The Happy Valley Mystery

fun of you so,” Honey said. “And, Trixie, I honestly believe those men we saw last night have been stealing your uncle’s sheep.”
    “You do?” Trixie said and hugged Honey tight. “I thought all kinds of mean, silly things about you, Honey. I thought everyone had abandoned me, for sure.”
    “I’m your partner; don’t you remember?” Honey asked. “But I really did think you sort of jumped to conclusions with Mr. Schulz,” she continued. “And if you’d had a chance to know Ben as you do now, you would never have suspected him.”
    “To a detective, everyone is a suspect,” Trixie said professionally. “Well, maybe I was in too much of a hurry. But, Honey, today is Thursday. That leaves only Friday and Saturday. And I do wish so much that I could have today free to do some more work on this case.”
    “Well, you can’t,” Honey said. “But let’s not plan anything for tomorrow, and let’s you and I just tell the others were going to do exactly what we want to do for one day.”
    “The trouble is, we’ll have to do it on foot if we tell them that,” Trixie said. “I’m going to have a talk with Jim. At least he knows some of the things we’ve done in the past, and he may help.”
    While the boys were out in the fields, Honey, Trixie, and Diana busied themselves with several things. First they helped Mrs. Gorman do the breakfast dishes and dust the house. Then they washed some lingerie and manicured their fingernails. Diana put her hair up on rollers, but Trixie just wet the comb and drew it through her tangled curls. Honey’s long hair was straight and shining.
    “Wasn’t Dan smart to ask your mother to send our skates?” Honey said. “Let’s get them out of the box now. Hey, she sent them airmail special delivery! We could almost have bought new skates for what it cost to send them that way.”
    “Yes, and remember what Ben said about the special delivery part of it,” Diana said, laughing.
    “He said that just meant that Pop Wilson had to go to all the trouble of honking his horn when he left the package at the R.F.D. box down at the bottom of Sand Hill,” Trixie said. “Moms will laugh at that, but she should have remembered that we don’t get special delivery packages at Grabapple Farm, either.”
    “It was good of her to send them,” Honey said. “It’ll be a lot better to have our own skates than to rent or borrow them.”
    “Girls!” Mrs. Gorman called up the stairs. “It’s time for lunch. The boys are coming in from the field. I guess they’ll shower first out in the barn apartment and then come in. Do you want to help me get some food ready?”
     
    The Bob-Whites had their first surprise when they saw the rink in Rivervale. “It’s as big as the Arena in White Plains!” Trixie said. “And look at the crowd!”
    “Yes, and then look at us, in blue jeans,” Honey said. “Most of the girls are wearing skating costumes. There’s Dot, waving to us. Doesn’t she look like a dream?” Trixie’s heart skipped a beat. Dot did look like a dream. Her short skirt was creamy white, and her pullover sweater matched. Both were embroidered in gay Bavarian designs. Her blond hair was topped by a Tyrolean cap. All the other Rivervale girls looked almost as attractive.
    “They must really make a business of skating here,” Jim said to Ned.
    “A lot of us belong to the Des Moines Figure Skating
    Club,” Ned explained. “We have a Danish teacher. He’s pretty keen.”
    “If they skate as well as they dress for the rink, were sunk,” Trixie mourned. Dot was clinging to Jim’s arm, leading him into the building. Trixie looked down woefully at her jeans and her loose red sweater. “Moms could have sent our costumes,” she told Honey and Diana.
    “I suppose she may have thought we wouldn’t want to look different from the other girls here,” Honey said.
    “We really do look different, but not in the way she may have thought,” Diana said. “What do we care? Trixie, you and Honey skate so beautifully. And the boys are whizzes on the ice. Let’s just make the best of it.”
    That’s easy for you to say, Trixie thought to herself. Honey and Di look beautiful in any old kind of costume. They aren’t competing with girls like Dot, either.
    Inside the building, a jukebox played. Out on the ice, couples skated around the rink, easily and gracefully, in time to the music.
    Boys from Rivervale High crowded around Honey, Diana, and Trixie, helping them adjust