Chapter: 15
The Sinister Circle
As Mr. Belden hurried from the conference room, Honey jumped from her chair and ran to the whiteboard. "But Mr. Lynch, you can't!" she cried, grabbing the man's arm. "It's like Jim told you. Daddy and Mr. Brandio need those buildings. Won't you reconsider? They're only trying to help the people of Sleepyside by giving them jobs!"
"Easy now, young lady," Mr. Lynch chuckled. "I just got off the phone with your father. And we've struck a little deal. I have agreed to buy the property from International Pine and then lease it back to your father and Mr. Brandio."
"Mr. Banks and Mr. Turner will have no problem taking my money," he added assuredly, as Honey let out a big sigh of relief and rejoined her friends at the conference table. "This will allow your father to come forward as Mr. Brandio's partner, which will hopefully restore some of your family's standing within the community. I imagine it's been difficult for you and your brother lately?"
"Yes, Sir, it certainly has," Jim replied quietly, doodling on his paper. "And Honey and I want to thank you for what you're about to do. But what are you getting out of this arrangement, if you don't mind my asking, Mr. Lynch?" The serious young man had put down his pen and was now looking the gentleman straight in the eye.
Mr. Lynch smiled as he uncapped his red marker and then circled "Crop Circle Tours" on the board. "Jim, my boy," the robust man said. "Your mother and father, in turn, have consented to 'donate' the crop circle and public access to the town of Sleepyside. Once the circle is gone, if public interest remains, we will set up a historical marker and a small picnic area at the site."
As the Bob-Whites cheered and clapped, their cordial host beeped for his secretary. "Connie," he said, "I'm about to wrap up things with the kids. Please have my limo driver waiting in half an hour. Advise him that we'll have a few stops to make before the session with the council. I'll send you the agenda momentarily."
Trixie was never so glad to see Mart Belden go. And that was a bold statement. Brian had dropped the boy off at the foot of Mr. Sanderson's drive. And the instant the irritating nuisance was out of the car, his victimized sister reach for the radio and turned down the volume a few notches. Her middle brother had insisted on blaring the music on their trip back from town, and even now, her ears were ringing.
Mart had also mandated that she ride in front, squeezed flat as a pancake between him and Brian. At least now Trixie had some breathing room. Not that the stifling air that had flooded the car with the door's opening was well received by her lungs. But her nose liked it, as it provided a wee bit of relief from the manly freshness radiating from the space next to hers.
While the Bob-Whites had been in their meeting, Sleepyside and the surrounding countryside had been drenched in a downpour of rain. The precipitation had been badly needed. But in reality, it'd done more to raise the already high humidity level than it had to relieve the drought-stricken area.
Even now, steam was rising off the metal roof of the old farmer's barn. And a thick foggy haze was hanging in his fields. It was spooky, almost, and Trixie shuddered.
"Would you like me to turn down the air?" Brian asked as he noticed her shiver and pointed the Jalopy toward the game preserve to drop off Dan next.
"No, the temperatures fine," she replied with a little chuckle. "There for a moment, I thought I saw Mr. Maypenny's mowing devil dancing through Mr. Sanderson's crops, and it gave me goosebumps. It's almost eerie out here today, for some reason? Maybe it's the grey clouds this afternoon."
Dan laughed. "I wouldn't tell Mr. Maypenny you saw the devil playing around," he said. "He might not go along with Mr. Lynch and Mr. Wheeler's plan to open the crop circle to visitors."
Then, as they neared Glen Road, the dark-haired boy added, "Brian, would you mind taking me out to the cornfield? Mr. Maypenny should be there with the fencing people if the rain didn't drive them off. The entrance is chained and padlocked, but I've got a key. Mr. Lynch wants Mr. Maypenny to call him at once."
As Brain agreed and swung down the rutted road, Jim, who was straddling the hump in the backseat, was thrown to the side, nearly crushing his much slighter sister. After apologizing to the bruised young lady, he noted, "I'd better talk to Mr. Lynch too. The town will need to put down some gravel and widen this road if they plan to let tourists back here. When we reach the field, we can use my cell to call him so Mr. Maypenny and I don't have to run back to the cabin. It's an open area, so we should get service."
"Good idea," Brian replied as the Jalopy hit a bump, causing the rear shocks to squeak. "Trix," he said after flipping off the A.C. "Roll down your window and help me watch for potholes, will you? I can't afford to break an axle right now."
Trixie did as instructed and hung her head out the side door. And after a minute or two, she cried out, "Hey Brian, stop a sec! I just caught a glimpse of something red back there in the raspberry canes. I think it may have been my hat! Can you believe it?"
As her older brother pulled the car to a standstill, Trixie hopped out and then returned a few moments later carrying Patch's onetime plaything. The worn-out ball cap was most definitely worse for wear. It was so wet and muddy that the red die had run, staining the once white letter "F," a dirty shade of pink. Not only that, but the dog's sharp canine teeth, and the prickly sticker bush, had left it speckled with minute holes.
The disappointed teenager would never be able to wear the hat again, but she wasn't about to leave it littering the landscape.
However, when Trixie tossed the cap on the Jalopy's dashboard, her fastidious older brother insisted she remove the "stinky thing". Trixie took this opportunity to inform Brian that wasn't what stunk. But with a sigh, the compliant girl instead snapped the baseball hat's adjustable strap through a belt loop on her denim shorts to secure it. Once she got home, Trixie would say goodbye, then sadly toss her old friend away.
"I'm amazed Patch dragged that thing way out here," Jim remarked with a frustrated shake of his head. "As I said before, I'm sure sorry about that, Trix."
"No problem," she chuckled, thinking how much Moms was going to enjoy seeing the hat again. "At least we can cross one mystery off the list." Trixie almost considered wearing the cap into the house just to get a rise out of her mother.
Honey, scooting forward, rested her elbows against the back of the front seat. "Now we can move on to the next mystery" she told her partner with a grin. "I'm starting to get anxious about seeing the crop circle. Do you think Maypenny would let me go up in the deer stand to look at it when we get there?"
Minutes later, the sun-gnarled gamekeeper replied to the girl's question by saying, "Now there you go, trying to make me play Devil's advocate."
Mr. Maypenny hadn't been too pleased when he'd learned of Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Lynch's arrangement. In his mind, his employer had sold away Sleepyside's soul, and Mr. Lynch had notarized the deal.
"Do as you wish," Mr. Maypenny went on to tell Honey with a wave of his hand. "Seems you won't be the last to cast eyes on the curse-it abomination if your father and Mr. Lynch have their way. But be forewarned. It's your own neck your risking."
Honey gulped as her brother handed over his phone to the cranky man. Jim had already informed Mr. Lynch about the condition of the road and had been trying to get Mr. Maypenny on the line for a few minutes now, but the older man had kept pushing him away.
Finally agreeing to speak to the wheeler-dealing executive, the spouting gamekeeper first asked the girls if they'd mind checking in on Brownie on their way back from viewing the circle. He'd secured his mellowing horse in a nearby loafing shed to keep her out of harm's way while he oversaw the workmen.
Gladly agreeing, Trixie and Honey then set off on their own as the boys went to speak with the fencing contractors, who were busy surveying the area with a transit level.
Reaching the tree stand, Honey nervously eyed the rickety steps having second thoughts. "Maybe I'll wait and pay to go up in the fireman's basket," she told her friend.
"Awe, the ladder is perfectly safe," Trixie assured her, giving it a solid shake. "Dan saw to that. Besides, it held Mart's weight when he went up there, didn't it? Would you like me to go first and prove it to you?"
Gathering her courage, the still hesitant girl reached for the first rung and then carefully made her way to the top.
Once safely on the platform, Honey gasped at the stunning sight. "Oh my!" she cried down to her waiting friend. "Nothing this beautiful could be the work of the devil? Why, with the haze, it's almost angelic!"
"Pretty incredible, huh?" Trixie called back.
"Goodness, yes," Honey returned. "But I must say, I beg to differ with your little brother. I believe this may be the work of extraterrestrials, Trixie. Did you notice how the pattern of circles matches up with the lights we saw on the spacecraft?"
Trixie's mouth dropped open. "Watson, what would I ever do without you?!" she cried. "I knew the design seemed familiar. But I couldn't place it. Do you think the craft may have landed here?"
Climbing down, the thoughtful girl replied, "Who knows? It could be, the ship's lights were some kind of laser beams, and they left the impression. We'll have to ask Jim if he's ever heard of anything like that. You could ask Mart too?" she suggested.
As Trixie scaled the stand to take another peek herself, she let out a snort. "I don't have to," she said. "He's already told me that in Cosmo Mc Naught and the Sinister Circle, Trillions, whoever or whatever they are, used microwave impulse beams to make a crop circle. They fired them from their scout ship. In that kooky story, according to my equally kooky brother, the circle was left in a quadro-tritti-barley field on some remote farming colony that the Trillions wanted to take over. More Trillion ships were on the way, and the circle was some kind of message to them. Maybe to land there or something. I wasn't paying much attention when Mart tried to tell me about it," she admitted.
Honey laughed. "And we all know Cosmo Mc Naught is god's law," she said. "I hope the Trillions didn't have a boy cow and seven sisters?"
Trixie giggled as she made her way back down. "Mart didn't say," she admitted. "But it wouldn't surprise me if they did. Nothing surprises me anymore. Why if Brownie were to start talking to us today, I probably wouldn't even bat an eye."
Honey giggled as she gave her silly friend a push on up the pine-lined path. "If she does, maybe we can ask her if she knows who made the circle," she suggested.
Coming up on the dilapidated loafing shed, Trixie noticed Mr. Maypenny's deer carrier leaning against one side under a rusty tin overhang. He'd assembled the crazy contraption using a discarded supermarket basket and bicycle wheel, and Trixie laughed, wondering how she could have ever deduced it was the "lunatic's" unicycle.
The slightly embarrassed teenager now knew that Mr. Maypenny wasn't a mad man. He simply enjoyed tinkering and salvaged about anything he could find. Used boards, broken appliances, worn-out machinery, you name it, the handy gamekeeper squirreled it away. And he created all kinds of wild yet useful gizmos like the deer-cart out of the stuff.
As a result, Trixie wasn't really shocked when she and Honey discovered that Brownie's temporary shelter was yet another of Mr. Maypenny's hidden nests of scrounged pieces and parts.
Taking a step into the cluttered space, the two girls found the three-sided shed was filled with dark corners. Its rough-hew siding had been slapped up by the first settlers long ago, and the light filtering through the slats sparkled with particles of dust. Thankfully, the air inside was cool, but it retained a stale, smoky smell as if the structure had once house jerked venison. And it left Trixie feeling discomforted. Almost as if she was intruding upon another time.
Honey, too, seemed to be disquieted, but Trixie guessed this had more to do with the multitude of cobwebs that were dangling from the low rafters. Her trembling friend was terrified of spiders, a condition which Mart referred to as arachnophobia. But Trixie also knew Honey was probably more concerned about Brownie's well-being than she was her own.
However, the girls soon found that Mr. Maypenny's chubby mare was doing quite well, much to Honey's relief. Brownie's owner had left his pampered darling with plenty of water. Not to mention enough hay to feed an entire stable of horses.
Gently combing her fingers through Brownie's silky black mane, Honey chuckled, "You, my dear, have gotten fat. If I were you, I'd lay off the oats before Regan gets a good look at you."
The headstrong horse paid Honey no mind, instead choosing to saddle over to Trixie to see if she'd brought her a treat. Typically, when Miss Belden came to call, the teen sported a fresh carrot for Brownie. But since today's visit was unplanned, Trixie held out her palms to show the hungry mare that she'd come empty-handed.
Only Brownie wasn't satisfied with that reply. Eyeing the red ball cap hanging from Trixie's belt loop, the spiteful horse retaliated by snatching away the tempting object using her strong teeth.
Wrestling to get the worthless thing away from her, Trixie cried, "You naughty girl! You give that back. You can't eat that!"
Honey, meanwhile, took a handful of hay and tried more gently to entice the persnickety beast to let go of the cap. But Brownie simply wouldn't have any of it.
Finally, though, after a frustrating game of tug of war, the stubborn mare tired of her fun and released her plaything, sending Trixie tumbling into a pile of Mr. Maypenny's debris. As Honey scrambled to help her friend up, she noticed that the tangled girl's hand was bleeding slightly.
"Did Brownie do that?" she asked, noting it didn't appear to be too nasty of a scratch. If it had been, Honey would have been more squeamish of the blood.
"I don't think so," the aggravated teen replied, has Honey handed over her handkerchief to stop the trickle. "I think I snagged it on this blasted hat of mine?"
Examining the ball cap more closely, Trixie added, "Sure enough, Honey. There's an odd twist of wires poking up through the bill? They're kind of sharp on top. It looks like there's a metal ring attached to the other end of them, too? Gleeps, I have no idea what this thing could be, but it seems it was tucked up underneath the brim. I never notice it before, anyway. That's odd."
"I'd say really odd," Honey replied. "I wonder how it got there? Whatever it is, it looks like some of Mr. Maypenny's handiwork. You don't think it's a make-shift key chain, do you?"
"The ring is about the same size as the one on Brian's," Trixie admitted, but this one's solid, so there's no way of threading anything on it?"
Trixie pulled the flexible strand out of the cap by giving it a good solid yank. Then she turned the perplexing object over and over in her hand as if she could somehow figure out what it was. "I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't part of an animal trap," she said. "Patch could have tripped it up when he went running through the woods, and this piece got caught in the hat."
Handing the metal fob over to Honey, she let her friend examine it more closely.
"Hmm, I suppose it could be some kind of fishing lure too," the stumped girl decided. "I suppose the silly dog may have snagged it on the beach. But still, it sure is…."
"I know," Trixie finished taking the thingamajig back. "It sure is strange. And here, I didn't think anything would surprise me today. Anyway, we're probably trying to make too much out of it. Brian and Jim are always reminding us we do that, you know. Why the dumb thing was probably on the floor and got stuck in the cap when I fell. I guess I'm lucky it didn't go through my hand instead."
Tossing the useless piece of who-knows-what onto Mr. Maypenny's workbench at the back of the shed, Trixie then sighed and dropped her tattered hat into the trash barrel. It was time she and Honey be going, and there was no sense in dragging the cap all the way home. So bidding the mischievous Brownie farewell, keeping a safe distance away, the girls left to meet the boys.
That night, Trixie's father was late for dinner. But Mrs. Belden had kept supper waiting on him. It was Zucchini Week on Crabapple Farm, and topping the evening's menu were mouthwatering zucchini boats, filled to the brim with saucy ground beef, tomatoes, and cheese. Moms had made two big casseroles, hoping to stash one in the freezer for another busy day, but her pirate sons had different plans and had polished both off before sailing off into the sunset.
During supper, before that, however, the topic of conversation at the table had centered on Mr. Belden's successful close of the Pine real-estate deal for Mr. Lynch, and the Bob-Whites' now town-council-approved plans to promote tourism in Sleepyside.
Moms, of course, had listened enthusiastically to every word, but when Trixie had inquired about Drag Strip Drac and Sergio Zabatino, why Moms nearly choked on her zucchini! In fact, she was coughing so severely that Brian had jumped from his chair, thinking he might have to perform the Heimlich maneuver on his mother. Thankfully, though, it hadn't been necessary. A sip of water had done the trick. But Moms had refused to say a peep about her mysterious movie roll and had quickly changed the subject each time it came back up.
After dinner, Brian and Mart had packed up their camping gear and taken off to pick up Jim with plans to drive out to Mr. Sanderson's. Earlier in the afternoon, there'd been trouble at the farm when a group you young adults had decided to search the farmer's fields for signs of the crop circle. Mart and his employer had chased off the trespassers before they had done too much damage. But the hardworking farmer and his helper had spent the remainder of their day repairing the barb wire fencing around the property.
Mr. Sanderson had also called the farmers' co-op and ordered a new gate for his driveway, but it wouldn't be in until the next day. So he offered to pay the boys to watch his fields overnight.
Mart had invited Dan along too, but his buddy had felt his place was with Mr. Maypenny. He probably could have gone. Under Mr. Wheeler's direction, Miss Trask had hired a security company to temporarily stand guard over the preserve and Manor House. Still, Dan didn't like the idea of his guardian being alone at the cabin after dark. The two had also had a few run-ins with interlopers. But nothing that Old Betsy, the gamesman's shotgun, hadn't put a quick end to.
So far, however, no one had ventured onto the Belden's property. That didn't mean Mrs. Belden hadn't been awfully worried that someone would. In fact, she'd been quite glad to see her husband come home, especially since her sons planned to be away. Though the boys' leaving had Moms pretty concerned too. And when Brian had come down the stairs toting his shotgun, with Mart following close behind armed with his baseball bat, Trixie thought her mother was going to send them back to their rooms. But Daddy had assured his fretting wife that Brian and Mart could take care of themselves, and he let the young men go.
Thinking back on it now, Trixie had to admit, that she'd actually been pretty elated to see the two scoundrels take to the open seas. Too bad wee Bobby Belden was too young to go with her scallywag brothers. But alas, he was, and it was time she put the protesting monster to bed.
So marching the little boy up to the bathroom, Trixie ran his tub, then stepped out into the hall as he washed. When Bobby called out that he was through, the doubtful girl made a quick inspection of the lad's toothbrush and his washcloth to make sure he hadn't just wet them, then satisfied, sent the child to his room.
Normally Trixie would have read Bobby a bedtime story before he went to sleep. But tonight, still pouting over not being allowed to go to Mr. Sanderson's with his older brothers, Bob had insisted that he was all "growed up" and that storybooks were things of babies. So fine. Whatever. His big sister really didn't care. And she told him not to let the bedbugs bite.
Now in her own room, Trixie carefully removed her secreted note from her pocket. And after rereading it, she'd smiled softly and held it briefly to her heart. Never, ever, had she been given anything so special. Not even the silver I.D. bracelet had meant as much to her.
So, refolding the precious piece of paper, Trixie decided she needed a safe place to stash it away, to keep it from prying eyes. Spying the picture of the Bob-Whites, which she kept on her nightstand, Trixie knew she'd found the perfect hiding place. Slipping Jim's note into the frame, behind the photo, the satisfied girl then returned the picture to the nightstand and set her lucky coin beside it. Funny how the worst day of her life had magically turned out to be one of the best she could remember. And she owed some of her good fortunes to her looted pirate bounty.
Then, once ready for bed, Trixie crawled beneath the sheets, but despite her body's yawns of protests, her active mind just wouldn't let her sleep. Behind her closed eyes, a cosmic big bang was taking place. Swirling images of crop circles, violet aliens, and ugly ducklings collided with red-haired astrophysicists, space ships, and boy cows. Boggling impressions of street fairs, and failed rocket launches, merged with baked potato heads, missing friends, and shattered jars of raspberry jam. And all of it, birthing a chaotic clash of insanity.
Bolting up in bed, the unnerved girl clutched her head and moaned with despair. She just couldn't make sense of it all. It was almost as if "They", for some unknown reason, had handed her the mystery of the universe. But why? Oh, where was Sir Isaac Newton when Trixie needed him most?! A crazy chain of events had been sent into motion, and the deranged girl knew of no force strong enough to stop them all!
Usually, when she was up against a challenging mystery, Trixie reached for one of her Lucy Radcliffe novels. The fictional detective's adventurous approach to her cases often provided the young girl with incite on how to tackle her own. But Trixie seriously doubted that even Lucy would be able to unravel this brain twister.
But then an idea struck her. Maybe Lucy Radcliff couldn't – but Cosmo Mc Naught just might!
Climbing out of bed, Trixie quietly tiptoed to her brother Mart's room. Once inside, she scanned the boy's bookcase until she found the volume she was looking for. Snagging it from the shelf, the teen then crept back down the hall with The Sinister Circle in hand.
Back in her room, Trixie first closed the door, then went to the cedar chest at the foot of her bed and removed her winter blanket. Rolling it into a log, she placed it across the crack at the bottom of her door. The blanket would keep her parents from noticing that her light was on when they came to bed.
In the summer, normal "lights out" was ten pm, and it was still a good hour away, but after getting into hot water the night before, Trixie wasn't about to take any chances. Not that the nervous girl planned to leave her lamp on, anyway. No, Trixie preferred to read by flashlight at night, with her sheet pulled over her head like a tent. If Moms knew, she'd have a fit. "You'll ruin your eyes that way," she'd scold. But Trixie really didn't care. Besides, Moms was to blame for her bad habit, wasn't she? Why if her mother hadn't read Peter Pan to her children by lantern light, this Tinkerbell probably would never have known what a wonderfully mystical environment this created.
So, with her nightlight off and her flashlight on, Trixie crawled into her pirate hideaway and opened her brother's dog-eared book.
The opening scene, it turned out, was actually quite riveting. But after scanning down a few more paragraphs, Trixie started howling with laughter! In fact, she was laughing so hard that she had to bite down on her fingers before someone was to hear her.
Cosmo Mc Naught, she discovered, was a teenage rock-star Casanova with an alien beauty in every spaceport. Cosmo's saucy mother was captain of a cargo transport ship called the Sky Hawk, and her genius son was her copilot. Of course, that wasn't the funniest part. No, much more comical was the fact that Cosmo Mc Naught loved to use big words, and he kept his blonde locks buzzed off in a crew cut!
Trixie just couldn't stop laughing no matter how hard she tried. Mart Belden's secret was out! And all this time, his little sister had thought that her dictionary-spouting twin had shaved off his curly hair so the two wouldn't look so much alike. But now Trixie knew the truth! And to use one of Mart's own words -or rather one of Cosmo's - her goony brother was trying to "emulate" his longtime idol! Oh, what fun Trixie would have with this! And now she couldn't wait to read more!