The Mystery off Old Telegraph Road

think
    Moms will have the answer to that question when we get home,” he said. “She and Dad were awfully worried, and Dad took off to look for you along Glen Road. Moms didn’t want to let us drive over here, but we insisted that we had to. I guess she figured it couldn’t hurt to send us some reinforcements. Sergeant Molinson has probably already called her by now, to tell her were all out of danger.”
    “I hope that’s why he left so abruptly,” Trixie said. “I was afraid he was too angry at me right then even to give me his usual stem lecture about not getting involved in police business.”
    “I may give it in his place,” Jim said, only half teasing. “You almost got yourself into a lot of trouble.”
    Trixie looked at the ground and nodded. “It would have been even worse if Nick hadn’t—Nick!” Realizing that she’d forgotten all about the young art student since the police halted the van, Trixie raised her head and looked around the dimly lit clearing.
    Nick was standing just a few yards away, wordlessly listening to and watching the Bob-Whites’ reunion. Trixie hurried over to him, grabbed his arm, and practically dragged him back over to where her friends were standing.
    “Nick was in the van that those two men had,”
    Trixie explained. Seeing her friends’ suspicious looks, Trixie realized that they didn’t fully understand the reason for Nick’s presence at the abandoned house. I guess I don’t either, she realized, looking at Nick questioningly.
    Nick’s face became sullen as the Bob-Whites continued to stare at him. “I wasn’t in on the counterfeiting scheme, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he muttered.
    “Oh, Nick, of course we don’t think that,” Trixie assured him. “I’m awfully, awfully happy that you happened to be here. We’re just wondering—well —how you happened to be here.”
    Nick looked around at the others, paused for a moment, and then began to speak. “It all started the day you called me about the bikeathon. Remember that, Trixie?”
    Trixie nodded. How could I forget? she thought. “I guess I wasn’t very polite when you called,” Nick admitted. “I’m not naturally optimistic, anyway, and after the poor turnout we’d had for the art fair, my first thought was that the bikeathon would just be another wasted effort.”
    Nick was silent for another moment, then cleared his throat. “That wasn’t really all of it. I was angry with you because your friend Ben Riker had broken Amy Morrisey’s vase, and because I’d read about you in the newspaper, after you helped solve that
    mystery about the stolen weather vane.
    “You all seem to be such insiders, and I’ve always felt like an outsider since we moved to Sleepyside.”
    Just like Ben Riker, Trixie thought. I bet Nick would never believe me if I told him that Ben felt exactly as he does.
    “After I thought about it for a while, I started to see that the bikeathon might not be such a bad idea after all,” Nick continued. “Just because you people are insiders and know Sleepyside so well, I thought that you might be able to create some enthusiasm for the bikeathon and, as a result, raise some money for the art department.
    “By dinner time, I was really getting excited about the bikeathon, and I told my parents everything you’d told me about it—the route it would take, how the pledge cards would work, and so forth.
    “My father got very upset about the whole idea,” Nick said. “He absolutely refused to let me take part in the bikeathon. When I tried to protest, he got even more upset. He threatened to throw me out of the house if he ever found out that I’d taken part in the project, and he said that I should try to convince you not to have it at all.”
    Nick’s face contorted, as if he could still hear his father’s angry words ringing in his ears. He shook his head as if to dispel the sound.
    “My father is a very old-fashioned man, in many ways,” Nick continued. “In some ways that’s good. He has an old-fashioned pride in his work that I’ve always respected very much. I think that’s why I got involved in art—I wanted to do something that I could feel as proud of as he does.” Nick looked around him as if begging someone to understand what he was saying. Trixie looked at her friends and saw that their expressions had changed from suspicion to sympathy—sympathy with a touch of admiration.
    “In other ways, my father’s old-fashioned attitudes are