The Mystery in Arizona

nudged Trixie with his elbow. “Why so glum, dopey?”
    Trixie glared at him. “You know why. Don’t pretend you weren’t eavesdropping yesterday when Miss Jones was talking to Moms and Dad.”
    Mart quirked his sandy eyebrows. “Eavesdropping is hardly the correct word to use when describing the unavoidable overhearing of your loud moans and groans when you saw Miss Jones’s car turn into our driveway. Since she is your guidance counselor, it did not take me long to put two and two together and arrive at the conclusion that you are flunking your two weakest subjects, mathematics and the English language.”
    “Oh, stop it,” Trixie stormed. “I’m not really flunking anything. Miss Jones said that if I worked hard for the next few weeks, I could get high marks in the midyears. So I’ll just have to study hard.”
    Mart raised one finger impressively. “Ah, there’s the rub. Study hard. I fear the sad truth is that you do not know how to study at all, let alone industriously. I have frequently observed you when you are about to attack a problem which will involve reducing several fractions to the lowest common denominator. Instead of concentrating on the task before you, you chew the eraser on your pencil and gaze out of the window or off into space.” He spread his hands. “Now I ask you, is that studying?”
    “Oh, be quiet,” Trixie shouted. “That is not studying, and it is not the way I study, either. And, in case you’re interested, the problem that almost drove me crazy last night had nothing to do with fractions. It was a nightmare, I tell you. All about trains leaving at the same time from two different places on a single track.” She pulled her blue cardigan up and around her face, shuddering.
    Mart snorted. “Well, did you somehow manage to get the right answer?”
    “Of course not,” Honey put in loyally. “And I don’t blame her for not trying. It was a scary sort of problem. Just thinking about that awful collision gave me a nightmare, too.”
    “I didn’t even try to understand it,” Di admitted. The girls were all wearing sweaters with matching skirts. Di’s was lavender, and, imitating Trixie, she pulled her cardigan up to cover her face. Buttoning the next-to-the-top button over the bridge of her pretty nose, she blinked her violet eyes rapidly. “Groan, groan. As soon as I saw that word ‘single track,’ I knew what kind of a problem to expect, so I simply ignored it and went on to the next one.” Still blinking, she continued in her muffled voice, “The next one was even worse. Groan, groan, groan!”
    Mart threw up his hands in disgust. “How dumb can you women get? What was this nightmarish problem, anyway?”
    Honey giggled. Imitating the others, she masked her face with her yellow cardigan and intoned, “One train was traveling at the rate of forty miles per hour; the other at the rate of fifty miles per hour. And their starting places were one hundred and forty miles apart. Question: What will happen and when?”
    Di unmasked her face and narrowed her eyes. “Simple, huh? The next one was even more simple.
    So simple, in fact, that I ignored it completely. Any time I see the word single track’—”
    “For pete’s sake,” Mart exploded, “ ‘single track’ isn’t a word, dopey. It’s a phrase.”
    Di groaned more loudly than ever. “Must we bring grammar into this horrible conversation? If there is one thing Trixie and I hate more than math, it’s grammar. Right, Trix?”
    “Truer words were never spoken,” said Trixie. “I’m thinking seriously of quitting school until Jim starts the one he plans to have for orphans.”
    Di made her eyes even wider. “What kind of school is he going to have?”
    “Lessons,” said Trixie, “will be sandwiched in between outdoor sports. That’s for me. But definitely.”
    “Me, too,” agreed Di enthusiastically. “I knew Jim planned to have a school of his own someday, but I thought it was just going to be for orphan boys. At least, that’s what he told me the last time we talked about it.” She leaned across the table to attract Trixie’s attention. “Has he changed his mind?”
    But Trixie wasn’t listening. Redheaded Jim was hurrying toward them, his freckled face flushed with excitement.
    “Phone for you, Di,” he called out. “It’s your mother, on the kitchen extension.”
    Di fled, and Honey gasped, “Oh, that must mean she’s heard from Mr. Wilson.”
    “Let’s keep our fingers