The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim

Mr. Burnside’s Surprise ● 1

    OH, JIM, CAN’T YOU DRIVE any faster?” Trixie Belden pleaded, bouncing up and down on the backseat of the car. Her arms were draped over the front seat, and her head was thrust forward, as though she hoped that would somehow make her closer to her destination.
    “I can’t go any faster without violating the speed limit —and my own common sense,” Jim Frayne told her. “This station wagon, handy as it is, is a gas guzzler. Once I get over fifty-five miles an hour, I can practically watch the gas gauge drop.”
    “Gleeps, Jim,” Trixie said, “I wish you weren’t always so sensible. After all, we can’t burn up that
    much extra gas between here and Mr. Burnside’s house. And I can’t wait to see what his surprise is. He sounded so mysterious over the telephone.”
    Honey Wheeler, sitting in the front seat, next to her brother, widened her hazel eyes when she heard the word “mysterious.” But the other young people in the car burst into gales of laughter.
    The others included Trixie’s older brothers, Brian and Mart Belden, Di Lynch, Dan Mangan, and, of course, Jim Frayne. They, along with Trixie and Honey, were the members of a semisecret club called the Bob-Whites of the Glen. The Bob-Whites were devoted to helping others and to having fun together. Their current project was a community-wide rummage sale to raise funds for the Sleepyside hospital.
    The Bob-Whites also kept finding themselves involved in mysteries. Usually, all of the Bob-Whites pitched in to help solve the mysteries, but it was almost always Trixie and Honey who discovered them in the first place. Their love of mystery often led them to suspect something was “mysterious,” even when the other Bob-Whites were totally oblivious to it.
    “Supersleuth Trixie strikes again,” Brian Belden said. Brian was seventeen, a senior at Sleepyside Junior-Senior High School, and the most studious of the Bob-Whites. He was often the first to spot the flaws in his younger sister’s logic and to keep her from jumping to the wrong conclusion.
    “Our quixotic sibling once again descries suspicious comportment,” Mart Belden announced. Mart was Trixie’s “almost-twin,” just eleven months older and possessed of the same sandy hair, blue eyes, and freckles. His use of enormous words (he hoped) made him seem much older and more sophisticated than he really was.
    “All right, all right!” Honey Wheeler’s usually soft voice had a note of exasperation in it. She was Trixie’s best friend and most loyal supporter, and she hated Trixie’s being teased almost as much as Trixie herself did. “You’ve all had your fun; now I think we should find out what made Trixie think Mr. Burnside’s call was mysterious. She usually does have a pretty good reason, you know.”
    Trixie felt herself blushing at her friend’s praise, which was almost as disconcerting as the others’ teasing. “What’s mysterious is that Mr. Burnside told us to come over and pick up a donation for the rummage sale—no, wait!” She held up her hands to stop any comments. “That’s not what’s mysterious, so don’t start laughing again! What’s mysterious is that he told me all the Bob-Whites had to be along when we came to pick it up. He told us we had to come get his donation right away, first thing , even though the rummage sale is a week from now. And he told us we had to come in the Bob-White station wagon.”
    “Maybe it’s something that’s so big and heavy that it will take all seven of us to carry it,” Di Lynch guessed. With her violet eyes and black hair, Di was the prettiest of the girls. She was also the most fragile. Trixie bit her lower lip to keep from laughing at the idea of Di Lynch helping to load some heavy object into the car.
    “That wouldn’t explain why he wanted us to come right away,” Trixie pointed out.
    “Maybe it’s a big, heavy piece of really useless junk that he’s extremely eager to get rid of,” Dan Mangan said.
    “Dan!” Trixie exclaimed reproachfully. “You know Mr. Burnside wouldn’t donate a piece of junk to the rummage sale! He’s always been very generous. Why, when we had the winter carnival to get books for the school library in Mexico, Mr. Burnside donated all that lumber for a prize, and—” Trixie broke off when she saw the twinkle in Dan’s dark eyes and realized that he was teasing her. She grinned at him to let him know she’d caught on to the joke. Dan was the