The Mystery of the Castaway Children

Dunderberg goblin will get you.”
    Bobby had abandoned that legend with his baby food. He wasn’t interested in the bumpy, lumpy fellow who sat on Dunderberg’s peak and shouted to the winds through his speaking trumpet. “You rupted,” yelled Bobby. “Now I can’t hear it!”
    “Hear what?” Trixie called back.
    “I don’t know. Something I heard.”
    “What did it sound like? A person? An animal?” Anything mysterious, large or small, immediately brought questions to Trixie’s mind, even on a hot night like this.
    As usual, her six-year-old brother took his time while he considered Trixie’s questions. He thumped his ball into his mitt as he thought. Evidently believing the game to be over, Reddy wandered off toward his doghouse. There he sniffed about, backed away, and sat staring at the shelter as if contemplating a remodeling job. “Well?” Trixie prompted.
    Trixie’s temper was on a short fuse, but Bobby’s was on an even shorter one. “I don’t know!” he flared. “A kind of squeak, maybe. It mewed.”
    “Where did the sound come from?”
    “I don’t know that either,” Bobby said flatly. “Fine detective you’d make!” Trixie snorted. Bobby, used to Trixie’s mercurial disposition, paid no attention to her outburst. “I thought it was in the woods,” he went on. “Then it moved closer. It sounded like—”
    Trixie leaned forward.
    Bobby shook his round, blond head. “No, it couldn’t be.”
    Suddenly Trixie realized that Bobby was sincerely puzzled. What in the world could he have heard? Before she could question him further, the air seemed to shift, and the long-awaited rain came pouring down in sheets.
    At the same time, both Trixie and Bobby whooped, “Let’s get wet!”
    Bobby threw his mitt onto the porch, and Trixie scampered down the steps. Together they dashed around the comer of the house to the front yard, which sloped toward the lane. Great big drops spattered the leaves of oaks and maples and sent up little dust puffs from the dry patches on the lawn. Trixie and Bobby kicked off their sneakers and ran through the grass, singing as much as they could remember of “Singin’ in the Rain.”
    Soon it was raining so hard that puddles formed in the lane. Bubbles floated, only to burst when struck by raindrops. Bobby yanked off his T-shirt and splashed from puddle to puddle.
    Trixie chased him, shouting, “Dad! Moms! Come and play with us!”
    Peter Belden called back, “For two cents, I’d take you up on that.”
    Trixie searched the pockets of her shorts. “You’re safe, Dad!” she yelled.
    “Oh, no, you’re not,” Bobby said. He sprinted over to the porch to plop two pennies into his father’s hand.
    “Come on, Bobby, have a heart,” Mr. Belden begged.
    “Race you to the mailbox!” urged Trixie.
    “Peter, you wouldn’t,” Mrs. Belden protested, laughing.
    “If they can do it, I suppose their father might as well,” he defended himself as he handed his watch to his wife.
    Mrs. Belden shook her head in amusement as the trio raced down the lane, shouting their pleasure at the change of weather. Reddy decided to race in the opposite direction—toward the porch, where he showered Mrs. Belden with rain spray. She was frantically pushing him away from her when the racers returned. A soggy but happy group of Beldens watched from the porch while the rain tapered to sprinkles.
    The summer storm was over by the time Brian and Mart returned with an ice-cream treat from Mr. Lytell’s store. Trixie smacked her lips as her older brothers hopped out of Brian’s jalopy and made their way around the puddles toward the porch. When the boys reached the steps, they stopped short at the sight of the rest of their family, especially their father.
    Mr. Belden was seldom careless in his appearance, yet there he sat, white shirt clinging to his chest and black hair dripping water down his neck. Whenever he moved his feet, water squished from his shoes. And he was smiling.
    Mart was the first to express his amazement. “Such a state of bedewed dishevelment is not unheard of regarding our callow siblings, lamentable though it may be. But our sire?” Mart raised an eyebrow at Brian. “Methinks he has been led astray.”
    “I strayed him for two cents,” Bobby declared. “Money talks,” chuckled Brian.
    “Jeepers, who wants to talk?” broke in Trixie. “Let’s get at that ice cream!”
    Her family agreed, and in a matter of minutes, they all polished off