The Mystery of the Blinking Eye

That would be sixteen people.”
    “What of it? We’ll have a cookout on the terrace— hamburgers—and you can all help. Jim, Dan, Brian, Mart, you get the fire going, and the rest can help me rustle up some salad. Stay, won’t you?”
    “Do! Please do!” the Reed children begged.
    “We’d love it, of course, if you really mean it, wouldn’t we?” Trixie turned to her crowd.
    “If we can help, yes,” Honey said, “and that means doing the dishes, too. What’s the matter, Mart?”
    “I just happened to remember. I’m afraid we’d better not stay. Bob and Barbara sort of wanted to see the video tape of the show. We’d like to see it, too.”
    “What is it?” Mrs. Reed asked. “Is it something on television? Can’t we all watch it?”
    “Gee, sure, if you want to,” Bob said, a little embarrassed. “It’s kind of dumb.”
    Trixie explained that the show Barbara and Bob had appeared on the day before had been video taped for showing later in the evening. When she told the children that Barbara and Bob played guitars and sang songs they themselves composed, the Reed twins, enchanted with the visiting older twins, insisted they all stay.
    So Mrs. Reed thawed chopped meat from their big freezer, mixed it with bread crumbs soaked in milk to keep the patties juicy, seasoned them, and passed them on to the boys to cook. The charcoal grill was hot. Dr. Joe donned a tall white chef’s hat, and he and Jim and Brian quickly browned the hamburgers.
    The fragrance of meat cooking, the tangy salad dressing, muted sounds from the avenue below—all provided a magical setting for the visitors. Bob and Barbara sang as Tex strummed his ukulele. Dr. Joe and his wife added their voices, and even little Nancy chimed in with her childish treble.
    Later, as the coals whitened and when they had consumed the food like a swarm of locusts, the young people gathered paper plates and cups and carried them to the kitchen.
    "Time for the broadcast!” the Reed twins sang out.
    Dr. Joe wheeled the portable television set out to the terrace, and they all crowded around it to watch and listen.

A Mysterious Call ● 14

    I THINK I’d BETTER hurry inside and telephone Miss Trask before the program starts,” Trixie said. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. We promised her that today we wouldn’t go anyplace after dark.”
    “Tell her I’ll take you all home,” Dr. Reed called after her.
    “Joe loves to have an excuse to drive through the theater district at night,” Mrs. Reed explained while Trixie made her call. “We never have enough time to go to a show.”
    “I have to stop at the hospital, anyway,” Dr. Joe said. “Did you get Miss Trask, Trixie?”
    “Yes, I did, and she said she wouldn’t worry as long as we’re with you. Jeepers, the show’s starting!”
    When “The Impossible Dream” was sung, the children clapped. “He has a marvelous voice,” Mrs. Reed said. “Why, there are Barbara and Bob now, right on the screen. Do you see them, Nancy?”
    “Shhh!” Nancy warned. Then, when the twins had finished their song, she ran to Barbara and threw her arms around her. “It was pretty music. You looked so pretty—”
    “Oh, look!” Trixie screamed and pointed. All the Bob-Whites jumped to their feet.
    “Did you see them?” Trixie exclaimed. “Away in back when the camera was turned on the audience?”
    “You couldn’t miss them,” Jim said soberly.
    “That wasn’t any coincidence, their being at the broadcast!” Trixie grabbed Honey’s hand.
    “Heavens, no!” Honey said. “Trixie, we sure bungled this job. We still haven’t anything but the faintest idea of why they are following us.”
    “Is the whole thing a secret?” Dr. Joe asked.
    Trixie’s face sobered. “Oh, how rude of us! It isn’t a secret at all, but it’s a long story. It sure is a strange mystery, too.”
    “Then tell us,” Tex cried. “Tell us, please!”
    “If you do, begin with the Mexican woman at Kennedy Airport,” Barbara said. “It all seems to fit together. It’s the thrillingest thing!”
    So Trixie told the story of the woman at the airport; her prophecy and the amazing way it seemed to be working out; the little Incan idol purchased at the antique shop; her accident in Central Park; the episode at Liberty Island; the men who hung around their apartment entrance; the strangers who searched the apartment; Trixie and Diana’s experience at the Empire State Building—all the odd