The Mystery off Glen Road

be termed tattletales. So we have decided to mete out justifiable punishment in our own way. Namely, we have priority on the shower. Under normal circumstances, since we are gentlemen of the first water, we would bow to the ancient and honorable rule concerning precedent in such matters—that is, ladies first. But since you are certainly not a lady, you will be constrained to refrain from ablutions, which are all too obviously indicated, until we have abluted and disported ourselves in the shower. Thus, to put it simply for the simpleminded, you haven’t a prayer of getting ready in time for the wedding breakfast.”
    Trixie stuck out her tongue at him. “Oh, go jump in the lake.”
    “That,” Mart said emphatically, “is just what you should do. Complete with a cake of soap and a scrubbing brush.”
    “Correct,” Brian agreed. “True, the water in the Wheelers’ lake will be very cold on a day like this, but it’s your only chance, Trix. Moms and Bobby have established priority on the bathtub for the next hour. Dad is now occupying the shower room. When he departs, I and Mart, in that order, take over.” He set the ladder against a wall in the garage. “By the time you are bathed and dressed, there will be nothing left of the breakfast except a turkey carcass and a ham bone.”
    “I don’t agree,” Mart interrupted as they went out into the wind again. “The ham bone goes to Jim’s springer spaniel, Patch. All parts of the turkey carcass that are not injurious to canines go to our own Irish setter, Reddy.” He shrugged. “Trixie can, of course, nibble on bones that are apt to splinter in the stomach and cause canine digestive disturbances. For example, the drumsticks, but since those are our favorite portions, Brian, I doubt—”
    “Oh, stop it!” Trixie exploded. “I don’t care if I am late at the breakfast; there’ll still be tons to eat. The Wheelers are giving it, remember?” She ran up the terrace steps and into the kitchen. The wind snatched the door out of her hands, banged it against the wall of the house, and then slammed it shut.
    Oh, dear , Trixie thought as she climbed the stairs, I’ll get the blame for that. I get the blame for everything. In the upstairs hall she stopped, her self-pity overwhelmed by a sense of guilt. She had not only promised to wash the storm windows that morning, but she had assured her mother that she would bathe Bobby and dress him in his Sunday suit.
    Judging from the sounds that were coming out of the bathroom, there could be no doubt that Bobby was now being scrubbed from head to toe under violent protest. His shrieks rose above the roar of the wind.
    “Holp, holp!” Bobby was yelling. “Mummy, you’ve rub-ded off my ear, and I got soap in my eyes. Holp! I’m drownding. I’m drownding! Holp! Holp!”
    From the adjoining shower room came very different sounds. Mr. Belden was singing a happy song at the top of his lungs. “He’s singing,” Trixie muttered miserably, “so he can’t hear Bobby’s shrieks. He’s going to be furious with me because Moms will be a wreck when she’s finished with Bobby. What made me stay at the clubhouse so long? Honey didn’t really need me. Brian and Mart are right. I don’t deserve to go to the wedding breakfast. I’ll stay home, instead, and vacuum the whole house and scrub and wax the kitchen linoleum. I’ll even—”
    Then suddenly, above Bobby’s yells and Mr. Bel-den’s gay song, came another sound that drowned out all others. It was a deafening crash.
    Trixie fled to the nearest window. What she saw made her close her eyes and sink to the floor on her knees. One of the ancient crab apple trees that lined the driveway had been uprooted by the gale. If it had fallen a few seconds sooner, Brian and Mart would have been buried under the debris!

The Wedding Breakfast ● 2

    TRIXIE RACED DOWN to the driveway and found that Brian and Mart were staring in awed amazement at the uprooted crab apple tree. It had fallen so close to them that the outer branches had scratched their faces.
    “Wow!” Mart finally got out. “That was kind of close.”
    Trixie, in order to hide her own horror at the near-catastrophe, said tartly, “Well, at least you won’t have to shave now, Brian. There’s not a speck of fuzz on your face, which, I might add, is as pale as a ghost’s, in spite of your tan.”
    “You look pretty ghostly yourself,” he retorted.
    “Ghastly is the word,” Mart said.
    “Yes, yes,”