The Birthday Mystery

Disclaimer: I don't own Trixie Belden or any related characters or objects. (Please note how I didn't make you suffer through another poem.)

Reviews: Well, I must say I am dumbfounded and flabbergasted that Chapter One got as many reviews as it did. I was a bit concerned about how "Part One" turned out (I haven't finished writing Part Two yet), so it was a pleasant surprise. Thank you! Now please enjoy your weekly update with:

Chapter Two

Sunday, April 18

Last night, Brian and Mart had told their parents about the birthday mystery that they and the other BWGs were planning for Trixie. Mr. and Mrs. Belden thought it was a marvelous idea: Trixie could finally solve a case without having her parents fall victim to stress-induced heart attacks in the process.

Therefore, they naturally wanted to help out however they could. The plotting Bob-Whites took up Mrs. Belden's offer of assistance that very Sunday, asking her to keep Trixie out of the way for a few hours so they could finish planning the mystery without interruption. Moms accordingly persuaded (read: gently but firmly ordered) Trixie to accompany her and Bobby on a shopping trip in the afternoon.

Since the clubhouse's lone fan had died its long-anticipated death at the end of yesterday's meeting, the six club members hoped to catch a breeze by sitting outside, under the crabapple trees on the Beldens' property.

"Okay, before we even get to the actual mystery-planning," Dan began, "I just want to say that I'm not lugging around a box of books while trying to outrun Trixie. It's impossible. And doing it with the coat on would make me pass out from heatstroke." He smirked. "Fun way to end a mystery, no?"

"We can't help the coat, because Trixie would recognize you too easily without something covering you up," Brian said, "but you're right about the box. You can carry an empty box and pretend that it's heavy."

Dan considered insisting on the coat issue (Why not a rain poncho?) but decided that, considering he had yet to contribute to the planning of the mystery, he might as well suck it up and do the physical stuff. (Better yet, he could do some whining about it, which might be fun.)

"Just try to pace yourself," Jim urged Dan. "Now, we need to figure out what happens after Sticky-Hands Dan gets to the stables."

Diana giggled at the nickname, Dan grinned, and Mart suggested, "Why don't we rewind a little. While Ol' Sticky-Hands is catching his breath by the lake, he can drop a piece of paper with a place and a time on it. Trixie, if she's any kind of detective, will notice the paper, read it, and go to the appointed place."

"Sounds like an idea," Honey beamed. "How about Mr. Maypenny's cabin? We all know it's perfectly safe, but it's far enough from Crabapple Farm and Manor House to seem semi-mysterious."

"Let's make it for Saturday afternoon," suggested Brian. "That way Trixie can dive straight into spring break week with a mystery to keep her occupied. Someone can dress up and have some sort of covert meeting with Sticky-Hands for her to spy on."

"How about Brains Belden?" Dan said, lightly punching the oldest Bob-White in the shoulder and muttering "not you" at Mart. "You'll be the brains of the outfit and give me instructions on what to do with the box. We can just split up and run like heck if Trixie decides to leap into the action instead of spying on us."

Diana made a face. "Wait… does this mean we all have to have dorky codenames?"

"Only us people with secret identities," Dan reassured her. "You're still Diana, and I think Honey's still Honey. I don't know what Mart and Jim are gonna do." He teased with a smirk, "Maybe they won't do anything: lazy bums are leaving it all to the rest of us."

"We'll do something, I swear," Jim insisted. "We just can't cram everything in at once."

Brian put in, "After we see how the afternoon meeting goes, we'll meet in the evening to decide what to do next. We can plan the mystery a little bit at a time so we can make sure everything fits in with Trixie's reaction. Sound good to you guys?"

Everybody nodded, and Jim declared, "Meeting adjourned, then."


Friday after school, April 23, Diana Lynch's room

"Remind me, why do I gotta be the mysterious stranger?" Dan asked, bending over to make sure his shoelaces were tied tightly.

"Because you have black hair and black hair is mysterious-looking," suggested Diana.

He straightened up and put his hands on his hips. "Then you go."

"I can't—I have to be robbed. Besides, I can't run fast enough," she protested. "The mystery person has to be able to outrun Trixie."

"Then Mart can go. He's always bragging about how fast he is."

"Then we'd lose the mysterious black hair."

"Make him wear a black beanie."

Diana giggled. "Beanies aren't mysterious, Dan."

"Yeah, they are!" Dan started gesturing wildly and joking, "Write 'FBI' on the side of it and it'll be plenty mysterious. 'The Mystery of the FBI Man in Sleepyside': why is he here? Why does he run away from short blond girls? Loads of burning questions! Come onnn!"

Diana, still looking amused, shook her head. "We've already worked out a lot of the mystery—no room for random FBI men in part one. Now put on the coat, already, or you'll be late." She walked over to her window and peered outside. "Hurry up! I think I see them."

Dan, grinning slightly, gave a mock sigh of resignation as he pulled on the black pea coat that Jim had loaned/forced upon him. He was going to button it up when he realized something. "Uh, Di?"

"What?" she asked, eyes glued on the two small figures in the distance.

"Is it mysterious to have your hands almost totally covered by your coat's sleeves?"

She finally turned to look and her mouth dropped open. "Oh, no! How are you going to hold on to the mysterious package?!"

"Uh… let me see." Dan pulled up the sleeves, but they fell right back down again. "Well, can't do much without my hands. Help me roll this thing up—quick."

Diana hustled over and helpfully rolled up his left coat sleeve. As she was fixing the right sleeve, however, the left one seemed to threaten to come undone at any second. Once she was finished with the second sleeve, she decided, "I'll grab a couple of safety pins."

"Fine, but it better be fast—I wanna get a few seconds ahead of Trix before she starts chasing me."

Diana hastily retrieved the pins from her desk drawer and returned to fasten the sleeves near Dan's wrists.

"There. That should hold." While he buttoned up the coat, she grabbed the bottle of water she'd put on her desk earlier and handed it to him. "Here. Brian says you need to stay hydrated, so take a drink before you go."

Dan unscrewed the cap and swallowed a good amount of water. After handing the bottle back to her, he put on the large sunglasses and turned up the collar of the coat. He picked up the box and muttered, "Seriously, though. This is so stupid."

"You'll be fine," Diana said reassuringly. "Remember: if you start feeling too bad, just stop running. We'd prefer ruining the mystery to making you sick."

"How considerate."

She slapped his arm lightly. "Don't whine. You'd do anything for Trixie and you know it."

"Sure. But that don't mean I won't complain about it first." He shifted the box slightly in his grasp. "Are you sure she won't recognize me?"

"Absolutely. I hardly recognize you."

"Liar."

"Yup, but I already know it's you, anyway, so I don't count."

"I didn't ask if you recognized me—I asked if she'd—"

"They're almost here! Go!" She opened her bedroom door and Dan promptly sprinted out.

Closing her eyes, she counted, "One chimpanzee… two chimpanzee… three chimpanzee," and then ran after him. She didn't see him until she got to the back door of the house, where he was fiddling with the doorknob.

"What are you still doing here?" cried Diana. "You're supposed to be out of here by now!"

Dan turned an irritated face to her. "Well, excuse me for not walking through walls! The door's locked!"

"Locked? Then unlock it!"

"It's jammed!"

"Keep trying!"

"I don't have time to keep trying!" he exclaimed, even as he rattled the knob and fiddled with the locking mechanism one more time. "Quick, help me open a window!"


Honey had been worried that she would not look surprised enough when Dan bolted out of the Lynch home, but she need not have been concerned: she looked genuinely stunned when a black-clad figure vaulted out of the window by the back door, stumbled a bit as he tried not to drop the box in his hands, and darted toward the woods.

She and Trixie were still a fairly reasonable distance from Diana's house when Dan made his escape. This was mainly thanks to Honey, who had managed to stall a bit in the interest of giving 'Sticky-Hands' a good head start in fleeing from Trixie, who was very fast when she was determined to catch something—or someone.

A scream came from the window and Trixie, whose eyes had been following the escapee in bewilderment, snapped her attention to Diana. The Lynch girl leaned out the window and yelled, "Stop! You can't take that! Help!"

Trixie, as expected, immediately dashed forward to give chase to the box thief.

Honey took a deep breath and called, "Trixie, come back! It might be dangerous!" She started running quickly (but not too quickly) after her friend.

"Hey! You!" Trixie shouted to her target. "Give that back!"

Her prey paid no heed to this demand, instead running deeper into the woods and veering off to the left, on the path that led to the Wheelers' preserve.

"It's not yours!" Trixie continued yelling, narrowly preventing herself from falling after tripping over a rock in the path. "Don't be a moron!"

But the box thief evidently wanted to be a moron, because he kept running all the way to the Wheeler lake, where he stopped to catch his breath. He glanced back at Trixie and, noticing that she was getting awfully close, ran off again—after 'accidentally' dropping a slip of paper. Trixie noticed this and snatched up the paper before continuing the chase.

"Hey, you dropped this! Hey! Drop the box, too!"

Dan barely managed to keep from laughing at this as he ran along the last leg of his trip. The stables were in sight when Trixie again called, sounding a bit out of breath, "Aren't you hot, running in that coat? Regan! Regan!"

Regan, in the stables, peeked discreetly out the window and (seeing Dan running from Trixie) hurriedly mounted the stairs to his apartment and opened the door. He waited, holding it open as Dan stampeded into the stables and barreled up the stairs. Once his nephew was safely in the apartment, Regan slammed the door shut and went back down to the stables to greet Trixie.

"I thought I heard you shouting about something," Regan remarked as Trixie peered searchingly into the stalls. "What's going on?"

"Regan! There's some guy and he's kind of short and wearing a coat, which is weird since it's really hot, and he stole something from Di and he came in here and he's wearing sunglasses, too, and he looks like he's got a wig on and have you seen him and can I have a drink since I've been running forever?"

After taking a moment to figure out what Trixie was trying to say, Regan said, "I was upstairs, so I didn't see anything in the stables. But I can hear what goes on down here pretty well, and I didn't hear anybody but you." He shrugged. "We can look around if you want, though. Get some water from the cooler and I'll start looking for your mystery man."

Trixie went over to the water cooler that Mr. Wheeler had recently purchased for the stables and, after she'd gulped down two cups' worth of water, tossed out the paper cup and renewed her search.

"So what did this guy steal?" Regan asked.

"A box of—of—well, it's a box. About this big." She motioned with her hands.

"Okay. Well, I can't find anything, Trixie. Are you sure he came in here?"

"Absolutely, one hundred percent, completely and totally sure! I mean, how could I not notice where he went? He had this huge black coat on the whole time I was chasing him! He must've stopped somewhere around here, anyway, or else he'll collapse from heat exhaustion or something!"

She and Regan turned their heads to look at the entrance, where Honey now stood, panting a bit.

"Trix… did you…?"

Trixie's curls bounced as she shook her head ruefully. "I lost him. He just vanished! Oh, but he dropped this near the lake." She pulled a piece of notebook paper out of her pocket and the other two stood by her to read the torn note:

3:30 Sat

Mayp

Honey frowned. "What's a 'Mayp'?"

"It's ripped, see?" Trixie said. "I bet it's supposed to be 'Maypenny'!"

"What would Mr. Maypenny have to do with this guy?" Regan asked.

"I don't know," replied Trixie, "but 'Maypenny' is the only word that makes any kind of sense, so that must be it. And Saturday—that's tomorrow!" She furrowed her brow. "I wonder if it's three-thirty A.M. or three-thirty P.M."

"Well, I'm sure your parents wouldn't want you investigating things at three in the morning," Regan said firmly. "I'll just tell Mr. Maypenny to keep on the alert."

Trixie looked slightly disappointed, as she realized that Regan was right, but said, "Fine, but if it's three in the afternoon, I'm going to be there!" She pushed the paper back into her jeans pocket and told Honey, "We'd better go tell Di that we couldn't get her box back. Then we can go tell Mr. Maypenny about the note for you, Regan."

"And you can do all that on horseback. Susie and Strawberry could use the exercise."

Trixie grinned and, as she, Honey, and Regan started saddling the horses, said, "This is great! There's a mystery just in time for my birthday! It's like an early present!"

Regan and Honey looked at each other and tried not to grin too broadly.

"I mean, I'm not happy that something was stolen from Diana, but… it'll be fun getting it back for her." She nodded resolutely and took the reins to lead Susie out of the stables. Honey followed, leading Strawberry.

As soon as Trixie and Honey were almost out of sight and he could be certain that they wouldn't suddenly turn around for anything, Regan returned upstairs to his apartment. He shut the door and looked to the couch, where Dan was sitting down, slouching as he drank from a large glass of water. The black coat and sunglasses were strewn over the armchair, on top of the box.

"So how's the box thief doing?" Regan asked, taking a seat next to his nephew.

"A little sweaty and totally pooped, but not bad." He glanced over at him. "Did Trixie think it was me?"

"I don't think so. She described a coat-wearing weirdo with sunglasses and a wig."

"A wig?!" Dan, suddenly looking much more energetic, leapt up and ran to the bathroom and the nearest mirror.

Regan laughed. "Relax! It's probably because the way you had your collar turned up made your hair stick out at funny angles!"

Dan returned and fell back into the couch.

The redhead grinned. "But just in case…."

"Ow!" Dan glared at his uncle. "What're you pulling my hair for?"

"Just checking. Trixie's a bright kid: she could've been right about the wig."

"You're a comedian—you know that, right?" He stood up. "I'd better get going. I still have homework."

"Want a ride? You can take Starlight and I'll go with you on Jupiter, and I'll take them both back with me."

"That'd be good. But no way am I putting that coat back on so soon. Got a bag or something I can keep it in?"

"How about a garbage bag?"

"That'll do. Maybe I can use it to bury your body in, too." He pointed at his own hair. "A wig, huh?"

Regan laughed. "Well, let's get a move on. If we hurry, you can murder me and I'll still get back in time to finish work before nightfall."


Thanks for reading!