The Mystery of the Ghostly Galeon

rest of the Bob-Whites were waiting for her. They smiled as they saw that her eyes were fixed on what was obviously the captain’s table. It was large and round and obviously very old. It stood in the exact center of the room. The glow from the room’s subdued lighting reflected softly in its polished surface.
    Seated at it were three adults and four teen-aged boys. The boys appeared to be spending more time under the table than they did in their chairs. Trixie could see them busily tapping different areas of the bare, polished wood floor. She could tell they were looking for a trapdoor of some kind. She found herself hoping passionately that they wouldn’t find anything.
    “All right, folks, what’ll it be?” a gloomy voice asked over her head.
    Trixie looked up quickly and gasped. Standing by her side was one of the most villainous-looking men she had ever seen in her life. Dressed as a pirate, he was more frightening by far than the painting of Captain Trask.
    He was tall and skinny. He wore a black patch over one eye and a red scarf around his head. A gray stubble of beard covered his chin.
    Someone should tell him to smarten up, Trixie thought.
    As if he could read her mind, he said wearily, “Dumb outfit, ain’t it?” He pointed with the end of his pencil to his red and white striped T-shirt. “But I gotta wear it. Rule of the house. I’m also supposed to tell you that I’m Weasel Willis, and I’m your waiter for this afternoon. Of course, the name’s not really Weasel, but that’s another dumb rule. We all gotta have nicknames. So what’ll it be?”
    Honey frowned. “What do you suggest?”
    “Since you ask me,” Weasel said, “I don’t suggest anything. You probably won’t like the food here, anyway. This afternoon, everyone seems to want the Cannonball Pie. At least, that’s what they’ve been ordering. But it’s probably no good.”
    “If everyone’s been ordering it,” Di said firmly, “then I’m sure it’s excellent. Er—what is it?”
    “It’s just a fancy name for a cherry tart,” Weasel answered. “It’s supposed to be a specialty of the house. At least, that’s what Cookie likes to believe.”
    Mart stared, fascinated.“Cookie?”
    “The chef,” Weasel said briefly, then stood with his pencil poised in resignation over his order pad. He seemed to know that he was about to receive seven orders for Cannonball Pie.
    He was right.
    When he had gone to fetch the food, Trixie leaned across the table and said, “If that’s supposed to be one of Mr. Trask’s best waiters, I wonder what his worst ones are like?”
    “Maybe we ought to tell Mr. Trask what that waiter is really like,” Dan said.
    “On the other hand,” Honey replied, “perhaps we should have taken Weasel’s advice and ordered something else.”
    But a short while later, when seven plates had been hastily scraped clean, the verdict was unanimous. The tart, in spite of its peculiar name, was the most delicious they had ever tasted. The pastry melted in the mouth, the whipped cream topping was perfection, and the cherry filling itself surpassed any superlative that Mart could think of.
    He summoned their waiter at once. “You shouldn’t tell people they won’t enjoy it,” he announced severely, pushing his almost clean empty plate away. “That delectable morsel really hit the spot, you know.”
    But all Weasel said was, “Oh, well, maybe the chef had a good day for once. He doesn’t often. Sometimes he gets homesick, and when that happens, his cooking’s terrible.”
    “Where’s he from?” Trixie asked.
    “Someplace called the Cordon Bleu,” Weasel answered.
    “But that’s a very famous cooking school in France!” Di exclaimed. “No wonder the food is so excellent.”
    “You couldn’t prove it by me,” Weasel said sourly.
    Brian watched as he joined the other pirate waiters on the far side of the room. “Reverse psychology,” he said suddenly. “He was using reverse psychology on all of us.” He grinned. “Effective, wasn’t it?”
    “I don’t understand what you mean, Brian,” Di said.
    Brian rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “Don’t you see? Sometimes when you tell someone to do something, they immediately do the opposite.“
    “And I suppose it also works the other way around,” Dan said.
    “Sure,” Brian answered. “For instance, Weasel definitely told us not to order the pie. But he also managed to sneak in the information that it was a specialty of the house