The Mystery off Glen Road

witch. In my opinion, you should be burned at the stake.”
    Trixie shivered and donned a warm bathrobe. “I can’t think of anything more pleasant,” she said. “The sooner and closer I can get to a roaring fire, the happier I’ll be. But why do you say I’m a witch?”
    He sat on the foot of her bed and pulled Bobby onto his lap. “Because your dire predictions have come true. Or should I say maledictions?”
    “Oh, stop asking me silly questions,” Trixie cried impatiently. “Try to speak in words of one syllable, Mart. What’s happened ?”
    Mart didn’t say anything for a long minute. Trixie stared at him, and now she could see that, although he had been talking lightly, the expression on his face was one of abject misery. “Mart,” she cried again, “what’s happened?”
    He buried his face in Bobby’s plump neck and said in a muffled voice, “The clubhouse. It’s not exactly a box of toothpicks, but a near thing.”
    “Oh, no,” Trixie moaned, pulling a blanket over her knees. “The blue spruce?”
    Mart nodded. “It wasn’t completely uprooted, thank heavens, but it gave the roof an awful beating and tore out the whole back wall. The rain didn’t help matters, either. Everything is soaked.”
    Trixie was too horrified to speak, but Bobby squirmed away from Mart and began to chant, “I want to see. Hey! I want to see. Is there a great big ’normous hole in the roof, Mart? As big as the hole in my panda’s head?”
    “Yes,” Mart said sadly. “Relatively speaking, the storm scalped our clubhouse as efficiently as you scalped your panda.” He turned to Trixie. “Brian’s down there with Jim and Honey now. Jim says it’ll cost fifty bucks to fix the roof and the wall. And not one of us, except Brian, has a dime.”
    “Brian hasn’t got a dime, either,” Trixie said staunchly. “That money he saved really belongs to Mr. Lytell. For the jalopy, you know.”
    “ I know,” Mart admitted, “but Brian feels different now. You know how Brian is. ‘United we stand; divided we fall.’ E pluribus unum and all that sort of stuff. Sickening, but true. ‘How unselfish can you get?’ we all kept asking him!”
    Trixie swallowed hard. “Jim and Brian are sickening,” she finally got out. “They are always so honorable all over the place. It gets dull.” She scrambled to her feet. “Anyway, Mart, Brian has just got to buy that jalopy. No matter what he says, we Bob-Whites can’t touch a penny of his money.”
    “I got money,” Bobby chanted. “I got five pennies.” He reached into the pocket of his overalls and produced three very dull pennies. After counting them carefully in a loud, surprised voice, he shouted, “Hey! I losted two whole cents. Do you s’pose there’s a hole in my pocket?”
    “No,” Trixie said firmly. “You know perfectly well that Dad pays Honey for keeping you in pockets and shoulder straps. You lost that money because you’re forever turning somersaults. Now run along, Bobby. When Moms empties the vacuum cleaner
    bag, she’ll find your pennies.”
    He raced off, and Mart said to Trixie, “Get dressed and meet us at the Manor House soon as you can. We’re invited to a breakfast of yesterday’s leftovers on the veranda.”
    “Yummy-yum,” Trixie said hungrily. “But what about our chores? We can’t leave Moms—”
    “There are no chores,” Mart interrupted. “The phone’s working now, and the electric company says the current will be turned on early this afternoon. Until that happens, Moms says there’s no sense in doing anything in the way of chores.”
    “Thank goodness our mother is such a good sport,” said Trixie. “I couldn’t possibly dust without the vacuum, because when the wind roared down our chimney, it blew ashes an inch thick all over the floors and furniture. And it’ll be much easier to wash all of the dishes at once, when we have hot water in the house again.”
    Mart started for the door. “Moms is a good sport,” he said, “so I guess we can’t blame Brian for being one, too. It sort of runs in the family. Present company excluded, of course.” He chuckled and disappeared down the hall.
    Trixie donned blue jeans, a warm sweater, wool socks, and sneakers. She hurried downstairs and out to the back terrace, where she found her parents and Bobby.
    “No school today for me, either,” Mr. Belden said cheerfully. “Even if the bank weren’t closed on account of the power failure, I couldn’t get into the