"Moms! Moms – you’ll never guess what’s happened!" Trixie Belden dashed into the kitchen of Crabapple Farm, stopping the screen door from slamming just in time, as she noticed her mother was on the phone. Mrs. Belden held up a hand to signal to Trixie that she needed a few minutes. Trixie began rifling through the mail she had carried in while she waited for her mother to finish her call. She could tell that her mother’s older sister, her Aunt Alicia, was on the other end.

After a few more minutes, Mrs. Belden hung up the phone. "What did you want to tell me, Sweetie?" she asked, ruffling Trixie’s curls with one hand.

Turning to answer, Trixie noticed that her mother’s blue eyes were reddened and wet with tears. Her smile held a tremor, and she reached up to wipe her eyes with a crumpled tissue.

"What is it, Moms?" Her mother rarely cried, so she knew it must be something serious.

"That was your Aunt Alicia, telling me that our Aunt Helen died earlier this afternoon. Poor lady – she suffered so during these past few years. I suppose it was a blessing that lately she didn’t even know where she was. But she was always so good to Alicia and me. We’ll miss her."

"Are we going to the funeral?" During Spring Break, her mother had taken Trixie and her ten-year-old brother, Bobby, to Philadelphia, where her aunt lived in a nursing home in the city, near Aunt Alicia. At the time, the two sisters had expected that their aunt would not hold on much longer, due to her increasingly failing health. Aunt Helen wasn’t very old – although sixty-three seemed old to Trixie – but she was frail, and her mind had begun to fail after her husband had died three years earlier.

"No, dear. Alicia told me that Aunt Helen didn’t want a big funeral. Right after Uncle Mart died, she put her wishes in writing. She wanted to be cremated and her ashes buried next to him. Since we were just down there, Alicia said she was going to arrange to have the cremation done. We’ll have a memorial service for her later on, whenever your dad and I can go."

Trixie felt secretly relieved that her mother hadn’t mentioned the whole family going. Attending a memorial service for an elderly relative whom she had only met once or twice sounded like a dull way to spend the better part of a week. Instantly, she felt guilty for her reaction. "I’m so sorry, Moms! I know how you loved Aunt Helen and Uncle Mart."

Helen Belden sighed. "I’m sorry, too, Trixie. But Aunt Helen had a sad life in many ways, and she was terribly depressed after Uncle Mart died. I’m sure she’s in a better place now." Once again, she dabbed at her eyes with the tissue. "If you’ll start making a salad, dear, I think supper is nearly ready. Please call Bobby to set the table while I go wash my face. Tell him to be sure to wash his hands first!"

Conversation at the Belden table that night was somber. Trixie’s parents decided to plan to travel to Philadelphia in ten days, in order to allow Mr. Belden to arrange time off from the bank where he was a loan officer. Mrs. Belden told stories of how she and her sister had spent two weeks each summer with their aunt and uncle.

"It was so much fun! We’d travel to see them on the train, each with our own suitcase. Uncle Mart and Aunt Helen had a big house in Schlafsburg, a little place outside Philly. We always called it The Mansion, because it was so much bigger than our house. It was a Victorian place, with a couple of turrets, big porches, two staircases, and all kinds of little nooks and crannies. There were supposed to be a couple of secret rooms, too, but we never could find them."

"Secret rooms! Cool!" Bobby was impressed.

"They let you explore the house and look for secret rooms?" Trixie was trying to imagine her mother and her proper aunt hunting for secret rooms.

"They were very easy-going and let Alicia and me have a lot of freedom. But I think they knew where the secret rooms were, and of course, we weren’t allowed to play in their bedroom, for example," Mrs. Belden explained.

"Everyone isn’t as much of a snoop as you are, sister dear." Trixie’s almost-twin brother, Mart, was speaking. Mart had just graduated from high school. He had been merely listening to the conversation until now, since he was occupied with making sure he didn’t miss out on any of his mother’s crispy fried chicken dinner. In order to augment his savings for college, he was currently working for a lawn service, and along with his sister and friends, would be spending the month of July as a counselor at a camp for special-needs children before leaving to attend Cornell University.

"Pooh! If I hadn’t been snooping, some people around here wouldn’t have been nearly as happy as they are now, Mr. Antithesis of Taciturnity." Trixie stabbed a forkful of green beans and new potatoes, before pointing it at him.

"Anti—what?" asked Bobby, with a puzzled frown. He paused, his hand with a fragrant yeast roll suspended midway between his plate and his mouth.

"Antithesis – it means opposite of," explained Mart. "Good one, Trix!" He grinned at his sister and she grinned back. Once, she would have been irritated at his use of big words, but now she enjoyed the challenge of learning new words herself and trying them out on him. It had become almost a game for them.

"Trixie, you were going to tell me some exciting news when you came in earlier and caught me on the phone," Mrs. Belden said. "What was it?"

"That’s right – I nearly forgot!" Trixie was bouncing in her seat with excitement. "Remember how we all sent applications to Camp Nysoc, the summer camp for special-needs kids? Well, Honey, Diana, and I all received acceptances. The school counselor called us to the office today to let us know."

"Dan and I were accepted, too," Mart told her. "We’ll be working the whole month of July and the first two weeks in August."

Mr. Belden smiled. "That will be a wonderful experience for all of you. Did Brian and Jim apply? It sounds like the perfect summer job for both of them."

"Jim and Brian both applied, Dad. But I don’t know whether they’ve heard yet." Trixie took a sip of milk before continuing. "We were just notified today, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to either Brian or Jim." She looked at Mart. "Have you?"

"No, Brian left before I did this morning, and he doesn’t like to be called at work. The hospital frowns on personal calls." Mart shrugged. "Seems like they’d send him a letter, though. Did he get any mail today?"

"Gleeps! I didn’t even finish sorting the mail. Let’s hope he did get a letter," Trixie answered. Unfailingly curious, she continued, "Let’s get back to Aunt Helen’s house with the secret rooms, though. Does she still own the house? What will happen to it now?"

"As far as I know, she still owns the house, Trixie. But she and Uncle Mart moved away from it a few years ago. Aunt Helen had a brother, Frank Stevenson, who was much younger than she was – seventeen years younger, I believe. Frank used to visit her and Uncle Mart in the summers, too, and when their parents died, Frank came to live with them. He was about twelve then, I think." Mrs. Belden’s forehead furrowed as she seemed to pull the information from her memory. "Frank was several years older than Alicia; I think he’d be about seven years older than I am."

"I’ve never heard you mention Frank before, Helen." Peter Belden wiped his mustache with a snowy napkin. "Where is he now? You must have known him pretty well, if he visited your aunt and uncle that much."

"Frank disappeared when he was about twenty-five years old. He had come to visit my aunt and uncle, and he and Uncle Mart had an argument. I can’t imagine what it was over, because Uncle Mart loved him like a son. You know, he and Aunt Helen never had any children, so I think both of them felt closer to Frank than a sister and brother-in-law usually would. Anyway, Frank stormed out of the house.  Uncle Mart began having chest pains, and Aunt Helen called an ambulance and took him to the hospital.  And no one has seen Frank since."

"Gleeps!" Trixie was impressed. "Do you think Frank might have had anything to do with the diary Aunt Helen was mumbling about when we visited her? That’s so mysterious!"

"Watch out!  It’s the world-champion downhill skier, Trixie Belden, jumping to a conclusion!" Mart pretended to shield himself from an oncoming skier. "What’s so mysterious about anyone keeping a diary?"

"But why did Frank leave? Seems like he would have stuck around to say he was sorry." Bobby used his own brand of logic to figure things out.

"It’s very odd," Mrs. Belden replied. "Of course, Uncle Mart was in the hospital for a couple of weeks. He’d had a heart attack, and Aunt Helen couldn’t think about anything else except taking care of him. But she tried to call Frank, and then she wrote to him. He never responded, and when she reported to the police that he was missing, they didn’t seem too concerned at first. They did an investigation, but there was no evidence of foul play. Finally, the detective told Aunt Helen that maybe he had just decided to disappear and make a new start somewhere else. Aunt Helen really grieved for him – he was her last living relative."

"That’s so sad, Moms," Trixie exclaimed. "Did she know he and Uncle Mart had quarreled?"

"Oh, I think he told her about the argument, because he felt guilty. He blamed himself for Frank’s disappearance.  But neither of them ever heard from him again.  They lived in the house in Schlafsburg until Uncle Mart fell ill that last time--when you were all in Missouri with your Uncle Andrew--and he passed away fairly soon after that.  Aunt Helen was showing the first signs of early onset Alzheimer's at that time, and we finally had to move her into the nursing home in Philadelphia, because it wasn't good for her to be alone in that old house.  Aunt Helen had a business manager, who looked after the property for her to keep an eye on things. But it’s also possible that the house was sold after she entered the nursing home."

"Gleeps, what I wouldn’t give to be able to poke around in the mansion and see if I could find any clues to what happened to Frank!" Trixie’s eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. "It’s so…"

"Mysterious!" Mart finished the sentence for her. "Sis, probably every clue that might have existed years ago has been obliterated by the passage of time and traffic. If the police couldn’t find out what happened to Frank, I doubt if you’d be able to uncover anything after all this time."

"Oh, I know!" Trixie sighed. "But I’d love to have the chance to find out, anyway."

Just then, Trixie heard the kitchen door open, and her other brother, Brian, came inside. He was in college and had been working as an orderly at the Sleepyside Hospital in order to get experience that might help him to get into medical school. By the end of a twelve-hour workday, he was tired when he came home. While Brian stopped at the sink to wash his hands, Trixie jumped up to fill a plate for him.

"Brian, I hope you’re not too tired to eat tonight," she said.

"Thanks, Trix. No, I’m not too tired. But I’m sure glad I applied to work at Camp Nysoc next month – I wish I could work there through August. The hospital hired someone to fill the position I’ve been covering, and in another week, I probably won’t be able to pick up any shifts. I’ve got to work, and right now, the hospital doesn’t have any staffing needs I can fill. I might be twiddling my thumbs at home for the next couple of weeks before my camp sessions start." Despite his gloomy prediction, Brian attacked his food with gusto.

"So you were accepted at Camp Nysoc, too?" Trixie clapped her hands. "Then it’s only Jim that we’re not sure about."

"Son, I’ll speak to Dr. Ferris. Maybe he could use you in the office," Peter Belden suggested.

"Thanks, Dad, but I already spoke to Dr. Ferris. He’d be glad to have me as a volunteer or to file charts. He’d even let me shadow him. But filing charts wouldn’t help me get clinical experience, and volunteering wouldn’t earn me any money." Brian sighed. "Next summer, I’ll probably stay in the city – it’ll be easier to stay at my usual job, and I can pick up hours during the summer when other people are on vacation."

"Brian, I bet you could work at the drug store. Billy Snider’s dad is always looking for helpers to deliver medicines," Bobby said.

"I’ll check into it, Bobster. The only thing is that Mr. Snider probably needs someone who’ll be available for longer than I will. By the time he trains me, it’ll be time for me to go back to school."

The Beldens finished their meal, and everyone but Trixie seemed to have put the mansion and Aunt Helen’s secret diary out of their minds. Trixie’s father wouldn’t be able to set a travel date until he returned to work on Monday – and it’s only Friday, she groaned inwardly.

Monday, June 16

Trixie stopped to pick up the mail as she came home from work, and she was sorting it when she entered the kitchen. Once again, her mother was on the phone with Aunt Alicia. "I’m just dumbfounded," Trixie heard her say. "Never in a million years did I think Aunt Helen would leave the mansion to us."

Trixie’s ears pricked up. If her mother had inherited the mansion, surely the whole family would go to see it. Then I can investigate the mysterious disappearance of Frank. She set the mail on the table, poured two tall glasses of lemonade, and waited for her mother to finish her call.

"All right, Alicia," Helen Belden said. "I’ll discuss it with Peter. It’ll be a big job preparing that house for sale. I’m sure Aunt Helen and Uncle Mart still have a lot of possessions there. I’ll call you later."

She hung up the phone and turned to her daughter. "Hello, Sweetie! I hope you had a good day at work."

"It was okay, Moms. No exciting crimes in Sleepyside today." Trixie was picking up a few hours each week filing papers at the police department. "What was Aunt Alicia calling about?" She tried to make her voice sound casual.

"I suppose you heard the last part of our conversation," her mother said. "I received a certified letter today, telling me that my sister and I were heirs to Aunt Helen’s estate, including the mansion. Of course, neither Alicia nor I would live there, so we were discussing what to do in order to get it ready for sale. It’s going to be a big job – there are three stories and an attic."

"Moms, maybe we older kids could help you get it cleaned up and ready to sell. We have a couple of weeks before we leave for the special-needs camp. Brian seemed to think he would be free, and I bet Mart could work something out with his boss."

"Your dad and I will discuss it tonight, Trixie. I think that’s a good idea, though," Mrs. Belden agreed.

At supper that night, Mr. and Mrs. Belden suggested that their children go with them to Schlafsburg and help clear the house, in order to prepare it for appraisal by a real estate agent. "In fact," said Mr. Belden, "Perhaps all of the Bob-Whites could go along and help. Many hands make light work, you know. It won’t be as exciting as some of the trips you’ve taken with the Wheelers and the Lynches, but it’ll be a good chance for all of you to spend time together before school starts back and you’re separated."

"How long do you think we’d be gone, Dad?" asked Mart.

"Probably a week or less," his father said.

"What about my trip to Arizona with Larry and Terry?" Bobby wanted to know. "I’ll just die if I have to miss my first airplane ride!"

"Bobby, we’ll be finished in time for you to go with your friends. Even if Dad and I have to bring you back here and leave the older kids there, I promise you won’t have to miss your trip," Mrs. Belden told her youngest son.

Trixie could hardly contain herself. "I’ll call Honey and Di as soon as we finish eating. Their parents will just have to let them go!"

"Maybe you can look for the diary Aunt Helen mentioned," Mrs. Belden suggested. "According to Alicia, Aunt Helen had misplaced some important papers a few years ago. She thought they were in her diary, but couldn’t remember where she had put the diary. That’s about the time we noticed the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease."

"Maybe we’ll be able to discover the secret rooms, and maybe the diary will be there." Trixie’s china-blue eyes gleamed with excitement.

"Just remember, Trixie, we’re going to have a lot of work to do." Mr. Belden smiled at his only daughter, but his tone of voice was serious. "Cleaning the house and deciding what items should go into a sale and which ones your mother and aunt would like to keep will be the main job. Searching for hidden rooms and old diaries can take place after the work is done."

"I know, Dad." Trixie nodded her assent. "But wouldn’t it be super if we could learn more about what happened to Frank?"

After supper, Trixie harried her brothers until the kitchen and dining room were spotless, forcing herself not to think about the diary or the mansion. Only when the last dish was dried and put away did she call Honey Wheeler, her best friend. "Honey, we’ve got to have an emergency Bob-White meeting! Can you and Jim meet us at the clubhouse in a half an hour? Mart’s going to go and get Diana, and he promised to stop by Dan’s and bring him, too."

Honey agreed to meet the others at the clubhouse, and soon, Trixie and Brian were making their way up the path to the Wheelers’ driveway. They met Honey and her adopted brother, who were strolling down the drive toward the clubhouse.

"Honey, you’ll never guess! You’ll absolutely, positively, never guess!" Trixie wasn’t sure she could wait until all of the Bob-Whites were assembled. "Hi, Jim, I’m so glad you’re here!"

She blushed as Jim smiled at her. The supple redhead was still "the most wonderful boy in the world" in her mind, and she wondered if he liked her as much as she liked him. I hope so! she thought.

"What is it, Trix? You look like you’re ready to explode." Jim’s smile became even wider, and his green eyes twinkled.

"It’s the most exciting thing – well, it’s kind of sad, but – well, I guess I’d better wait until everyone is here."

They had nearly reached the clubhouse, and Honey pulled a key from her pocket to open the door. "I hope Mart and the others get here before you expire of excitement, Trixie," she said with a grin. "Whew, it’s hot in here."

"Thank goodness!  Here come Mart, Di, and Dan now. Jim, will you call the meeting to order, please?" Trixie was hopping from one foot to the other in her impatience. Without waiting for her co-president, she cried, "Hurry, everyone! We’ve got to get started."

Jim laughed and intoned, "An emergency meeting of the Bob-Whites of the Glen is now called to order." Lacking a gavel, he rapped on the old clubhouse table with his knuckles.

"Trixie, why did you call an emergency meeting?" Diana inquired. "Mart wouldn’t tell me anything! Is it some new mystery? We haven’t had anything exciting happen around here for ages." Her violet eyes sparkled and her black hair bounced to emphasize her words.

"The Schoolgirl Shamus strikes again!" Dan Mangan applauded as he brushed away the lock of black hair that always fell over his eyes.

Trixie moved to stand in front of her friends. "Okay, maybe I’d better just tell you. Remember Moms’ aunt, who was in the nursing home, that we visited over Spring Break? Well, she died Friday. I mean, that’s really sad, but she’d been in bad health for a long time, and it wasn’t a surprise. Anyway, she and my uncle had a big old house, and she willed it to Moms and Aunt Alicia."

"Trixie, I’m so sorry about your aunt!" Tenderhearted Honey’s eyes filled with tears. "But what will your mom and aunt do with a big house in – where is it – near Philadelphia?"

"Oh, Moms and Aunt Alicia are going to sell it. No way would my parents move, and Aunt Alicia doesn’t have any use for a big place like that. But that’s not why I called the meeting. Moms and Dad are going to go down there and meet Aunt Alicia to clean the house out and get it ready to sell. They’ve invited all of the Bob-Whites to come along. The house is gigantic, although it's probably a bit dusty, as no one's lived there in a few years. We could stay there, if everyone can bring a sleeping bag." Trixie flopped down onto one of the benches that flanked the meeting table. Suddenly, the exciting trip didn’t sound like so much fun to her.

"Trixie, of course we’d be happy to come along and help your parents out," replied Jim. "It’s the least we could do, after everything they’ve done for us."

"Absolutely! And it would be a great chance for all of the Bob-Whites to do something together before we leave to work with the special-needs kids at Camp Nysoc," added Honey.

"That’s right," Jim agreed. "I don’t think I’ve told anyone yet, but I received my acceptance letter today. So we’ll all be together at camp, but we might not see much of each other!"

"Jim, it’s super-fantastic that you’re going, too!" Trixie exclaimed. "I was worried when you didn’t hear the same day we did."

"I don’t think I’ll have any trouble getting permission to go," Diana said. "The Sleepyside Museum is closing one room for renovation of an exhibit, and they won’t need me again until after we’re back from camp."

"My boss knows I’ll be gone for most of the summer, so I don’t see any problems there. We should be able to get the house ready in a week." Mart nodded with satisfaction. "With all of us pitching in, it shouldn’t take any longer than that."

"Watch out, Mart," Brian cautioned. "You haven’t seen the house yet. From the way Moms talked, it’s huge."

Dan nodded. "If there’s one time of year that’s not quite as busy for me, it’s right now. Mr. Maypenny even suggested I might want to take off a week and do some school shopping."

Honey lifted a mass of silky, straight golden-brown hair off her neck and fanned herself with it. "I hope it’s not as humid down there as it is here!"

"Hah! I’m sure it’s even worse." Trixie raked her fingers through her own tousled blond curls. "But, hey! I forgot to tell you the exciting part." She jumped up and began to pace the clubhouse floor as she spoke. "The house has a couple of secret rooms, according to Moms. She and Aunt Alicia used to try to find them when they’d stay with Uncle Mart and Aunt Helen, but they never could. And … Aunt Helen had a diary which held some very important papers. She misplaced the diary, and later when her memory began to go, she couldn’t find it again. So I thought the Belden-Wheeler Agency could try to find the diary."

"Oh, yes! That would be perfectly perfect! What kind of important papers were they, Trixie?" Honey leaned forward as she asked the question.

"I don’t know. But she had a brother who disappeared years ago, and I’m hoping the diary and the papers will give us some clues about what happened to him."

"Trix, you’re awfully optimistic about finding the diary." Brian frowned. "I hope you’re not getting your hopes up too much about it. And the police were probably right – Frank just wanted to make a new life for himself." He ran a hand through his wavy black hair.

"Brian, you might be right," Trixie admitted. "But it seems weird that he would just leave his home and family and disappear, if there weren’t any problems. And Moms didn’t seem to think there was anything like a serious family quarrel." She wished sometimes that her oldest brother wasn’t so practical, but she also knew he didn’t want her to be disappointed if she couldn’t solve the mystery.

"Well, there’s only one way to find out if the diary is still in the house, and that’s to look for it. Surely if it’s still there, we’ll find it while we’re cleaning the place and going through Aunt Helen’s stuff." Mart winked at her. "And with Honey along, we’ll be sure to find any hidden rooms that are there. She’s the one who discovered the hidden room at your uncle’s house, isn’t she, Jim?"

"That’s right," Jim replied. "And Trixie and Honey together are pretty unbeatable." He cocked a russet eyebrow at Trixie and smiled.

"Especially with the rest of us helping," Dan added.

"I just hope we don’t run into any dangerous criminals." Diana shuddered. "Some of your cases could have ended very badly!"

"Surely nothing bad can happen to us while we’re cleaning out an old lady’s house in a small town outside Philadelphia. And Moms and Dad will be there, as well as Aunt Alicia." Trixie tossed her curls. "Besides, I’m older now and not so impulsive. Sometimes you all act as if I’m still thirteen years old."

"So." Jim spoke up. "May I make a motion that the Bob-Whites of the Glen will help the Beldens clean out their aunt’s house? That’s assuming we get permission to go. All in favor, say ‘Aye’."

A chorus of ayes answered him.

"All opposed, say ‘Nay’." Silence was the answer to this request.

"I’ve got to be up by five, so I move that we end the meeting," Brian suggested.

"I second," his brother added. "I have a lot of landscaping to trim up early in the morning tomorrow."

"All right – this meeting of the Bob-Whites of the Glen is officially adjourned," announced Trixie. "Everyone, let me know as soon as you can whether you can come or not. Moms and Dad are renting a minivan, and we're also taking the Bob-White station wagon.  That way, more of us can ride together, and there'll still be room for suitcases."

The seven teens left the clubhouse, and Honey locked its door once more. Now that they were so busy with jobs, the little building went unused most of the time, and it was always locked in between meetings. Trixie looked around at the place that had been so important to all of them for the past few years. Brian and Jim were already away at school most of the time; soon, Mart and Dan would be gone. Next year, it’ll be our turn – us girls, she thought with a pang. How awful to think anything could happen that could lead to us never seeing each other again. I hope we can find out something about Frank. Shaking herself mentally, she waved at Diana and Dan, who were approaching Mart’s car, parked just off the paved driveway of the Manor House. Mart was already next to the car, opening the door for Diana.

"I’ll call you tonight, Trixie," Diana promised, pausing as she was about to slide into the front seat of the older model Honda Accord.

"Me, too," Dan said. "In fact, I’ll probably be able to give Mart an answer when he lets me out at the cabin."

"We’ll talk to Mother and Dad tonight," Jim told her. "They’re flying back from Florida tomorrow, but they like for us to call them every night. I can’t imagine that they’d say no, though."

The group dispersed, Trixie and Brian walking back up the Manor House drive with Honey and Jim until they reached the path that led down to Crabapple Farm. Calling, "Good night, see you tomorrow," the Beldens turned toward home.

It was nearly ten o’clock before she heard from Honey, but before she went to bed, Trixie learned that all of the Bob-Whites would be able to go with them to Pennsylvania. She hugged herself in excitement. "Who knows what we might find in the old mansion? And what if we really did solve the mystery of what happened to Frank Stevenson?"

Author Notes:

Camp Nysoc is totally fictional, but the named is based on a camp for handicapped children here in KY.

Thanks to all the members of the group story team for inspiration!

Thank you to the graphic artist who designed the inside pages, and thank you to Carol for setting up the index page - thanks to her, it's much better than I first envisioned it!

And finally, I'd like to credit Julie Campbell for creating characters that still inspire such devotion after 60 years.