The Mystery at Maypenny's

come everybody’s talking about the pine company.”
    Trixie leaned her head back until it rested against the wall above the bed. She closed her eyes, trying to figure out how she could explain to Bobby something that she herself only partially understood.
    “Don’t go to sleep, Trixie,” Bobby said shrilly. “I wanna know about the pine company.”
    Trixie opened her eyes and raised her head. “I’m not going to sleep, Bobby,” she said. “I’m just trying to remember everything I know about the pine company so that I can tell you about it.” She paused again, chewing her lower lip. Then she took a deep breath and plunged in. “The pine company is International Pine, Bobby,” she began. “They make furniture.”
    “I know that,” Bobby said. “Daddy told me that.”
    “Well, what else did he tell you?” Trixie asked. “He said it’s Inter—Inter— He said it’s what you said. And he said they make furniture. And he said they wanna make some more furniture, so they wanna buy some land from Mr. Maypenny and Mr. Wheeler. And he said Mr. Wheeler wants to sell it to them, and Mr. Maypenny doesn’t. And he said some of the people think Mr. Wheeler is right and some people think Mr. Maypenny is right. And he said everybody’s getting all excited and upset about it.”
    Trixie nodded. “That’s about it, Bobby. It sounds as if Daddy did a good job of explaining the whole thing to you. What more do you want me to tell you about ‘the pine company’?”
    “What I want you to tell me about the pine company,” Bobby said slowly, “what I want you to tell me is, who’s right and who’s wrong?”
    In spite of Bobby’s serious, grown-up expression, Trixie laughed out loud, scooped Bobby up in her arms, and hugged him. “If I knew the answer to that question, I could rule the world,” she told him.
    Bobby looked confused, and Trixie knew she’d have to try to explain things more clearly. She took a deep breath and went on. “Bobby, nobody knows who’s right and who’s wrong. In fact, probably nobody is right or wrong. They just have different opinions, because they want different things. It’s—It’s as if you and I went to the store and I wanted a vanilla ice-cream cone and you wanted a chocolate ice-cream cone. I wouldn’t be wrong because I wanted vanilla, and you wouldn’t be wrong for wanting chocolate. We’d just be different. You see?”
    Bobby nodded his head. Then his forehead puckered again in a frown, and he shook his head. “When you want vanilla and I want chocolate, we can both get what we want. But if Mr. Wheeler wants to sell and Mr. Maypenny doesn’t want to sell, they can’t both get what they want, can they?”
    Trixie shook her head. “It’s as if there were only one ice-cream cone left in the whole world, and it has to be either chocolate or vanilla,” she said sadly.
    “Oh,” Bobby said. “That’s bad.”
    “It sure is,” his sister agreed.
    Bobby stood up. “Thank you for ’splaining it to me, Trixie,” he said solemnly.
    “You’re welcome,” Trixie replied. She watched Bobby walk out of her room, carefully closing the door behind him. She flopped back on the bed and closed her eyes. “Chocolate or vanilla,” she said to herself. “I wonder which it’s going to be.”
    The next morning, Trixie dawdled as she got ready for school. Although she had a constant problem with running late, she knew that this was a different feeling. The strain of riding on the bus every morning with her friends and not mentioning International Pine was getting to be too much. It was uppermost in their minds, and they all knew it, but they knew, too, that the only way to keep the peace was not to talk about it. Everyone worked hard at inventing small talk, but the lively chatter they all used to share was gone. Before, the bus ride had been too short to get everything said that they wanted to say. Now it was too long.
    Trixie tried to line up some safe topics of conversation as she walked to the bus stop with her older brothers, but she found, as soon as she settled into her seat next to Honey, that it wasn’t necessary.
    “Guess what?” Honey asked her excitedly.
    “What?” Trixie said, feeling her own excitement start to grow immediately.
    Instead of answering, Honey turned to Dan. “Go ahead, Dan,” she said. “It’s really your news.”
    “Mr. Maypenny’s nephew has arrived!” Trixie shouted. “Is that it?”
    The other Bob-Whites all laughed.