The Red Trailer Mystery

blanket I forgot to smooth out after Bud yanked it off the bed."
    "Well, I’m going to leave a note for Jim," Trixie said, refusing to become depressed. "Sooner or later he’s bound to come back after his mug and Bible."
    "But we haven’t any paper or pencil," Honey said, looking as though she were going to cry.
    "I’ll tear a label off one of the cans," Trixie told her, "and write on the back of it with a hunk of charred wood from the dead fire."
    "You’re wonderful," Honey cried, cheering up as she slipped out of the tent and hurried back with a piece of charcoal. "What are you going to say?" Trixie thought a minute, then wrote this message:

Jim:
Honey and I are at the Autoville trailer camp.
It is perfectly safe now for you to come to see us.
Trixie

    "There isn’t room for another word," she said, "but he trusts us, so he’ll come. I’ll stick the note inside his christening mug so he can’t possibly miss seeing it."
    "Now what’ll we do about Bud?" Honey demanded as they replaced the corner of the blanket over the foot of the bed and scrambled out of the tent.
    "We could climb up to the top of that shrubby hill," Trixie suggested, "but I doubt if we could catch a glimpse of him from there, not in the moonlight."
    "Oh, dear," Honey moaned. "I can’t bear to think of the poor little thing spending a night alone in the woods."
    "It won’t hurt him at all," Trixie declared emphatically. "It’s very warm, and there’s plenty of water for him to drink. He may even have caught a small field mouse for his supper."
    "I suppose the sensible thing for us to do is go home and look for Bud again early in the morning," Honey said after they had called and called in vain.
    "That’s right," Trixie agreed. "I’m so tired I don’t think I could climb that hill, and that’s probably where he is. Both dogs were with us when the trees thinned out and began to be shrubs. That’s the last time I remember seeing Bud. He raced ahead of us, but Reddy stayed close by for a change." She yawned wearily.
    "I’m exhausted, too," Honey admitted. "Let’s give up.
    On the way home Trixie suddenly thought of something, but she decided not to say anything to Honey for fear of arousing false hopes.
    What Trixie thought of was a little barefoot girl in a patched sunsuit, cradling a black puppy to her thin body. "My puppy," Sally had crooned the day they had first met the red-trailer family.
    Did Bud’s disappearance mean that the stolen Robin was hidden somewhere nearby?
    "If it is," Trixie whispered to herself as she curled up in bed, "we should be able to see it from the top of that shrub-covered rise of land. Maybe Jimmy Crow has done us a favor, after all. If it hadn’t been for his shiny towel rack, I would never have noticed that mound."

A Surprising Slide • 16

    THE GIRLS SLEPT soundly until dawn. They ate a hurried breakfast of dry cereal and milk and left the Swan.
    The sun had not yet burned off the dew, and there were still mud puddles in the Autoville driveway, left over from yesterday’s rain. A heavy mist blotted out the treetops, but Trixie felt sure that before noon the sky would be clear and bright. She was also sure, with a growing sense of excitement, that before the day was over they would find not only Jim and Joeanne, but the red-trailer family as well.
    Joeanne might well have spent the night in the Robin with her parents. Trixie told herself that was why Joeanne wasn’t in the tent at Jim’s camp. She’d probably discovered the trailer in the woods somewhere yesterday.
    "I had the funniest dream last night," Honey said as they left the Pine Hollow road and cut through the woods toward the little camp in the clearing. "And it was all in color, like a Technicolor movie."
    Trixie grinned. "Only people with very vivid imaginations dream in color. You'll probably be a writer or an artist someday, Honey. What was the dream about?"
    "It was just as plain as could be," Honey told her. "Bud had grown to an enormous size, and he was hitched up to the red trailer. I was riding on his back, and you and Jim were running alongside. Jim’s hair was as red as the sunrise, and then it turned as black as night, and I saw it wasn’t Jim but Joeanne. She ran along with her hair flowing behind her like a black cloud, screaming, ‘Nevermore, nevermore,’ and sobbing heartbrokenly. All of a sudden she changed into a large black raven and flew away, flapping her wings and croaking."
    Trixie giggled. "What happened