The Mystery of the Blinking Eye

together. Laughing, humming the music, they crowded around it. When they had finished eating, they danced.
    The girls went breathlessly from one partner to another, excited, laughing. “Isn’t it wonderful?” Barbara’s eyes danced as Brian took her from Mart and whirled her around. “New York’s the most wonderful place in the whole world!”
    “I guess New York does seem wonderful,” Jim admitted later as Barbara, exhausted, dropped into her chair beside him and sat dreamily sipping a cola. “I imagine, though, if you lived near the city all the time, as we do, you’d be just like Trixie. She can take fun for a while; then she has to get to work on something serious.”
    Mart snorted. “Boy, does she have you dazzled, Jim! You should hear her when Moms wants her to dust the house or help with the cooking.”
    “Gosh, why should she have to do that, when she can catch a gang of thieves like those you told us were after the antiques in your show?” Bob asked admiringly.
    “And show up Di’s phony uncle the way she did,” Ned added. “Here, just let me touch you, won’t you, please, Miss Sherlock?”
    “Stop it!” Trixie insisted, embarrassed. “The Bob-Whites all helped on those projects. It just seems that I get the credit, and I don’t deserve it. Save all the applause till I find out who those men are who are after my Incan idol—and why. That’s a puzzler. Come on, Dan; you haven’t danced at all, and this time you’re dancing with me!”
    Dan protested. “I haven’t danced because I don’t know how. You know I can’t, Trixie.”
    “I know you can’t if you don’t try. Come on!” Trixie waited until he got to his feet and took her hand.
    “It’s your funeral... your feet’s funeral, anyway,” Dan said.
    While Dan danced, the other boys carried the plates and other things to the back of the room and piled them on trays to be washed.
    “I sure wish we had a hangout like this in Rivervale or even in Des Moines,” Ned said. “They don’t charge very much for all this, either.”
    “That’s because all the kids pitch in and help,” Jim explained. “They don’t have to have any waiters. They put their money in good food and good music. The guy who started this place has about a dozen of them around the city now. They’re catching on all over the country.”
    “Don’t you think we’d better be shoving off?” Dan asked as he and Trixie came back to the table after the dance. “We said we’d be back for an early dinner. Miss Trask may be expecting us.”
    “She won’t expect us till she sees us,” Honey said knowingly.
    “We’re going to stop at the Museum of Natural History, though, on our way home, aren’t we?” Bob asked. “It may be our only chance, with all the other things you’ve planned for us to do.”
    “Sure thing, we’ll stop,” Jim assured him. “We wouldn’t pass up a chance to show you a ghostfish like the ones we found in that Ozark cave this summer. This one will be in a jar, though, and pickled. Let’s get going!”
    A little tired from all the dancing, the group walked slowly across the park to the big red brick museum building.
    “We’ll go right up to the fourth floor, because we don’t have much time before closing,” Brian said and led the way to the elevator.
    “Gosh, is it a giant fish you’re going to show us?” Bob asked as they went through the dinosaur room and began to walk toward the alcove where the fish were exhibited.
    “Hardly. The fish we want to show you is about three inches long.” Mart measured the distance with his two hands. “Look at that boy, though! He’s more than three inches long! I’d hate to meet him wandering around in the woods!”
    The skeleton of a huge Gorgosaurus faced them, its short front feet upraised, a giant lizardlike tail trailing. Its huge head was set on a long neck, and a light exposed the bones and great eye sockets.
    “That baby roamed all over North America several million years ago. There’s a Tyrannosaurus rex over there.” Mart pointed to another exhibit. “He was a meat-eater. Right beyond him are a duck-billed dinosaur and a horned one. Over in the corner is a skeleton of a Pterosaur. ”
    “Not really!” Dan pretended amazement. “You left me behind a long time ago, Mart. What is the what-do-you-call-it you just said?”
    “A flying reptile.”
    Ned was fascinated. “I know where I want to spend some time when I come back to New York, if we get to come back.