“Well, he called us dumb for getting locked out,” Trixie said defensively. She knew she tended to jump to conclusions.
Trixie went over to examine the lock on the patio door. “This isn’t the kind of lock you can accidentally lock,” she announced. “Someone must have locked it from the inside.”
“It must have been that practical joker,” said Honey. “I don’t like this, Trixie. You don’t really believe there is a ‘ghost’ who doesn’t want Daddy to buy the lodge, do you?”
“Of course not. Nobody else really believes it, either. But if a person is playing ghost, I’d sure like to figure out how and why.”
“Why can’t we ever go anywhere without strange things happening?” Honey sighed. “Trixie, why are you grinning? There’s nothing funny about this!”
“I know,” Trixie said honestly. “I just—well, when your father started telling us about the ghost, well, I was kind of hoping for some excitement.”
“Well, I think you’re getting more than you bargained for,” Honey cautioned. “Come on, let’s get ready for breakfast.”
Trixie’s short curls dried much faster than the shoulder-length cuts of Di and Honey, so she decided to meet the others in the restaurant later. She thought she would take a walk before breakfast and see more of Mead’s Mountain.
When she stepped out into the hall, she saw a young couple coming toward her, arm in arm. He was tall and slim, with smooth, dark skin and long, black hair. She was shorter, but slim and dark, too. Her hair was pulled back and piled on her head, and her features were delicate and finely chiseled. Whispering and flashing smiles to each other, they stopped at the door next to the Bob-Whites’ suite.
“Good morning,” Trixie greeted them and introduced herself. “We’re staying in the suite next to you. If we make too much noise, just bang on the wall.” They smiled and introduced themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Allessi. “Welcome,” said the woman. “Don’t worry about bothering us.”
“Have a good day on the slopes,” said the man as they disappeared into their room.
Honeymooners are lovely people, thought Trixie as she walked down the hall. Once she got outside in the courtyard, she took a deep breath of mountain air and gazed at the beautiful scenery around her.
The lodge was situated in a hollow at the base of a string of mountains, and it was much larger than it had looked the previous night. The way its Alpine styling was silhouetted against the mountains almost convinced Trixie that she must be in a mountain meadow in Switzerland. She guessed that the largest peak in the chain of mountains must be Mead’s Mountain. Except for the mountains, most of the land Trixie could see around the lodge was gently sloping, forested hills.
The main lobby and restaurant faced the mountains, showing off the spectacular view. Connected to the main building, and housing the guest rooms, was a rectangular building with the open courtyard in the center, where the swimming pool was located. A breezeway passed through the center of the courtyard, and Trixie followed it, marveling at how the sun made everything snow-covered shine like diamonds. Coming around to the front of the main lodge, she could see a bunny tow and a more advanced rope tow meet the start of the chair lift. She was looking forward to learning how to cross-country ski.
Tromping through snowdrifts and breathing the invigorating air was making her hungry, so Trixie headed for the restaurant. None of the others were there yet, and she decided to wait outside the front entrance. She brushed the snow off a small bench in the sunshine and sat down. Soon engrossed in scribbling down her impressions of the lodge area into her notebook, she was startled when Jim sat down next to her.
“Good morning,” he said. “And what a morning —just smell that air!” He took an extremely deep breath and started to slowly let it out.
Sounds of crashing glass and a small child’s shrill scream cut short his exhale. Jim leaped up and went inside, Trixie close at his heels. He came to a halt just inside the door, and Trixie, unable to stop, bumped right into him. It had been so bright outside that at first she couldn’t see a thing except spots. When her eyes adjusted, she was horrified to see a small, barefoot girl about five years old, standing amid the debris of a broken peanut butter jar.
“Don’t move,” Jim ordered, slowly approaching the girl. The little girl, taken by surprise, stood perfectly still and quit crying.
“I broke my peanut butter,” she sniffed. “That’s my most favorite thing of all.”
Jim gingerly stepped into the mess, picked up the girl, and carried her to a table. Trixie watched him examine the girl’s feet for cuts and thought, Jim is so good and tender with small children. In a few minutes, Jim had the curly-haired girl laughing.
“You won’t tell my mama, will you? I’m supposed to be in bed,” she pleaded, pointing to her pajamas.
Just then a lovely woman with thick black braids and wearing a floor-length skirt came rushing into the room. Behind her was Miss Trask.
“Rosie, I told you to stay in bed. What are you doing in here?” the woman scolded, gathering the girl into her arms.
Rosie burst into tears again and wailed, “I broke the peanut butter. I got hungry and I broke the peanut butter.”
“Oh, Rosie, how many times have I told you not to take things that don’t belong to you? You know you’re not supposed to get into the pantry.”
This additional scolding only brought more tears.
“You’re very lucky, honey, because I just happen to have another jar of peanut butter in the pantry,” the woman said soothingly. “Now, let’s see if you’re okay.”
“That man said I was okay. He saved me,” Rosie sniffed solemnly. She pointed to Jim, causing Jim’s face to turn the same shade of red as his hair.
The woman stepped forward, extending her hand to Jim. “I’m Katie O’Brien,” she said warmly. “I’m grateful to you for tending to my very disobedient daughter,” she added, giving Rosie a reproachful look.
“As my friend Mart would say, helping out damsels in distress is my specialty,” Jim managed to respond. He patted Rosie’s tangled dark curls and introduced himself and Trixie.
“Miss Trask and my husband, Pat, have been telling me about you. I m glad to be able to match names with faces. ’ Katie set Rosie down on the floor and gave her a gentle pat. “Now, Rosie, off to the apartment with you. Daddy’s still there. He’ll help you get dressed.’ She turned to Trixie, Jim, and Miss Trask. “I’ll get this mess cleaned up and fix your breakfast. Then we can talk.” She sighed, looking around at the peanut butter rubble.
“I’ll clean it up,” Jim offered. Before Katie could object, Jim heard the rest of the Bob-Whites coming in. “Miss Trask, would you introduce everyone while I go get a mop and some paper towels?”
By the time Jim joined the others in the dining area, the Bob-Whites and Katie were talking as if they were old friends.
“My blood sugar is at a low ebb, and I crave solid sustenance. Might I suggest we procure the house cuisine?” Mart requested politely.
Katie gave him a puzzled stare.
“Mart’s got this disease called dictionary-itis,” Trixie tried to explain. “I think he means he’s hungry.”
Katie smiled approvingly. “I love a boy with an appetite. Is there anything special you’d like?”
“Bacon and scrambled eggs?” Jim suggested.
“How about adding hashbrowns, toast, and juice?” Mart put in quickly. “Mountain air, you know.”
Miss Trask laughed. “Katie, I’m afraid you’ll get to know Mart’s appetite all too well by the end of the week.”
Katie disappeared into the kitchen, and the Bob-Whites and Miss Trask sat down at one of the long tables covered with a bright tablecloth. In came a petite, brown-haired girl carrying a tray of mugs of steaming hot chocolate.
With a friendly smile, she introduced herself as Linda Fleming. “Katie thought you might want some hot chocolate .after your early morning swim. How do you like the pool?” she asked, passing around the tray.
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“What a way to start the day!” Brian rhapsodized.
“You just liked it because you were able to swim and have a snowball fight at the same time,” said Trixie sourly.
“And you, Beatrix, are just mad because you kept forgetting to duck,” chuckled Mart.
“Just wait till later. You’ll get yours,” threatened Trixie, pretending to throw a snowball.
“You certainly know how to strike terror into the heart of a young boy,” Mart said, not bothering to duck.
“Don’t mind them,” Brian told Linda. “They’re still going through sibling rivalry. I take it you work here?”
“Yes, with my twin sister, Wanda. We’re taking a semester off from college to earn money for expenses. Since we love to ski, working here is really ideal for us. Here comes Wanda now.” She pointed to a girl coming toward them with another tray.
Wanda was a little taller than her sister and had a sturdier build. She had long dark hair that flowed all the way down her back and, like her sister, had the healthy, glowing complexion that goes with outdoor living.
“This is only the beginning,” Wanda said cheerfully as she passed around the large pottery bowls of scrambled eggs and hashbrowns and the platter of bacon.
“Wow! Food service wins the prize for high ratings,” said Mart. Before he even took a bite, he took out his notebook and quickly scribbled down a few words.
Di looked knowing. “I can guess what’s on Mart’s like list.”
“Just wait till you taste the food,” mumbled Mart between mouthfuls. “It will end up on yours, too.”
“Pat told us about your father’s plan for this lodge,” said Wanda to Honey and Jim. “Linda and I are delighted. We grew up in Groverville and have been coming to these mountains since we were little kids. We have a lot of memories of fishing and camping with our parents here, and we were hoping this wouldn’t be turned into a large commercial ski area. It’s hard to find this kind of solitude, freedom, and peacefulness anywhere else, so it would be a terrible waste to ruin the area with another ski resort. Vermont has so many.”
“This does seem like the ideal place for a natural resort area,” Jim agreed.
“Mead’s Mountain is a private, personal kind of place,” Linda said emotionally. “I know in the week you’re here you’ll get to love it the way Wanda and I do.”
Katie came in with still another tray, this one with big pitchers of orange juice and milk and baskets of homemade sweet rolls.
“Katie,” Honey said, looking at her appreciatively, “I’m surprised to see you in a long skirt, instead of in ski pants like Linda and Wanda. Don’t you like to ski?”
“Honey, I’ll let you in on my secret.” Katie lifted her gaily colored skirt to her knees, revealing a pair of ski pants underneath. “I love to ski! I’d rather ski than just about anything, but I do have other duties. When I’m just wearing ski pants, I want to be out on the slopes, but somehow in a long skirt I feel more like an indoor-type pioneer woman. So I wear the skirt while I work inside, but I keep the ski clothes on underneath so I’ll be ready to go instantly.”
“How clever,” said Trixie, glad that she herself hardly ever had to wear a long skirt.
There were no other people in the restaurant yet, so Katie sat down with the group. “Tell me more about yourselves,” she requested. “What do you do? What are your plans for the future?”
“Well, we’re all outdoors people,” Jim began, “so I know we’ll enjoy our time here.”
“Someday Jim’s going to have a school for orphan boys, where lessons will be sandwiched in between outdoor activities,” Di put in. “I myself am interested in art.”
“And Brian’s going to be Jim’s doctor in residence,” Honey contributed.
“If I ever make it through medical school,” Brian commented. “I also hope to serve in a medical program—like the ship HOPE. Mart here is going to be Jim’s agriculturist in residence.”
“Trixie and Honey plan to operate the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency when they get out of college,” Mart said, helping himself to his third sweet roll. Then he winked. “They think they’re professionals already, so we, uh, try to humor them. If you have any mysteries lying around—beware!”
“Detectives?” Katie raised an eyebrow.
Di, always loyal, jumped to the girls’ defense. “Trixie and Honey are every bit as good as professionals. They’ve solved lots of cases when even the police were stumped, and they’ve made a lot of people happy, me included.”
“What do you say, Miss Trask?” Katie asked.
“It’s quite true,” replied Miss Trask. “But let’s save the stories of their exploits for another time.”
“Please do,” said Katie, glancing up at the new arrivals coming into the restaurant. She excused herself and hurried back to the kitchen.
“If you’re such great detectives,” said Wanda somewhat skeptically, “maybe you can find my missing quarters.”
Mart pointed at Wanda: “Quiet, ye doubting Thomas, or ye will stir up a hornet’s nest.”
Trixie was instantly alert. “Missing quarters?”
“Whenever I have a few quarters in change, I put them in the jar on my desk,” explained Wanda. “When the jar is full, I take them down to the bank and put them into my buy-a-car-someday fund. The jar was almost full.”
“When did you notice it was missing?” Trixie asked.
“Let’s see... the day before Christmas Eve. I had just shown Eric—that’s our new ski instructor—to his room. I went to tell Katie that he was here, and when I came back, the jar was gone. I didn’t keep my door locked then, so anyone could have taken it.”
“Does Eric spend a lot of quarters?” asked Trixie thoughtfully.
Wanda shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“As you can see, Wanda, Trixie’s more of a professional jumper-to-conclusions than a detective,” Mart scoffed. “Come on, everyone. We came here to ski!”
“You came to the right place,” said Linda. “I’ll go help you with your skis, and then Eric can give you lessons. He’s an expert cross-country skier. He’s out packing down snow on the bunny tow right now.”
“Very crafty.” Wanda grinned at her sister. “That leaves me with the dirty dishes.”
“I owe you one,” called Linda, already out the door. “See you at lunch, Miss Trask,” Honey said as the Bob-Whites followed Linda to the ski shop.
While Linda was outfitting them with the narrow lightweight skis, Trixie asked casually, “Was Eric just hired a couple of days ago?”
Linda nodded. “Eric and his mother had reservations for two weeks during the Christmas holidays. Pat was surprised when Eric arrived alone and asked him for a job. Luckily for Eric, things were much busier here than Pat had anticipated, and he really needed some extra help, both on the slopes and around the lodge.”
“I wonder what happened to his mother,” Trixie mused aloud. At Mart’s warning look, she stopped talking. But she couldn’t stop thinking. And why would he show up alone at Christmastime? Most people have something better to do than get a new job.
Impatient, she grabbed her skis and said, “Come on, we’ve got a ski lesson waiting for us.”
Mart sighed. “I have a feeling Eric has a barrage of questions waiting for him,” he muttered to himself.
A Ski Lesson ● 5
LINDA LED THEM to the base of the hill where the two rope tows converged below the chair lift. Before going back to the restaurant, she called to Eric, and he skied over to them, smiling.
There re those perfect teeth again, Trixie thought. She tried to be objective as she studied him. In his blue jeans and dark red bulky hand-knit sweater, he had a confident, casual air. Then why should watching him make her feel slightly uneasy?
“Greetings,” he said. “Something tells me that none of you have ever cross-country skied.”
“We’re eager to learn, though,” said Jim.
“And we all know how to downhill ski,” added Honey
quickly.
“Well, then you’ve got it made,” Eric said. “I guarantee you’ll all be near-experts in an hour. Let’s go over to that flat place on the other side of this run. You can put your skis on there, and it’s a good place to get the hang of the glide-kick movement.”
As the Bob-Whites did as they were told, Trixie tried to get Eric to reveal more about himself. “Linda was just telling us that your mother had reservations to come here, too,” she said as nonchalantly as she could. “It’s too bad she changed her mind. This is such a lovely place to spend the Christmas holidays.”
Eric shrugged. “I was sent word that she had to go on a business trip. No explanations, just a message that said she was already gone.”
“You haven’t heard from her at all?” asked Trixie, glad that Eric wasn’t as reluctant to talk as she thought he’d be.
“Nope. Shortly before Christmas, my grandfather sent me a telegram saying Mom had been called away on a business trip to the West Coast and I was to stay at school for the holidays. I didn’t hear a word from Mom. She usually tells me where she’s going to be.” He sounded hurt. “Anyway, I wasn’t about to stay at school all alone, so I came here hoping to get a job to earn my keep. I was lucky—teaching skiing is like not working at all.”
“Didn’t you try to get in touch with your mother?” Brian asked, curious.
“Yeah, but no one was home, and when I called my grandfather, he said he didn’t know exactly where she was—just someplace on the West Coast. And he was plenty mad I didn’t stay at school, too.”
“Maybe her business won’t take long,” Honey tried to console him. “Then she’ll be able to join you here. Did you leave word at your school where she could find you?”
Eric nodded glumly. “I don’t know too much about business, but Christmas seems like a lousy time to conduct it. I’m majoring in architecture myself. Something I’d really like to do is build ski lodges. That would rank right up there with giving ski lessons as being more fun than work! Speaking of lessons, we’d better get started.”
The Mystery at Mead's Mountain Page 4
