The Mystery of the Midnight Marauder

direction of Sleepyside’s junior-senior high school.
    Then Honey said softly to Trixie, who was sitting beside her, “Is something wrong with Mart? What is it he’s worrying about?”
    “I don’t know,” Trixie whispered back. “But you can count on one thing, Honey. I’m going to do my best to find out—and soon!”

    While the car purred quietly along the road to Sleepyside, Trixie told the remaining Bob-Whites all about her unsuccessful search that morning for Reddy.
    When she had come to the end of her story, Di said suddenly, “Oh, Trix, please stop talking about missing pets. Let’s talk about what we’ve got for you, instead. I can’t wait any longer!”
    Trixie turned in her seat and smiled at her friend Di. “I’m sorry, Di,” she said. “I guess I almost forgot about that. What is the surprise?”
    Di bent down and picked up something from the floor. The long curtain of dark hair that framed her lovely face swung forward, then was tossed back out of the way as she held whatever it was behind her back. “Here it is,” she sang out. “Ta-dah!” And in the next moment, she was handing Trixie a small, neatly folded newspaper.
    Trixie’s cheeks flamed with excitement as she took it. “Jeepers!” she exclaimed. “Where in the world did you manage to find it? I’d never have believed it’d be so hard to find a copy of a dumb old school newspaper. But they were all gone when I tried to get one yesterday. And even Mart forgot to bring one home. The Campus Clarion sure is popular lately. Is the article Mart wrote for his journalism class in there? Have you read it? Is it good? Which one of our mysteries did he write about?”
    Her friends laughed as Trixie finally ran out of breath. She could tell, though, that they were feeling as pleased as she was.
    They all knew that Mart was taking a semester of journalism. They also knew he had been strangely silent about his new experiences as a student reporter for the school newspaper. But he had told them how hard he’d worked on an article for this week’s issue.
    “Wait till you read it,” he’d told the Bob-Whites the previous week. “I wrote about all of us. We’re all there.”
    Trixie had frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she’d said. “We don’t want everyone to know about the Bob-Whites. What are you writing about? One of our mysteries?”
    “Wait and you will see,” Mart had answered mysteriously.
    Honey’s voice broke into Trixie’s thoughts. “We borrowed the newspaper from a girl in one of Di’s classes,” she was saying eagerly. “We phoned everyone we could think of, first thing early this morning. We were lucky to find one.”
    “You see,” Dan put in, “we knew how disappointed you were when you couldn’t get a copy.“
    “Then we all drove for miles to pick it up,” Honey said.
    Trixie smiled. “So that’s why you and Jim weren’t at home when I came over this morning.“
    “You’re right,” Honey said, smiling. “And we don’t know which mystery Mart wrote about, because we didn’t look.”
    “We thought you’d like to do it yourself,” Di said. “Oh, please open it, Trix. I’m simply dying to see. Maybe Mart’s article made the front page. Wouldn’t that be neat?”
    There was silence as Trixie slowly unfolded the newspaper. Honey leaned close to her side, and Di and Dan crowded close to look over her shoulder.
    It took only a second to see that Mart’s article had not made the front page—nor the second or third. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, Trixie turned to the fourth, fifth, and sixth (and last) page.
    When she had finished, she and Honey stared at each other in disappointment. Mart’s article wasn’t there.
    “Well?” Jim demanded. “Why the dead silence? Which mystery did Mart write about?”
    “We still don’t know,” Trixie said slowly. “They didn’t publish it.”
    Honey squeezed her arm. “Never mind, Trix,” she said as her brother drove into the school parking lot. “Maybe they simply didn’t have room for it this week.”
    “And maybe,” Di said suddenly, “that’s what’s been bothering Mart all along. Perhaps he’s as disappointed as we are.”
    They had climbed out of the station wagon and were still standing by its side when Brian’s familiar jalopy suddenly appeared. It swung into the parking space beside them.
    “Boy, that was fast,” Dan said admiringly. “Did you catch all the chickens?”
    “Of course,” Mart