to stay in your house and scream about the box being stolen, anyway. You're the victim, remember?"
"Oh, right," Diana said sheepishly.
Brian was about to ask for a volunteer when the clubhouse door opened and Dan stepped inside.
"Man, it's like July out there!" he exclaimed, shutting the door. "Awesome—the fan's working!" Dan was just about to go over to stand in front of the fan for a few moments when he noticed that Mart was grinning at him.
"Uh, Mart? What's with the Cheshire Cat look?"
"Ladies and gentlemen," Mart announced to the other Bob-Whites. He made a sweeping gesture in Dan's direction. "Our mysterious stranger."
Dan stared blankly at Mart and then at everybody else, since they'd started grinning, too.
"Your what?" he asked.
"We were trying to figure out the mystery that we're giving Trixie for her birthday," Honey explained, still smiling broadly. She summarized the agreed-upon mystery as it stood for the moment.
"And thus," concluded Mart, "we applaud your contribution to our mystifying endeavors, mysterious stranger."
Dan blinked. "Ooookay… so let me get this straight. You want me to let Trixie chase me around the woods a few times—in ninety-degree weather—while I'm wearing a coat—in ninety-degree weather—and carrying a box of hardcover books—in ninety-degree weather."
Brian scratched the top of his head. "Well… yes."
"ARE YOU NUTS?!"
Everybody looked to the door as it once again opened, this time admitting Trixie Belden to the clubhouse. She'd apparently heard Dan's shout and noticed his agitated appearance, because she immediately asked, "What happened?"
The others shot concerned looks at each other and Mart was about to chime in with an excuse for the newly-appointed "thief" when Dan said, "Uh, Brian was just telling me that… Peter Pan was played by a girl in that movie we watched last night."
Trixie raised an eyebrow. "You mean you didn't notice?"
"Uh, no…."
"Not even when the credits went by, saying that Peter was played by Mary Martin?"
Jim pinched the bridge of his nose and Honey cast a worried look in Dan's direction.
"I, uh… don't usually read the credits," Dan said with a nervous chuckle.
Trixie's blue eyes stared suspiciously into Dan's black ones for several nail-biting moments. At long last, she shrugged. "Well, okay, I guess. If you say so."
Several breaths were quietly released in relief. Trixie took the seat next to Honey, and Dan sat down beside Mart, who whispered to him, "Brother, that was a lame excuse of an excuse."
"It worked, didn't it?"
Mart was "compelled to acknowledge the veracity of that proclamation".
Dan had to try very hard to not whack Mart upside the head.
Mart lamented how everybody misunderstood his genius with words.
Dan stopped trying and bonked him on the bean with a pencil case.
Trixie snorted at this and asked, "Are you guys sure you're friends?"
"What?" Dan retorted. "It's not like you and me don't always argue."
"We don't always argue."
"Yeah, we do."
"Do not!"
They bickered on, tossing variations of 'do not' and 'do so' back and forth until Jim cut in, "I hate to interrupt this intelligent conversation, Trixie, but you do realize that you're proving his point, don't you?"
Trixie's jaw went slack for a moment before she started moving her mouth wordlessly. When she finally regained the power of speech, she used it to say to Dan, "Stop smiling!"
Constructive criticism is always welcome! (I won't necessarily heed your advice, but it's still welcome.)
This story will sort of be in two parts. Part one will focus more on the BWGs other than Trixie, and part two will be Trixie-centric. I'll let you know when the second part starts. (Dan will play a moderately significant role in this story because I felt the poor schmuck didn't get enough attention in the books.)
Thanks for reading!
