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Trixie Belden and the Anthrocon Mystery

Chapter 1 - Disaster!


*RING!*

Helen Belden smiled as she heard the thunder of feet running toward the telephone. "Belden residence," she answered. As she listened to the caller, the color drained from her face, and sat heavily in a kitchen chair. "Yes, I’ll tell them. They’ll be there in a little while."

"Moms? What is it?" her sandy-haired 18-year-old daughter asked as she came skidding into the kitchen. "You look like someone just died." Trixie Belden no longer looked the cute teenager she had a mere four years ago. She had blossomed into a striking young woman, not so much for astounding good looks, although she was attractive, with freckles enough on her face to give her a wholesome, girl-next-door kind of pretty. What struck anyone who really looked at her was her eyes, which were always looking, were now piercing, as if she could look right through you to the truth of whatever situation she happened to be investigating. Trixie’s face was as white as her mother’s.

"Trixie, you have no idea how close to the truth you are," Helen said. "That was Dennis Wilson. He and Honey are in a Philadelphia hospital after they went off the road. He’s already contacted the Wheelers, and they’ll be flying down to Philadelphia very shortly. They’ll be taking their private jet, and any of us that wish to come are invited. I wish I could come along, but with your father out of town at the moment, someone will need to hold down the fort, so to speak. You kids grab a few days worth of clothes, and I’ll call the Wheelers."

Mart, uncharacteristically silent until now murmured, "I find myself quite worried, Beatrix, dear sister. Notice that our mother didn’t say a word about Honey?" He was eleven months Trixie’s senior, but still they looked the part of twins. The only real difference in appearance was that Mart chose to keep a close-cropped haircut, in order to avoid the Belden curse of sandy-blonde hair that always seemed in need of combing. His eyes also did not carry the same intensity that his sister’s did.

As they ran upstairs to pack bags with a few days worth of clothing, she responded. "I caught that, Mart. The mere fact that the Wheeler’s are flying to Philly in such a hurry does not bode well,as you might say."

With a chuckle that had no real humor to it, Mart responded, "Now I know you’re worried, sister mine, when you start quoting me. All we can do, though, is hope for the best.


"I just wish I knew what possessed him to drive down," Mrs. Wheeler was saying, wringing her hands. "They could have taken a plane. He knows how to fly. He’s taken Madeleine up in his Cessna any number of times."

"Calm yourself, dear," her husband replied. "There’s no need for recriminations. If I know Dennis the way I think I do, then he’s blaming himself enough for all of us." An uneasy silence filled the cabin then.

"Mr. Wheeler?" Trixie said, sounding loud in the cabin, even though she was speaking softly. "I’d like to thank you for bringing us along when you didn’t have to. It means a lot to us."

"Yes, sir, it does," Mart agreed. "I just wish Brian and Di could have come along, but with him checking out Boston’s hospitals, and her in Europe until the 15th..." He left the sentence unfinished, frowning.

Mr. Wheeler smiled, somewhat sadly. "You’re our daughter’s best friends. You’d worry unbelievably about her anyway, so you might as well worry about her, and laugh with her, and cry with her. Oh, by the way, Jim and Dan will be meeting us in Philadelphia. Jim was in New York City to talk with his brokers when the news came in, and he told me he was going to grab Dan and drive down. They may even beat us there, since it’s only a two to three hour drive."

"We’re flying, though, sir," Trixie said, puzzled. Her eyes sparkled quickly, and she smiled. "Then again, he could just grab his vehicle, and start driving. We had to get to an airport, and then in Philly, we have to get to the hospital from that airport."

"Speaking of Jim, while we happen to be, how’s he doing?" Mart interjected.

"Well, he learned how to invest from somewhere, so he’s managed to turn that $500,000 dollars he inherited into a rather impressive sum. I expect that he’ll be starting his school sometime soon, to be honest."

Mart laughed. "I’ll admit, sir, that even five hundred thousand dollars sounds impressive to me."

Mr. Wheeler laughed. "I do toss that off like it’s pocket change, don’t I? Well, when you’re used to phone calls that regularly transfer millions of dollars, I guess that’s an easy trap to fall into."

The intercom activated, the pilot saying, "Mr. Wheeler, we’re coming in for the approach. You and your passengers might want to buckle in now."

Minutes later, they were speeding toward the hospital in a chauffeured car.


At the hospital, they climbed out of the limousine just as a black haired young man walked up to the vehicle, his long hair braided tightly behind him. Trixie giggled as she saw him. "I see you liked what I did to your hair during that visit last year, Dan." She gave him a quick hug.

"Yeah, well, it keeps it out of my eyes a heck of a lot better than doing nothing at all does. Jim and I just got here ourselves; I got out to greet you when we saw the limo pull up. Mr. Wheeler. Mrs. Wheeler," he finished, nodding to them as they climbed from the vehicle. The lean, trim young man took the hand Mr. Wheeler offered and shook it strongly. "I know we’re all here for the same reason, but I’m still sorry to hear about it. I hope she’s okay."

"I hope Dennis is okay, too," said the tall redhead who had just walked up. "He sounded okay on the phone, but if I know him, he’s kicking himself from here to Sleepyside and back, mentally, for not doing something different." Trixie gave him a quick hug as well.

"Shall we go inside and see how the two of them are doing?" Mr. Wheeler asked. "When we last talked to Dennis, he was sounding somewhat groggy, so he may be asleep." The six of them entered the hospital.

As the approached the main desk, an obviously unhappy voice said, "Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler. Hello, Bob-Whites." They turned to find a young man in his early twenties, battered and bruised, wearing a cast that started just below his hip on his right leg and covered the entire leg, leaning against one of the large columns in the lobby.

Trixie ran to him. "How are you?"

"Doing better than Honey," he said dejectedly. "At least I’m conscious. They airlifted her here. I came along for the ride, apparently." He pushed himself fully upright and added, "Let’s get you to the doctor, so he can tell you what’s wrong with her, other than seeing a guy who obviously needs more driving lessons."

Mr. Wheeler stopped the group. "Dennis, I want you to know, right now, that I will not stand for that sort of talk from you. I have seen you drive, and have seen you pull out from a skid that would have caused a lesser driver to crash their vehicle. If you went off the road, then it was undoubtedly because conditions prevented you from regaining control of the vehicle." They started moving again, and entered the elevator.

"Whether or not we were forced off the road, sir, I still think I should have found some way to prevent her from taking the brunt of the tree we impacted with."

"You were forced off the road?" Dan asked. "Was it deliberate?"

"Most definitely," Dennis replied. "His right front quarter panel against my left rear quarter panel, and then push!" He punctuated his description with gestures, and then winced as he moved things better off not moved. "Bruised ribs," he gasped. Dan’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.

The elevator opened again on the ICU floor. A doctor was looking at the elevator doors as they opened. "Ah, Mr. Wilson! I was looking for you. Are these the relatives you told me were coming?" Dennis nodded, and the doctor led them to a quiet room and closed the door. "Do you mind everyone hearing what I’m going to tell you?" he asked the Wheelers. At the shake of their heads, he nodded. "Very well. Your daughter came out of surgery a while ago. We needed to repair her right arm and leg. Both have pins in them now. We also had some internal bleeding to deal with, so we did." He paused, and a worried look took over on his face. "What has us most worried is the head injury she took. We pulled glass from the wound on the right side of her head, and we think there may be internal swelling. We won’t know for a while, though. We want to get her stable before we send her for a CT scan." He turned to Dennis. "You’re doing surprisingly well for someone who was unconscious when the vehicle was found. I’d imagine your doctor will be unhappy, though, when he discovers that you’re not in bed."

Dennis murmured, "I suppose that I should head back down, then." He opened the door, and was greeted with a voice down the hall saying, "There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!" The speaker was a pretty young nurse who walked as if there should have been a burlesque show drum rhythm for her soundtrack. He replied to her, "I am at your beck and call, milady, and I apologize for worrying you. Fie upon me for worrying such a lovely young thing!" His voice bore no hint of either his injuries or his unhappiness at Honey’s.

As the nurse giggled and said, "I’d imagine I’m a little older than you, Mr. Wilson, but I appreciate the ‘lovely young thing’ comment. You wouldn’t be trying to seduce your nurse would you?" She began leading him down the hall.

"Are you seducible?" he asked with a humorous leer to his voice. "Is that even a word?" he added as an afterthought.

"It is now, and to answer your question, not if I want to keep my job!" she laughed. "Don’t worry, Mr.Wilson, I’m used to banter from patients." The doors closed, and Trixie turned back, frowning fiercely.

"Hey there, sis, don’t hold it against either of them," Mart said quickly. "You know he’s joking, and it sounds like she did, too."

"I know that, Mart. I’m used to that from him. How happy he sounded with her tells me just how depressed he is about this whole thing. I've noticed that the sadder he is, the happier the face he shows to the world. I asked him about it once, and he wasn't even aware that he does it. I guess it's 'cause he's sick enough of pity from losing his parents so young."

"I don’t know him as well as you do, Trixie, but I’ve learned to trust your hunches over the years," Jim said.

"Hunch, hell!" Mart exclaimed. "I’ve seen it, too. He’s so used to being alone that he keeps everything inside."

"Alone?" Mrs. Wheeler asked. "He’s had you as friends almost since he moved to Sleepyside."

"If you remember, though, Mrs. Wheeler, he was alone when he moved here," Trixie responded. "He was seventeen to our fourteen, and we were astonished by his living on his own. If I remember correctly, he was dealing with a trust fund..."

"One of a size that I consider impressive," Mr. Wheeler interjected with a smile.

Trixie nodded with an answering smile as she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. "... and bought the Frayne property, and had a house built there. Even rebuilt that little summer cottage on the grounds. He lived in town and took classes with us while the house was being built." She paused for a moment. "Everyone around us is rich!" she laughed. "You, the Lynches, Dennis..."

Mart grinned. "Forget not the carboniferous legacy you discovered a scant few years ago, my sibling. Its value, while not in the monetary realm capable of exhausting avarice..."

"Okay, okay, my ring is worth some money, too," she scowled. Mart looked hurt for a moment, then grinned at her. "My point is, though, that he’s pretty much spent his life lonely. If I know the way he’s thinking right now, he looks at this as proof that he gets the dirty end of the stick from life."

"Yeah, there are better ways of inheriting money," Jim said wryly.

"Exactly," she said, looking a "Sorry," look at him. He shrugged with a small smile.

She stood. "If no one minds, I’m going to keep an eye on him while we wait for Honey to come around, okay? I think he needs a friendly face, and he’s always been closer to us girls than to you guys."

"That just proves how smart he is!" Dan laughed. She chuckled too as she headed back down to the lobby to find Dennis’ room number.


"Hey, Trixie!" he cried out as she came into his room. "How are you doing?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing, Den. Might seem like a stupid question, but just how badly are you hurt?"

"Well, I broke my leg, as you can tell, both above and below the knee. Luckily, the patella was undamaged. I was bruised and battered more than anything else, and the force of the sudden stop apparently knocked me unconscious for a while, so the doctor had a few choice words for me when I returned to the room." He snorted. "They’re going to have to sedate me to keep me from Mad’s bed when she wakes up."

"Don’t think they won’t," Trixie answered him. "If they think that sedating you will do more for your recovery than leaving you awake, then it’s out you go, as Brian told me once." She met his eyes and held them. "Don’t give them reason to, okay?"

He chuckled without humor. "Gotcha, cutie. No making the doctors pull out the morphine mallet."

"Y’know, Honey might get jealous if she hears you calling me cute, you know, so you might want to get out of the habit," she laughed.

"Not likely. She knows I’m a girl watcher, and I know she looks at the guys. Heck, we compare notes. I try to explain why I think a certain girl is attractive, and she does the same as far as the guys are concerned. She asked me once what I thought about you and Diana, and she was a little surprised by my answer."

"Which was..." she asked expectantly.

"That if you’d been free, you’d have been the only other girl in town that I’d have contemplated dating. You and Mad are both very intelligent, and I happen to be wise enough to find that sexy. Di is smart, too, but it’s more a people smarts, if you know what I mean. Doesn’t hurt that the three of you are also extremely easy on the eyes, too."

Trixie’s jaw was hanging. She finally got the wits to say, "You actually find me attractive?"

"I said sexy, and yes. And no, I will follow it no further than that, Trixie, because Mad is much more suited to me, emotionally. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop enjoying the view whenever I see you in a swimsuit."

"See, Dan, I told you that guy was smart," they heard from the doorway. "First, he’s got the brains to get involved with my sister. Proof number one. Second proof is that he knows enough to enjoy looking at Trixie."

Dan was looking at him. "Y’know, Jim, I’m still not quite used to the fact that you have no problems with me dating Trixie, but I agree with your assessment of why he’s intelligent."

"Hey guys! Coming to make sure I don’t take advantage of Trixie?"

"Other way around is more like it," Mart piped in.

"Mart!" she squeaked. She sputtered for a moment, drawing a laugh from the rest. Blushing, she turned back to Dennis. "Why was she surprised by what you said?"

"The same reason you were, just now. Everyone looks at the surface, and sees how beautiful Diana is. I don’t deny that she is extremely nice to look at - ‘easy on the eyes’ I think I said, and that Mart is one lucky man. However, she doesn’t have that certain spark that would make me even begin to contemplate dating her, assuming Mart here wasn’t. Here, that is." He laughed. "You know what I mean. Then they look at Honey, and see how classically beautiful she is. I guarantee you, most people would think that’s why I’m dating her. The truth of the matter is that both Honey and you have that certain spark, that ‘je ne cest quoi’ that attracts me. As I told you earlier, if you weren’t with someone, I might have contemplated it."

Jim snorted. "Yeah, right. I remember the hoops we had to jump through to get you to finally ask my sister out."

"Well, she’d broken up with Brian, but they’re still friends. I thought that maybe they might get back together. They certainly acted that way."

Trixie laughed. "Did it ever occur to you to ask either of them?"

"No. I don’t interfere with other people’s love lives."

Mart barked out his laughter. "Then what do you call threatening me with a beating if I broke up with Di?"

"Well, you’d misunderstood something you’d seen, and were being all noble about it. When you refused to listen to any other means of convincing you, I figure a threat of violence might work. It did, didn’t it?"

"Well, considering it was you were the other party concerned in said misunderstanding, yeah," he answered.

"So that wasn’t interfering any more than to put things back on track, the way they should be. I’m talking about adding myself into the equation, making it a triangle. With you, I was making you aware that there was no triangle."

"As it was," Trixie said, "I was starting to feel as if I was in a badly written romance novel. You’re sitting there mooning over her, and we’re sitting there wondering why the heck you don’t just ask her out. Finally, I asked Honey if it was okay to trick you into a date with her, just so you’d finally get the idea."

Dennis blinked at her. "You mean to tell me that...the night the BobWhites were all supposed to get together to see a movie, and everyone but Honey and I had to cancel out..."

Jim laughed. "Yup. We all worked on that one, including Honey. As I recall, you were coming really close to cancelling out too, and then she batted her eyelashes at you."

"You may think you’re joking," Dennis laughed, "but she looked at me and said, ‘I really want to see that movie. Are you sure you’re not interested?’ with a voice...well, butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth, but if she’d asked me to carry her all the way to the movie theater, I would have. The fact that I would have been holding her would have been one of the major positive points." He grinned. "I don’t even remember the movie - I was looking at her the whole time. And when we got a burger afterwards..."


"You know, Dennis, I don’t understand it. I thought I was attractive, at least, that’s what I’ve been told, but now that Brian and I have broken up, no one’s interested in me. Was I more attractive because I was with someone?" She batted her eyelashes alluringly at me.

"I don’t know why guys aren’t chasing you, to be honest." I opened my mouth to add something, but chose not to. It’s straight out of a romance novel, and life doesn’t work that way.

She took a deep breath, obviously steeling herself to ask a question. "Dennis, I need you to answer me truthfully. What’s wrong with me? Why won’t anyone look at me now that Brian and I aren’t together?" I opened my mouth, but the words refused to come out. "You can tell me truthfully, Dennis. I’ll try not to be hurt."

Rather than what I wanted to say, I ended up saying, "I really don’t know why nobody’s looking at a beautiful young woman like you. You’re smart, beautiful, as I said, and you enjoy the heck out of life. Maybe people are afraid of not being able to keep up with you."

She locked eyes with mine. "Is that why you won’t date me? Or is it the age difference?"

My jaw was on the table, and she was laughing. "I’ve seen how you react to me. I know you’re a little worried about how people will react to a twenty-year-old dating a sixteen-year-old. If you’d like I can take you to talk to Miss Trask and my parents."

I was in shock, to say the least. When I could finally speak, I said, "I never said anything because life just doesn’t work that way. First, you were with Brian. You’re still friendly with him, friendly enough that I think it confuses everyone. ‘Are they dating, or aren’t they?’ Second, I am twenty, and there are people who would be bothered by it."

"Answer me straight. Do you love me, or am I misreading you?"

"It certainly feels like love, Madeleine Wheeler. If you’re willing to date a decrepit old man like me," I said, laughing, "I’m more than willing to let you. I get the better end of the deal."

"I don’t know about that," she laughed. "You’re rich, too!" Laughing, she leaned across the table and kissed me quickly on the mouth. The hamburger joint erupted spontaneously into applause.


"It started there, and I had thought that it just happened. Now I find out it was all a set up. If I weren’t so darn happy with the outcome, I’d be annoyed," he laughed. "You’re telling me she knew the answer even before she asked it?"

Trixie laughed again. "Of course she did. Remember how you used to talk to Di and me, but swore us to secrecy, because you knew she’d feel badly that she couldn’t return the feelings? Well, when she and Brian parted, I talked to her. Turns out that part of the reason they were growing apart was that she was interested in you. She did some soul-searching and realized that it wasn’t because of your age - after all, Brian is older than her as well. He’d been drifting away, too, so they parted as friends. So, I simply told her, flat out, about how you felt."

She chuckled. "After the ‘suitable grieving period’ was over, and you still wouldn’t tell her, we set you two up, with her help. You were the only one who didn’t know what was coming!" The group joined her laughter as she finished.

He relaxed into the bed, which was cranked up to a sitting position. "Y’know, I’m glad you all made it here. It makes me feel better to know that almost everyone who cares for her is going to be nearby when she wakes up." He sighed, and it was obvious that the fatigue of the day had finally caught up to him. He opened his mouth to say something to them, and they all smiled as a snore came out instead.

It was about noon when he woke up again, this time finding Jim reading a magazine. "Sorry about that," he croaked, surprising Jim enough that the magazine actually became airborne for a moment. Laughing, he added, "and for that, too."

Jim chuckled as well. "My fault for getting so deep into the magazine. We’ve kept someone here as long as the visiting hours are in effect, just so you wouldn’t feel too disoriented if you woke up in a strange place."

"I was hoping that the strangest place either of us would wake up would be at Anthrocon. By the way, Mad and I may have been sharing a room, but I was going to be sleeping on the couch."

Jim smiled. "I know. So does Honey, that’s why she was willing to do this trip with you. She knows she can trust you."

A frown crossed Dennis’ face. "Yeah, to hospitalize her."

"Enough of that, Dennis," Jim growled. "How were you supposed to know that someone was going to run you off the road?"

Dennis opened his mouth to speak, but Trixie came skidding into the room. "It looks like Honey’s coming out of it! They’re going to allow her some visitors in about half an hour, when she finishes coming out of the anesthesia." She looked to Dennis. "I’ve already okayed it with your doctor. We can take you up in a wheelchair. So," she stepped outside and rolled a wheelchair into the room. "We’ll let you get dressed, and then we’ll head up."

Within fifteen minutes, they were waiting anxiously with everyone else.


"Now, it’s a bit unusual, but it might be a good idea if Mr. Wilson went in with you, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler. Amnesia about an accident is normal, but not a guarantee. She might awaken and remember everything, and if she doesn’t see him nearby..."

"Understood, doctor," Mr. Wheeler agreed. "Besides, he deserves to be there too, if only because he’s been beating himself up over this situation." He took the handles on Dennis’ wheelchair and pushed him into Honey’s room.

The pretty honey-blonde girl didn’t look quite so pretty with all the tubes and wires protruding from under her gown. Her eyes were bruised, and there were bruises running down her right side under the blankets. She moaned slightly. Mr. Wheeler pushed Dennis over by the bed, and motioned for him to talk to Honey.

"Hi, Honey, how are you feeling?" he asked softly.

"I ... hurt all ... over. What happened?" she asked thickly, not opening her eyes yet.

"You were in an auto accident. The car hit a tree, and the side air bags saved your life. They had to go in a fix a few things, though, which is why you can’t move your right arm or leg right now."

"Oh, okay." She finally opened her eyes, and focused on Dennis with some obvious difficulty. "Something ... else I’ve ... got a question ... about," she said slowly, trying hard to find the right words.

"Go ahead. If I can answer it, I will."

"You ... you should ... be able ... to," she slurred very slightly. "Who are you?"id="Layer 1">


Beatrix "Trixie" Belden, Mart Belden, Brian Belden, Dan Mangan, Diana Lynch, Mr. and Mrs. Lynch, Matthew and Madeleine E. Wheeler, Mr. and Mrs. Belden, and Madeleine G. Wheeler copyright Random House

David "Galadrion" Adrian, Shirh Khan (Kaye), Clint "Concolor" McInnes, Evan "Cateagle" Mayerle, Mike "Old Gray Raccoon" Regan, Dorothy "Catspaw" McComb, Keith "FawkesFyre" McComb, MeJeep are used with permission, and are copyright and trademark their parents.

Any others not so mentioned are copyright 2003-2004 Keith E. McComb

Any resemblence to other people, living or dead, or situations is purely coincidental, and no harm is intended.


 PrologueChapter 2

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Author Notes:

The plot thickens - what's Honey afraid of?