The Mystery at Saratoga

impatiently for Honey’s phone call, and her spirits were almost as low as Dan’s had been the night before.
    “You’re just tired,” she told herself as she changed the sheets on her bed. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so worried about a silly old dream.” Gathering up the sheets she’d just taken off the bed, she rolled them into a ball in her arms, marched to the laundry chute, and threw them down, as if she were trying to throw the memory of the dream away with them.
    But it wasn’t that easy to put the nightmare out of her mind. She vacuumed and dusted with her mind only partly on her work.
    She was standing with the dustrag in her hand, gazing across the living room at the telephone and wishing it would ring, when she felt a tug on her sleeve and looked down into the worried gaze of her little brother.
    “I need a glass of water, Trixie,” Bobby said. “I need it bad, and I asked you twice, but you didn’t hear me. What’s wrong, Trixie?”
    “I’m sorry, Bobby. I—I was thinking about something else. Let’s go get some water.”
    “What were you thinking about, Trixie?” Bobby demanded as they walked into the kitchen.
    Mrs. Belden looked up from the bread dough she was kneading and smiled. “I’ve been wondering the same thing all morning, Bobby,” she said. “I suspect that while your sister’s hands are doing dusting and vacuuming here in Sleepyside, her mind is far away, at a certain boys’ camp in upstate New York.”
    “What does that mean?” Bobby asked, looking from his mother to his older sister in confusion.
    Laughing, Trixie gave Bobby a hug as she told him, “Moms means that I miss Brian and Mart and Jim.”
    “Oh,” Bobby said solemnly. “I understand that. I miss them, too, Trixie. I miss them something awful .”
    “I’m going to remind you both of what you just said when your brothers get back and the four of you begin teasing each other, as you always do. And, although I haven’t been able to hear what your brothers have said this summer, I feel fairly sure that they—and Jim—have also admitted to missing the two of you.”
    Trixie wrinkled her nose. “I doubt that,” she said. “If we could overhear that terrible trio, we’d probably hear them saying that they wish they could spend the rest of their lives at camp, away from chores and away from baby-sitting.”
    Mrs. Belden laughed. “You seem to forget, Trixie, that chores and baby-sitting are exactly what your brothers are doing at camp—and in much larger measure than any of you do here at home.”
    Trixie giggled. “You’re right, Moms. I always think of that camp as a vacation resort for the boys. I forget that they spend a lot of their time doing dishes, sweeping floors, and trying to keep oodles of energetic little boys out of patches of poison ivy.”
    Trixie and her mother started as the screen door slammed. Trixie hurried over to it and saw Bobby running down the driveway to the mailbox, where the mail carrier’s truck had just pulled up.
    Smiling, Trixie shook her head. “I don’t know how he does it, Moms,” she said. “Bobby can hear the mailman’s truck coming before it leaves downtown Sleepyside. And yet he never hears me ask him to get cleaned up before dinner.”
    “That talent for hearing only what they want to hear is one that all of my children seem to have,” Mrs. Belden teased.
    “That’s true,” Trixie admitted. “Why, just a few minutes ago, I was so lost in thought that I didn’t hear Bobby ask me for a glass of water.” She giggled. “He said he needed it ‘bad,’ but he forgot all about it when he heard the mailman’s truck. There must be something exciting in the mail, because he’s running back up the driveway as fast as he can, waving an envelope over his head.”
    Before Bobby even reached the back step, his mother and sister heard him shout, “It’s a letter from Brian and Mart!”
    “Yippee!” Trixie yelled, as excited as her six-year-old brother. Then, remembering that Bobby’s reading was often questionable, she called, “Are you sure it’s from them, Bobby?”
    The screen door slammed as Bobby entered the kitchen. “ ‘Course I’m sure, Trixie,” he said, looking hurt. “I know my own name, and my own name is the same as Mart and Brian’s own name. At least, the last part is. See?” He pointed at the return address on the envelope, which was already crumpled from being clutched tightly in Bobby’s small hand. “This big letter