The Pet Show Mystery

the time you have left in the world, anyway.” He took a step backward and slammed the door.
    The inside of the camper went almost black. Trixie lunged for the door. “It’s locked!” she exclaimed.
    “The windows don’t open, either!” Honey cried.
    Suddenly the girls began to be aware of the cold. The icy air quickly penetrated their clothes.
    “He’s left us out here to freeze to death,” Norma said in a low voice.
    Trixie tried to sound hopeful. “Someone will come along and find us,” she said. Then the door of the pickup slammed shut, and someone started the engine. What now? Trixie thought frantically.
    The truck lurched through the alley and out onto the street. Trixie tried to keep track of their path, noting all the turns. But her quiet concentration only made her aware of how cold she was getting. “Stomp your feet and clap your hands together,” she told the other girls.
    “It hurts,” Norma said after a couple of stomps.
    “You’d be a lot worse off if it didn’t,” Trixie told her.
    That warning was enough to keep the girls interested in exercise for a few moments. But their attention was distracted when the truck rolled to a stop. The engine was turned off, and the door of the truck opened and closed. Another engine was still running somewhere nearby, however. In the distance a car door slammed. Then the car drove away, and all was still.
    Fear settled around the girls like a blanket, but there was no warmth in it. “Let’s keep moving,” Trixie said. She flapped her arms up and down and made scissors motions with her legs. Honey and Norma did the same.
    Eventually, however, Trixie couldn’t move anymore. Her muscles ached from the exercise almost as much as her fingers and toes ached from the cold.
    “I can’t take it anymore,” Honey said, echoing Trixie’s thoughts.
    “I’m getting sleepy,” Norma said with a yawn in her voice.
    “Don’t go to sleep,” Trixie said. “That’s how people freeze to death. We have to keep talking.”
    “What should we talk about?” Honey asked.
    “Summer,” Trixie said. “Think about warm sun, and riding our bikes, and cookouts by the pond.” She felt a lump in her throat. Making myself sad is no help at all, she thought.
    “Let’s think about adventure,” Honey said. “That should keep our blood racing. Remember when we went off in the red trailer to find my brother Jim?”
    Trixie remembered happily, and she and Honey took turns telling the story to Norma. When they ended, however, there was no response from their listener.
    “Norma?” Trixie said.
    “Mmm—sleepy,” came the drowsy reply.
    Trixie heard Honey yawn, and it triggered her own yawning reflex. “We can’t... we can’t fall asleep...” Trixie murmured. As she spoke, she did seem to be falling—falling through space to somewhere dark and warm.
    She began to dream. It was morning, and she was in her bed at home. She must have been very young in the dream, she realized, because someone was washing her face, the way she still sometimes washed Bobby’s. She must have gotten very dirty somehow, because someone seemed to be angry with her, and saying her name loudly, over and over: “Trixie, Trixie, Trixie.” All the while, the rough washcloth was scrubbing her face.
    Trixie struggled to open her eyes. She expected to see the familiar walls of her bedroom, but she didn’t. She expected to see her mother’s face, but she didn’t see that, either. Instead, she saw-
    “Reddy!” Trixie shouted. She pushed the dog away as he continued to try to lick her face. She sat up and looked around. The door of the camper was open, and dim late-after-noon light was streaming in. She could see Honey groggily sitting up at her brother Jim’s urging. Brian Belden was patting Norma’s cold hands, trying to bring her around.
    Someone was standing in the doorway. Trixie stifled a scream, remembering her last sight of Paul Gale. The voice that spoke, though, was the calm one of David Llewelyn. “I’m glad to see that you’re all right,” he said, “although it’s certainly no credit to me that you are.”



14 * Success!

    TRIXIE WAS only dimly aware of being helped out of the camper and into a waiting car. Much later, it seemed, she was lifted out of the car again. This time, she did wind up back in her own bedroom.
    When she woke again, it was full daylight. She opened her eyes to see Bobby’s worried face close to hers.
    “She’s awake!” he shouted without