The Happy Valley Mystery

by Campbell, Julie

  “We’d love it,” Trixie said, and she forgot all about Walnut Woods for the moment.

  “It’s to raise money for their school. It starts around two o’clock, I think. Rivervale High has a pretty good team,” Mr. Gorman said. “Ned plays center. He’s been wanting to meet Jim and Brian and Mart... you girls, too, I’m sure.”

  “I’m not so sure about the girls,” Mrs. Gorman said as she put away the breakfast dishes the girls had finished washing and drying. “Ned never seems to have much on his mind but hunting and basketball and football... skating, too, I believe.”

  “He’s what the girls would have called a ‘sheik’ when I was your age,” Mr. Gorman teased. “Tall, dark, and handsome.”

  “Let’s just hope he can play basketball,” Jim said. “Say, Mr. Gorman, it sure was swell of you to get us those tickets.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Mr. Gorman answered. “We won’t need the station wagon today, and if you think you can manage it and find your way to Rivervale, you may use it.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Trixie said. “Ben, wont you come along with us?”

  “Too much studying to do,” Ben answered. “But thanks!”

  The Bob-Whites gave the horses a quick run around the farm, up the road to Waterworks Park, and back. Then, after a light lunch, they piled into the station wagon and were off.

  The girls wore sweaters and skirts, for Mrs. Gorman said it was all quite informal, and the dance would be in the gym. In view of what was to happen later on, it was just as well that Trixie, at least, didn’t dress up.

  The Bob-Whites found seats right down in front, near the center of the court. A dozen or so Rivervale High players, with huge R’s on their jackets, were warming up.

  It wasn’t hard to tell which of the players was Ned Schulz. He was the tallest, the darkest, and the handsomest. Automatically Honey smoothed back her long hair, and Diana batted her curly lashes for a better look at him.

  Trixie, though, followed Ned’s quick, perfectly timed progress around the floor, and, as the ball left his hands, arched into the air, and ripped through the basket, she whistled in quick admiration.

  Ned heard her and, realizing that these were his neighbor’s out-of-town visitors, came up to introduce himself.

  “We’re waiting for the gang from Indianola High,” he said. “Something must have held them up.”

  “It’s been fun watching the warm-up,” Trixie said enthusiastically. “You have some neat players.”

  “Thanks. Do you... any of you fellows play back home?” Ned asked. “Where is it, now, someplace in New York?”

  “Sleepyside Junior-Senior High,” Trixie said. “Jim and Brian and Mart all play.”

  “Do you girls play, too?” Ned asked. “Say, wait a minute till I see what the coach is saying to the rest of the gang.”

  “There’ll be a half or three-quarters of an hour delay,” he told the Bob-Whites when he came back. “How about throwing the ball around a little?” he asked Brian and Jim and Mart. “Coach said the team should take it easy, so the floor is free. Plenty of sneakers over here under the bench.”

  “That’ll be keen,” Mart said.

  The Rivervale players sat around on the floor and on the bench while the boys from Sleepyside found sneakers to fit.

  “Lace ’em up tight,” one of the local players said and smiled at the boy sitting next to him.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Mart answered, looking up sideways at him. “I seem to remember that.”

  “No harm meant,” the boy replied. “I just thought maybe you hadn’t played much.”

  “He’ll be sorry he ever said that,” Honey whispered to Trixie. “This is going to be fun.”

  Mart was out on the floor in a flash. Skillfully he faked, eluded an imaginary player, reversed, faked again, and flipped the ball accurately into the basket.

  Brian caught it on the bounce, pounded it to get the feel of it in his hand, dribbled it across the court, and sank a ripper from far out.

  By this time the spectators on the benches were aware that the strangers on the floor were no strangers to the game of basketball. They whistled and clapped and stamped their feet.

  Mart stopped practice-shooting at the far end of the court, bent, clowning, and bowed elaborately. This set everyone laughing. Suddenly they were quiet again, for Jim started to move slowly clockwise around the board, stopping only long enough at each position to aim, flick his wrist, and send the ball through the basket, never missing.

  Then, oblivious to the crowd, all three boys were out on the floor. Jim sent the ball flying to Brian, who was less than a dozen feet from the basket, then raced forward to recover it if Brian missed it. He did miss; Jim recovered and, almost directly under the basket, sent the ball through. Picking it up, he then hurled a long pass back to Mart, who leaped, caught the ball, and, with a quick one-handed shot, sent it against the backboard and through the basket.

  As the crowd cheered and cheered, the boys, looking embarrassed, ran back to the bench where the girls were waiting with Ned Schulz.

  “Good going!” Ned said and shook hands with the three Bob-Whites.

  “We were just hamming it up,” Brian apologized.

  “They—our team, I mean—were district champions in Westchester County,” Trixie said proudly as she took a ball from Mart and walked up and down in front of the group, pounding it on the floor.

  “I can believe that, all right,” Ned said. “Say, Trixie, how about you? That ball is used for something besides bouncing. Come on, throw it out!”

  “Sink one and show him!” Jim said under his breath to Trixie.

  She shook her head. “Not in front of all this crowd.” Then, stung by a snickering laugh from the same boy who had taunted Mart, she forgot where she was, stood up, sighted the basket, took her stance, and sent the ball high in the air and straight through the basket.

  “Hey, do that again!” Ned called, and he tossed the ball back to her.

  It wasn’t too hard for Trixie, who had spent hours practicing spot shots at the hoop on the garage at Crab-apple Farm. She caught the ball and, without changing her position on the sideline, not far from midcourt, sent it flying back again, then again and again. Every time it soared neatly through the basket.

  Amid catcalls and cheering she sat down beside Jim.

  “I couldn’t do that again in a million years,” she said.

  The Rivervale coach had been sitting watching the Bob-Whites perform and scribbling on the clipboard on his knee. As the players from Indianola High finally appeared and went through the gym, he rose to follow them, then stopped to speak to the Bob-Whites. In response to his questions, they told him their names and the name of their school.

  “Pretty good ball,” he said and shook hands with the boys. “And Trixie,” he turned to her and said, “I could use an accurate shooter like you on the team today.”

  He didn’t need one. Rivervale High played a brilliant game. The score was Rivervale seventy-six, Indianola forty-two.

  After the game the Bob-Whites, who were unanimous in wishing they hadn’t been such limelighters, found themselves surrounded by a cordial, friendly crowd of Rivervale fans.

  Boys milled around Honey and Diana, trying to get their attention and book them for dances later. Trixie, hair tousled and face flushed, stayed close to Brian and Mart and Jim. As one of the Rivervale fans slapped her on the back, with a quick word of praise for her basket shots, she sent a wistful glance toward Diana and Honey. They both looked so pretty and appealing.

  “Sometimes,” she said to herself, “I wish I could remember to be a girl instead of a tomboy. Especially when there’ll be dancing.”

  Two Suspects • 9

  AFTER THE GAME the girls went into the school rest room to wash their hands and freshen their lipstick.

  “That Ned Schulz has everything, hasn’t he, Trixie?” Honey asked as she ran her comb through her shoulder-length brown hair. “And you used a pretty sneaky way to get him intereste
d in you.”

  “Yes, wasn’t I a show-off?” Trixie answered. “I was, wasn’t I, Honey? I honestly forgot where I was. When that boy challenged me, I just had to prove that I could hit the basket. Was it too awful?”

  “If you were anyone else, I’d have been sure you were doing it to attract Ned,” Honey assured her. “The last thing in the world you’d ever be is a show-off.”

  It worried Trixie, though. “Do you think anyone else thought I was trying to attract Ned’s attention?” she asked.

  “Only about fifty percent of the girls in the gym,” Diana said. “Never mind, Trix. It was sensational. They don’t know your heart belongs to Jim.”

  “I like Jim, of course,” Trixie said, blushing, “just the way you like Mart and Honey likes Brian. My heart doesn’t belong to anyone.”

  “I know that,” Diana said. “I was only teasing.”

  “We’re all too young,” Honey said. “At least, people keep telling us so.”

  “My mother and my daddy have known one another since they were ten years old,” Diana said. “And Mother told me that she knew, even then, that she was going to marry Daddy someday.”

  “It does happen, I guess,” Honey said.

  Trixie didn’t say anything, but it took her longer than usual to brush her sandy curls, and she borrowed some of Diana’s spray perfume.

  “Mmmm, you smell like a flower shop,” Jim told her when the boys met the girls outside of the gym.

  “Is it too much?” Trixie asked nervously. “It’s Di’s. I was sort of warm after that crazy basket-throwing. I wish I hadn’t done that.”

  “Well, why not?” Jim asked. “You were a wowl They were baiting you, anyway, Trixie. You just had to sink those shots. Forget it, will you?” He pressed her arm and looked down at her, reassuring her. Suddenly

  Trixie was comfortable again and not worried about anything.

  When the Bob-Whites went into the gym, where tables were now set up and spread for the barbecue, Trixie was immediately surrounded by boys, most of them players from the Rivervale and Indianola teams. They were all talking at once... basketball talk.

  When Trixie looked around, she discovered that Honey had gone off with a group of boys, that Diana was in a comer of the gym surrounded by another half dozen, and that Jim and Brian and Mart were in the midst of a crowd of some of the prettiest girls she had ever seen.

  As Trixie watched, a tall blond girl—prettier, almost, than Diana or Honey—took hold of Jim’s arm, led him to a place at the long table, and then sat down beside him. When other girls came up to talk to Jim, the tall blonde gestured to them to stay away, laughing as she did it and pointing to herself, as much as to say, “He’s mine. Hands off!”

  “She’s as old as Jim, probably a senior, and, gosh, she’s beautiful!” Trixie said, half to herself. Then suddenly she was aware that Ned had taken her arm and was leading her to a place at the table.

  “Did you say something?” he asked.

  Trixie shook her head. “No,” she said, “but I was thinking how good everything smells. I’m hungiy. Where are they cooking that meat? What kind is it?”

  “Lamb,” Ned answered. “An uncle of one of our guys has a restaurant near the airport. He sent his cook over to barbecue the lamb. He sent a couple of portable electric spits, too. They’re big enough for a whole lamb. The meat roasts as it turns.”

  “I don’t think I ever tasted barbecued lamb,” Trixie said. “Mmmm... does it smell good!”

  “The chef was rubbing it with some garlic,” Ned said, “and it smelled horrible then. Right now it doesn’t seem like the same stuff. We were going to have barbecued spareribs,” Ned went on, “but a couple of men showed up with fresh lamb carcasses and offered to sell them real cheap. The committee decided to have them instead. We’ll save money that way.”

  A light as bright as an electric bulb began to burn in Trixie’s brain.

  “Who were the men?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ned said. “I talked to one of them. He said they had a frozen-food locker in Valley Park. These carcasses hadn’t been frozen, but if we didn’t take them, they’d have to go into the locker, and it was already pretty full. He offered them real cheap, and, well, we’re trying to make money on the barbecue.”

  “Didn’t anyone on the committee think there was anything queer about such an arrangement?”

  “Well, no. I guess some of them knew all about the locker. Why are you so bothered? Do you think you’re going to get poisoned?”

  “No,” Trixie said seriously, “I’m not worried about that. It just sounded too much like coincidence. There they were with the lambs, freshly killed, and here you were with a barbecue coming up.”

  “Say, you think of a lot of things that other girls don’t,” Ned said. Trixie wasn’t sure whether he meant that as a compliment.

  At the other side of the table, Jim was laughing and teasing the tall blond girl. Defiantly Trixie turned to Ned with a bewitching smile. She had watched Diana use such a smile to good advantage many times. “How do you know what girls think about?” she asked. “I’ll bet you just imagine all sorts of things. What do you think I’m thinking right now, for instance?”

  “I don’t know,” Ned said, “but all at once you sure don’t act natural. That’s what’s the matter with girls. They don’t act natural. I thought you were different.”

  “That’s what boys always say,” Trixie answered as she saw Jim put his arm across the chair back of the tall blond girl and lean over to talk to her. “And when girls act natural, boys lose interest.”

  “Not me,” Ned said. “I don’t go in much for girls, anyway. I don’t have much time.”

  “I guess you wouldn’t,” Trixie said, “if you play basketball.”

  “And baseball and football. I like all sports, and we have the best coach in the whole country.”

  “I’d match our Sleepyside coach against him any time,” Trixie said loyally.

  “Well, maybe,” Ned admitted. “He must be an ace basketball coach, anyway. Anyone could tell that from the way you and Jim and Brian and Mart threw that ball around. Say, I saw you go by on Mr. Belden’s Satan’s Baby this morning, coming back from Waterworks Park. You sure know how to ride! I don’t know why all girls aren’t interested in sports.” Ned motioned down the table to where Honey and Diana and some of the girls of Rivervale High were laughing and teasing the boys. “Don’t they act crazy?” he asked. “All they think about is dancing and lipsticks and combing their hair. Phooey!”

  “You couldn’t be more mistaken,” Trixie said. “Honey and Di can both shoot a basketball better than I can. They can ride better than I can. They can swim better than almost anyone and skate better, too. I just happened to be the one who got into the limelight!”

  “Gee whiz, I didn’t say anything about Honey or Di,” Ned said hastily. “You act as though you’d like to haul off and hit me. They may be able to ride and all that, but just look at them right now... both using lipsticks!”

  “I think I may need to use mine,” Trixie said and took out her compact.

  Ned laughed. “You’re just doing that because you’re irritated with me. They’re clearing the floor now for dancing. There’s some sense to dancing. It’s exercise.” He’s just about the queerest boy I ever met, Trixie thought to herself. I just have to get Jim and tell him about those lamb carcasses. I know whoever sold them

  to the school has something to do with Uncle Andrew’s stolen sheep.

  “You are sore at me,” Ned said. “You haven’t said a word.”

  “I’m not sore about anything. I was just thinking about something. Ned?”

  “Yes?”

  “If I tell you something, will you promise not to say anything about it to anyone?”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “Well, it’s just this: I think those lambs that your school committee bought at such a bargain were stolen lambs. And I think they were stolen from my Uncle Andrew.”

>   Whee-ew! Ned whistled. “What makes you think that? The men said they had a locker in Valley Park.”

  “You don’t know they have one, do you?” Trixie lowered her voice. “Someone has been stealing my uncle’s sheep and lambs regularly. He’s been terribly worried about it, and so have Mr. and Mrs. Gorman. I’m going to find out who’s been doing the stealing.”

  “You’re going to find out?” Ned asked, amazed. “Now I’ve heard everything. I remember my dad saying someone had been stealing Mr. Belden’s sheep. That’s why we put ours in the barns every night. But then, we have that extra barn down near the river and have plenty of room. I guess the sheriff is the one who’ll find out who the thieves are.”

  “It’s been going on for a long time, and he hasn’t turned up one clue. I’ve only been working on the case for a few days, and now I’ve turned up a real hot clue. Don’t you say one word to anyone, Ned Schulz. Don’t forget, you promised.”

  “Sure I promised. I won’t say anything, at least for now. But, holy cow, a girl detective!”

  “Honey and I are both detectives. At least, we’re going to be really, truly ones when we’re older. We’ve solved some pretty mysterious cases at home... some the sheriff couldn’t solve.”

  “Are you kidding me, Trixie?” Ned asked. “A pretty girl like you a detective?”

  “I’m telling you the truth. I’ll prove it to you before we go back home, or my name isn’t Trixie Belden. Ned, don’t you know anything more about those men who sold you the lambs?”

  “Not a thing except what I’ve told you.”

  “Would you know them if you saw them again?”

  “I think so. Why?”

  “If you even think you see someone who looks like them, tell me, will you?”

  “Sure I will. Look, Trixie, everyone’s left the table but you and me. They want to take this table away so we can dance. Dance with me, will you?”