The Mystery of the Phantom Grashopper

in a concerned tone.
    Trixie pointed, and Honey watched as the squirrel started up the side of one of the trees. The animal climbed quickly, then hurried along a big horizontal branch. At the end of the branch, the squirrel paused for a moment, then jumped—and landed on the roof of Town Hall!
    “That’s it!” Trixie exclaimed. “That’s how Sammy got up on the roof!” She stood up and ran toward the tree.
    “Wait, Trixie,” Honey called, running to catch up.
    Trixie stopped at the base of the tree and looked up. The first branch was several feet off the ground, but there were lots of branches spaced close together above it.
    “Perfect for climbing,” Trixie said.
    “If you’re a squirrel,” Honey said breathlessly.
    Trixie put her sack down. “Give me a boost,” she said.
    Honey gasped. “Trixie! You’re not going to—”
    “I’ll just climb up a little way and see how it looks,” Trixie said.
    “But you might fall,” Honey wailed.
    Trixie shook her head. “I’ll be careful. I used to be the best tree-climber in Sleepyside, back in my old tomboy days. Come on, give me a boost.”
    Reluctantly, Honey struggled to boost Trixie up to the first branch.
    “A little more...” Trixie urged. “Just a little— there!”
    Trixie pulled and scrambled and got herself up onto the branch. The next branches were easy. “Just like climbing a ladder,” she called down to Honey.
    “That’s high enough, Trixie,” Honey called back. “Please come down!”
    “Just a little farther,” Trixie said. “I’m almost there.” She reached the big branch that hung out over the roof of Town Hall, straddled it like a horse, and paused to catch her breath. For the first time, she looked down.
    “Yipes! I guess it is a little higher than it looks,” she said.
    “What?” Honey yelled. “I can’t hear you.”
    “No problem,” Trixie called, trying to sound more confident than she felt. Very carefully, an inch at a time, she began to slide herself along the branch toward the roof.
    “Trixie! Come down!” Honey pleaded.
    As Trixie inched forward, the branch began to bend under her weight, and in a minute, the end of the branch was touching the roof of Town Hall.
    Trixie kept her eyes straight ahead and forced herself to keep going.
    Suddenly she was there. Trixie eased herself off the branch and straddled the steeply pitched roof.
    As soon as her weight was off the branch, it snapped back to its original position—just out of reach above Trixie’s head.
    Uh-oh! Trixie thought. Now what do I do? She couldn’t see Honey anymore, and it was rapidly growing dark. The belfry, with the cupola on top, was about twenty feet ahead.
    “Honey, can you hear me?” she called.
    “Yes,” came Honey’s voice from below. “Are you all right?”
    “I’m fine,” Trixie said a little shakily. “But I can’t reach the tree branch to get back down.”
    “Oh, Trixie! I’ll go and get Sergeant Molinson.”
    “No, wait,” Trixie called. “I can get in the belfry and climb down the ladder into the building. I think I can unlock the front door from inside.”
    “Trixie! Let me go get help!”
    “Just wait a minute,” Trixie shouted. “I’m sure I can make it.” She began to slide herself along the peak of the roof toward the belfry. She was almost there when something shiny caught her eye. It was a small disk of metal caught in one of the shingles below her, reflecting the last red rays of the setting sun.
    Trixie leaned forward until her stomach touched the peak of the roof and very slowly and carefully reached downward. She stretched her arm to its limit, trying not to shift her weight and slip off the peak. Her fingertips touched the metal disk, and she slid it free from the shingle and retrieved it with a sigh. Sitting up once more, Trixie held her discovery up to the fading sunlight. It was Sammy’s buffalo nickel!
    “There’s the proof,” Trixie gasped. “This must have fallen out of Sammy’s pocket when he climbed up here to steal Hoppy!”
    She was only a few feet away from the belfry now. Every muscle in her body ached from the strain as she slid herself closer... closer. Finally, she was able to reach up and hook her hands over the edge of one of the tall, narrow openings that were spaced along the sides of the belfry. She pulled herself up, trying to gain a foothold on the slippery shingles. Struggling to hang on, she banged her knees against the belfry and scraped her ankles on the roof.