The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim

man had lived on his tiny, pie-shaped piece of land since long before Mr. Wheeler had begun to buy up the land around it for a game preserve. Mr. Maypenny had stubbornly refused to sell, but he had agreed to work for almost no salary, patrolling the area in search of poachers, wounded animals, and forest fires. He had also agreed to take Dan Mangan on as an assistant, pretending to think of the boy only as a worker but actually giving him the first secure home he’d ever known.
    “The stranger isn’t like that, though,” Trixie continued. “Mr. Maypenny’s gruffness is more from force of habit. He’s been alone so much that he just doesn’t know how to talk to people. The stranger really seems angry about something.”
    “Speaking of force of habit, why are you still calling our friend ‘the stranger’? After talking to him all morning, I’d think you’d at least know his name,” Brian said.
    “Well, I don’t. I don’t think he remembers it,” Trixie told her brother.
    “You don’t think he remembers it,” Brian repeated impatiently. “Why not?”
    “He didn’t remember me or the Model A or asking about Glenwood Avenue. I never came right out and asked his name, though,” Trixie admitted lamely.
    “It’s probably a good thing you didn’t come right out and ask him if he remembered his name,” Brian told her. “Not knowing that was what bothered Juliana more than anything else.”
    Trixie nodded. “I remembered Juliana as soon as the stranger told me he didn’t remember the accident. I felt sorry for him, because I remembered how awful Juliana felt about having amnesia. But I felt better when I remembered that Juliana finally remembered, after all. I told the stranger that, too.”
    “I hope he remembers your words of consolation,” Brian said, barely suppressing a chuckle.
    “Yes, he’s bound to feel better if he remembers that I remembered Juliana’s remembering,” Trixie said, picking up on the joke.
    “Don’t forget to remember to remind him if he forgets,” Mart added.
    “You forget it!” Trixie retorted, clutching two fistfuls of sandy curls. “I’m so tired I might not remember my own name by dinner time!”
    “Would you like us to pin a note to your shirt?”
    Brian inquired. “We could write your name and address on it. That way, if you find yourself in some strange neighborhood requesting donations this afternoon, unable to remember who you are, you can be returned to Crabapple Farm.”
    “I think that’s too much to ask of our potential donors,” Mart said. “We’ll merely request that our worn-out sibling be dropped off at the lumberyard with the rest of the rummage.”
    “Oh, no,” Trixie groaned. “Don’t tell me we’re planning to spend the afternoon requesting donations again!”
    “I, for one, will be more than happy to grant your supplication,” Mart said. “I will not breathe a word of our intent, thus propelling myself, by default, into the lead in our contest.”
    “In this case, what I don’t know can hurt me,” Trixie said. “When do we leave?”
    Brian checked his watch. “Jim should be here in the station wagon with Honey, Di, and Dan in about fifteen minutes.”
    With a loud sigh, Trixie got up from the table. “That’s really swell. I’ll even have time to change clothes.” She turned and walked slowly up the stairs to her room.
    Very grateful for Honey’s friendship-in-action that afternoon, Trixie trudged along beside her friend dumbly, forcing herself to smile when someone opened a door in response to their knock. Honey did the rest, repeating their request for donations at house after house.
    For a while, Trixie tried to keep the record of who pledged items to the sale, who was willing to drop off their things at the lumberyard, and who needed to have donations picked up. But she found herself transposing house numbers and forgetting, by the time they got to the sidewalk, which category the last donor belonged in. Finally, Honey had to take over the recording as well.
    “Even if we don’t lose the contest, I’m going to owe you five hours of slave labor,” Trixie told Honey when the afternoon was over and they were waiting for the station wagon. “I might as well not have been along this afternoon, for all the help I was.”
    “Well, I wasn’t along last night when you worked yourself to the bone,” Honey reminded her. “I’d say we’re just about even.”
    The teams, too, seemed to be even in the amount of