The Mystery off Old Telegraph Road

laughing?”
    “I’m laughing because your way of explaining things is just as jumbled as mine is,” Trixie said between giggles. “It’s a good tiling we know each other so well, because we’d never be able to understand each other otherwise.”
    Honey started to giggle, too. “Jim sometimes says, when I’ve got something hopelessly confused, 1 don’t know whether you’ve been listening to Trixie too long or the other way around, but pretty soon I’m not going to be able to understand either one of you.’ Anyway, the important thing is that we’re going to raise money for the art department by having a walkathon, right?”
    “Wrong,” Trixie said. “Not a walkathon. A bikeathon. Right through the game preserve. It’s so beautiful right now, with the first leaves on the trees and everything turning bright and green. A lot of the kids at school have asked me what the preserve is like, and I’m sure even more of them have asked you about it, Honey. I’m positive that they’d sign up for the bikeathon just to see it. It has to be a bikeathon because walking on the highway and through the woods is much too dangerous.”
    “Oh, Trixie, you’re wonderful!” Honey exclaimed. “I told Nick Roberts that if anyone could come up with the answer to his problems, it would be you. And I was right! Oh, when do we have it? What do we have to do? What will the route be?”
    “Wait a minute!” Trixie said. “I just got the idea. You can’t expect me to have all the answers yet. Besides, there’s a lot of work involved. We’ll need all the Bob-Whites to help. I’ll tell Mart and Brian and call Di. You get Jim and Dan.” Di and Dan took part in most of the club’s activities. Di had grown up in Sleepyside, but she and Trixie hadn’t become friends until after Di’s father had made a fortune practically overnight and moved his family to a mansion near the Wheelers’. Dan Mangan was Regan’s nephew. He’d come to live with Mr. Maypenny, the Wheelers’ gamekeeper, after he’d fallen in with a bad crowd in New York City.
    “I know Dan and Di will want to help,” Honey said, “although they’re both busy a lot, with Dan working for Mr. Maypenny and Di baby-sitting for her two sets of twin brothers and sisters. But let’s try to meet at the clubhouse after dinner.”
    “Yipes!” Trixie exclaimed. “Speaking of dinner, I was supposed to help Moms get it ready! Let’s get back to the stable and curry the horses and clean the tack so that I can get home before Moms disowns me!”
    During dinner, Trixie excitedly explained her plan to her family. They all agreed that it was a good idea to help a very worthy cause.
    “I just wish you’d come up with your idea before now, when I’m a senior,” Brian said. “Drawing is an excellent way to learn anatomy, which I’ll need when I’m studying to become a doctor. But from what I’ve heard about the art classes at Sleepyside, they just aren’t good enough to sacrifice something else I need, like chemistry or math.” Mart Belden helped himself to another portion of mashed potatoes and gravy as he said, “My sagacious elder sibling is never profligate in his predilection for beneficial electives.”
    Trixie made a face at Mart. “If you mean that Brian doesn’t waste his time taking useless classes, you’re right. If you followed his example, you’d take three hours a day of spelling so that you could write those big words you love to say.”
    “You know, Trixie,” Mr. Belden said, interrupting his two middle children’s verbal spat, “your mother was an art major, and I think she could tell you about the high cost of art supplies.”
    “Oh, my, yes,” Mrs. Belden said. “Even back then, paints and brushes were very expensive. In fact, I practically gave up my artwork when your father and I were first married because we didn’t have very much money. And then when you children came along, I got involved with other things, like trying to cook enough food to satisfy five enormous appetites, and I just never got back to painting. I can’t begin to imagine how young people afford supplies now, the way prices on everything have increased.”
    “At least you’re not bitter about it, Moms, the way Nick Roberts is.” Trixie told her family about the art fair, including both Ben Riker’s rude behavior and Nick Roberts’s flash of temper.
    “I don’t know Nick Roberts well enough to tell you why he behaved the way he did,” Brian said,