Peter Belden sat in his desk chair, completely dumbfounded. He’d escaped to work just to think that morning. Over and over again, he’d been trying to reconcile in his mind some of the revelations that had been slapping him in the face over the past couple of weeks. If only he hadn’t taken Matt up on that stupid mah jong game…

It had been a warm, summer day and he was a fresh, wet behind the ears freshman in college, maneuvering the deep, shark-infested waters of a fraternity pledging party. She was a cool, collected, beautiful upper classman, a date of the Big Man on Campus whose fraternity he had, for some reason, so desperately wanted to join.

He’d had too many beers. There were always too many beers at parties like that. A little quirk of a smile curved his lips. But she’d been willing and ready. And…

Damn. His fist slammed on the mahogany wood of his old desk. “Why can’t I remember what happened after that?”

And now…now he supposedly had a son. A son a few years older than Brian. A son that he didn’t know.

And what was even worse than the legendary Belden reproductive abilities yet proving potent again was that his new “son” problem was only the tip of the iceberg.

******

Helen watched Clay as he paced around the room, his hand nervously clenching and unclenching around the gun. Trying to be a bit dispassionate, she noted the dark hair that marked the Beldens falling across his forehead, but the body was all his mother’s. Slender, tall with restless hands and hazel eyes.

A wave of primitive jealousy washed over her yet again. She’d tried so many times to leave the past in the past. Knowing that she herself had had other relationships and other kisses.

But not other children.

A scowl lit her blue eyes as she twisted her hands again, attempting to loosen the ropes that bound her to Peter’s grandmother’s oak chair. She glanced over at Trixie and Mart, who were both doing that weird, wordless communication that, more than their looks, convinced people that they were twins.

Helen repressed a sigh and hoped that, yet again, they’d all survive this unscathed. Because if and when they did, she was going to personally make it her mission to be sure that Peter never had any more children.

******

Honey stepped out on the verandah, frowning to herself. The morning was quiet. The day sparkled with promise. A bluebird chirped cheerily in a nearby tree and the water rippled merrily in the lake as a balmy breeze gently rocked the leaves of one of the old willows that draped over the sunshine-dappled water.

“Okay…this is really, really not right,” Honey said, her frown deepening. She’d already searched the house. Her mother, the queen of never rising before ten, was nowhere to be found. Tom had taken her on some strange errands and had returned without her, whispering to Celia, and both of them giving her odd looks.

She’d looked for Jim. He, of course, rose with the sun, but he wasn’t anywhere in the house. Then, she rolled her eyes. He’s probably slipped down to Crabapple Farm to make eyes at Trixie. “No, I don’t really like her,” she mimicked. “We’re just friends. No, I can’t explain the fact that I follow her around like a sheep dog and jump down Dan’s throat every time he walks within three feet of her. And no, I dislike Glen because he’s a Yankees fan. I mean…c’mon! The Yankees? Gleeps!”

Her eyes narrowed as she looked around her. Everything was too calm. No Beldens running under foot. Not even Bobby ‘splorin’.

Hmmm…and Daddy was very strange at breakfast. And he was heading outside earlier…

“Well, what would Trixie do?” Honey asked herself. Before she could even finish the thought, she started to chuckle. “Get herself kidnapped and make cow’s eyes at Jim. Not very helpful.”

Honey glanced over to the stables and saw a rider dismounting from a well-taken care of horse. The glare of the sun was such, however, that she couldn’t see who the rider was.

Regan’s red hair, however, was obvious, and he gestured toward the house as he led the horse back into the stables.

A few moments later, she saw Di running up the verdant, sloping lawn and she let her frown slip away into a smile. “Hello, Di! What brings you here this morning? I thought you were going on a picnic with Mart!” She glanced down at her watch. “It’s still a bit early, isn’t it? Do you want to join me for a Coke or something?”

Diana joined her on the verandah and grabbed her arm. “No time for that, Honey. There’s something very weird going on with our mothers. I need your help to find out exactly what it is.”

Chapter 29

Day faded to afternoon and soon the group around Crabapple Farm all sat (or stood) in Helen’s warm kitchen. Helen stood near the stove, looking over the large crowd in the kitchen. She had started counting heads, but gave up when she hit about fifteen.

The crowd around Trixie was getting rather ridiculous. She wondered if they’d all been drugged with some sort of love potion or something. Jim and Dan had been hovering around for years, of course, but the rest of them?

She sighed and brushed her curls away from her forehead. Something had to be done about all of these people. And what else was she to do?

Helen gestured at her oldest son and said, “Go into the cellar and get those large bottles of cider I’ve been saving. We’ve got a lot of thirsty people.

After an hour or so, the cider had knocked out half of the people in the house. Apparently, the cider had been so long in the cellar that it had fermented. She glanced over at her sleeping neighbors and giggled.

Meanwhile…

Pierre Lontard was speeding down Glen Road, very pleased with himself. All the snoops in Sleepyside were bustling around Crabapple Farm and he had made a clean getaway.

“A clean getaway?” Honey asked scornfully. “You call hitting a cop car a clean getaway?”

“And that was my mother in that car!” Diana yelled from the backseat. “What if she was hurt?”

Damn. He hadn’t realized that he’d spoken out loud. With a scowl, he turned around and glared at the girls. “Do you think…do you honestly think for one second that I care about your silly little mother?”

Diana gasped and fell silent. Honey rolled her eyes and stared out the window. “You know, Lontard,” she said in a rather dry tone, “it would help if you actually kept your eyes on the road. Didn’t you just miss your turn?”

Lontard glanced ahead of him and, over the crumpled hood of the car, noticed that he was careening toward a rather large, abandoned shack. With a loud shout, he swerved, ignoring the yells of the girls behind him, and then found himself heading straight off the bank into the murky waters of the Hudson River.

Back on Glen Road…

Cap watched the car head down the road, making a mental note of the direction the vehicle was traveling, and then took off in a run toward the preserve, the fringe on his leather jacket flapping against his well-built chest.

As the mountain man disappeared into the woods, Marjorie Trask headed briskly toward Crabapple Farm. She hesitated, wondering if she should follow the vanishing teenager, but figured that he knew what he was about, had disappeared into the woods before, and she had bigger fish to fry. Besides, the tweed underwear set was chafing, and she didn’t need to add mosquito bites to boot.

Chapter 38

Where they were going, apparently, was nowhere.

Clay screeched to a halt just a few inches away from two police cars, parked perpendicularly across Glen Road, blocking the way out. Clay began to panic and looked over his shoulder to back up, but then noticed other cars blocking him in.

“All right. All of you! Come out with your hands up!” yelled one of the officers behind the police cars.

Bobby, Terry and Larry looked at each other with questioning eyes.

“Does he mean us too?” whispered Terry.

All three boys let out a shriek as a disheveled Sergeant Molinson, with lipstick stains around what was left of his police shirt’s collar, pointed his gun at them through the car window.

“Yes,” he ground out. “It means you three brats too. After the afternoon I’ve had, someone is going to jail.”

Molinson noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and yelled out, “Do not even think about it.”

Within the next five minutes, an entire contingent of people (Clay, Cap, Ben, Bobby, both Peters, Larry, Terry, Nick Roberts, Brandy and Mr. and Mrs. Lynch) found themselves the guests of the Sleepyside Police.

Molinson ignored their protests, requests for telephone calls to their lawyers or threats and said, “Enough. Sleep it off.” He pointed his gun at Peter Belden and growled, “And you’ll spend another night in here just for distracting me so that your older sons could get away.”

Clay immediately burst into tears. “I’m his oldest son.”

Bobby rolled his eyes and looked at his father and said, “Please, dear God, tell me he’s going to turn out to be an imposter.”

Meanwhile…

Brian and Mart jogged back down Glen Road where they finally connected with Jim, Dan, Honey and Di who had finished their unfruitful search.

“So, what do we do now?” Brian demanded. “All we’ve got to go on are a pair of Mickey Mouse ears?”

“Well, they do say ‘Apple Pie’ on them,” Di said, sticking her tongue out at Brian. “And I don’t see you with any clues, so…”

“Let’s not argue,” Dan said, holding up his hands to try to keep the peace. Why am I stuck keeping the peace? Dan wondered to himself. Isn’t that Honey’s job? He glanced at Honey, but she was looking curiously at the hat hanging off of one of Di’s graceful fingers. He followed her gaze and then followed the line of Di’s hand to her elbow up to her shoulders and then rested on…well…other parts of her anatomy…and forgot what he was going to say.

Which was just as well, because a moment later, he was sitting on his butt in the dirt after Mart shoved him there.

Jim kept his eyes carefully averted as he said, “I agree with Dan. Let’s not argue.” He gave Mart a glare. “And let’s quit shoving, shall we?”

Mart returned Jim’s glare with one of his own, but said nothing.

“Well,” Honey said, reaching out for the felt, cheap Mickey ears ($15.95…with an extra $6.95 for the embroidered name on the back), “I think it probably has something to do with Disney.” She traced the Apple Pie name with her fingers and then said, “Your mom makes apple pies.”

Mart rolled his eyes. “A lot of people make apple pies,” he said derisively.

“But well enough to be known as Apple Pie?” Honey argued.

“This is all too ridiculous,” Brian snapped. “Even if it was a nickname of Moms’, there’s no guarantee this is her hat. And even if it is, what do we do with a Mickey Mouse hat?”

“You wear it,” Jim said suddenly.

“And I thought I was the one who pointed out the obvious,” Di muttered under her breath.

“No, really! I mean…who honestly is caught dead in Mickey Mouse ears? Anyone?” Jim asked, looking around at his friends.

“I think they’re kinda cute,” Dan admitted. His sheepish look turned rather wolfish when he grinned and said, “Especially if they’re worn by a sexy blonde.”

Jim immediately glared at Dan, and both Brian and Mart gave him horrified looks.

“That’s our mother you’re talking about!” Brian said, his voice appalled.

Dan just shook his head while Jim picked the thread of conversation back up. “Okay, Dan’s fantasy blondes aside, no one wears Mickey Mouse ears outside of the Disney parks, right? I mean…you buy them and you take them home and they stay in your souvenir box eternally. If you were going to wear them, you’d wear them in the parks.”

“So, what you’re saying is…” Honey began.

“…Is that I did find a clue,” Di finished triumphantly. She snatched the hat back from Brian and settled it on her head. “They’re on their way to Disneyworld!”

Chapter 49

The man growled in anger. “Back off, Blondie!”

Helen tilted her head at Mad Dog Maddie who blinked once, noting that she understood. “My, oh, my. You again.” She clucked in a disapproving manner. “Why is it that every time we need to save the world that somehow, someway you are involved?”

Matthew leaned against the door and shook his head sadly. “Can’t you get a real job? It’s kind of pathetic.” He rolled his eyes. “Besides…I’ve got Jim’s money all tied up. Even if he were to die or suddenly disappear tomorrow, he’s left all the money to Trixie anyway. It’s not like you’d get your hands on it.”

“It’s my money,” Jonesy raged. “I kept that brat all of these years…fed him…clothed him…”

Helen tried to hide a yawn behind one of her sturdy-looking hands. “Haven’t we heard that old yarn before?”

Meanwhile, Maddie had inched along the side of the tiny little room. In a flash, she whirled like…well…a whirling dervish and when the smoke cleared, Jonesy was face down on the floor, her high-heeled stiletto boot pressed firmly against his neck.

“Now,” she said politely, “some answers, if you please.”

“I’m not giving you a damned thing.”

Maddie pressed harder. “Want to rephrase that?”

Jonesy let out a choked gasp. “Okay, okay…”

Between choking noises and gasps for air, Jonesy poured out the story of a fraternity he’d wanted to pledge, an inadvertent slip to a back room with a kind of cute, but not really cute, freshman girl and a bouncing baby boy that had shown up on his doorstep not that long ago.

“Wait a minute!” Matthew said, looking at Jonesy sharply. “Clay is your son?”

“Oh, thank God!” Maddie said fervently, lifting her eyes heavenward.

“But if Clay is your son…then…” Helen looked bewildered. “Where is Peter’s?”

“How the hell should I know?” Jonesy muttered. “All I heard was he was adopted by some couple and they moved to some little po-dunk town in Iowa. Snappy Talley? Lappy Sally?”

“Happy Valley?” all three of them cried together.

Meanwhile, in Happy Valley, Iowa…

Ned Schulz looked at his parents in shock and disbelief. “What do you mean I’m adopted??”

Back at Disneyworld…

All of the group anxiously awaiting at Cinderella’s castle spoke in soft tones and murmured whispers. Honey and Brian had found a little nook where Brian explained exactly what he’d been doing with Brandy in his arms and Honey decided to show him exactly what he should have been doing in hers.

Dan sighed and leaned against one of the mosaics of Cinderella on the wall and wondered if he’d ever stop being the seventh wheel in a story started by Misty and ended by Mary and Susan. Probably not, he thought to himself glumly.

Just then, he noticed a raven-haired beauty with a Rick Springfield t-shirt walking by with a petite pixie in sandals and suddenly a smile crossed his face. Lots of fish in the sea, Mangan. Besides…who’d want to trail around after Trixie all the time anyway? Dinosaurs in the shrubbery indeed! With those happy thoughts, he loped up to the two women, put an arm around either of their shoulders and let a slow, wicked grin cross his face. “Hello, ladies. Can I interest you in a ride on Space Mountain?”

A crackle through Oxfordshoes’ receptor had everyone glancing, startled, at her chest. Mart groaned in dismay and even Mr. Lytell looked a tad uncomfortable. Miss Trask said in a brisk tone of voice, “Well, what’s happening?”

“The bomb’s been dismantled. The world’s been saved,” Helen’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Matt and Maddie will clean up the mess here. I’m needed at home. Something about paint in the kitchen. Tell the kids they need to be home for supper. Over and out.”

“Well, you heard the lady,” Miss Trask said. “I’ll get the plane ready. Gentlemen?”

The remaining members of the team followed Miss Trask out of the door. Brian and Honey were too busy necking to notice.

Mart glanced over at his brother and tried to repress a sigh. He’ll probably get to second base. I think I’ve been taken off the batting order all together.

Di giggled and leaned into Mart, whispering, “I know what you’re thinking.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh, you do?”

“Let’s go ride the train out of the park. It ambles along really slow. Who knows what we might do with all that time?”

Mart straightened with a grin. “You like it slow, then?”

Di let her lashes flutter in a coquette manner. “Oh, you bet I do.”

They hurried out, hand in hand, leaving behind Jim and Trixie.

“Trixie,” Jim said softly, holding her hand in his.

“Yes, Jim?” Trixie replied, looking up at him with wide blue eyes.

“All those other guys…and their professions…made me realize what a fool I’ve been.” He gently tugged on a stray blonde curl. “Not letting you know how much I care.”

Trixie took a deep breath and said, “All those other guys were just a way to pass the time while I waited for you.”

“Well, wait no more,” he said huskily. “Wait no more.”

He pulled her into his arms, tilted up her chin with a freckled hand and kissed her…long and slow and deep, just how she’d always fantasized it’d be.

And there were fireworks. Lots of glorious, multi-colored fireworks.

Of course…

They were at Disneyworld.

THE END!!!!!!!!

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