The Mysterious Code

existence than the B.W.G*s”
    “Mr. Stratton said
that?” Honey asked, her big hazel eyes widening*
    “No, Tad did”
    “They do have some
good athletes in the Hawks,” Mart said. He had been a Little Leaguer and could
not quite make the Pony League when Tad did. “Tad can throw a curve as well as
any pro.”
    “Were getting away
from the subject again,” Brian reminded Trixie.
    “Oh, yes, thanks,
Brian.” Trixie was still breathless. “Tad told me that the vandalism and
thievery —someone stole fifteen dollars out of Mr. Stratton s desk last
night—has driven the board members and Mr. Stratton nearly crazy. Tad told me
he thought they were out to get all clubs.”
    “You don’t honestly
believe that Mr. Stratton thinks the
B.W.G.’s are breaking windows and looting desks and lockers, do you?” Jim
asked. He and Brian found it difficult to understand some of 1 Trixie’s thinking.
    “No, I don’t Oh, you
all have me so confused I don’t know what to think.”
    “You didn’t just sit
there and take what Mr. Stratton said, did you?” Mart asked. “Didn’t you tell
him about any of the good things the club has
done for people?”
    “I didn’t, Mart,
because those things are what make the club secret, things like—well, like
showing up Di’s phony uncle, and—”
    “Helping me get away
from my cruel stepfather,” Jim said.
    “And the time you
and Honey saved little Sally Darnell’s life—and catching Dapper Dick, the
thief—” Mart started counting on his fingers. “Well, what did you tell him,
Trixie?”
    “I told him about
how Jim is going to start a school for boys someday.”
    Big red-haired,
freckled Jim looked embarrassed. When his Great-uncle James Frayne died and
left half a million dollars to his orphaned nephew, Jim had put it all in a
trust fund dedicated to a school for orphan boys that he planned to open when
he finished college.
    “Did you tell him
Brian is going to be the resident physician at my school?” Jim asked Trixie.
    “Yes, I did. I told
him, too, that Mart is going to take care of all the land around it when he
finishes agricultural school.”
    “And that wasn’t
enough for him?” Diana asked. “No, it wasn’t. He said that was all far in the
future. He thought it was ‘splendid for you to want to help one another.’ ”
Trixie touched the fingers of her hands together and rocked back on her heels
in imitation of Mr. Stratton. “Then he spoiled it all by saying that he and the
board would have a hard time believing that our little club could do anything
for millionaires like the Wheelers and the Lynches.”
    “I wish— how I
wish we didn’t have any more money than anyone else,” Honey moaned.
    “I wish the same
thing, ” said Diana.
    “He doesn’t know how
wonderful and kind and generous you and your families are,” Trixie said.
“Anyway, money doesn’t solve all the troubles people have.”
    “That’s right” Honey
agreed. “Mr. Stratton should talk to Miss Trask, and she’d tell him what a
different person the B.W.G.*s have made of me” Miss Trask had been Honey’s
teacher when she was in a private school Now she lived in the Wheeler home and
supervised it It was she who insisted that Honey's mother and father send her
to a public school, outfit her in blue jeans for play, and let hex do the
things other girls her age were doing. Honey, who had been sickly most of her
life, was now pink-cheeked and could by no stretch of the imagination be called
sickly.
    “He should know,
too,” Diana said, “how the B.W.G.'s gave my parents a whole new set of values.
We re lots more of a family since my mother and father discharged the butler,
the nurses for my twin brothers and twin sisters, and half the maids. They
thought when we first moved into this neighborhood, that we’d just have to live
like millionaires. I guess we couldn’t do it because we’ve really been poor
most of our lives.”
    “Were getting away
from the subject again,” Brian warned. “What makes the situation so urgent now,
Trixie?”
    “The school board is
having a meeting tonight—”
    “And?”
    “And they may very
well tell us that we can’t ever be a club again!”
    “Our beautiful
clubhouse that we’ve worked so hard to rebuild!” Diana sighed. She was the
newest club member. She had felt very lonely before the B.W.G.’s had asked her
to join them. “I used to look at you, Trixie, and your two older brothers, Brian
and Mart, and Honey and her