The Mystery off Glen Road

I’ll have to stay here, and that suits me just fine.”
    “But you’ve got to be back in school tomorrow evening at the latest,” Di pointed out.
    “Well, if I can’t, I can’t,” he said cheerfully.
    “I know just how you feel,” Trixie told him, chuckling. “I wanted the roads to be okay for Brian’s sake, but I was hoping maybe we’d get a thaw and then a freeze tomorrow night so the school bus wouldn’t run on Monday.”
    “Instead,” Jim said, looking up at the sky, which was now filled with scudding clouds, “I think we’re going to get more snow.”
    “Then there’s no sense in shoveling the driveway,” Trixie cried enthusiastically. “Let’s fix it so it’ll be good for sledding. Brian planned to drive his car up and down until the snow was hard-packed, but I guess that’s out.”
    “It’s too soft for anything but snowshoes,” said Honey, demonstrating. Di tried to demonstrate but lost her balance and pitched headfirst into the bank of snow that lay beside the path.
    Jim and Ben hastily extricated her, but she was laughing so hard she couldn’t stand up. “You can have these snowshoes,” she finally told Trixie. “I’m sure I’ll never learn how to manage them.”
    Just then Tom came snowshoeing down from the Robin , dragging a big sled behind him. “Hi,” he yelled to Trixie. “Did you hear about my deer?”
    “No,” she yelled back. “Did you get one?”
    “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Honey said. “The carcass is down in the car, and Tom’s afraid somebody will steal it.”
    Regan, wearing snowshoes, too, appeared then. “Nobody’s going to steal that deer,” he said emphatically. “And we’re going to live on venison stew all winter. Aren’t we, Tom?”
    “We sure are,” Tom replied.
    “You’d better get the recipe from Mr. Maypenny,” Trixie and Honey said in unison.
    “From whom?” Tom asked curiously.
    Everybody tried to answer him at once.
    “I thought he was a poacher,” Trixie said.
    “He’s our new gamekeeper,” Honey said.
    “A great guy,” Regan said.
    “You’ll like him a lot,” Jim said.
    “He wears the oddest clothes,” Di said.
    “He’s terrific!” Ben said.
    Tom ignored the jumble of words and said to Regan, “Those kids never did make sense. Let’s go get that deer. Maypenny, indeed! Why, nobody around here has a name like that.”
    Regan guffawed. “It’s an old Hudson River valley name, I’ll have you know, and he is our new gamekeeper and a great guy, to boot.” They went on down the driveway with the sled sliding after them.
    Celia poked her head out of the kitchen door then. “Hello, Trix. You and your brothers, Bobby included, are invited for lunch. Miss Trask just talked to your mother, and Mart is on his way up now with Bobby.”
    “Wonderful,” Trixie cried. “Did Moms say anything about Brian and his car?”
    “I wouldn’t know.” Celia shivered and ducked back into the kitchen.
    Honey stared at Trixie. “I should think at this point you’d be more worried about your ring than Brian’s car. How and when are you going to get it back?”
    “Brian will bring it home with his jalopy, of course,” Trixie said. “Dad and Moms know all , and they’re not mad at me, thank goodness.” She turned to Jim. “Brian keeps on thanking me because Mr. Lytell didn’t sell the car to a secondhand dealer, but he should really thank you. If it hadn’t been for that ring you gave me, Jim—”
    “What’s all this about a ring?” Ben interrupted. “It sounds as though you were engaged or something.”
    Trixie sniffed. “If Jim were the last man on earth, I wouldn’t marry him.”
    “Is that so?” Jim gave her a gentle push, and Trixie found herself sitting in the snowbank with Di.
    She tried to scramble to her feet, but her boots kept slipping on the icy path, so she only went down deeper.
    “Do you think I’d get myself engaged to anybody as dumb as that?” Jim asked Ben.
    “No,” Ben admitted. “But why did you give her a ring? I wouldn’t even give her a ring on the phone.”
    “Oh, stop it,” Honey pleaded. “Why must all of you tease Trixie from morning to night? She’s the one who always solves all of our problems. And you know it,” she finished stormily.
    Jim relented then and helped Trixie to her feet. “On you,” he said, “snow looks good. You should wear it more frequently. Especially on your eyelashes. Much more becoming than mascara.”
    Trixie angrily