The Mystery of the Velvet Gown

Trixie laughed good-naturedly. “Me on a costume crew? They don’t need Halloween costumes, Brian. This is Shakespeare! But Honey will be great,” she continued. “She did such a terrific job on our club jackets.”
    The “club” was the Bob-Whites of the Glen, or B.W.G.’s, for short. It was a semisecret club formed to help people in need. The members included all those at the lunch table, plus Dan Mangan, the most recent member of the group.
    Dan, whose goal was to become a policeman, had been brought to Sleepyside by his uncle, Bill Regan, the Wheelers’ groom. Having once been in trouble as a member of a tough New York City street gang, Dan was now interested in finding solutions to the problem of juvenile crime. He had received special permission from his school counselor to attend a two-week seminar in New York City on neighborhood youth programs.
    “It will be great working with Miss Darcy. She’s a terrific drama teacher,” Di said.
    “And Miss Trask is so glad to have her here,” Honey said.
    Honey’s parents were wealthy, and she had always had a governess. Miss Trask had been her governess for a while, but now that Honey was old enough, she no longer needed one. Miss Trask had stayed on with the Wheelers, however, to manage their huge estate.
    “Isn’t Miss Trask a friend of Miss Darcy’s mother?” Trixie asked.
    “Yes,” Honey answered. “Her mother died when Miss Darcy was a little girl, and then she and her father moved to London. He’s an assistant to an ambassador there. Miss Trask hadn’t seen Miss Darcy in years, and then Miss Darcy came to New York for a visit, and she just decided to stay. Teaching jobs are very difficult to find in London, and when one opened up right here—well, it was just too good to pass up!”
    “You know what else is nice?” Trixie added. “We’ve never been able to participate in extracurricular activities, living so far from town. But with rehearsals during drama class and the second half of lunch hour, we can do it.”
    “Extra curricular!” Jim hooted. “You’ve been enough ‘extracurricular activity’ for every high school in New York State ever since I met you, Trixie. Wherever you go, you always get us into something. The B.W.G.’s have always had a one-person activity department.”
    Trixie sniffed, pretending to be offended. “I’m not quite sure how to take that.”
    “The right way,” Jim said, smiling. “It’s a compliment.”
    Trixie smiled, too, as she got up from the table. “Right now I have a little extracurricular activity of my own, called ‘Locker Clean-Up,’ or I might get a concussion the next time I try to open it when I’m in a hurry.”
    “Which is about ninety-nine percent of the time,” Mart laughed.
    Trixie excused herself from the table, while the others stayed on to talk before their next classes.
    The halls were empty when Trixie returned to her locker. She dialed the lock combination and opened the door. Much to her relief, everything stayed in place. She quickly began pulling out gym equipment, textbooks, notebooks, and other odds and ends, attempting to give the whole mess some semblance of order. She was working busily, when suddenly she became aware of voices nearby.
    “I don’t know how Di Lynch got that part.“
    “Now, Jane, everyone can’t have the lead. Besides, you’re on costume crew.”
    “So what? I should be playing Juliet. I took drama lessons all through elementary school,” the one called Jane replied. “That whole gang makes me sick, Patty. Honey’s so rich, and Trixie thinks she’s such a smart detective. I think she’s just plain nosy.”
    “That’s not fair, Jane. She’s done a lot of good. Remember, she got Hoppy back for the town hall.”
    Trixie froze. She wasn’t sure whether or not to step out from behind the concealment of her locker door, but she decided to stay put. When she heard the two girls turn and go down the side corridor, Trixie strained to hear the rest of their conversation.
    “I suppose that’s true,” she heard Jane say, “but the police could have done the same thing, and that’s their job, not Trixie Belden’s.”
    Tears stung Trixie’s eyes. She recognized the voices as those of Jane Morgan and Patty Morris, two classmates. She had never imagined that anyone felt that way.
    Then suddenly, her hurt turned to anger as Jane concluded, “Whatever the case, Patty, I’m going to make Diana Lynch sorry she ever tried out for the part of