The Pet Show Mystery

all—”
    “Trixie!” Honey’s tone was escalating.
    “All right, all right! I won’t criticize them anymore. But from the way you looked in there, I didn’t think you appreciated that woman’s sales pitch any more than I did!”
    “I didn’t. And that wasn’t why I was trying to get your attention just now. I wanted to tell you that the nice man who gave us the forty-dollar donation at the mall is sitting in a parked car right across the street.”
    Trixie quickly looked up and turned her head. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a parked car, but she had already walked well past it. There was no way for her to see the driver. “Oh, woe, I missed him because I was ranting on about the foundation. Are you sure it was him?”
    “Absolutely,” Honey said. “In fact, I noticed him sitting there when we were on our way into the office. I wasn’t really sure then, so I didn’t say anything. But I took an extra-close look when we came out. Now I’m sure.”
    “Let’s turn around and go back, so I can get a look at him.”
    “We don’t want him to notice we’ve seen him, though.”
    “Why not? We have every right to be here. We aren’t doing anything wrong. And he shouldn’t mind being noticed, unless—” Trixie broke off, her blue eyes widening.
    “Do you suppose he’s doing something wrong?” Honey asked, picking up on her friend’s thought.
    “He was right behind Paul Gale at the mall,” Trixie said. “Now he’s right outside Paul Gale’s office. Maybe—maybe he’s planning to rob the foundation! They must take in tons of money.”
    “Maybe,” Honey said reluctantly. “But he didn’t seem like a robber to me. Maybe he’s Paul Gale’s bodyguard.”
    Trixie snorted at the idea. “He’s hardly any bigger around than I am! Some bodyguard. Besides, he didn’t seem to like Paul Gale. That’s why he gave us all that money. He wouldn’t work for him!”
    “I guess not,” Honey said.
    Trixie walked on silently for a while, trying to pull another theory out of the cold air. Nothing came to her.
    “What should we do?” Honey asked.
    “Just head back to the school, I guess,” Trixie said.
    She was distracted by a gasp from Honey. “Look at the clock there on Nordin’s jewelry store,” Honey said. “We have exactly two minutes to get back to school and get our ride home with the boys!”
    “Oh, no! They probably wouldn’t leave us behind if we re late. But they’d chain us to that sign-up table, for sure. Let’s hurry before we’re trapped!” As Trixie spoke, she broke into a fast walk. Honey hurried to keep up.
    The mystery of the nice man from the mall was left behind—but not forgotten.



8 * Dressed for Waiting

    THE MYSTERIOUS RUMOR, the aggressive woman at the World Anti-Hunger Foundation, Paul Gale, and the nice man from the mall were very much on Trixie’s mind that evening—much more so than the French Revolution, which was the subject of the chapter she was supposed to be reading for her world history class. Only her brothers’ heavy concentration, as they sat in the den with her, made her try to keep her mind on her textbook.
    A peculiar noise from Mart—a combination of a groan and a growl—made her look up. “What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, eager for a momentary distraction.
    “A mere comment on the complexity of computers,” Mart said loftily.
    “Are you still having problems?” Trixie asked.
    “There are problems, but I have no doubt that I’ll be able to correct them,” Mart said confidently.
    “How do you know where to find them?” Trixie asked, closing her textbook as she got up and moved over to the chair in which her brother was sprawled.
    “The computer, in its vast wisdom, tells me where they are.” Mart produced a sheaf of printout paper and handed it to his sister.
    Trixie began to read it aloud. “ ‘Caution— word is not set above. Fatal—missing end statement. Caution—incorrect argument type. Warning—substring constant outside bounds.’ Gleeps, are all of these ‘cautions’ and ‘warnings’ and ‘fatals’ errors in the program?” Trixie asked.
    “Errors or potential errors. One simply corrects them or ignores them. Unfortunately,” Mart added, “another error seems to crop up
    to take the place of each corrected one.” It seemed to Trixie that a slight frown had replaced Mart’s usually confident look.
    “But will it finally work?” Trixie asked. “The pet show is less than a week