Disclaimer:
For anyone deciding to proceed, may it be known that Trixie Belden, and all of her wonderful friends, take-up residence at Random House, in a magical world known as Golden Books. Sadly, I am not a part of Trixie's world, and the words following are simply a tribute, meant to help preserve her memory. In my world, I am not a professional writer, and no money will come from this project. I am just another fan with an imagination, who longs for a new Trixie mystery.
Thank you!
Chapter 1: Band-Aids
Fourteen-year-old Trixie Belden awoke to the sound of sobbing. She couldn't tell where it was coming from. Or who was crying? The sorrowful lament was soft and seemed strangely far away. But it concerned the young lady. And she tossed back her heavy quilt.
Winter had come early to New York State. The rolling countryside around Sleepyside-On-the-Hudson had been blanketed in white since Thanksgiving. And though Trixie loved those frosty crisp mornings that turned her freckled cheeks pink and made her short blond curls snap with electricity, she cringed as her feet hit the cold wooden floor.
In the middle of December, the old farmhouse was chilly at night. Daddy kept the thermostat turned down while the family was asleep. It helped save money as well as resources. Raising four children on a banker's salary came with some challenges. But the Belden's had a wonderful life! Not many of Trixie's friends at school had the luxury of having a stay-at-home mother.
Moms didn't work outside the home. She tended the family's historic homestead instead. Taking care of the garden, small orchard, and a squawking flock of chickens was a job all of its own -especially while raising a brood of, let's just say, lively children.
Trixie hoped it wasn't Moms who was upset. There wasn't a sweeter or more loving woman on the face of the planet. Miss Belden was worried that maybe she had said something that had hurt her mother's feelings? The young lady often spoke without thinking. It was a bad habit she'd been trying to break. But trying and succeeding were two different things.
Trixie now regretted having grumbled about having tuna casserole for supper. It wouldn't have been her first choice of entrées with company coming. But Honey Wheeler, the Belden's house guest and Trixie's best friend, had raved about the stick-to-your-ribs budget pleaser. And Moms had been over the moon when the pretty girl had told her it was "absolutely yummy-yum."
No, if Trixie's mother was crying, it wasn't because her daughter hadn't been thrilled with the dinner menu. Besides, Trixie was always grumbling about something. Surely Moms was used to it by now?
So what was it her mother was crying over - if it was indeed the dear woman weeping?
Reaching for her bathrobe, which she'd tossed over her desk chair before turning in, Trixie sought out the source of the heartbreaking noise. The young detective had a keen sense of hearing. She quickly determined the sobs were coming from the floor grate.
Oh, that didn't mean there was someone curled up in the heating duct, balling their eyes out. But rather, the mysterious crier was downstairs in the living room, just below Trixie's feet. And the fretting girl grumbled.
Trixie decided there and then that one of her brothers must have said something hurtful to Moms – something so terrible that the poor woman had been unable to sleep!
Only Brian, seventeen, and the oldest of the Belden children, worshiped the ground his mother walked on. And, in all honesty, Trixie really couldn't imagine Big Brother saying anything unthoughtful to anyone. She was just sure Brian would rather die than make Moms cry.
On the other hand, Miss Belden's near-twin Mart tended to be more loose-lipped. Only the silly goon used such big words when he spoke that no one ever really knew what he was saying – including Mart himself. If Mr. Dictionary had said something insensitive, Moms probably would have sighed and waved the comment off. Besides, nothing Mart had to say was worth shedding a tear over as far as his sister was concerned.
That only left Miss Belden's baby brother Bobby. First graders did have a way of blurting out things that weren't necessarily so nice. But if Bob had made a rude remark, Moms would have more likely gotten angry. She would have corrected her youngest duckling and sent him to bed early without a bedtime story.
But that hadn't been the case either. Bobby was on his best behavior, with Santa coming in a few weeks. There would be no coal in Robert Belden's stocking this year, oh no. After the child had finished his dessert, Moms had asked Trixie and Honey to tuck him in. The girls had taken turns reading the little angel The Gnome in the Dome, the boy's favorite holiday picture book.
Feeling frustrated, the shivery sleuth drew the collar of her robe up around her chin. Surely Daddy hadn't said or done something that had sent his beloved spouse seeking the solitude of the living room? Trixie highly doubted it. Her parents had been acting like newlyweds all evening. Why the happy couple's holiday merriment had been almost embarrassing in front of Honey!
But if it wasn't Moms crying, there was only one other person it could be. The gentle sobs drifting up through the floor vent were definitely feminine. They weren't husky or babyish, which ruled out Daddy or one of the boys. So it had to be Trixie's best friend who was in tears.
Only Honey had been nothing but smiles before she'd bid Trixie goodnight and retreated to the guestroom downstairs. Was it possible Miss Wheeler was homesick? Manor House, where Honey lived with her adopted brother Jim Frayne, was only a stone's throw away. And the pretty girl often stayed the night with Trixie and vice versa.
True, the Belden's Crabapple Farm was much humbler than the Wheeler's stately mansion on the hill. But Honey was constantly telling Trixie that the cozy farmhouse was her home away from home. Why, Honey was practically a member of the Belden family. Everyone in the household adored the sweet young lady.
No, it was unlikely that Trixie's partner in crime – or rather her right hand in solving crimes-was homesick. But the mystery of why Honey was weeping had Miss Belden stumped. The two girls had no secrets as far as the young lady knew. Honey told Trixie everything.
But something definitely was bothering the sensitive girl. And though Trixie wasn't one to cry herself, she knew if Honey was keeping something from her, it must be pretty bad. And she gulped. Miss Belden decided there and then that she'd better go have a talk with her friend.
Trying to be as quiet as a mouse, Trixie slipped from her bedroom and started down the staircase. She didn't want to awaken anyone. But as the sagging boards creaked beneath her feet, the fearful girl gripped the handrail.
Trixie expected the family's Irish setter to come bounding out of Bob's room, where he frequently slept. The rambunctious monster could easily knock her down the steps. Only there was no sign of Reddy. And that, too, seemed odd to the stewing young lady?
But Trixie was soon to discover the missing dog's whereabouts. He was snuggled up on the couch with Honey in the family room. The pretty girl had her face buried in the loveable hound's glossy red mane.
"Gleeps, Honey, what's wrong?" Trixie cried, rushing to the weeping girl's side.
Honey had plugged in the tree, and the colored lights reflected in the tears streaming down her cheeks as she looked up. "Oh, Trixie, nothing's wrong," she wailed. "Why, everything is perfectly perfect -the beautiful decorations, your mother's holiday baking, and everyone's festive mood. I feel as if I've slipped into one of Bobby's storybooks."
Trixie harrumphed, causing Reddy to jump off the sofa and curl up in front of the weakly glowing fireplace. "Then why on Earth are you crying?' Miss Belden objected. "I know you well enough to know those aren't tears of joy, Honey Wheeler."
Miss Wheeler dropped her head and pushed her bob of golden brown hair, which had earned her the nickname Honey, behind her ears. The young lady's real name was Madeleine. She'd been named after her mother.
"Oh, but Trixie I am happy. At least I'm happy here," she added, dabbing her eyes with a tissue she'd pulled from the pocket of her robe. "I don't ever want to go home. I mean, I'd miss Miss Trask, Regan, and, of course, Tom. But not Mother and Father. What kind of parents hate Christmas?!"
Trixie's brow wrinkled with concern. Miss Trask was Honey's former teacher at boarding school. These days, she ran Manor House with the help of Regan, the family's groom, and their chauffeur, Tom. Honey had confessed to Trixie once that they were her real family.
But as for Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler hating Christmas? Well, that was news to Miss Belden. Sure, Honey's parents were gone more often than not on business or holiday, as they were now. But Trixie had a feeling her best friend was simply hurt by her mother and father's absence.
"Oh, Honey, that's just silly," she said. "I'm sure you're exaggerating. Your parents don't hate Christmas."
Honey sniffed and set her chin. "They do so," she insisted. "Mother wouldn't even bother to hire decorators if she didn't have to keep up appearances." The adamant girl rose, went to the tree, and began fingering the faded red and green paper chain that circled it. "Come Monday, Manor House will be filled from top to bottom with Christmas trees. But there won't be a single warm memory among any of their decorations, Trixie. Not like I'm sure there must be with this beautiful garland on yours."
Miss Belden laughed so hard that she had to wipe the tears from her eyes. "Beautiful?" she chuckled as she joined her friend. "Look again, Hon. Half of the links on that silly thing are held together with adhesive bandages. Only you're certainly right about one thing. It sure does bring back the memories!"
"Oh, do tell me about them!" Honey begged as she sat down under the sparkling lights. "I want to hear the story behind each and every decoration on your tree!"
As Trixie stretched out on the braided rug next to her friend, she gazed up at the lovely balsam fir and let out a sigh. Fulfilling Honey's request would take all night. There wasn't a more special tree around. Its limbs were filled with many lifetimes worth of recollections. Where would she begin?
If Honey were to ask Trixie to pick her favorite ornament, it probably would have been the blown mercury glass kitten, which great-great Grandmother Johnson had carried with her in her handbag when her family had migrated from Germany to the United States. How something so incredibly fragile hadn't been broken on the crowded sea voyage was a real mystery to the young lady. Then, to have survived all those years, handed down from generation to generation? That was nothing short of a miracle in Trixie's blue eyes. Moms promised her daughter that the priceless heirloom could hang on her own tree one day.
But, of course, the simple red velvet bow nestled below the glistening feline was equally special. It'd tied up the ring box that Daddy had given Moms on the December night he'd proposed. Trixie's father had been so nervous on the way to the restaurant that he'd gotten his car stuck in a snow bank. Mr. Belden ended up popping the question in the lobby of the local gas station, where he and his future bride had walked to get a tow truck.
The Baby's first Christmas ornament, beside the bow, brought back memories that weren't quite as heartwarming. The nurses at the hospital had hung the decoration on Bobby's incubation chamber the night he'd been born. No one had expected Trixie's premature little brother to make it to the New Year. Of course, Bobby had proved the doctors wrong. But Miss Belden would never forget holding her father's hand when he'd taken the children to say a prayer over Bobby on that long ago Christmas Eve. It was the first and only time she'd ever seen her father cry.
Only Trixie knew that if she were to tell Honey such stories, her big-hearted friend would likely never stop balling. Miss Belden's sole purpose in coming downstairs was to console the young lady, not to make her even more upset.
But as Honey again pleaded with the curly-haired girl to tell her about the construction paper chain, Trixie decided, "Why not?" If that crazy recount didn't put a smile on her friend's face, nothing would.
"Well," she began softly, as Honey leaned in closer to hear, "that awful thing has been disgracing our tree since I was about five, Hon. Mart, Brian, and I all had a hand in it – though I guess it's my hand that gets the most credit."
Trixie paused to grin, and Honey smiled, too. "Go on," Honey urged. "I have a feeling this was no simple craft project?"
Miss Belden chuckled. "In no way, shape, or form," she admitted. "You see, it all began when Mrs. Vanderpoel came down with a bad case of the flu. She was supposed to be our babysitter while Moms did some Christmas shopping. And though it was a Saturday, and Daddy was home, Moms was hesitant to leave us in his care. Even back then, I was a magnet for trouble, and Daddy was planning on stringing the outside lights while Moms was gone, and she didn't think he could juggle both jobs at once."
Honey laughed. Mrs. Vanderpoel was the Belden's widowed neighbor. "I can't say I'd want to look after you," she teased, receiving a playful poke from her friend. "I take it your mother postponed her trip and helped you and your brothers make the chain?"
Trixie rolled her eyes and sat up. "Not quite," she revealed. "To hear Moms tell it, Daddy got miffed because she didn't think he was capable of taking care of his own children -which was sort of the case. But to make a long story short, Moms did go shopping. But not before setting us up with a seemingly harmless project to keep us busy and out of Daddy's hair."
"Only things didn't go quite as planned?" Honey ventured, her teeth chattering.
The room was getting mighty nippy, and Trixie decided she had better throw a log on the fire to warm the place up. "Hardly," she went on, as she went to stoke the coals," though I must say it did start out pretty well. I was to trace the construction paper strips and then let Brian cut them out. You see, he was the only one old enough to use the pointy scissors. Then, Mart's job was to glue the loops together using paste. Only it turned out Mart was more interested in eating the paste than he was in assembling the chain. He's always had an enormous appetite. And, well, before we were even midway through the project, we'd run out–and of course, I felt compelled to rat Mr. Sticky-lips out to Daddy."
"Oh, dear," Honey gasped as her friend rejoined her. "Your father must have been terribly alarmed. Did he call the poison hotline?"
Miss Belden snorted as she got re-situated. "For eating paste? Hardly," she said. "That wasn't the first or the last jar my goony brother would polish off, Honey. And if truth be told, Daddy was more irritated than he was worried. Dad's solution was to hand me the stapler from his office and move Mart to tracing detail so he could finish getting the lights up before Moms got home."
Miss Wheeler winced. "I'm not sure I would have trusted you with something like a stapler," she said nervously.
"Yeah, you and Moms both," Trixie returned. "Only Daddy didn't know any better – that is, until I started screaming bloody murder because I'd sunken a staple deep into my finger. I guess he about fell off the ladder in his rush to get back to the house.
But by that time, Brian had already removed the staple with a pair of tweezers. He bandaged me up using stuff from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Brian claims the incident is what made him decide he wanted to be a doctor one day. But that's beside the point. The thing is, our father took the stapler away. Then he handed us the box of band-aids, which Brian had gotten out of the bathroom, instructing the three of us to use them like tape to finish our chain –which we obviously did," she added with a laugh. "Moms has to patch the silly thing up every year, but it still stands as a testament to why she hadn't thought it wise for Daddy to babysit."
Honey laughed. "And thereby hangs the tale," she said. "Oh, Trixie, please tell me more!"
Trixie glanced up at the antique clock on the mantel. It was well past midnight. And Moms would be rousting the girls out of bed early in the morning. "Gosh, Honey, it's getting awful late," she returned with a yawn. "Didn't you tell me that you and Miss Trask are expecting the decorator at nine? What do you say we try to get some sleep instead?"
Honey sniffed, and her chin started trembling. "Miss Trask can handle the decorator by herself," she announced firmly. "If I had my way, I'd never lay eyes on that horrible man again. I didn't mention this, Trixie. But when Miss Trask and I met with him on Tuesday, I told him I'd like silver icicle tinsel on the tree in the main living room, and Mr. Peacock had the nerve to tell me it was too garish. Can you imagine?! And then, when I went to pick up one of the sample satin balls, Mr. Peacock –and yes, before you ask, that's his real name- he actually slapped my hand. He told me I wasn't allowed to touch – not then, and not once they were on the tree."
Trixie gasped. She now understood what was truly bothering her friend. "Gleeps, Honey! Where was Miss Trask when all this happened?" she asked. Trixie knew Miss Trask would never stand for such behavior.
Honey was again weeping, and Reddy returned to comfort her. "Miss Trask had gone to take a call," she revealed, hugging the big dog as if her life depended on it.
Miss Belden harrumphed. "Well, I hope you reminded Mr. Peacock who he was working for," she said. "You did tell Miss Trask about all this, didn't you, Honey?"
The pretty girl shook her head. "I couldn't, Trixie. She would have fired the man, and Mother would have been furious. Mother had to book with Mr. Peacock way back in January. Good decorators are in high demand – finding another so late in the season would be impossible."
Trixie clenched her fists. "He doesn't sound like such a good decorator to me," she grumbled. "What kind of person doesn't like icicle tinsel? Why, it's a classic."
"The same kind of person who thinks blue lights are 'so yesterday'," Honey replied sadly. "I asked Mr. Peacock if we could have those, too. I overheard Jim telling Brian on the school bus the other day how his parents used to hang blue lights on their Christmas tree. We'd just driven by Mr. Lytell's tree lot. And you would be crying too if you'd heard the melancholy in Jim's voice, Trixie. I know he misses the kind of Christmases he used to have with his biological Mom and Dad. I thought maybe if we had blue lights on our tree, Manor House would feel more like home to him. But Mr. Peacock simply wouldn't have it."
Miss Belden was now genuinely furious. It was bad enough that the snooty man had soured Honey's holiday. But Jim's, too? Jim was the most wonderful boy in the whole world as far as Trixie was concerned. How dare Mr. Peacock deny her friends their wishes – and in their very own home at that!
Trixie crossed her arms and looked Honey straight in her tear-filled hazel eyes. "Come on, Honey, it's time for bed," she said. "First thing tomorrow morning, you and I are going to march ourselves up to Manor House and tell Miss Trask that she has to fire that no-good uppity decorator of yours. Your mother can get mad if she wants. But I happen to know seven available decorators who'd absolutely love Mr. Peacock's job. And two of them are right here in this very room."
Honey squeezed Reddy so tightly that he let out a little yelp. She couldn't believe her ears. "Are you suggesting the Bob-Whites decorate Manor House?!" she cried. The Bob-Whites of the Glen, or B.W.G.s for short, was the name of the teenagers' semi-secret club. The club's purpose was to help its members just as much as help others. Trixie, Honey, and their older brothers were all members. As were Regan's nephew Dan Mangan and the girls' close friend Diana Lynch.
Trixie stood up and extended her hand to the excited girl. "That's exactly what I'm saying," she said. "School's out until the New Year. And your parents aren't due back until Christmas Eve. We'll have a week-long house party, Honey, and decorate the mansion to the T's. Why, everything will be so beautiful that your mother will want you to decorate every year! You and Jim can start building your own memories," she finished, nearly out of breath.
"Oh Trixie, what a wonderfully – wonderful idea!" Honey exclaimed. "You, Di, and I can go shopping for ornaments and whatnot while the boys cut a tree from the preserve and string outside lights! Then we'll all decorate together. It'll be so much fun! I'm sure Miss Trask will be in love with the idea. But do you think your mother will give you and your brothers her permission?"
Trixie waved Honey off. "There's no way Moms will say no once she hears about Mr. Peacock," she insisted. "Though we may have to watch Bobby from time to time," she added. "Moms still has some things to pick up for Christmas. But that won't be a problem, will it?" Trixie received a five-dollar-a-week allowance for babysitting the little boy.
Miss Wheeler giggled. "Oh no," she replied. "We'll just have Di bring over her little brothers Larry and Terry, too! The first-graders can make a paper chain for the Christmas tree while we go shopping! We'll let the older boys peek in on the younger ones while they're stringing lights. We'll just have to make sure Jim knows to keep Mart away from the paste. "
Trixie grinned as she gave her happy friend a shove toward the hallway. Honey was so excited Miss Belden doubted her friend would sleep a wink! "Sounds like a plan," she laughed. "I'll tell Brian to be sure to pack some Band-Aids!"