The Happy Valley Mystery

the coach is saying to the rest of the gang.”
    “There’ll be a half or three-quarters of an hour delay,” he told the Bob-Whites when he came back. “How about throwing the ball around a little?” he asked Brian and Jim and Mart. “Coach said the team should take it easy, so the floor is free. Plenty of sneakers over here under the bench.”
    “That’ll be keen,” Mart said.
    The Rivervale players sat around on the floor and on the bench while the boys from Sleepyside found sneakers to fit.
    “Lace ’em up tight,” one of the local players said and smiled at the boy sitting next to him.
    “Yeah, thanks,” Mart answered, looking up sideways at him. “I seem to remember that.”
    “No harm meant,” the boy replied. “I just thought maybe you hadn’t played much.”
    “He’ll be sorry he ever said that,” Honey whispered to Trixie. “This is going to be fun.”
    Mart was out on the floor in a flash. Skillfully he faked, eluded an imaginary player, reversed, faked again, and flipped the ball accurately into the basket.
    Brian caught it on the bounce, pounded it to get the feel of it in his hand, dribbled it across the court, and sank a ripper from far out.
    By this time the spectators on the benches were aware that the strangers on the floor were no strangers to the game of basketball. They whistled and clapped and stamped their feet.
    Mart stopped practice-shooting at the far end of the court, bent, clowning, and bowed elaborately. This set everyone laughing. Suddenly they were quiet again, for Jim started to move slowly clockwise around the board, stopping only long enough at each position to aim, flick his wrist, and send the ball through the basket, never missing.
    Then, oblivious to the crowd, all three boys were out on the floor. Jim sent the ball flying to Brian, who was less than a dozen feet from the basket, then raced forward to recover it if Brian missed it. He did miss; Jim recovered and, almost directly under the basket, sent the ball through. Picking it up, he then hurled a long pass back to Mart, who leaped, caught the ball, and, with a quick one-handed shot, sent it against the backboard and through the basket.
    As the crowd cheered and cheered, the boys, looking embarrassed, ran back to the bench where the girls were waiting with Ned Schulz.
    “Good going!” Ned said and shook hands with the three Bob-Whites.
    “We were just hamming it up,” Brian apologized.
    “They—our team, I mean—were district champions in Westchester County,” Trixie said proudly as she took a ball from Mart and walked up and down in front of the group, pounding it on the floor.
    “I can believe that, all right,” Ned said. “Say, Trixie, how about you? That ball is used for something besides bouncing. Come on, throw it out!”
    “Sink one and show him!” Jim said under his breath to Trixie.
    She shook her head. “Not in front of all this crowd.” Then, stung by a snickering laugh from the same boy who had taunted Mart, she forgot where she was, stood up, sighted the basket, took her stance, and sent the ball high in the air and straight through the basket.
    “Hey, do that again!” Ned called, and he tossed the ball back to her.
    It wasn’t too hard for Trixie, who had spent hours practicing spot shots at the hoop on the garage at Crab-apple Farm. She caught the ball and, without changing her position on the sideline, not far from midcourt, sent it flying back again, then again and again. Every time it soared neatly through the basket.
    Amid catcalls and cheering she sat down beside Jim.
    “I couldn’t do that again in a million years,” she said.
    The Rivervale coach had been sitting watching the Bob-Whites perform and scribbling on the clipboard on his knee. As the players from Indianola High finally appeared and went through the gym, he rose to follow them, then stopped to speak to the Bob-Whites. In response to his questions, they told him their names and the name of their school.
    “Pretty good ball,” he said and shook hands with the boys. “And Trixie,” he turned to her and said, “I could use an accurate shooter like you on the team today.”
    He didn’t need one. Rivervale High played a brilliant game. The score was Rivervale seventy-six, Indianola forty-two.
    After the game the Bob-Whites, who were unanimous in wishing they hadn’t been such limelighters, found themselves surrounded by a cordial, friendly crowd of Rivervale fans.
    Boys milled around Honey and Diana,