The Happy Valley Mystery

trying to get their attention and book them for dances later. Trixie, hair tousled and face flushed, stayed close to Brian and Mart and Jim. As one of the Rivervale fans slapped her on the back, with a quick word of praise for her basket shots, she sent a wistful glance toward Diana and Honey. They both looked so pretty and appealing.
    “Sometimes,” she said to herself, “I wish I could remember to be a girl instead of a tomboy. Especially when there’ll be dancing.”
     

Two Suspects • 9
     
    AFTER THE GAME the girls went into the school rest room to wash their hands and freshen their lipstick.
    “That Ned Schulz has everything, hasn’t he, Trixie?” Honey asked as she ran her comb through her shoulder-length brown hair. “And you used a pretty sneaky way to get him interested in you.”
    “Yes, wasn’t I a show-off?” Trixie answered. “I was, wasn’t I, Honey? I honestly forgot where I was. When that boy challenged me, I just had to prove that I could hit the basket. Was it too awful?”
    “If you were anyone else, I’d have been sure you were doing it to attract Ned,” Honey assured her. “The last thing in the world you’d ever be is a show-off.”
    It worried Trixie, though. “Do you think anyone else thought I was trying to attract Ned’s attention?” she asked.
    “Only about fifty percent of the girls in the gym,” Diana said. “Never mind, Trix. It was sensational. They don’t know your heart belongs to Jim.”
    “I like Jim, of course,” Trixie said, blushing, “just the way you like Mart and Honey likes Brian. My heart doesn’t belong to anyone.”
    “I know that,” Diana said. “I was only teasing.”
    “We’re all too young,” Honey said. “At least, people keep telling us so.”
    “My mother and my daddy have known one another since they were ten years old,” Diana said. “And Mother told me that she knew, even then, that she was going to marry Daddy someday.”
    “It does happen, I guess,” Honey said.
    Trixie didn’t say anything, but it took her longer than usual to brush her sandy curls, and she borrowed some of Diana’s spray perfume.
    “Mmmm, you smell like a flower shop,” Jim told her when the boys met the girls outside of the gym.
    “Is it too much?” Trixie asked nervously. “It’s Di’s. I was sort of warm after that crazy basket-throwing. I wish I hadn’t done that.”
    “Well, why not?” Jim asked. “You were a wowl They were baiting you, anyway, Trixie. You just had to sink those shots. Forget it, will you?” He pressed her arm and looked down at her, reassuring her. Suddenly
    Trixie was comfortable again and not worried about anything.
     
    When the Bob-Whites went into the gym, where tables were now set up and spread for the barbecue, Trixie was immediately surrounded by boys, most of them players from the Rivervale and Indianola teams. They were all talking at once... basketball talk.
    When Trixie looked around, she discovered that Honey had gone off with a group of boys, that Diana was in a comer of the gym surrounded by another half dozen, and that Jim and Brian and Mart were in the midst of a crowd of some of the prettiest girls she had ever seen.
    As Trixie watched, a tall blond girl—prettier, almost, than Diana or Honey—took hold of Jim’s arm, led him to a place at the long table, and then sat down beside him. When other girls came up to talk to Jim, the tall blonde gestured to them to stay away, laughing as she did it and pointing to herself, as much as to say, “He’s mine. Hands off!”
    “She’s as old as Jim, probably a senior, and, gosh, she’s beautiful!” Trixie said, half to herself. Then suddenly she was aware that Ned had taken her arm and was leading her to a place at the table.
    “Did you say something?” he asked.
    Trixie shook her head. “No,” she said, “but I was thinking how good everything smells. I’m hungiy. Where are they cooking that meat? What kind is it?”
    “Lamb,” Ned answered. “An uncle of one of our guys has a restaurant near the airport. He sent his cook over to barbecue the lamb. He sent a couple of portable electric spits, too. They’re big enough for a whole lamb. The meat roasts as it turns.”
    “I don’t think I ever tasted barbecued lamb,” Trixie said. “Mmmm... does it smell good!”
    “The chef was rubbing it with some garlic,” Ned said, “and it smelled horrible then. Right now it doesn’t seem like the same stuff. We were going to have barbecued