The Mysterious Code

school. What
do you mean when you say the vandalism stopped after the talks we had with Mr.
Stratton?”
    “I mean just this:
Maybe it was an inside job at the school. Maybe some kid did it for
spite because he’d been shut out of the clubs.”
    “He wouldn’t steal for that reason,” Trixie said. “How do you know what a kid would do if he
didn’t have the right guidance at home?” Spider asked. “You and the Wheeler and
Lynch kids don’t know what it is to be up against trouble. You’ve always had it
easy.”
    “Why, Spider
Webster, we work hard, every one of the B.W.G.’s.”
    “Yeah, but your
folks make it easy for you. It wouldn’t hurt any of you to be a little bit
nicer to some of the other kids in school who don’t have it so good.” Spider s
face was serious.
    Trixie didn’t answer
for a while. Then she said thoughtfully, “Maybe we do stick together too much.
I guess it’s just because we’ve been working so hard. I never thought about it
before, Spider. Maybe you’re right.”
    “You just bet I’m
right,” Spider said. “You kids always high-hat Tad, for instance. I know he’s
not perfect, but he’s not bad, either. All that business about helping kids on
the other side of the world— try to do something for some kids nearer home.”
    “Why, Spider,”
Trixie said unhappily, “we have been pretty selfish, haven’t we? Not a
single one of the Bob-Whites ever wanted to be. I know that. I’m going to talk
to them about what you’ve said. Thanks, Spider.”
    After school Trixie
told the rest of the B.W.G.’s that Spider didn’t think the mysterious visit to
the clubhouse was very important.
    “Don’t worry too
much about it,” Mart said. “He’ll come around to helping us. Remember when we
were shut up in that red trailer, and we had such a time convincing Spider we were
really kidnapped?”
    “I remember,” Honey
said. “You told us you had to bring out a tape recording of that man’s voice to
prove it to Spider. He’s odd.”
    “I think he’s
worried about Tad,” Diana said. “You don’t mean that he thinks Tad stole the
desk?” Honey asked.
    “No, he doesn’t
think that,” Trixie said. “It’s something a lot different, and I’m ashamed. I
think you will all be, too, after I tell you!” So she told them of her
conversation with Spider.
    “He makes us sound
like a bunch of snobs,” Mart said. “And we’re not. I’m downright jealous of Tad
because he’s in the Pony League and I’m not.”
    “Tell Tad so
sometime,” Trixie said. “I think Spider is right, in a way. Maybe we have been thoughtless and didn’t mean anything, but if you think about it, as I have
since I talked to Spider, you’ll realize how much we keep to ourselves. It
isn’t only after school hours, but at school, too.”
    “Tad is a
kind of goon,” Diana insisted.
    “Maybe he wouldn’t
be if we’d be a little more decent to him,” Trixie said. “I, for one, am going
to try.”
    “It won’t hurt the
rest of us to try, too,” Jim said. “Eight, gang?”
    “Right!” they
answered.
    “I just hope Spider
will help us find out a few things,” Trixie continued, her point made. “There’s
some kind of a hookup among those people who were looking into the clubhouse
that night, the masked robbers who stole the desk, that boy who was shoveling
snow at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s, and even the schoolhouse vandals.”
    It was only a few
days later when part of that theory was disproved.
    The Bob-Whites were
all at the clubhouse working. Honey and Diana were stuffing the cloth dolls,
Mart was working on a chair, and Brian and Jim were looking over a group of
framed pictures that had been given them. Trixie was sitting at a table
surrounded by papers, arranging the route for Tom and Regan to follow to pick
up the antiques that were to be exhibited.
    “Someone’s coming
round the comer of the clubhouse,” Honey announced.
    A knock sounded at
the door.
    Brian answered it. A
small Japanese man stood there, hat in hand, bowing. “Please to talk to the
boss girl,” he said.
    “We don’t have any
boss,” Mart said, standing in back of Brian. Then he added politely, “Won’t you
come in?”
    “He probably means
Trixie,” Jim said, smiling. “If we have a boss, she’s it.”
    “Miss Tlixie, yes,”
said the Japanese. “Cook at Wheeler house tell me Miss Tlixie have sword, I
think maybe old samurai sword.”
    Trixie looked a
little shamefaced. She didn’t realize she had