The Mystery off Glen Road

I’ve got to go back to the dining room and make sure that the coffee is hot and the punch cold.” With a gay wave, she edged past Jim and was lost in the crowded living room.
    Jim, flanked by Brian and Mart, marched down the hall and came to a stop beside Trixie. “You girls are up to something,” Jim said, pretending to be very stern. “I can tell. What have you done?”
    Trixie scrambled to her feet, tripped, and sprawled headlong. Nobody said anything for a long minute as she lay there, overwhelmed by rage, frustration, and embarrassment.
    Mart turned to Brian. “Since we are unfortunately related to that object, is it not up to us to restore her to some semblance of equilibrium before the wedding guests trample her to a pulp?”
    “Well, I don’t know,” Brian said soberly. “She might be more useful as a pulp. When cleaning storm windows, for instance, a spongelike substance comes in mighty handy.”
    “True,” Mart agreed and nudged Trixie’s ankle with his toe. “But until she is mashed into the proper shape, might she not prove to be a dangerous hazard to myopic guests, who could mistake her for a one-dimensional article of furniture, perhaps part of the carpet?”
    “I doubt that,” Brian replied. “In that strangely feminine garment she is wearing, she looks more like a giant but bruised California orange. In my opinion—”
    “Oh, stop it, you two!” Jim exploded with laughter. He reached down two strong arms and helped Trixie to her feet. As he settled her back on the step, he said, “Do you feel as though you broke any bones when you salaamed to us so gracefully?” Trixie glared at him. “I didn’t salaam or break any bones, smarty. It’s this party dress Moms made me wear. I’m going to take it right off so Brian and Mart can use it for cleaning windows.”
    “Oh, no,” Mart yelped. “Not here and now. In the words of the Ancient Mariner: ‘O wedding guest, O wedding guest, tarry awhile, said Slow.’ ”
    Trixie turned to glare at him. “You’ve got it all mixed up with an old nursery rhyme. I think it’s ‘Polly Put the Kettle on and We’ll All Have Tea.’ ”
    “Let’s do have tea,” Jim said easily. “Punch, anyway. It’s got a tea base. Would you like me to bring you a glass, Trix?”
    “No,” Trixie shouted impatiently. “I couldn’t eat or drink another thing.” She leaned forward slightly. “Listen, you dopes. There’s an awful storm raging outside, just in case you haven’t noticed. That blue spruce, which is almost a part of our clubhouse, must be even older than the Ancient Mariner. The wind is blowing from the east. Suppose it—”
    “Gleeps,” Mart interrupted, suddenly very serious. “She’s right, men. Is there anything we can do?” Brian sank down on the step beside Trixie. “We could wire it to another evergreen, but they’re all Ancient Mariners, aren’t they, Jim?”
    Jim nodded. “If we wired the spruce to one of the pines, we’d simply have twin hazards.”
    “Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” Mart said sadly. “As in Alice in Wonderland .”
    “I wish you’d learn to quote correctly,” Trixie snapped. “The proper quotation at the moment is what happened to Humpty Dumpty. If any one of those evergreens falls on our clubhouse, all of the king’s horses and all of the king’s men will never be able to put it together again.”
    “Not without a king’s ransom,” Jim agreed. “And since none of us has a penny at the moment—” Trixie couldn’t help laughing. Jim was just wonderful. There he was, rich enough in his own right to buy and sell dozens of clubhouses, but he always acted as though he were just as poor as the Beldens. It all came from the fact that, before the Wheelers adopted him, he had been a homeless, half-starved orphan. The money that he had inherited about the same time, he had put away into a trust fund so that when he was graduated from college, he could launch his favorite project: an outdoor school for underprivileged orphan boys. Brian, whose ambition was to become a doctor, had already agreed to be the school physician. Mart, after he was graduated from an upstate agricultural college, was going to be in charge of the farming end of the project.
    Thinking about Mart’s career made Trixie whirl on him. “You’re supposed to know something about trees,” she cried. “Can’t you pull your addled brains together and think up some sort of solution to our problem?”
    He bowed stiffly. “Like