The Mysterious Visitor

Tom said miserably. "She was down there early this morning measuring the windows for curtains."
    Trixie collapsed on a mound of autumn leaves. "That’s what Honey is doing right now. Oh, Tom, it’s our secret clubhouse!"
    Tom laughed without humor. "It didn’t take a detective to figure that out. And I know that Honey’s not the type to whine to her old man, saying that you kids want to keep it."
    "She’d die first," Trixie said staunchly.
    Tom took a deep breath. "I’ll pay you back every cent you spent, and for your time, too. You could build yourselves another clubhouse somewhere else where it would be more secret, couldn’t you?"
    Trixie got up and dusted off the seat of her jeans. "I don’t know, Tom," she said hopelessly. "I’ll talk it over with the rest of the kids and let you know."
    Shoulders drooping, she slouched discouraged-ly into the house and dialed the Lynches’ phone number.
    Harrison answered: "Who’s calling, please?"
    "Trixie Belden."
    "I’ll see if Miss Diana is in," he said.
    Trixie, slumped over the telephone table in the study, waited. It was an awful blow to lose the clubhouse when they had worked so hard on it and had slaved to earn the money for the necessary repairs. It was all very well for Tom to say that they could build another one somewhere else, but soon it would be winter with snow and sleet and ice and, between now and then, only weekends and a few hours of daylight after school.
    "Miss Belden?" The butler’s voice was as cold as the ice Trixie had been thinking about. "Miss Diana is not in —to you!"
    Stunned, Trixie heard the click as he hung up.

Hawthorne Street • 1J

    TRIXIE SAT in the Wheelers’ study, too stunned to move. She was still clutching the telephone when Jim came in, a few moments later.
    "What’s the matter with you?" he asked, grinning. "How come you’re literally and figuratively glued to the phone on a nice day like this?" Trixie hastily placed the instrument back in its cradle. The sight of Jim brought back the depressing news about the clubhouse, crowding all other thoughts from her mind.
    "Oh, Jim," she cried. "Have you heard? Mr. Wheeler has given the cottage—our secret clubhouse—to Tom and Celia!"
    Jim clutched his red hair with both hands. "Since when? And are you sure of that?"
    Trixie nodded sadly. "Tom just told me a few minutes ago. It’s not really his fault. Celia is crazy about the place. I don’t know how she happened to see our clubhouse, Jim, but—"
    "I do," Jim said. "Bobby! Last Sunday he spent a lot of time in the kitchen consuming cookies and milk. It was while you girls were making plans for the Halloween party. I happened to pass through the kitchen once, and I heard him tell Celia that he had been very busy ‘holping’ us ‘jingle’ the roof of our ‘see-crud’ clubhouse." Trixie sighed with exasperation. "Brian and Mart should have had better sense than to take Bobby with them when they moved all that stuff from our garage last Saturday."
    Jim chuckled. "It’s a known fact in this neck of the woods that Bobby and a secret are soon parted. But that’s the price you have to pay for having a lovable kid brother like Bobby. And there’s no sense in crying over spilled milk, Trix." "I do feel like crying," Trixie stormed. "Not because of Bobby. I’m used to getting into scrapes on account of him. But it’s not fair. Celia wouldn’t have looked at the gatehouse twice if we hadn’t fixed it up. Before, it was just a shack."
    Jim shrugged. "All’s fair in love and war, I guess. Actually, before we spent so much time and money on it, we should have figured we’d have to ask Dad if we could keep it."
    Trixie sniffed. "Why must you always be so honorable all of the time, Jim? It gets boring. If you’d asked Mr. Wheeler for permission to keep the cottage, it wouldn’t have been a secret. Not that it is. Why, even Dad knows about it. And I suppose it was Bobby who told him, too. Di doesn’t know how lucky she is to have two nurses on her place who spend all their time keeping her kid brothers out of her hair."
    Jim stared up at the ceiling. "You don’t really mean that, Trix. Now calm down and start trying to make some sense."
    "Oh, all right," Trixie cried. "But I’ll never forgive Celia, even if Tom did say he would pay us for our time and money."
    "Well, that’s a break," Jim said cheerfully. "I don’t blame you for being mad, Trixie. You put twenty-five dollars of your own money in our clubhouse.