The Mystery of the Castaway Children

by Campbell, Julie

  Your TRIXIE BELDEN Library

  1 The Secret of the Mansion

  2 The Red Trailer Mystery

  3 The Gatehouse Mystery

  4 The Mysterious Visitor

  5 The Mystery Off Glen Road

  6 Mystery in Arizona

  7 The Mysterious Code

  8 The Black Jacket Mystery

  9 The Happy Valley Mystery

  10 The Marshland Mystery

  11 The Mystery at Bob-White Cave

  12 The Mystery of the Blinking Eye

  13 The Mystery on Cobbett’s Island

  14 The Mystery of the Emeralds

  15 Mystery on the Mississippi

  16 The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

  17 The Mystery of the Uninvited Guest

  18 The Mystery of the Phantom Grasshopper

  19 The Secret of the Unseen Treasure

  20 The Mystery Off Old Telegraph Road

  21 The Mystery of the Castaway Children

  22 Mystery at Mead’s Mountain

  23 The Mystery of the Queen’s Necklace

  24 Mystery at Saratoga

  25 The Sasquatch Mystery

  26 The Mystery of the Headless Horseman

  27 The Mystery of the Ghostly Galleon

  28 The Hudson River Mystery

  29 The Mystery of the Velvet Gown

  30 The Mystery of the Midnight Marauder

  31 Mystery at Maypenny’s

  32 The Mystery of the Whispering Witch (new)

  33 The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim (new)

  34 The Mystery of the Missing Millionaire (new)

  © 1978 by Western Publishing Company, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Produced in U.S.A.

  GOLDEN®, GOLDEN PRESS®, and TRIXIE BELDEN® are registered trademarks of Western Publishing Company, Inc.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  0-307-21592-X

  All names, characters, and events in this story are entirely fictitious.

  “It’s Not a Skunk” ● 1

  THUMP. THUMP.

  Pause.

  “Go get it, Reddy!”

  “Woof!”

  Thump.

  Inside the hot kitchen, Trixie Belden brushed the damp curls off her forehead as she finished up the last of the dinner dishes. The noise of her little brother Bobby throwing his ball against the side of the house was less than soothing. Apparently Reddy, the Beldens’ Irish setter, was the outfielder. Why is it always my turn to do the dishes on the muggiest nights of the summer? Trixie thought irritably.

  She wasn’t the only Belden affected by the heat. She could hear her parents’ conversation out on the porch, and both of them sounded rather testy.

  “Peter,” Trixie heard her mother say, “can’t you play catch with Bobby until Brian and Mart come back with, the ice cream? He’s trampling my petunias.”

  Peter Belden had been trying to tell his wife about his day at work, but he stopped long enough to call, “Take it easy, Bobby. Windows cost money.”

  Trixie heard the creak of the porch swing as her father eased himself onto it. “Anyway,” he went on, “I feel sorry for David Dodge. He came into the bank again several weeks ago to inquire about another loan, but we couldn’t see our way clear to let him have any more money. Now he’s having to auction off his property on Saw Mill River.”

  “Isn’t his wife one of the Jacksons? Surely their credit is good,” Mrs. Belden objected.

  “They’re both from families that have been in the area a long time,” Mr. Belden replied, “but that’s not what establishes a good credit rating anymore, Helen. It’s whether you pay your bills promptly that counts. This man Dodge is up to his ears in debt. He buys things he can’t afford, and he uses credit cards like they’re going out of style. When he runs short of ready cash, he borrows from the nearest friend and signs an IOU.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Mrs. Belden asked. “Credit cards aren’t exactly dishonest.”

  “David Dodge isn’t dishonest,” Mr. Belden sighed. “He’s careless. He’s convinced he can pay, but he hasn’t got any sense when it comes to money. He just plain indulges his family without counting the cost.”

  No wonder her father sounded disapproving, thought Trixie. His job at the First National Bank in Sleepyside taught him to respect money management and credit rating. He handled large sums of other people’s money, while his own family lived in comfortable yet moderate circumstances on Crabapple Farm.

  Trixie’s thoughts drifted to a few indulgences she wouldn’t mind having at Crabapple Farm. Central air conditioning, for a start. An electric dishwasher, too. Gleeps! She knew better than to ask for a dishwasher, though. Someone would be bound to tell her, “Who needs one? We have you!”

  The trouble was that housework was not one of Trixie’s passions. On the other hand, she loved the farm. Sharing the work was the price each Belden paid for living a quiet, uncluttered life. Trixie had only to glance out the window over the kitchen sink to see gardens and orchard, fields and lawn. She felt sorry for the family of that man her father was talking about. Evidently they had a place over on Saw Mill River, between the Hudson River and White Plains. It would be painful to have to give that up.

  Despite the cloud blanket trapping heat in the hollow where the farm lay, Trixie could think of no place she’d rather be on this sweltering August night. Just the same... she’d be the last to complain if the family splurged on an electric dishwasher.

  Trixie frowned to herself as she wiped the counters clean. “I’ll climb the walls if it doesn’t rain pretty soon,” she muttered.

  Finally she had the kitchen as spotless as she could make it, and she headed for the porch to join her parents. Plopping herself down on the steps, she inhaled the cooler air and shoved her mop of short sandy curls up from her hot neck.

  Peter Belden had not taken his wife’s suggestion to play with Bobby, who had moved his ball game to the wall of the garden shed in the backyard. Each time his ball dropped into the grass, grasshoppers whirred in protest. Robins were raising the last brood of the season in the maple tree by the doghouse. Disturbed by the weather, they sang their loudest. Trixie found the sound vaguely annoying. As she watched the cloud mass hanging over the Catskills, she heard the first rumble of thunder.

  “Better watch out,” she called to Bobby. “The Dunderberg goblin will get you.”

  Bobby had abandoned that legend with his baby food. He wasn’t interested in the bumpy, lumpy fellow who sat on Dunderberg’s peak and shouted to the winds through his speaking trumpet. “You rupted,” yelled Bobby. “Now I can’t hear it!”

  “Hear what?” Trixie called back.

  “I don’t know. Something I heard.”

  “What did it sound like? A person? An animal?” Anything mysterious, large or small, immediately brought questions to Trixie’s mind, even on a hot night like this.

  As usual, her six-year-old brother took his time while he considered Trixie’s questions. He thumped his ball into his mitt as he thought. Evidently believing the game to be over, Reddy wandered off toward his doghouse. There he sniffed about, backed away, and sat staring at the shelter as if contemplating a remodeling job. “Well?” Trixie prompted.

  Trixie’s temper was on a short fuse, but Bobby’s was on an even shorter one. “I don’t know!” he flared. “A kind of squeak, maybe. It mewed.”

  “Where did the sound come from?”

  “I don’t know that either,” Bobby said flatly. “Fine detective you’d make!” Trixie snorted. Bobby, used to Trixie’s mercurial disposition, paid no attention to her outburst. “I t
hought it was in the woods,” he went on. “Then it moved closer. It sounded like—”

  Trixie leaned forward.

  Bobby shook his round, blond head. “No, it couldn’t be.”

  Suddenly Trixie realized that Bobby was sincerely puzzled. What in the world could he have heard? Before she could question him further, the air seemed to shift, and the long-awaited rain came pouring down in sheets.

  At the same time, both Trixie and Bobby whooped, “Let’s get wet!”

  Bobby threw his mitt onto the porch, and Trixie scampered down the steps. Together they dashed around the comer of the house to the front yard, which sloped toward the lane. Great big drops spattered the leaves of oaks and maples and sent up little dust puffs from the dry patches on the lawn. Trixie and Bobby kicked off their sneakers and ran through the grass, singing as much as they could remember of “Singin’ in the Rain.”

  Soon it was raining so hard that puddles formed in the lane. Bubbles floated, only to burst when struck by raindrops. Bobby yanked off his T-shirt and splashed from puddle to puddle.

  Trixie chased him, shouting, “Dad! Moms! Come and play with us!”

  Peter Belden called back, “For two cents, I’d take you up on that.”

  Trixie searched the pockets of her shorts. “You’re safe, Dad!” she yelled.

  “Oh, no, you’re not,” Bobby said. He sprinted over to the porch to plop two pennies into his father’s hand.

  “Come on, Bobby, have a heart,” Mr. Belden begged.

  “Race you to the mailbox!” urged Trixie.

  “Peter, you wouldn’t,” Mrs. Belden protested, laughing.

  “If they can do it, I suppose their father might as well,” he defended himself as he handed his watch to his wife.

  Mrs. Belden shook her head in amusement as the trio raced down the lane, shouting their pleasure at the change of weather. Reddy decided to race in the opposite direction—toward the porch, where he showered Mrs. Belden with rain spray. She was frantically pushing him away from her when the racers returned. A soggy but happy group of Beldens watched from the porch while the rain tapered to sprinkles.

  The summer storm was over by the time Brian and Mart returned with an ice-cream treat from Mr. Lytell’s store. Trixie smacked her lips as her older brothers hopped out of Brian’s jalopy and made their way around the puddles toward the porch. When the boys reached the steps, they stopped short at the sight of the rest of their family, especially their father.

  Mr. Belden was seldom careless in his appearance, yet there he sat, white shirt clinging to his chest and black hair dripping water down his neck. Whenever he moved his feet, water squished from his shoes. And he was smiling.

  Mart was the first to express his amazement. “Such a state of bedewed dishevelment is not unheard of regarding our callow siblings, lamentable though it may be. But our sire?” Mart raised an eyebrow at Brian. “Methinks he has been led astray.”

  “I strayed him for two cents,” Bobby declared. “Money talks,” chuckled Brian.

  “Jeepers, who wants to talk?” broke in Trixie. “Let’s get at that ice cream!”

  Her family agreed, and in a matter of minutes, they all polished off their desserts.

  “There. I heard it again,” said Bobby abruptly. “Sounds like a baby crying,” commented Brian.

  “That’s what I thought,” Bobby said. “Impossible,” Mart scoffed. “Except for Di Lynch's twin brothers and sisters, you’re the youngest child in the area.”

  “That’s what it sounds like,” insisted Bobby. “A scared baby.”

  By then, Trixie was taking her little brother seriously. “What else would sound like a baby?” she wondered aloud. “A mockingbird, maybe? It copycats sound.”

  “Babies sound most like babies,” said Bobby. Brian tousled Bobby’s fair hair. “True, but it’s just been pointed out that there are no babies to be heard around here.”

  “The ‘cat’ in Catskill comes from catamount recalled Mrs. Belden. “Could the storm have driven one in from Wheelers’ game preserve?” Her hand moved instinctively toward Bobby’s shoulders.

  “Possible, but I doubt it,” Mr. Belden said. He stood up and reached for the screen door. “I’m off for a shower. Anybody using water at the same time had better be sure she doesn’t use all the hot water.” Pretending to scowl darkly, he squished into the house.

  “Who’d want hot water on a night like this?” Bobby asked sensibly.

  “Or any water, period,” added Trixie. “I’m perfectly comfortable just the way I am.”

  “Who am I to mention that you’re perfectly unkempt, too,” teased Mart.

  “You’re my almost twin,” retorted Trixie, “so you’d better watch what you say about me.”

  Mart grimaced, then reached for a strand of Trixie’s sandy curls. “With this hair, you can just shake yourself dry, like Reddy,” he taunted.

  “Thanks for the tip,” said Trixie, and she leaned over to Mart to do just that.

  Mart scooted to safety, and Mrs. Belden laughed. “I’m afraid I have to side with Mart,” she said. “You’re all going to need showers.”

  She went inside to check on the towel supply, while the younger Beldens remained on the porch to enjoy the breeze that had followed the rain.

  Trixie and Mart were about to resume their friendly bickering, when a prolonged, thin wail arose. Reddy, resting beside Trixie, perked up his ears. After a few tail thumps, the dog padded to the edge of the porch. The sound stopped as abruptly as it had begun, yet Reddy jumped from the porch, sniffing the air. Trixie got up to follow him, while Mart and Brian exchanged glances behind her. Curiosity might as well have been Trixie’s middle name.

  She saw Reddy approaching his doghouse. When he reached the opening, he ducked his head, then backed away. Trixie was puzzled when the setter made a few uncertain circles around his own house, peered in, then sat down.

  Then she remembered that this was copperhead country. Snakes were one of the few things that really made Trixie nervous. She knew Reddy would have sense enough to respect squatter’s rights if a copperhead had moved into his house. So she, too, stayed a safe distance from the low, unpainted shelter. Even from there, she could see a white mass that contrasted with the dim interior of the house. What, could that be? Reddy slept on an old rug on a bed of straw. The rug had long since lost most of its color. It wasn’t white, and it never had been.

  Frowning, she returned to the porch, where her three brothers looked up at her expectantly.

  “What’s with our capricious canine?” inquired Mart.

  “I couldn’t get close enough to find anything,” Trixie admitted. “Reddy wouldn’t go inside his « own doghouse, so I didn’t go near it, either.”

  “Admirable caution,” cheered Mart lazily.

  Brian took a closer look at his sister’s concerned face and rose from the porch swing. “I’ll get the pitchfork and see what’s moved in,” he said.

  Trixie followed Brian to the backyard and waited for him to bring a pitchfork from the garden shed.

  “See? Reddy isn’t afraid,” she pointed out. “He just won’t go in.”

  “Maybe it’s a skunk,” Brian said without enthusiasm. “Well, let’s get this over with.” He strode toward the doghouse, pitchfork ready for action. Reddy turned his sleek red head in the direction of his home.

  Trixie was prepared for anything, but still she couldn’t believe it when Brian suddenly dropped his pitchfork and actually stretched his arms inside the doghouse. He was down on his knees, paying no attention to the mud. Trixie gasped with surprise as Brian started to rise. He was lifting a white bundle from Reddy’s straw bed and holding it against his chest. He turned to Trixie, his face blank with astonishment.

  “It’s—it’s not a skunk” was all Brian could manage to say.

  Trixie came near and took a good look at the bundle. “Yipes!” she exclaimed softly. “It’s not a snake, either!”

  Before she could gather her wits about her to
fire questions at Brian, he was taking long steps in the direction of the porch. Trixie raced to catch up. Reddy was close at her heels.

  As the group neared the porch, Bobby and Mart stopped their playful wrestling long enough for Mart to call, “Snakes aren’t allowed on the porch.” Then he did a double take. “Is th-that what I think it is?” he gulped.

  “It is!” crowed Bobby. “It’s a real, live baby!” Brian lowered his arms to allow Bobby to uncover the baby’s face. Four young Beldens watched a soft pink mouth blow till a bubble formed. Blue eyes stared out of a dirty face, then squeezed shut. A fretful whimper was quickly stilled when Brian lifted the tiny body against his shoulder.

  “I told you a baby sounds most like a baby,” Bobby declared, not in the least taken aback.

  Mart, still in a state of shock, touched the little blanket, muddy from when Brian had pulled the baby out of the doghouse. “Blanket... wet...” he muttered.

  Trixie sprang into action. Up the steps she leaped, crossing the porch in two bounds and flinging open the door. “Moms!” she shouted. “MOTHER!”

  Mrs. Belden hurried down the stairs and into the hall. When she was called “Mother” instead “Moms,” there was usually an emergency. “What’s wrong, Trixie?”

  Trixie held the door open and ushered her mother out onto the porch. Mrs. Belden looked bewildered as Brian held out his tiny charge toward her. “We found something, uh, out of the ordinary,” he told her.

  “That can’t be—” Mrs. Belden whispered.

  “It’s a baby, all right,” said Bobby matter-of-factly.

  The minute Mrs. Belden’s hands touched the blanket, she was in command of the situation. “Trixie, bring dry towels—the softest you can find,” she ordered. “And get that baby oil you use for suntan lotion. Mart, call Mrs. Lynch to see if she can spare some baby clothes. Brian, you scald milk.”

  “What proportion of corn syrup?” Brian asked on his way inside.

  Already halfway up the stairs, Trixie glanced back, startled by Brian’s question. Well, why wouldn’t Brian know about baby food? she asked herself. He has three younger siblings, and he is the doctor-to-be around here.