After helping Helen Belden sort and put away laundry, Trixie and Honey practically ran to the Clubhouse. It was beyond time to hold a meeting of the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency!

Trixie sprawled on the sofa, a pillow over her head, and Honey perched atop the table Indian style.

"So, what do we know so far?" Trixie asked. "I mean, beyond the usual suspect of Jonesy and anyone else the Bob-Whites have put in jail? Who would want to run Jim off of the road?"

"We can't assume it was about Jim personally, at least not yet. What if the car was just driving along and the driver was drunk or high and they would have hit anyone who happened to be there then?"

Trixie thought for a moment. "You're right. Hmm. Why was Jim out walking then anyway? It was kind of late."

"I'm not sure, Trix. He got a letter from Juliana and talked to Daddy for a while, and then he put the letter in his pocket and said he needed to clear his head. I was suspicious, of course, and so I followed Miss Trask when she went out to the veranda to talk to Regan. They sit out there sometimes and talk and she gives Regan advice about Dan. And women." Honey giggled. "One time, Regan was seeing a girl from White Plains - Sandy, I think - and she kept trying to get him to go to her church with her. I'll never forget hearing Miss Trask say, 'Bill, do you want to marry this girl? If you don't, you stay out of that church!'"

Trixie snorted, the sound muffled in the pillow, and then sat up so that she could properly engage in a fit of giggles with her friend. "Miss Trask is the best. And she's really easy to talk to. Sometimes I ask for her opinion on things that I just can't talk to Moms about."

At this, Honey gave her friend a quizzical look. "Trixie, your mother is perfectly perfect! What on earth is there that you can't talk to your mom about? I talk to your mom more than I talk to mine sometimes!"

She hesitated for a moment. Miss Trask is practically Honey's substitute mom! What if she feels like I shouldn't be sneaking around getting advice from her - her Miss Trask? One look at Honey's expression quelled that fear. Honey was one of the most unselfish people Trixie knew. She wouldn't be mad, she was just curious.

"Well, school for starters. She's helped me with my homework several times when I couldn't explain to Moms or Dad what was hard for me to understand. Moms was an art student before she got married and had us, and Dad - he went into banking because numbers speak to him in ways that make no sense to the average human being. When I don't get it, he doesn't get what there is to not get, if you know what I mean. Moms is great with grammar and spelling, but with history and research papers and things like that, she's not any better at it than I am. Brian is so patient he makes me want to throw something at him, and Mart ... ugh!"

Honey smiled. "I know what you mean. It makes sense - when she was my teacher in boarding school, she was the best teacher I've ever had."

"Jim's going to be a really good teacher when he gets that school of his. He's one of the few people who can tutor me without getting mad at me or making me mad at him. He's the one who suggested I talk to Miss Trask about geometry. He was helping me, and we got to one he didn't get. He said it was giving him post-geometry flashbacks of when he took it and had so much trouble back in Albany. We went to Miss Trask, and she saved the day." Trixie paused for a moment, her brow furrowed with thought. "It's like they just reach into your brain and somehow make everything face the right way. I never feel like they stuffed new things into my head, just like what was already in there makes more sense."

Stretching her feet out in front of her, Honey smiled. "I forgot to finish! I got sidetracked. I heard Miss Trask and Regan talking about Jim and how it was only natural for him to want to be closer to Juliana and Hans. Regan said that he hoped we would be supportive, and Miss Trask said that Jim looked upset when he left for his walk."

"Honey Wheeler, you're a superspy is what you are! Don't you dare join the CIA and give up on the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency!"

Blushing, Honey giggled. "As if I ever would! Without me, it would just be Belden, and I've already begun sewing our logo onto shirts!"

"You haven't!" Trixie exclaimed. "Have you?"

Honey shook her head, "Of course not, silly. By the time we've gone to college and are ready to set up shop, our tastes and current fashions will have changed. We have years to design a logo together. Now, back to the task at hand. The letter from Juliana and Jim. My guess is that he wants to see her but doesn't want to leave here to do it. If I hadn't talked to him this very morning about how he doesn't want to go far to college, I'd be worried about him leaving for Amsterdam, but after what he said, I'm confident he wants to be here with us. And you," she added slyly, watching Trixie's complexion turn from fair to pink.

Trixie's worry had spiked at the mention of the letter, but Honey's assurances made logical sense. Jim might be worked up about the letter, but his friends and family could help him with that. What she needed to worry about was who tried to run him over with a car and just drove away, and why. Was it deliberate, targeted? Was it some agent of his horrible old stepfather? Could it be sports related? The Sunnyside basketball player who had been benched after Jim told the Sleepyside coach about his less than sportsmanlike behaviors? Trixie's blood boiled every time she thought of that muscle-bound jerk attacking him. Brian had stepped in, willing to defend his friend, and later even nearly got into the first fist fight of his life over it.

Aloud she mused, "I'm wondering about Alan van Kassel. Well, that and Jonesy, of course. Does he have any more random nieces or nephews he could throw into action? And van Kassel's a known jerk. He threatened to "get" Jim for getting him into trouble with his coach."

Honey shrugged, "He should have thought about that prior to injecting steroids in plain sight, bragging about it, and being an obvious idiot about targeting Jim during the game. Van Kassel can go ahead and blame his own dumb choices for his problems."

The door opened to admit Dan, without a jacket, shivering in the cold air. Honey threw a blanket to him.

"Where's your jacket? It's cold outside!" Honey stood and went to him, draping the blanket around his shoulders like a cape.

He nodded breathlessly. "I know, but there wasn't time. I just heard something important, over at the school!"

"The school!" Trixie exclaimed. "You didn't ride your bike here without a jacket?"

Dan nodded. "I did, but I have a good reason, if you two could just - just let me catch my breath! I heard you talking about - about van Kassel."

Trixie frowned. "Wait a moment - you're supposed to be at a college fair with the others! What are you doing here? Are you all back?"

Dan wrapped the blanket around his body and sighed, leaning back against the soft sofa. Trixie noticed that his hands were nearly blue with cold, and felt guilty for rushing him.

"Gleeps, Dan! I'm sorry! Take a minute and rest, okay? We can wait."

Honey was trying to warm his hands in hers, but wasn't having much luck. She vacated the sofa, ordered Dan to stretch out and get comfortable, then buried him in the blanket. Trixie excavated his surprised face from the soft fleece. He grinned and shook his head. "You two are both going to explode if I don't tell you what's going on, and yet here you are trying to make sure I'm not hypothermic!" His grin turned serious. "Thanks. It's nice."

The slightly wistful expression on his face made Trixie's heart hurt for a moment, and one look at Honey told her that her best friend felt the same. At the same time, she saw that Dan was starting to feel uncomfortable at the extra attention, so she scooted his feet aside, albeit gently, and sat down.

"We're nice, but only because we don't want you to freeze to death. Dead men tell no tales, and I have a feeling we're going to want to hear your tale as soon as you feel up to spilling it!"

At this, he laughed. "Okay, Trix. Here begins Dan's Tale of Woe. Remember earlier this year when we had that absolutely terrible Friday the 13th? I had to get stitches, Uncle Bill got hit by old Mrs. Crimper and hit the fire hydrant and got the rest of you out of school?"

"Of course we remember. Cats and dogs lying together, Wanda the Devil Chicken, van Kassel injuring Jim during the game, Mrs. Wheeler cooking breakfast and driving a car ... yeah, none of us are likely to forget! But ... why aren't you at the college fair? You stayed the night with Mart just to get there on time!" Trixie's brain was already swirling with the possibilities.

"I had a rough start this morning. I couldn't find my wallet anywhere, and the rest of the guys all offered to spot me, which was really cool of them, but I had Mr. Maypenny's Christmas gift in there, and I was really worried. They stopped off at the school. Jim said he needed something out of his locker anyway, and there's some kind of band contest the school's hosting this weekend, so all the doors were open. We left Jim and Mart in the car, and Brian went to grab Jim's stuff for him and I head to the office. And who do I see standing in the office with his mom? Alan van Kassel!"

Honey gasped. "But he goes to Sunnyside!"

Dan shook his head. "Not anymore. His parents are getting a divorce, and his mom's moving them back in with her parents here in Sleepyside. Mrs. van Kassel was telling Mr. Stratton she wanted her son to have a fresh start at a new school, and that she wanted him on the basketball team here. Van Kassel saw me, knows I was listening, and so I had to make myself known. I apologized for interrupting, and told Stratton I came in to find my lost wallet. Luckily, someone turned it in to the lost and found. I head back to the lockers and manage to tell Brian what's up, but we agreed not to tell Jim until after the fair. Guy's got enough on his mind without this too, right?"

"Right," Trixie agreed uncertainly.

"Right," Dan echoed. "But then van Kassel shows up. He followed me from the office just to posture and threaten and make a general ass of himself. He starts yelling about snitches and pounding faces, and a bunch of other macho BS, and he shoves me up against the lockers. My BWG jacket ripped down the back, and my stupid dressy blue shirt has a long, gross bloodstain on the back from where a piece of locker metal dug in. Then, Brian punched him. Van Kassel had me off guard, I was about to get my ass kicked, but Brian punched him right in the face. Van Kassel said he was going to tell Stratton and Brian laughed and said, and I'm quoting him here, I swear, "Go ahead. Tell Principal Stratton that Brian Belden punched you in the jaw in the locker room on a Saturday, and see if he believes you. I've never been in trouble for fighting, and no one but you even knows I was here."

Trixie felt her jaw actually drop. "Gleeps, Brian! Are we going to have to start calling him One Punch Belden?"

Honey's eyes shone with admiration. "Good. I'm glad he punched that jerk! How dare he hurt my brother AND my friend! Are you hurt, Dan?"

He shook his head. "Not really more than a scratch, but I wasn't going to a college fair with a bloodstained shirt and a ripped up jacket, especially since we wanted Jim to actually be able to pay attention at the fair. I made Brian make up an excuse for Mart and Jim for right now. We can tell them when they get back. I told Brian I'd call Uncle Bill for a ride home, but my bike was still in the rack from Friday, and I saw something in the parking lot that got me thinking. Remember old Mrs. Crimper's car, the one that hit Uncle Bill? It was parked in the school lot, it's an old sedan, and it has brand new tires."

Trixie and Honey were both talking at once.

"Oh! So it could have been old Mrs. Crimper! She's not supposed to drive at night, even now that she's gotten her glasses prescription updated!"

"Do you think the Crimpers sold the car to the van Kassels?"

Dan rolled to a sitting position, still wrapped in the blanket.

"I don't know, but I'd bet just about everything that that was the car that hit Jim. I just have a feeling." He started to stand, but gave a hiss of pain. "Now that I'm warming up, that scratch kinda hurts."

Trixie brought out the clubhouse first aid kit. "All right, Mangan. Show me the scratch and we'll get some antiseptic on it so you don't get tetanus or something. Those lockers can't be sanitary with all of that dude-sweat and rust."

He looked as scandalized as if she had suggested he parade around naked.

Honey giggled. "It's your shoulder, not your behind. We've all been swimming at the lake. We've all seen your summer wood-chopping lumberjack stance."

Poor Dan actually blushed. "My - what?"

"We'll be gentle. It's us or Regan. Who do you pick?"

He sighed. "I guess you. But - be nicer than you were to Mart when he cut his hand? He said he thought your help was worse than the hurt."

Trixie shook her head. "Anytime he wants to thank me for applying direct pressure and keeping his blood inside is fine by me!"

Honey was much better about dealing with the sight of blood than she used to be, but she opted to offer a comforting shoulder to lean on rather than tending the injury, leaving that part to Trixie, who had a stronger stomach.

The sight of the bleeding wound on her friend's shoulder blade made her anger bubble to the surface. How dare that jerk van Kassel hurt Dan and Jim and threaten Brian! She was as gentle as she could be, putting antibiotic ointment on the cut and covering it with two large band-aid pads. Dan was right, it wasn't serious, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt and that van Kassel wasn't the absolute worst for hurting the people she cared about! Dan had wanted to go to that college fair just as much as the others had, and van Kassel had ruined that for him. Honey ran up to the house to get one of Jim's sweatshirts for Dan, and he accepted it gratefully.

"I'm worn right out," he confessed, settling back onto the clubhouse sofa. "Do you two mind if I just take a nap here in the clubhouse until they come back? I want to be here to talk about it with the rest of the BWGs."

Honey tossed a log onto the fireplace to keep and Trixie patted his good shoulder. "Get some rest. I'll bring up some sandwiches or something in an hour or so. You did some good detective work today! You could go into business with Honey and me - the Belden-Wheeler-Mangan Detective Agency! Good thing Honey hasn't sewn those logos onto the shirts yet!"

Dan's response was muffled by the pillow his face was buried in, and the two girls closed the door to the clubhouse and hurried up toward the stables to talk to Regan, who would certainly want to know that his nephew hadn't made it to the college fair and had been hurt. Both girls knew that Dan sometimes had a hard time talking to his uncle, no matter how much the two cared about each other, and they knew that Regan would be mad - not that Dan hadn't gone, but that he'd been hurt and hadn't come to him first. By telling him beforehand, they could let Regan have a minute to process what happened before he talked to Dan, and Dan would benefit from skipping the "mad' part entirely.

Predictably, Regan shouted, "So this van Kassel kid roughed Danny up, provoked Brian into a fight, and is the same idiot who got Jim all banged up at that baskeball game?! Does this kid have parents, because I feel a need to have words with them!"

Honey replied softly, but firmly. "This is why Dan came to us first. You yell and it freaks him out, even if you're not yelling at him. He's fine, having a nap in the clubhouse, and you definitely should check on him, but AFTER you've had a moment to get it out of your system, okay?"

The red-haired groom's expression softened. "Okay. And, I know. It just burns me up that MY kids are turning up hurt. Thank you for looking after Danny. I'm going to call Maypenny and let him know, and then go have a look at the kid and make sure he doesn't need to see a doctor. I can't believe he rode his bike all the way here in the cold like that! I wish he'd called me. I mean, I may hate driving, but I do have a license, and that kid is worth every second I spend in the belly of a metal beast!"