26 December
“Ugh! I couldn’t eat another bite,” Di commented, as she settled more comfortably in front of the fireplace at Crabapple Farm. “Remind me never to agree to having our party on the day after Christmas ever again!”
“But it’s Friday,” Trixie objected. “And that’s been our group night for months, now.”
Since the three Bob-White girls had started college in September, the seven had made a point of getting together every Friday evening. The four households, spread across three locations, took it in turns to host so that no one always had to travel. Although there had been a few times someone had needed to pull out, they had established a tradition.
“We’ll have to see whether our timetables allow that to continue,” Brian commented, from his place reclining on the sofa. “I’ve really enjoyed the meetings, but I don’t know how long I can keep it up.”
“Well, I’m going to keep on meeting with everyone, no matter how hard it gets,” Honey decided. “I’m just glad we all chose colleges within an hour or two of each other and that we have the means to do this.”
“I’m glad of that, too.” Trixie sighed. “But I miss all living in the same place and solving mysteries together.”
“I have a mystery for you, Trix.” Dan watched her from the opposite side of the room, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “If you can solve it by your birthday, I’ll give you a present.”
“What sort of mystery?” she wondered.
“What sort of present?” added Di.
“You won’t know what sort of present until you get it,” he answered.
Trixie shrugged, unconcerned. “The mystery?”
“I’m thinking of something. You need to tell me what it is.” He held up his hand to forestall her first theory. “You only get one guess per week.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What can I do to get clues?”
“You’ll have to figure that out for yourself,” he answered.
“Are the rest of us allowed to help her?” Jim wondered.
Mart snorted. “I have not the least intention of interfering with the straightforwardness or otherwise of Dan’s conundrum by lending my prodigious intellect to its dissolution.”
“That’s fine, Mart. I don’t need your help,” his sister answered.
He frowned. “I liked it better when you had no idea what I was saying.”
“Well, I’m eighteen now. All grown up,” she answered. “And as it happens, I know a lot of big words; I just don’t need to prove it.”
“Children,” Brian chided, his eyes sagging closed. “Now is not the time to fight.”
“We’re not fighting,” Trixie answered, while at the same time Mart said, “We’re not children.”
“And anyway,” Trixie added, “it’s time for me to start work on this puzzle. So, Dan, is it something that’s related to my birthday? Is that why I have until then?”
He waved a hand back and forth. “It’s only kind of related.”
“So it’s not birthday cake, or anything like that,” she mused. “That’s not my guess, by the way.”
“Understood.”
“Is it to do with the date?”
He shook his head. “You only get one question a week.”
“You didn’t say that!”
He shrugged. “I told you that you had to find out the rules for yourself.”
Trixie frowned deeply. “Fine. So, is it Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s wedding anniversary?”
“What? No! Why would it be that?”
“They married on my birthday,” she answered.
He laughed. “Clever, but no.”
She watched him for a moment, but he said no more. “I think this is going to need some thinking. And probably some research.”
“I’ll be ready,” he answered. “Next week.”
Trixie just groaned.
2 January
“Is it to do with the date?” Trixie asked, the moment Dan arrived for their weekly meeting, this time held at Manor House.
“Huh?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “The thing you were thinking of, which you’ve challenged me to find out. Is it to do with the date?”
He took a seat and made a great show of rubbing his chin in mock thought. “I’m not sure I can answer that directly. It may be related and it may not.”
“Is that some kind of clue?”
He shrugged. “It may be.”
Honey, as the only other person already there, glanced from one to the other and shrugged. “It kind of sounds like a clue, but maybe he’s just being annoying.”
Dan frowned. “I’m not annoying!”
“Says you!” Di commented, as she entered the room. “What are we talking about?”
Trixie returned his frown, with interest. “Dan’s inability to answer a question unambiguously.”
Di nodded and sat down opposite Dan. Almost at once, she got up again and moved to another seat, having found that the flower arrangement on the coffee table blocked her view.
“It’s beautiful, but kind of annoying.” Honey picked up the bronze vase and transferred it to a side table.
“Kind of like Dan,” Trixie added.
He let out a surprised laugh. “I wouldn’t call me beautiful.”
“I meant the other part.” She leaned forward. “Is it the day that the planet Pluto was officially named?”
“Was it?”
“Yes,” she answered. “In 1930.”
He shook his head. “No. That’s not it.”
She sank back into her chair and watched him some more. “I’ll get this yet.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m not saying another word until next week.”
9 January
The whole group turned to look at Trixie, as she wandered in last to their next meeting. As it was being held in the apartment she shared with Honey, this situation was unexpected, to say the least.
“Something wrong, Trixie?” Jim asked, as she sat down next to him without looking at anyone.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Anyway,” said Mart, obviously continuing something he had been in the middle of relating, “I looked out of the window and I could see the station, but the part of the train where I was hadn’t quite reached the platform. I looked at my watch and it was 4:34. And we just sat there until 4:53. Four. Fifty. Three! It was so close I could have jumped there, if they would just open the stupid doors! And the whole time–”
“Is it something to do with the first?” Trixie interrupted.
“I fail to see the relevance of this enquiry to my complaint regarding the efficiency of the transit system,” Mart grumbled.
“Your complaint has been noted, and will be actioned as soon as one of us is in a position of authority to do something about it,” Brian told him. “I think we’d like to talk about something else, now.”
“Like the answer to Trixie’s question,” Honey suggested, sitting forward. She turned to Dan. “Well?”
“What question?”
Trixie growled at him. “Is it something to do with the first?”
He considered this for a moment. “Could be.”
“Neil Armstrong? The first man on the moon?” She cast him a hopeful look.
Dan shook his head and she frowned.
“How many more of these meetings will there be before your birthday?” Mart asked, rather sourly.
“Fifteen,” she answered, brow still creased in thought. “Unless you count the one that’s actually on my birthday.”
“I hope she gets it soon,” Di commented to Jim. “It’s not so much fun when Trixie is pre-occupied.”
Trixie heard the remark and shook herself. “Sorry,” she told the rest of them. “I’m determined to solve this, but I’m not going to let it spoil our time together.”
“Good,” Dan answered. “It wasn’t supposed to make you boring.”
“Hey! I’m never boring!”
“You keep telling yourself that, Sherlock,” he answered.
16 January
“Brr! It’s cold out there,” Trixie announced, as she stomped her way into the share house where Mart and Dan lived. “And it’s not even good cold; it’s just started sleeting.”
“This time of year, I always start wanting it to be summer again.” Honey closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the heated air. “I’d love to be able to go back to those endless summers when we were all at high school and could swim in the lake and dig up a mystery or two, even if we did keep complaining it was too hot.”
“Whenever we have one, we always want the other,” Trixie agreed, laughing. She turned to Dan. “Is it something to do with a number?”
He weighed two imaginary items and found them almost equal. “You’re getting closer, but you’re not there yet.”
She nodded, still thinking. “Is it the year I was born?”
“Nope.”
She stamped a foot and dropped onto their sofa. “I’m gonna get this soon.”
He shook his head. “You aren’t going to get it at all.”
“Wanna bet?” she asked.
Again, he shook his head. “We already have a bet. You get this and I give you a present, remember?”
She nodded, a little glumly. “Yeah, I suppose we do.”
A loud knock sounded on the door.
“There’s always next week,” Dan called to her over his shoulder as he went to answer it.
“Yeah.” She shook her head to clear it. “But I’m not feeling any closer to solving it.”
23 January
The next week they met at Jim and Brian’s place and Trixie arrived well before Dan did. She sat at their breakfast bar, resting her chin on her hands, elbows on the counter and frowning at nothing in particular.
“Are you going to join in the conversation?” Brian asked her, handing her a banana from the fruit bowl.
She transferred her frown from the middle distance to the banana. “What’s this for?”
“They’re a good source of potassium,” her brother suggested.
“Not what I need right now,” she answered, putting it back.
“You never know; it might be.”
“Well, I don’t think it is,” she replied. “So, what do you think Dan’s up to? How am I supposed to solve this with so little to go on?”
He shrugged. “You could try researching things it might be.”
“But I have been!” She clutched at her curls. “I’ve spent hours on it. And still nothing. Or more like everything. I’ve got about a hundred potential answers and only fourteen guesses left.”
“Well, then, maybe you should ask him a more specific question,” he suggested. “That way, he’ll have to give more specific answers.”
She nodded, thinking that through. “Okay, I think I’ll try that, as soon as he gets here.”
By the time he finally arrived, another ten minutes later, Trixie thought she had a plan.
“Is it in any way related to the first time that a particular thing occurred?” she asked, without even saying hello.
He thought for a moment. “No.”
“Drat. There goes the thing I was going to guess.” She frowned, thinking some more. “Is it emeralds?”
“Why would it be that?” he asked.
“They’re my birthstone,” she answered. “Which is lucky, because they always remind me of Rosewood Hall and finding the emerald necklace in the tunnel.”
“Oh. Well it was a good answer, then, but it’s not the one.”
30 January
“This is driving you crazy, isn’t it?” Honey asked, as she and Trixie approached Di’s place. “Dan’s puzzle, I mean.”
“I was so sure I’d at least be on the right track by now,” she mourned, trailing along behind her friend as they entered Di’s building. “And I’m not. I just know I’m not anywhere near it.”
“What are you going to ask this time?”
“I can’t even decide that,” Trixie answered. “It’s like wandering around in the dark in a corn field – do you remember that time? – and you don’t know where you’re going, or what you might find.”
“Well, so long as we don’t find now what we found then, and of course I don’t think that we will, everything should be fine, shouldn’t it?”
Trixie sighed. “I guess so. But I don’t want the mystery I never solve to be something thought up for me by Dan.”
They had, by this time, ridden the elevator up to the fourth floor. The doors opened and they stepped out.
“Are you going to ask something straight away? If he’s there, I mean?”
Her friend nodded. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”
Di opened the door almost immediately and they entered the apartment. Trixie headed straight for Dan, who sat in one corner of the sofa.
“Does it relate to any historical, or publicly known past event?” she asked, standing over him.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is it National Burger Month?”
“Is it?”
“May is. And you really like burgers. So do I.”
Dan shook his head again. “Not it.”
6 February
Dan arrived early to the next gathering, held at Trixie and Honey’s place. He sauntered into the room, only to be pounced upon by Trixie.
“Does it relate to the whole month of May?”
“Nope.”
“Ha! I knew it, after the way you reacted to my last guess.” She frowned a little. “I think I need to do a kind of reconceptualisation of the problem. Let me get back to you with my answer a little later.”
“If you say so,” he replied. “You’re the one who’s insisting on doing this the instant you see me.”
He fell into conversation with Honey while Trixie paced the room. Some time later, Brian and Jim arrived and she welcomed them in. Brian joined in the existing conversation, but Trixie cornered Jim and began running through her thoughts with him.
“It’s not the first time something happened, but it might be to do with some other kind of first; it’s not to do with the whole month of May; it’s not a historical event; it’s not specifically to do with my birthday.” She paused. “It might be to do with a number. It might be to do with the date. So what am I going to guess this time?”
“You could ask something about whether the kind of answers you’re giving are the right kind,” he suggested, but she shook her head.
“I’ve already asked this week’s question. But I’ll remember that for next week.” She sighed. “I feel like I’m wasting my guesses. I still have no clue what he was thinking about.”
He shrugged. “Maybe the answer is simpler than you’re thinking.”
She nodded and walked across the room, waiting for a break in the conversation to put her next guess. The other three fell silent almost at once, waiting for the inevitable question.
“Is it me?” she asked.
“If Mart was here… what an opening,” Dan muttered.
She stamped a foot. “You know what I’m talking about.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not that simple.”
She looked to Jim, who shrugged.
“It was worth a try,” she told him, “and now I think I have an idea for what to try next.”
13 February
Trixie arrived at Mart and Dan’s place in time to catch her brother in the act of sampling the snacks as he set them on the table.
“You didn’t see that,” Mart told her, wiping his fingers on his pants.
She shared a look with Dan, who shrugged.
“Are my answers too short?” she asked, out of the blue.
“The last one was; definitely.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not helpful. How about the rest of them?”
He considered for a moment. “None of them have been long enough.”
She nodded and he turned away to tidy up some of the books and papers littering the room. She turned to her brother.
“What’s the longest word?”
“Ah,” he replied. “I’m glad you asked that. The reputed longest word in the English language is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, supposedly a name for a lung disease more commonly referred to as pneumonoconiosis or silicosis, which at forty-five letters and–”
“Forty-five!” She shook her head. “I was hoping for something a bit shorter than that.”
“If it were shorter, it would not be the longest word,” he answered. “In fact, it is mostly useful as an example of an excessively long word, since, as you will no doubt have noticed, is has within it all of the syllables of one of its shorter forms and it was, in fact, derived from that more manageable term, for the express purpose of being the longest English-language word.”
“Who does that sort of thing?” she wondered. “Wait. Don’t answer that; you and whoever did that are practically twins.”
Mart grinned. “No, but you and I will be on the birthday towards which you are advancing.”
“Free tip,” Dan put in. “That thing that Mart said: it wasn’t it.”
She smiled. “Thanks, but I’d already ruled it out. I wondered if it might be the place we went on my birthday last year with all the Bob-Whites.”
He shook his head. “Nice try, but no.”
“Longer answer than that?” she asked, hopefully.
He stared at her for a moment, expression stern. “Are you trying to squeeze in an extra question?”
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t do that.” She shook her head and tried to keep a straight face. “I’m just getting clarification on the question I already asked.”
For a moment he seemed about to refuse, then suddenly he nodded. “Longer than that, too.”
She nodded. “Thanks. I’ll be sure to get closer next time.”
20 February
“I wonder if there will be things I’m old enough to do on my next birthday that I’m not old enough to do now,” Trixie pondered, as she and Honey entered Brian and Jim’s place for their weekly gathering. “Maybe I should have looked into that.”
Honey shrugged. “I did try looking for things like that. You’ll be old enough to marry in Nebraska.”
Trixie snorted. “What use is that? For one thing, I’m old enough to get married here, now. For another, I’m not ready to get married; I don’t think I will be for years!”
“And for another,” Honey added, “why would Dan be thinking about that?”
“True.” She frowned. “Coming up with long answers is an awful lot harder than coming up with short ones.”
“Maybe what you need is a compound kind of answer,” Honey suggested. “You know: ones that have multiple parts.”
“That’s kind of what I’m thinking, because long answers that don’t have multiple parts are really hard to find.”
Brian wandered through to answer the door.
“How is everyone?” Di asked, as she entered.
Trixie screwed up her nose. “Frustrated. You don’t have any ideas of what I can guess, do you?”
Di shook her head. “I was thinking it might have been something to do with what we were doing when he thought of it, but it hasn’t been going that way at all.”
“What were we doing?” asked Honey, brow creased.
“Disagreeing, mostly,” Trixie replied. “At least, I think that’s what was happening.”
The door opened again, this time from the outside with a key, and the rest of the group trooped in.
“Look who I found on the doorstep,” Jim announced, as he dropped a bag of groceries onto the table. “Snacks are here; help yourselves.”
Trixie turned to Dan, whose hand was already in the bag. “Does it involve a concept?”
He frowned and rummaged around a little. “How does that work?”
She shrugged. “I mean, am I looking for an actual thing, or an idea, or an attribute, or what?”
“Ah.” He selected a bag of chips and tore it open. “Yes, there’s a concept in there. And it’s not an object, as such.”
“Is it the relationship between the Bob-Whites, which is complicated and keeps on changing, but keeps going, no matter how much we disagree, or how much Mart eats all the best treats, and if you don’t hand over that bag right now, almost-twin, you’re going to be sorry. With the food still in it.”
“Hey!” he objected. “I’m entitled to a share.”
“A share. You can’t have all of those mini Mars Bars. You can only have one.”
“One!”
“Yes!” She turned to Dan. “You haven’t answered my question. Am I nearly right, yet?”
“No, Trix. But I really liked that last part,” Dan answered, grinning as Mart gave up and dumped the chocolates in his sister’s lap.
She unwrapped one and chewed it thoughtfully. Honey gathered up the leftovers and returned them to the table.
“A concept,” Trixie mused. “Okay. I think I can work with that.”
27 February
“Come in!” Di greeted, as her two best female friends arrived together. “I think the boys are all going to be late tonight, except maybe Dan.”
“That’s disappointing,” Honey replied, “or I’m not sure if it is, because I like spending time with the two of you, but I like spending time with the group as well and I’m not sure which I like more.”
“Well, whichever one you get, you win, so I don’t see why we need to worry.” Di dropped into the corner of the sofa and cuddled a throw pillow covered with royal purple ruffles to her chest. “So, what’s new?”
Trixie groaned. “One of my professors is driving me batty, the girl I know down the hall is having a crisis with her boyfriend and keeps wanting to tell me the intimate details and, what with having to fill in for someone at work and having four things due on the same day, I haven’t had a minute to think about Dan’s puzzle.”
“But the last one is the only one that’s really bothering her,” Honey observed, with a giggle.
“Except the boyfriend thing,” Trixie corrected. “I am so glad that neither of you have ever wanted to tell me…” She broke off, shuddering.
“Make a note of that, Honey,” Di suggested, giggling.
Her friend nodded. “I have. Not that I think that I would be tempted to do that in the first place. The things that Trixie’s been complaining about being told, well, I wouldn’t tell those things in a million years.”
The doorbell rang and Di went to answer it.
“I’m almost disappointed to see you,” Honey told Dan, as he came to sit near them, “but only almost, because I’m actually glad to see you as well, if you see what I mean, because even though you being here means that we don’t get girl time, which I hadn’t expected we were going to get, only we did, until you got here, you being here makes us have a different kind of gathering, but without us having the kind of conversation we were having before you arrived, which I don’t think you’d appreciate, and I don’t know which I like better, which is why it isn’t as disappointing as if I actually wanted to talk about the things that we were talking about, but which you don’t.”
“That’s great, Honey,” he answered, in spite of the incomprehensibility of her statement.
Trixie gave him a poke in the upper arm. “Does the concept relate to me in some way?”
“Like the way that you relate to Mart?”
She rolled her eyes. “Like the way that Mart relates to incomprehensible words.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. Kind of.”
“Is it my ability to find mysteries, no matter where I happen to be?”
“I thought I told you it was something longer than this?”
She groaned. “Yeah, you did. But is this concept in there at all?”
“I think I need the whole answer, not just part of it,” he decided.
Trixie let out a growl. “Seriously? Do I get another guess?”
He shook his head and grinned.
6 March
“She sells sea shells by the sea shore,” Trixie chanted, as she opened the door to Dan.
He shook his head. “Is that supposed to be some sort of code?”
“No. I was just trying something out,” she answered. “Is it to do with anyone other than me?”
“Yes.”
“Is it the way that we all work together, to help other people and improve their lives, to solve problems and to make the world a better place?”
He cringed. “That’s a bit syrupy when you put it that way.”
She shrugged. “Is it?”
He shook his head.
“Drat!”
13 March
“If I don’t get this soon, I’m moving to Indiana,” Trixie warned, as Dan let her inside.
He narrowed his eyes. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
She shrugged. “Does it have something to do with the Bob-Whites as a group?”
“Kind of.”
She rolled her eyes. “Those times when someone else’s special knowledge was what I needed to solve a mystery?”
He shook his head. Trixie closed her eyes and groaned.
20 March
Trixie sat cross-legged on the floor in Brian and Jim’s living area, counting on her fingers.
“You can count higher if you take off your shoes,” Dan quipped.
She shrugged. “Moms and Dad, Brian, Mart, me, Bobby. Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, Jim, Honey. Mr. and Mrs. Lynch, Diana, Larry, Terry, Mandy, Sandy. You, Regan.”
“You writing your Christmas card list?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Are all those people involved somehow?”
He cast her a sceptical look. “In our being here?”
“In the thing that you were thinking of the day after Christmas and that you dared me to guess,” she snapped.
“Ah. Well, no. Not exactly.”
“Not exactly,” she repeated, half under her breath. “Where does that get me?”
“Nowhere near the answer, I’d say,” he replied, in spite of the fact she had not been addressing him.
“Well, is it the projects we did and the way they helped us find the mysteries?”
“No.”
She groaned. “I’m on the completely wrong track, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, Trix, you are.”
“And you’re not going to help me?”
He smirked. “Nope.”
27 March
Dan entered Di’s tastefully decorated living room, a slight spring in his step.
“What are you so cheerful about?” Trixie demanded, scowling at him from her place among Di’s multitude of throw pillows.
“Well, aren’t you a little ray of sunshine?”
Trixie growled. “I’ve had the worst week in the history of weeks.”
He looked down at her for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, then. Instead of letting you ask a question, how about if I give you a clue?”
“It had better be a good clue,” she answered.
He smiled. “It’s not just a concept, or a number, or those kinds of things. There’s a place involved.”
The frown faded from her face as she considered this. Her eyes lit up.
“Is it the clubhouse bar at the Sleepyside Country Club’s golf course?”
He looked confused for a moment, then laughed. “Clever, but no. But there was something there that’s getting a lot closer.”
“Really?” At last, she smiled. “Maybe the week isn’t quite so bad after all.”
3 April
“Aha!” Trixie cried, as Dan sauntered into the place she shared with Honey. “I think I’ve nearly got it and you’re going to tell me first, whether the place you said was involved is actually our clubhouse, the Bob-White clubhouse, rather than the golf clubhouse.”
He took a seat on the sofa, opposite Mart who watched the exchange with interest, and put his feet up. “What makes you think that?”
Trixie growled. “Well, is it?”
Again, he hesitated, then at last admitted, “Yes.”
“Is it the time we came home from Di’s Valentine’s party to find Regan chasing away some thieves from our clubhouse – before the antique show, I think that was – and that they were going to burn it down after they’d robbed it, only Regan interrupted?”
Dan frowned. “Are you forgetting anything?”
Mart snorted. “It’s amazing she remembers anything at all.”
Trixie rolled her eyes and did not deign to answer.
“You take that back,” Honey demanded, as she crossed to answer the door again. “Trixie remembers all of the things she’s supposed to and quite a lot of the things she doesn’t even need to remember.”
“What are you arguing about this time?” Brian wondered, in a weary voice.
“I gave Dan my latest guess; he asked if I was forgetting something; then Mart decided to insult me.”
“Are you forgetting something?” Jim asked.
She thought for a moment, then nodded. “It’s supposed to have a concept, and possibly a number. And I haven’t got a concept in there.”
“And there’s your answer,” Dan added.
“But I’m getting closer, aren’t I?” she asked, biting her lip.
He shrugged. “A little.”
Trixie groaned and dropped her face into her hands. “Only three guesses left.”
10 April
“He’s not here,” Mart announced, as he opened the door to his sister. “You’ll have to wait.”
Trixie’s whole posture sagged. “But I had my question all ready!”
“You’ll have to wait,” Mart repeated. “I don’t know what he was thinking of. I don’t even know if he still remembers. He might have been just making up the answers all this time.”
“That would explain why I’m not getting anywhere,” she grumbled. “There’s just today, next Friday and the Friday after that left. The Friday after that is my birthday and by then it will be too late.”
“I’m sure you’ll get it,” Honey, who had arrived with her, encouraged. “You just need to keep working at it.”
Trixie slumped on the sofa in a most unladylike manner and let out a disgruntled sound.
Honey looked down at her and giggled. “It’s so lucky you were born when you were born and not in the 1800s or something, when you would have had to be all elegant and well-behaved.”
Mart looked at Honey as if she was crazy. “Even living back then would not have made Trixie well-behaved. She just would have been herself and been unconventional.”
“You’re right, I guess,” Honey answered, smiling. “And if we’d lived way back then with her, we’d have accepted her unconventionalities and loved her for them, just like we do now.”
Mart’s expression softened and he nodded. “Tell you what, Trix. If you don’t get it today, I’ll work on Dan through the week and see if I can’t get an extra clue or two for you.”
“I think I’m going to need it.” She frowned. “I was so sure I’d be almost there by now, but I can just feel that I’m not.”
The door opened and the rest of the group trooped in. Diana dumped the things she was carrying onto the table, crossed to the sofa and gently pushed Trixie’s legs out of the way to sit down next to her.
“So, have you solved it yet?” she asked, glancing from Trixie to Dan.
“That depends,” Trixie answered, “on whether my guess today is right.”
Dan nodded once. “What’s today’s question?”
“Are there any specific events involved, or is it more abstract that that?”
He took a seat opposite her and stretched out his legs. “I guess you’d say it’s more abstract.”
Trixie pursed her lips, thinking. “Is it our Bob-White meetings in the clubhouse?”
“Haven’t you tried that already?” asked Brian, before Dan could answer.
She shook her head. “Not exactly.”
“Is that your guess?” Dan wondered. “Or do you want to add anything?”
“Our Bob-White meetings in the clubhouse, planning projects and solving mysteries and being like a family to each other,” she clarified, mostly because she suddenly realised her answer should be longer.
He shook his head. “You’re still not quite there.”
“Are you sure?” she queried. “Cause I was really feeling like this one was on the right track.”
“You’re getting closer,” he confirmed, “but you don’t have the whole thing yet.”
“Yet.” She took a deep breath. “Okay. Two more guesses to go.”
17 April
Trixie sat on the sofa, staring absently into space and frowning, as Jim tidied the room. In the twenty-five minutes since she arrived, she had barely spoken a word. Each time he passed her, Jim cast her a worried glance.
“I’m not going mad or anything,” she reassured him, at last. “I’m just thinking.”
He tossed the last pillow back into place and sat down next to her. “It’s not like you to be so quiet. You usually like to talk through your problems.”
She let out an explosive sigh. “I just can’t find the thing that I’m missing. I’ve got the background right, now, but I just can’t find the actual thing that he’s wanting me to get.”
“Have you spoken to Mart?”
She winced. “He tried to get me some clues, he really did, but we’re both sure that Dan’s been messing him around. Otherwise, the answer is something to do with a sandwich that Dan left in the clubhouse for two weeks one time and which Mart nearly ate – and that doesn’t fit with the clues I have at all.”
Jim laughed. “I’d have given a lot to see that sandwich incident. I don’t think Dan’s ever going to let Mart forget it.”
He answered the door, letting Di inside.
“Only the three of us so far?” she asked, dropping down opposite Trixie.
“Some of the others might be late,” Jim explained. “How was your week?”
“Hectic,” she answered, then turned to Trixie. “Did you have any idea that women in America didn’t get to vote for about twenty years after women in some other countries? Can you imagine all of the idiotic decisions men could have made in that time?”
“It was that long?” asked Trixie, surprised. “Why don’t they tell us these things in school?”
Di rolled her eyes. “Who knows? There are dozens of things I wish I’d learned in school, instead of all that useless algebra and geometry.”
“Neither of those is useless,” Jim objected, with a laugh.
“They’re not as useful as knowing where to get the best pizza, or how to sew on a button, or how to tell the difference between a sweet pineapple and a sour one,” Trixie argued.
Jim gave her a funny look. “When did you ever need that last one?”
“When I chose that awful, sour pineapple last summer,” she answered smartly.
“It wasn’t that bad.”
Di pulled a face. “If you like sucking on lemons!”
Jim turned away to answer the door, allowing Dan and Mart to enter.
“Finally!” Trixie exclaimed. “Did my guess last week have anything in it that isn’t in the answer?”
He considered for a moment. “Not really, no. It just wasn’t enough.”
She nodded. “Okay, then. Is it all that same stuff – the clubhouse, the meetings, the projects, the mysteries and being a family – plus all seven of us and the way we always tried to pay our own way and work for what we got?”
He frowned. “Seven is good. The rest, I wasn’t thinking about.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “And I only have one guess left!”
“You’ll get it, Trixie,” Di assured her. “You must be so, so close, now.”
“Yeah, she’s close,” Dan agreed. “But she’s still not there.”
24 April
“Where is he?” Trixie demanded, as Di opened the door to her.
Another commitment had kept her behind and she should have been the last of the group to arrive. She stared around the living room, from Honey’s smiling face to the vase filled with sweet peas, to the sofa where Jim and Brian sat, to the place where Mart sat among the pillows on the floor, but Dan was nowhere to be found.
“Argh!” Trixie cried. “He can’t be not here!”
“Calm down, Trix,” her eldest brother answered. “If it’s Dan you’re after, he’s just changing a lightbulb in the bathroom. He’ll be back in a moment.”
Trixie did not wait for him, but hurried to the bathroom, where he was just climbing down from the step-ladder.
“The last thing – there’s just one last thing, isn’t there?”
He nodded. “Yup. Just one.”
She took a deep breath as she trailed him back to the living room, then asked, “Is it all those things that make us us, you know, like Mart’s appetite and Di and purple and Honey’s tactfulness and Jim’s outdoor skills and Brian’s first aid and your street smarts?”
He stopped and looked at her, consternation on his face. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Yes. That was only six people and there are seven of us.”
“Oh.” She frowned, thinking hard. “But I already said about the mysteries.”
“Is that it?” he asked, in a soft voice.
“Yes.”
“Sorry, Trix. That’s not it.”
“It’s not?” She sank down onto a chair, utterly deflated. “You mean, I’ve failed?”
“Tell you what,” he added, hurriedly. “I’ll give you one more question next week. I bet you can get it in one question, if you ask the right one.”
She looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “Just one question.”
He nodded. “Think about it. I know you’ll solve it next Friday.”
Trixie nodded and straightened her posture. “Okay, then. Next Friday.”
1 May
“Just sit, okay?” Honey ordered, not for the first time, as she arranged everything for their gathering. “It’s your birthday and you don’t need to do the work.”
“But I can’t just sit still,” Trixie wailed, pacing the room and knocking one of the throw pillows which Di insisted on gifting everyone onto the floor. “I need something to do.”
“You’re in charge of answering the door,” Honey answered. “And of not making any more mess.”
Trixie picked up the pillow, scowled at it and set it back on the sofa. She went to the door, in spite of the doorbell’s silence, and threw it open to look out.
“Oh! Trixie! You gave me such a fright.” Di came inside, hugged her friend and wished her a happy birthday before handing her a beautifully wrapped gift. “I hope you like it.”
Pulling herself together, Trixie thanked her and gazed at the present. “Can I open it now? Or do I have to wait for everyone else?”
“You have to wait!” Honey called, from their tiny kitchen. “You should know that by now.”
Trixie groaned and placed it on the little side table Honey had cleared for the purpose. “How long until everyone is here?”
“Well, some of them will be here soon,” Di replied. “I saw Jim’s car circling, and I think he found a parking space just as I came up.”
The doorbell rang at that moment and Trixie hurried to answer it. She received birthday greetings and small gifts from Brian and Jim, placing the gifts next to the one from Di.
“He would have to be last,” Trixie grumbled, returning to her pacing, to the amusement of the rest of the group.
“If you mean Mart,” Brian began.
“Mart! Of course I don’t mean Mart. I spoke to him this morning.” She paused in her pacing and smiled. “He called me to call me twin.”
Honey pushed her friend into a chair. “It’s just as well Dan’s last – since he and Mart are driving down together, of course – because I know that all of us want to know what Dan was thinking and we were all going to make you wait for all of us anyway, whether he got here first or not, so it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference, does it? Not that I think I don’t know – I mean, I think I do know – what he was thinking, since he gave you enough clues.”
Trixie frowned again. “Did he?”
“I think it was moderately obvious,” Brian answered.
The doorbell rang one last time and Trixie sprang to her feet to answer it.
“Finally!”
“A very happy birthday to you, dearest twin,” Mart greeted, kissing her cheek. He held the present out of her reach and made way for Dan.
“Happy birthday, Trix.” Dan held two presents, one of which he handed over.
“Thanks.” She gazed at the other gift, which was wrapped in brown paper. “Is that what I get if I can say what you were thinking of?”
He nodded. “Do you have your question ready?”
She wandered over to the chair she had just vacated and sat down. Mart and Dan found seats as well, so that all seven of them were in a rough circle.
“What were you thinking of?” she asked.
Dan laughed. “I wondered when you’d think of that question. I was thinking of the seven of us, sitting around in the clubhouse, planning projects and solving mysteries – you got that far, at least – and you talking the rest of us into anything you came up with.”
“I knew it,” Honey murmured, while several of the others nodded.
“Then, that’s my answer,” she replied, with a hint of a smile.
Dan passed her the gift and she tore off the paper, which turned out to actually be a brown paper bag. Inside was a photo frame with a picture of the seven of them, taken outside the clubhouse and with Trixie central to the group.
“Thanks. I love it,” she told him, smiling down at it. “But seriously? Me talking you all into stuff?”
“You do,” Diana pointed out. “All the time.”
“Not that we mind,” Dan added. “It’s like knowing the thing I was thinking of; all you had to do was ask.”
The End
Author’s notes: This story was written to celebrate the nineteenth anniversary of the start of Jixemitri and in answer to a challenge to write something which relates to either the number nineteen or book nineteen (Unseen Treasure). But more of that later.
First, I’d like to thank Mary N./Dianafan, who very kindly (and very quickly!) edited both this piece and the second one I want to share during the Jixanny. Thank you so much, Mary, for your help and encouragement! Both are very much appreciated.
Next, I would like to thank the people of Jix, both past and present, for the wonderful community we have created together over the years. I don’t know what I’d do without you all! A big thank you to Cathy, for starting it all in the first place, and the admins and mods who keep everything running.
Now, about that challenge… I don’t know quite how many references to the number 19 there are in this story. My first idea was to have nineteen scenes, each with one hidden reference, but a few others snuck in here and there. Some of them are more obscure than others and there may be some more that I’ve forgotten about, but here is the main list:
Pretty much all of that stuff came from either Google or Wikipedia (except the things to do with book 19). Thank you, also, to Macjest and Susansuth, who each maintain some Trixie reference pages; I think I probably consulted both.
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