The Happy Valley Mystery

gone.”
    Both girls cupped their hands around their mouths and called at the top of their voices, “Help! Help! Help!”
    Not a sign of anything appeared on the water. Their voices just echoed back, till finally, as hoarse as Jim, they had to give up. They could only whisper.
    “What can possibly be keeping the rescuers?” Honey asked. “It must be near midnight. Of all the times for us to leave our watches at home... every one of us!”
    “It isn’t midnight,” Jim said. “I’m sure of that, but I’d have thought the police would have a search party out on the water long before this.”
    Trixie heard the anxiety in Jim’s voice. But she had something worse to worry about. No one else had seen it yet.
    Water had crept up over the eaves and was slowly, but surely, rising. Trixie had noticed it about fifteen minutes before. Since then it had risen at least an inch.
    There’s no use telling Jim, Trixie thought. There’s nothing else we can do. There’s no place else for us to go. We have to stay right here and....
    She couldn’t even think the word drown. Why, oh, why doesn’t someone come ? she asked herself desperately. If I were back there at Happy Valley Farm, I’d know by this time that we must be out here trapped by the flood or else....
    Trixie hadn’t fooled Jim. That was apparent to her now, when she saw his eyes turn away and look down the slanted roof.
    Water seems so harmless, she thought, her mind half deadened by the shock of their growing danger. It’s just rippling away down there as it creeps higher up the shingles—rippling away— She thought of something. “Jim!” she cried out loud. “Jim!”
    “Yes, Trixie,” Jim asked, “what is it?”
    “There’s always the top of the cupola!”
    “It won’t hold more than two people,” Jim said. “What are you two talking about?” Honey asked. “No one can sit or even stand on top of that cupola.” Honey had been putting her fingers between the bars of the cupola, playing with the puppy’s paws, resigned to wait it out till someone found them. Now she turned an anguished face toward Jim and Trixie. “After all we’ve been through,” she said, “is there more danger?”
    “I’m afraid so, Sis,” Jim said, his voice but a hoarse whisper. “Give me the light. I’ll have to signal with it till the battery goes dead. I can’t yell anymore. Neither can either of you. Txixie’s voice is the worst of all.”
    Honey handed him the flashlight.
    Both girls watched as Jim pushed the switch, waited for the light, and pushed the switch again. Finally, as he realized the battery had at last died, they saw him throw it, with an angry gesture, far out into the water.
     

A Sound in the Dark • 18
     
    SOMEHOW JIM’S GESTURE of despair made Trixie angry clear through.
    “See here,” she said. “We just can't give up. Jim, I’m surprised at you. You’ve been so wonderful, and now you’ve lost heart.”
    “I have not, not for a single minute, Trix,” Jim said. “I can get mad as well as you, can’t I? That darned old flashlight!”
    “You’re both putting on an act,” Honey said. * I can tell. How could we possibly be in a worse spot? Look out at that water. It’s creeping higher and higher all the time. We’re freezing cold. We’re starved. We’re so hoarse we can’t even call for help anymore. Now the flashlight’s gone. Even you can’t find a bright side to the fix were in, Trixie.”
    “Oh, can’t I?” Trixie asked. “You listen to me, Honey Wheeler. We could easily have drowned out there when that boat turned over, but we didn’t.”
    “What difference does it make where we drown?” Honey wailed.
    “And furthermore,” Trixie went on, “we’re high up, on top of this barn. It could be pitch-dark, but the moon is giving more light all the time. We’re way off from the main current of the river. Maybe the water is rising. Maybe it’ll get higher and higher, but were in the backwash. Even if we were in the main current, the foundation of this barn is just like rock. So pull yourself together, Honey.”
    “I’m sorry I’m such a goon,” Honey said. “I’d like to be big and noble like you, Trixie—”
    “Oh, rubbish,” Trixie said. “I’m not big and noble, and you know it. I just have confidence that were going to get out of this. Say, why don’t we get our minds off the whole thing for a while? We’ll all flip if we keep talking like this. Let’s play Twenty Questions!”
    The