The Mystery of the Memorial Day Fire

Trixie said impatiently. “Just tell us where the fire was and what caused it and whether anyone was hurt!”
    “... no word yet on the cause of the explosion, which originated in the four-hundred block of West Second Street, just two blocks from the parade route. There is no word yet on whether the buildings involved in the explosion and subsequent fire were occupied.
    “It is known, however, that the two buildings were a store and a warehouse, neither of which would normally be occupied in the evening.
    “Efforts of fire fighters to put out the blaze were hampered by the throngs of spectators who — ”
    The announcer’s account of the fire ceased abruptly as Mart turned the radio off. “We don’t need to hear any more about the rudeness of the spectators. We got to see it for ourselves.”
    “It’s lucky the explosion happened tonight,” Honey said. “I mean, it’s not lucky that the explosion happened, of course. And it’s not lucky that all those people were on Main Street. But it is lucky they were on Main Street because then they couldn’t be anywhere else. I mean, they couldn’t be where the explosion was. You know what I mean,” she concluded lamely.
    “I know what you mean,” Trixie said. “There are never any shops open in Sleepyside during the parade because there aren’t any people around. Well, that is, there are lots of people around, but there aren’t any people around shopping. Oh, woe. I know what Honey means. Now does anybody know what I mean?”
    “I think you both mean that chances are nobody was hurt in the explosion or fire,” Jim said. “I hope you’re right. But there are bound to be some businesses hurt, and that hurts people who own them and work in them.”
    “Businesses!” Trixie exclaimed. “Gleeps!” She jumped up and ran out of the room, leaving a bewildered group of people watching her. Moments later she was back, the phone book open and balanced on the palm of one hand. “‘Four thirty-one West Second Street,’” she read. She slammed the book shut and, with a look of despair, she said, “That’s the address of Nick Roberts’s father’s shop!”
    “Oh, no!” Honey Wheeler groaned.



3 * A Meeting of the Bob-Whites

    “OH, NO!” Trixie shouted the next morning when she sat down at the breakfast table and saw the front page of the Sleepyside Sun.
    The newspaper’s headline was “Explosion Wrecks Parade.” Under the headline, the entire top half of the paper was devoted to two pictures. On the left, the seven Bob-Whites smiled happily over the caption “Before.” On the right, captioned “After,” a milling, bewildered crowd blocked the fire truck.
    Below the two pictures, a long story, written by Jane Dix-Strauss, told about the explosion and fire, and about the parade goers’ interference with attempts to get to the fire.
    “That’s just disgusting,” Trixie said. She tossed the paper facedown on the table and jabbed angrily at her cornflakes with a spoon.
    Mart Belden, who was already finishing his second bowl of cereal, picked up the paper and studied it. “I assume you mean the self-centered persistence of the spectators’ surveillance,” he said. “I agree that it is disgusting. I appreciate the paper’s admonitory function in portraying it so vividly.”
    “I agree,” Brian Belden said, coming out of the kitchen with a plate of peanut-butter toast and a glass of milk. “I hope that the people who see themselves in that picture will think twice before they stand around to watch another fire.”
    “That isn’t what I meant at all!” Trixie exclaimed impatiently. “You’re saying all the people in that second picture should be embarrassed to be plastered all over the front page. But what about that first picture? I happen to think that one’s pretty humiliating, too!”
    Brian picked up the copy of the Sun and looked at the front page. “You’re talking about the picture of the Bob-Whites, obviously. I get that much. But I don’t know what’s so humiliating about it.”
    “You’re kidding!” Trixie exclaimed in disbelief. “It’s the morning after the worst disaster in the history of Sleepyside. Your picture is on the front page of the paper, and you’re grinning as though you didn’t have a care in the world. You don’t see anything wrong with that?”
    “I didn’t have? care in the world at the time that picture was taken,” Brian said. “That, in fact, is the point of this picture. See here, where