The Mystery at Mead's Mountain

Mr. Wheeler’s Plan • 1

    TRIXIE, TRIXIE, wait up!” called Honey, pushing her way through the crowded corridor of Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson Junior-Senior High School.
    “Honey Wheeler, where have you been?” demanded Trixie. She tossed her short blond curls in pretended anger, but the twinkle in her blue eyes showed that she wasn’t really upset with her best friend. “I waited outside your math class so we could go to lunch together. When you didn’t come out, I decided you’d already gone to your locker, but you weren’t there either. Come on, I’m famished!”
    “I got called out of math to take a phone call,” Honey explained as the two girls joined the flow of hall traffic. “It was Daddy calling from his office in New York. He asked me to invite all of the Bob-Whites to a special dinner tonight. He said you should all come early and exercise the horses before dinner. And listen to this,” she commanded, her normally calm voice full of excitement. “After dinner he wants to discuss something with us. He won’t tell me what it is. All he said was it’s a surprise he thinks we’ll really like!”
    “Gleeps!” Trixie exclaimed. “Your father comes up with the neatest surprises, like the trips to Cobbett’s Island and St. Louis, and the Bob-White station wagon, not that we can afford to keep it, with the cost of insurance and all. Do you think it’s something really neat like that?”
    “I don’t have any idea, Trixie. You and your brothers will come, won’t you?” Honey begged.
    “Of course—” Trixie began. Then she moaned. They had been walking down the stairs, and abruptly Trixie sat down on a step. “Today is the day before the garden club’s Christmas bazaar,” she said gloomily. “Moms is in charge of it, and Brian, Mart, and I promised to go over there right after school and help her set up booths. We’ll probably be there till late tonight. I’d much rather go riding and hear what your father has to say than set up—yipes!” She jumped to her feet to avoid being trampled by a crowd of boys that came thundering down the stairs.
    Honey took Trixie’s arm and pulled her out of the way. “You and your brothers have got to come,” she pleaded. “Why don’t you call your mother just to see what she says? Maybe the three of you could come over for dessert,” she suggested.
    “Good idea,” agreed Trixie, her face brightening. “I just know your father’s got something really exciting to discuss, and Moms can be pretty softhearted around Christmastime. Maybe if we promise to work super hard until time for dessert....”
    “Your mother is softhearted all the time, Trixie Belden, and you know it. I’d come and help with the bazaar if I could, but Regan will have a fit if some one isn’t there to exercise the horses.”
    “We certainly don’t need Regan upset with us,” Trixie decided. “If he quit, then your father would be mad at us because he could never find another groom like Regan. He’d probably be so mad he’d forget to tell us his surprise!”
    Honey laughed. “Go call your mother,” she said, giving Trixie a gentle shove. “I’ll meet you at our table. I want to tell the other Bob-Whites about the surprise.”
    As Trixie made her way down the hall toward the pay phone, she thought of how much Honey’s friendship meant to her. So much had happened since they’d met each other. Probably the most important thing was the forming of the Bob-Whites of the Glen, the club that included Trixie, her look-alike brother, Mart, and their older brother, Brian. Honey and her adopted brother, Jim Frayne, were also members, along with Diana Lynch, who was fourteen like Trixie and Honey, and Dan Mangan, nephew of Regan, the Wheelers’ groom.
    Knowing Honey had also led to all of the mysteries.
    Shortly after Trixie and Honey became friends, things just started “happening,” and the two found themselves constantly involved in solving mysteries. Handsome Jim Frayne had been the subject of two of their first cases. Their mysteries kept life very exciting for all of the Bob-Whites.
    Friendship with Honey had meant many grand times at Manor House, the Wheeler estate. It was a large mansion with extensive grounds that included stables, a lake, and a three-hundred-acre game preserve.
    Trixie thought affectionately of her own mother, who worked so hard making a nice home for her family at Crabapple Farm, and of her father, who worked at the bank in Sleepyside. Trixie