The Mystery of the Memorial Day Fire Read online

  “You’re right, Honey and Brian. I’m sorry.” That was all Trixie had time to say, and even that short apology had to be shouted over the rattle of snare drums and the blare of cornets. The first of the marching bands was approaching the spot where the Bob-Whites were standing. The Memorial Day parade had really begun!

  The band stopped right in front of Trixie and her friends to do a close-order drill that had them applauding. The band moved on, and a motorcyle drill team moved forward, doing such close figure eights that the handlebars of the big machines almost touched the ground.

  After that came a group of clowns with colorful costumes and painted faces. The clowns tossed handfuls of candy into the crowd as they walked.

  Forgetting their status as teenagers, the Bob-Whites jumped and scrambled for the candy. Trixie caught a root-beer barrel, which she immediately unwrapped and popped into her mouth — just in time to see Honey give the candy she’d caught to a small boy standing nearby.

  Oh, woe, she thought. Honey just finished being more understanding than I was about Jane Dix-Strauss, and now she’s being more generous. When will 1 learn?

  Trixie’s moment of regret was brief, though, because next in the parade were the Arabian horses. Honey and Trixie both loved horses and riding almost as much as they loved solving mysteries.

  The Arabians — white, brown, and black — went by with prancing feet and plumelike tails. The silk tassels of their halters sparkled under the streetlights. The riders, in flowing robes of bright-colored satin, sat proudly on their mounts and waved at the crowd.

  Trixie turned to follow the horses with her eyes until they were lost from sight. Then she turned back to watch the rest of the parade. If this year was like other years, it was no more than half over.

  Suddenly, another bright light exploded in front of Trixie’s eyes. Startled, she thought confusedly that another flash had gone off nearby.

  But that thought only lasted a moment. The ball of orange flame was too huge to be a flash. The deafening boom that came with it told the real story.

  Somewhere off Main Street, something had just exploded!

  2 * Retreat to Crabapple Farm

  AFTER THE EXPLOSION, there were one or two seconds of what seemed to Trixie to be the deepest, stillest silence she’d ever heard — as though her heart itself had stopped beating.

  Then, all at the same time, a dozen different noises began. Small children began to cry and older ones shrilled, “What was that? What made that noise?” Adults were asking one another the same question, and their voices added to the din.

  Trixie could hear the terrified whinnying of horses down the street. She felt grateful that the horses were as far away as they were from the explosion, and that they were headed in the opposite direction.

  Amid the commotion, Trixie suddenly realized that she could still hear the faint music of a marching band. Some valiant group was trying to carry on, in spite of the uproar. Even as she became aware of the music, though, it came to a ragged halt as one musician after another admitted defeat - or gave in to panic.

  “What was it? What happened?” Honey asked in a hoarse whisper, as if she were reluctant to add any more to the noise around her.

  Trixie had been so busy trying to get her bearings in the crowd that she’d almost forgotten the explosion itself. At Honey’s question, she looked again in the direction from which the ball of fire and the deafening boom had come. As she looked, it seemed to her that she could still see a reddish glow in the darkening evening sky. She blinked her eyes and shook her head, wondering if the explosion had left a spot in front of her eyes just as Jane Dix-Strauss’s flash had earlier.

  Trixie opened her eyes and looked again. There was no doubt about it — the glow really was there. “Something exploded, Honey,” Trixie said. “And now that something is on fire.”

  Although Honey, too, must have realized what had happened, hearing Trixie say it seemed to make it real for her. “Oh, no!” she moaned.

  Trixie linked her arm through Honey’s and leaned close to her, getting as well as giving support. She stood still, barely breathing, watching as the red glow grew brighter and listening to the excited, frightened hubbub of the crowd.

  Then another noise was added — the cycling wail of the fire truck. Trixie breathed a sigh of relief when she recognized the sound, knowing that help was on the way. She stopped in midbreath, though, when she realized that the wail of the truck had suddenly ceased to grow louder.

  “Oh, no!” Trixie echoed Honey’s moan. Sleepy-side’s only fire station was on the opposite side of Main Street from the fire. The whole crowd of panicky, confused parade watchers stood in the way. The truck could not possibly get through!

  Trixie stood frozen, looking from the red glow in the sky to the red cab of the fire truck, which she could see above the crowd. She looked from the truck back to the glow as if somehow, through sheer force of will, she could bring the two closer together.

  She was roused from those useless, helpless thoughts by a rough hand on her shoulder. “Head for the car, Trixie,” Brian Belden said to her. When his sister just looked at him dazedly, Brian repeated, “Go to the car, Trixie. Now! Move it!”

  Trixie made her knees bend and her feet move through another effort of willpower. Honey, her arm still linked with Trixie’s, moved along with her friend.

  The action of her body cleared Trixie’s mind, and she became really aware of the crowd for the first time since the explosion. There was fear on the faces of those around her, but there was also excitement, and most of the people she saw were heading toward the fire. That would only make the situation worse, she realized — as Brian had realized even sooner.

  “Let’s go,” Dan said firmly. He had grasped Di’s arm and pulled her, too, away from the confusion and toward the Bob-Whites’ station wagon, which was parked several blocks from Main Street.

  The four young people walked quickly, heads down. It was only after they’d gone almost a block that Trixie realized the other boys weren’t with them.

  She turned to look back and saw that Jim, Mart, and Brian were headed their way, but working slowly through the crowd, pleading with the spectators to clear the way. A few people, but not many, were responding to the boys’ requests.

  Trixie thought briefly of turning back to help her brothers and Jim. Then she decided that that would only make matters worse, starting a movement of people back toward the fire instead of away from it. She turned again toward the car and quickened her steps.

  Trixie had never been so glad to see the station wagon with “Bob-Whites of the Glen” painted on the side. Her fear had grown in the moments since she had left Main Street. When she finally reached the car, her knees turned to jelly and she sat down abruptly on the curb.

  Di Lynch suddenly burst into tears and stood sobbing softly against Dan Mangan’s shoulder. Honey climbed into the car and sat, her back turned to Main Street and the fire, as if trying to block the whole thing from her mind.

  Soon Jim and the two Beldens arrived at the station wagon. Jim climbed in behind the wheel and started the car. Mart, Brian, Dan, Di, and Trixie got in, and everyone rode to the Beldens’ Crabapple Farm in silence.

  Even after Jim had driven up the long drive and was parked next to the house, no one moved and no one spoke. Mart finally broke the silence when he yanked the door handle viciously and blurted, “Imbecilic pyrophiles!”

  “You can say that again,” Jim responded, shoving the gearshift lever into Park. He thumped the steering wheel with the heel of his hand for good measure. “Why won’t people clear out at times like that?”

  “Clear out?” Brian hooted. “What few people weren’t on Main Street for the parade will turn out now that there’s a fire to watch.”

  Trixie felt as awed by these bursts of temper as she had earlier by the burst of flame. A show of temper from Mart was no rarity, granted. But Brian Belden was almost always cool and calm. Jim Frayne had a temper that went with his red hair,
but it took an awful lot to get him to show it.

  She was quickly distracted from the boys’ anger, though, as she crawled out of the station wagon and realized that it was the only vehicle in the driveway. “Moms and Dad and Bobby aren’t home yet!” she exclaimed, a feeling of panic clutching at her stomach. She knew there was nothing to fear, really. Her parents and younger brother would have been standing on Main Street, watching the parade; the explosion had happened somewhere off Main Street. But still “Here they come,” Brian said, pointing at the maroon sedan that was coming down Glen Road. His voice sounded more relieved than reassuring, as though he, too, had felt a moment of fear.

  The younger Beldens went into the comfortable old farmhouse, and their friends followed. There was no formal invitation given or asked for. Everyone realized they’d rather be together for a while.

  Trixie went directly to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out a carton of milk. “I don’t care if it’s supposed to be spring,” she said. “This whole thing has chilled me to the bone. I’m going to make some hot chocolate and melt about a million marshmallows in it.”

  “Oh, that sounds wonderful,” Honey said gratefully. “Let me help you.”

  “Me, too,” Di said.

  “We’d better go call our parents first,” Jim said. “News of the explosion might already be on the radio. They might be worried.”

  “Speaking of the radio,” said Brian, “I’ll tune in WSTH and see if there’s any news.”

  “I’ll help with the hot chocolate, Trixie,” Dan said. “Honey and Jim will make sure my uncle knows I’m all right, and Mr. Maypenny won’t know about the fire unless it’s written up in next year’s Farmer’s Almanac.”

  In spite of herself, Trixie had to giggle at Dan’s statement. Mr. Maypenny was the gamekeeper for the Wheeler game preserve. Dan lived with and worked for the old man, whose tiny, rustic cabin had no radio or television. Mr. Maypenny thought newspapers and magazines caused people unnecessary worry, so he was unlikely to hear about the fire very soon.

  Before she could reply to Dan, the back door burst open and Bobby Belden charged into the kitchen. “Something exploded, Trixie. Didja hear it, didja?” Not waiting for his sister’s reply, Bobby gave his impression of the noise: “ Ka-boom! That was what it sounded like, Trixie. Ka-boom! And then there was a big red light, way up high in the sky. And I said to Moms, ‘You said this was Memorial Day, but Memorial Day isn’t when they have big lights in the sky. That’s the Fourth of July!’ Isn’t that right, Trixie?”

  Trixie gave Dan a bewildered look over her younger brother’s head. As always, Bobby’s statements had a logic all their own. It was hard to know where to start trying to explain to Bobby what had happened.

  Dan scooped the little boy up into his arms. “You’re right, Bobby. They do have big lights in the sky on the Fourth of July. Those big lights are called fireworks, and they’re on purpose. The big light we saw tonight was an accident. It wasn’t part of Memorial Day. It just happened.”

  Bobby listened to the explanation solemnly. “Oh,” he said. “Thanks for explaining, Dan.” He wriggled out of Dan’s arms and ran into the living room. “Something exploded, Brian,” he shouted. “Didja hear it?”

  Peter and Helen Belden were astonished when they walked into the kitchen a moment later and saw Trixie and Dan holding their stomachs, doubled over with hysterical laughter.

  “Well,” Peter Belden said, “I’m glad to see that you young people weren’t too terribly frightened by the explosion.”

  “Oh, Daddy, we were,” Trixie gasped through her giggles. “Really — I’m not — I’m not kidding. I think that’s — that’s why I’m 1-laughing so h-hard right now.”

  “Let me guess,” Helen Belden said. “Bobby ran in and gave you his Fourth of July speech.”

  Her mother’s thoroughly accurate guess sent Trixie into another fit of giggling. “N-not only that, Moms. After Dan patiently explained the whole thing, Bobby ran off into the living room and started the whole thing over with Brian!”

  Mrs. Belden nodded, smiling. “That’s how children learn,” she said. “The harder something is to understand, the more repetitions they need before they can grasp it.”

  Peter Belden shook his head, his dark eyes somber. “What happened tonight is hard even for me to grasp. I shouldn’t wonder that it would take some time for Bobby to understand it.” The serious look on his face was so much like the one his oldest son had been wearing a few minutes earlier that Trixie was struck again by how much Brian and his father looked alike. Both had dark eyes and dark, wavy hair. Both had a steady calmness.

  “It was a horrible thing to happen,” Mrs. Belden said. “It was the first time I can ever remember that the Memorial Day parade was stopped.” Automatically, Helen Belden got out a plate and piled it with cookies from the cookie jar. Then she took out a tray and set out cups for the hot chocolate. Trixie noted with a grin that her mother had put out exactly the right number of cups, too — without even asking how many guests were in the house.

  Trixie poured the chocolate, then Dan carried the tray into the living room while she followed with the plate of cookies.

  Mart Belden fell upon the food eagerly, as always. “Ah, sustenance!” he exclaimed. “Succor!”

  “These aren’t suckers, Mart. They’re cookies,” Bobby said sternly.

  “Delicious cookies they are, too, Mrs. Belden,” Jim said, having picked up a cookie and a cup of cocoa on his way back from the telephone. “I don’t know whether even these are enough to make me forget how stupidly people were behaving tonight, though.”

  Helen Belden’s usually serene features suddenly looked stern. “I know exactly what you mean, Jim,” she said. “We were standing right at the curb when the explosion happened, and we actually had to fight our way through the crowd to get away. Everyone else was headed toward the fire!”

  “It’s positively ghoulish!” Trixie said with a shudder.

  “Not entirely,” Mr. Belden said. “I agree with you that not clearing the way for the fire fighters is not very bright. I don’t think that people mean any harm by it, though. I don’t even think they flock toward the fire because they enjoy fires. I think it’s more an attempt to take it all in, to understand it somehow. Some people,” he added with a pointed look at Bobby, “do that by asking the same question over and over again. Other people do it by staying where they shouldn’t be, hoping to look and listen long enough for it all to make sense.” There was a moment of silence when Mr. Belden finished speaking. The silence was broken by

  Brian saying, “Thanks, Dad. I was feeling awfully angry until you said that. I’m glad you — ”

  Brian broke off as Mart, who was sitting closest to the radio, put his fingers to his lips and turned up the volume.

  “... further word on the explosion that occurred tonight in Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson during the Memorial Day parade,” the announcer was saying.

  “The blast took place at eight p.m., just as the Torchlight Parade was near its midpoint. The parade was the one hundred seventeenth annual event, and the first ever to fail to reach its natural conclusion.”

  “Oh, who cares about all that stuff?” Trixie said impatiently. “Just tell us where the fire was and what caused it and whether anyone was hurt!”

  “... no word yet on the cause of the explosion, which originated in the four-hundred block of West Second Street, just two blocks from the parade route. There is no word yet on whether the buildings involved in the explosion and subsequent fire were occupied.

  “It is known, however, that the two buildings were a store and a warehouse, neither of which would normally be occupied in the evening.

  “Efforts of fire fighters to put out the blaze were hampered by the throngs of spectators who — ”

  The announcer’s account of the fire ceased abruptly as Mart turned the radio off. “We don’t need to hear any more about the rudeness of the spectators. We got to see it for ourselves.”


  “It’s lucky the explosion happened tonight,” Honey said. “I mean, it’s not lucky that the explosion happened, of course. And it’s not lucky that all those people were on Main Street. But it is lucky they were on Main Street because then they couldn’t be anywhere else. I mean, they couldn’t be where the explosion was. You know what I mean,” she concluded lamely.

  “I know what you mean,” Trixie said. “There are never any shops open in Sleepyside during the parade because there aren’t any people around. Well, that is, there are lots of people around, but there aren’t any people around shopping. Oh, woe. I know what Honey means. Now does anybody know what I mean?”

  “I think you both mean that chances are nobody was hurt in the explosion or fire,” Jim said. “I hope you’re right. But there are bound to be some businesses hurt, and that hurts people who own them and work in them.”

  “Businesses!” Trixie exclaimed. “Gleeps!” She jumped up and ran out of the room, leaving a bewildered group of people watching her. Moments later she was back, the phone book open and balanced on the palm of one hand. “‘Four thirty-one West Second Street,’” she read. She slammed the book shut and, with a look of despair, she said, “That’s the address of Nick Roberts’s father’s shop!”

  “Oh, no!” Honey Wheeler groaned.

  3 * A Meeting of the Bob-Whites

  “OH, NO!” Trixie shouted the next morning when she sat down at the breakfast table and saw the front page of the Sleepyside Sun.

  The newspaper’s headline was “Explosion Wrecks Parade.” Under the headline, the entire top half of the paper was devoted to two pictures. On the left, the seven Bob-Whites smiled happily over the caption “Before.” On the right, captioned “After,” a milling, bewildered crowd blocked the fire truck.

  Below the two pictures, a long story, written by Jane Dix-Strauss, told about the explosion and fire, and about the parade goers’ interference with attempts to get to the fire.