The Hudson River Mystery

to Loyola. ”Why are you poisoning my brother?” she blurted. ”Because he’s too much c-competition?”

Sharks Again! • 10

    LOYOLA BURST INTO TEARS.
    ”Trixie!” Brian exploded. ”Have you gone nuts or something? That’s a mean, rotten thing to say!”
    ”Trixie, what on earth are you thinking of?” Honey demanded shrilly.
    Trixie hadn’t prepared herself for any reaction at all, much less for this. She stared at her redfaced brother, realizing that this was the angriest she’d ever seen him.
    ”Brian, I’m sorry, but don’t you see?” Trixie cried. ”One of the things on Moms’s list of cyanide sources was apple seeds. This salad is loaded with seeds! And Loyola’s been feeding it to you ever since—ever since you started this chemistry project at the beginning of the semester. And Brian—she hasn’t been eating any of it herself!”
    Brian and Honey, shocked beyond words, gaped at Loyola. The black girl, in turn, stopped crying and looked directly into Trixie’s eyes.
    ”I had no idea the seeds were poisonous,” she said simply.
    Too many facts were racing through Trixie’s brain for her to take in what Loyola said at first. ”Moms said that you had been getting the poison in very small doses for an extended period of time, Brian. You were going to die when it reached the toxic level!”
    ”Trixie, didn’t you hear what Loyola just said?” Honey asked.
    ”And then when I told Loyola about your being taken to the hospital,” Trixie rushed on, ”she started to say something about how you had been her only competition—as if you were already dead! She always acted as if the project were much more important than your health. She never even noticed that anything was wrong with you! I know, because I asked her. Why, even Di and everyone else was worried sick—”
    ”That’s enough,” Brian ordered. ”You have turned into a stark, raving—”
    ”No, wait, Brian,” said Loyola. She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes a minute, and put the glasses back on. ”I really didn’t know that about apple seeds,” she told Trixie. ”You’ve got to believe that. And I don’t eat this salad because I really don’t like it. You’ve got to believe that, too.”
    ”What about your grandfather’s health?” Brian asked. ”You said he’s been eating it.”
    ”And us,” Honey said, alarmed. ”We all just ate it.”
    ”I make this for my grandfather only a few times a year,” said Loyola. ”Apparently, that must not be often enough to let the cyanide build up, because he’s the healthiest eighty-year-old you’ll ever see. And I don’t imagine that eating it this once is going to do the three of you any harm, as long as you’re not eating it on a regular basis.” She shook her head in disbelief. ”I guess I need to do more reading on natural foods—I thought using whole apples was a healthy thing to do. Brian, I—I just don’t know what to say.”
    ”You don’t have to say anything,” Brian assured her quietly. ”At least now we know what was making me sick.”
    ”Well, there is something else I need to say,” Loyola said, turning to Trixie, who, by this time, was starting to feel horribly embarrassed. ”Trixie, I can kind of see how you reached your conclusion. I’m not anywhere near fanatic enough to start killing off my competition, but you’re not the first person who’s told me I’m too intense about getting good grades.”
    Trixie mumbled something unintelligible.
    ”I like to do well,” Loyola went on. ”I want to have a worthwhile career as a marine biologist. But sometimes I’m so eager to reach my personal goal that I’m insensitive to others. When you asked me what I thought was bothering your brother, Trixie, I was, well, puzzled. I realize now that I should have been more alert to his symptoms, but at the time I figured that his sister should know a lot more about Brian than his lab partner.”
    ”I know, that was silly of me,” said Trixie.
    ”Not really, when you consider how much I’d seen of him lately. I should have been more thoughtful then, and also when you told me about his collapse. I was just concentrating too hard on our project. And that remark about Brian’s being my only competition—that was inexcusably thoughtless.”
    Trixie cleared her throat. ”No, I’m the one who’s thoughtless. I have a career in mind, too—as a detective.” Normally, Trixie was reluctant to reveal her goal to new people, but she knew she