The Pet Show Mystery Read online

  “I’ll tell him you’re here,” the receptionist said.

  The pets and their owners continued to stare at the seven young people, none of whom had a pet. When the receptionist finally escorted them into Dr. Chang’s office, Trixie felt both relieved to get away and guilty for taking up someone else’s appointment time.

  “This won’t take long,” she assured him as she and her friends crowded into the office. She explained the pet show idea to Dr. Chang and soon had him nodding his enthusiasm.

  Honey explained the idea of enclosing fliers with his monthly statements, and the veterinarian nodded again. “You caught me just in time. Statements go out on the tenth, which is Friday. If you give me the fliers before that, I’ll be happy to include them.”

  “Now there’s just one more thing,” Trixie said. “We want you to judge the pet show.”

  Dr. Chang looked at Trixie through his thick, wire-rimmed glasses. “I already have half of Sleepyside angry with me because I tell them that their animals are overweight or not well groomed. Or I anger them by saying they should keep their dogs on leashes so I don’t have to stitch up cuts and gashes. If those judgments upset them, what will my judgments at the pet show do?”

  “Oh, but this isn’t that kind of pet show,” Honey said. “Roberts’s Trophy Shop is supplying us with lots of ribbons and trophies. Every animal that enters will get something, so their owners will all go home happy.”

  “All?” Dr. Chang asked.

  “All,” Mart said quickly. “We’ll have enough trophies for every animal. As the entries come in, we’ll figure out a winning category for each.”

  “All right,” Dr. Chang said. “I may live to regret this, but I’ll do it.”

  “Yippee!” Trixie shouted, and her friends chorused their thank-you’s.

  “We’re off to Sleepyside Mall now,” Jim said to Dr. Chang. “We’ll bring you the fliers by Friday.”

  Outside, Trixie sighed with relief. “Whew! For a minute there, I thought we’d hit our first real snag. I’m glad we managed to talk him into it.”

  “I’m afraid we may have said too much,” Brian said as he slid into the front seat of the station wagon next to Jim.

  “What do you mean?” Honey asked.

  “I mean that my outspoken younger brother promised Dr. Chang that we’d devise a separate category for each animal. That’s a lot of categories. Imagine sorting through all the entries to find the largest pet, then going through them again to find the smallest, and on and on, over and over again.”

  “Such lengthy labors will be unnecessary,” Mart said. “You see, yesterday in my computer programming class the teacher announced that we each have to come up with our own program. I’ve been wondering what mine would be. As soon as Honey mentioned all the prizes at the pet show, I realized that computerization was in order—indeed, indispensable. All we need to do is have each entrant fill out a detailed entry blank, with height, weight, type of animal, and special characteristics. I input the data into a program I’ve devised that will subsort by predefined categories. Then, the morning of the contest, I push a button, and it all prints out in a matter of seconds.”

  “Really?” Trixie asked, genuinely impressed. “The computer can do all that?”

  “The program can, if I write it that way,” Mart corrected her.

  “It’s hard to imagine,” Honey said.

  “Well, when the time comes, I’ll let you watch while I run the program,” Mart promised.

  When they arrived at the mall, everyone piled out of the car. Mart ran all the way to the main entrance, so he could get in out of the cold.

  “What did people do before there were indoor shopping malls?” Trixie wondered aloud, as she ran into the mall behind her brother.

  “They probably did a lot less shopping,” Brian replied.

  The mall was laid out like the letter I. The top and bottom of the I, each four stories high, were Sleepyside’s two big department stores. The two-story center area that connected them was lined with smaller stores, each with its own specialty: cheeses, candles, jewelry, fabrics, sports equipment.

  The Bob-Whites quickly fanned out to accomplish as much as possible in a short time.

  Within a half hour, they were gathered around a table in the snack bar, soft drinks in hand, toasting the success of their efforts.

  “We can have the sign-up table right outside the pet store,” Jim said.

  “The owner promised to have plenty of cracked corn on hand,” Mart added, “as well as instructions on the care and feeding of game birds, so people will know just what to do.”

  “And we have spots reserved for twenty posters,” Trixie reported. “I think the pet show is going to be the Bob-Whites’ most successful event yet.”

  Over the next couple of days, the truth of Trixie’s prediction became clear. On Thursday afternoon, Nick Roberts presented Trixie with a stack of posters that delighted her. The stick-figure dog she’d drawn had turned into a beautiful, intelligent-looking retriever. Nick had even managed to put a wag into the dog’s tail. And the tiny quail was so adorable and fragile-looking that it seemed to say, “Feed me.”

  “Oh, Nick, thank you!” Trixie said.

  “Thank you,” Nick replied. “It’s nice to feel that I’m helping you and your friends for a change, instead of the other way around.” Trixie took the posters directly to the school office. It was a strict policy at Sleepyside Junior-Senior High School that all posters had to be initialed by Miss von Trammel, the school secretary. The procedure itself was easy. Miss von Trammel always smiled, admired the artistry of the posters—whether it was admirable or not—and quickly initialed each one.

  At least, that’s what Trixie had always known her to do in the past. And that’s what she seemed about to do this time. Then, suddenly, she froze, holding her pen motionless a couple of inches above the top poster.

  “Dr. Chang.” Miss von Trammel almost spit out the words.

  “Yes,” Trixie said. “He’s our judge!”

  “That—that quack!” Miss von Trammel said angrily. “He’s no judge of animals. He shouldn’t even be allowed near them!”

  “W-what?” Trixie stammered, bewildered. “But he’s—he’s a veterinarian.”

  “He’s a quack,” Miss von Trammel repeated.

  Still the pen remained unmoving above the stack of posters. For a moment, Trixie wondered if the secretary would refuse to initial them.

  At last, Miss von Trammel brought the pen down on the first poster—with almost a stabbing motion—and signed it, then the next, then the next.

  Trixie stood watching, wondering what she should say. When the initialing was completed, she settled for a quick thank-you. Then she grabbed the posters and hurried out of the school office.

  “It was totally unlike her,” Trixie told Honey after school as the two of them made the rounds of the hallways, putting up the posters. “What could there be about Dr. Chang to make her react so violently?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t like him because he’s Oriental,” Honey speculated as she tore off a strip of masking tape, turned it into a loop, and mounted it on the back of a poster.

  “Ugh—you don’t really think that’s it, do you?” Trixie said as she put the poster up against the wall and smoothed it down.

  “No, come to think of it, I don’t. We have people of many different races here at school. I’ve never seen Miss von Trammel seem rude or unfriendly to any of them.”

  “It’s pretty mysterious,” Trixie said as she picked up the stack of posters and headed on down the hall.

  “Ah-ah-ah!” Honey warned. “No mysteries this time, remember?”

  “You’re right again,” Trixie agreed. “Much as I love a mystery, there’s no time to investigate one now. The pet show is our number-one-and-only priority.”

  4 * The Angry Young Man

  TRIXIE FOUND it easy to keep her pledge, for the pet show took up all of her time. On Friday, the Bob-Whites had their first sign-
up at school. Honey, Trixie, and Di agreed to handle that chore. The table was mobbed with eager students for two solid hours, making the girls wish the boys were there, too.

  “I had no idea so many people were pet lovers-,” Honey said.

  “I had no idea so many people were dying of boredom this winter,” Trixie replied. “I think that has as much to do with it as anything. If we’d let them sign up to watch paint dry in the auditorium one whole Saturday afternoon, I think we’d have gotten nearly as many entrants.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far,” said one of the boys who was filling out an entry blank. “But if it was a sunny Saturday in June, I probably wouldn’t be entering my brother’s hamster in a pet show, either!” Grinning, he thrust his entry blank and two dollars at Trixie. “Houdini?” Trixie read in surprise.

  “My brother named him that the third time he wriggled out of his cage. He’s a great escape artist, get it?” the boy said.

  “I get it, but I wish I hadn’t. You’ll make sure Houdini doesn’t escape the day of the show, won’t you?” Trixie pleaded.

  “Sure, although if we spent the next couple of months chasing a hamster through the halls, it would make the winter go that much quicker.” Seeing Trixie’s face turn pale, he held up a soothing hand. “Just kidding,” he said. “See you at the show.”

  “Houdini the hamster,” Trixie muttered as he walked away. “At least that name makes sense, once it’s explained. But some of these others! Max the wonder dog. Veronica the cat.” Trixie shook her head in disbelief.

  “Nothing sensible, like Reddy or Patch, you mean?” Di teased.

  “Those names make perfect sense,” Trixie said. “Reddy is an Irish setter, so he’s red. Patch has brown and white patches. What else would you call them?”

  Di shrugged. “It’s the kinds of pets that I find hard to believe. I’d expected lots of cats and dogs, but we already have entries for parakeets, canaries, hamsters, guinea pigs, a ferret, two gerbils, and I don’t know what else.”

  “Here’s the entry for my python,” a rangy teenager said, handing the slip of paper to Di.

  Di reached for the entry form, then pulled her hand back fast. “A snake?” she asked, looking at the entry as if the piece of paper itself might be coiled to strike.

  “Scott Hopper, I don’t believe you for a moment,” Trixie said, pulling the paper out of his hand. She read what he had printed on it: “ ‘Ed, an orange tabby cat.’ ” Di took the entry gingerly, then sighed with relief as she read it and realized that Trixie was telling the truth, while Scott had been teasing.

  “Like you said, it’s been a boring winter,” Scott told the girls with a grin. “I just wanted to liven things up a little bit.” He handed over his two dollars and walked away.

  “That was a close call,” Honey said. “But what if somebody does try to enter a snake?”

  “We have to let them enter,” Trixie said. “We didn’t say ‘no snakes’ on the poster.”

  Trixie’s mind was taken off snakes when she spotted someone standing in the hallway a short distance from their table. She nudged Honey and whispered, “Look over there.”

  “Norma Nelson,” Honey said. “She must be about ready to go feed the birds—she’s dressed for it, anyway.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Trixie said. “But this is the third time I’ve looked up and seen her.”

  “You mean she just keeps standing there?” Honey asked.

  Trixie shook her head. “She leaves and comes back, I think. I’ve looked up a few times and she hasn’t been there.”

  “Maybe she’s the forgetful type,” Di said. “Sometimes I have to go back to my locker three times before I get everything I need.”

  “Maybe,” Trixie said reluctantly. “But there’s something kind of creepy about the way she’s standing there.”

  “Oooh, don’t say ‘creepy,’ ” Di said, hugging herself and shuddering. “You’re making me think of snakes again. This pet show just isn’t as much fun as it used to be.”

  By the next day, though, Di found it hard to maintain her pessimistic attitude. At the end of the first hour she spent at the sign-up table at Sleepyside Mall, her eyes were sparkling. “At school, it was the pets that seemed funny,” she whispered to Trixie. “Here, it’s the owners!

  Trixie nodded her agreement. She handed an entry blank to a middle-aged couple who were decked out in matching snowmobile suits. “Dr. Chang was right,” she whispered back. “People do take their pets seriously. That’s what seems so funny.”

  As if to illustrate Trixie’s point, the woman looked up from the entry blank and said, “This competition won’t be too strenuous, will it? Our Samantha is a very intelligent cat, but she isn’t overly physical, if you know what I mean.”

  Struggling to keep a straight face, Trixie answered, “No, ma’am. The animals don’t really need to do anything, except be there. Intelligence counts every bit as much as, uh, physique in this show.”

  “Well, then, Ward, we certainly want to enter Samantha,” the woman said. Her husband nodded, and the woman filled out the entry blank and handed it back to Trixie with their two dollars.

  When they had left, Trixie said, “Well, the grown-ups in Sleepyside are sillier about their pets than the teenagers are. I’d say they’re just as bored with winter, though, judging from the activity we’ve had today.”

  “The pet show is bound to be a success, all right,” Di agreed.

  “It will be successful in every way,” Honey added. “I’ve seen several people go inside the pet shop after we’ve talked to them and come out with sacks of cracked corn. So we’re helping the game birds already!”

  “So you’re helping the game birds.” The mocking voice made the three girls look up with a start. A thin, bearded young man was standing in front of their table. Unlike most of the people at the mall, he was wearing a thin, woolen jacket, not a thick, down-filled one. He was bare-headed, and there were no bulges in his pockets from heavy gloves. “The birds will be fed this winter. Isn’t that just wonderful.”

  “We think it is,” Trixie said.

  “Sure, it is,” the young man said in the same sarcastic way. “Let’s be sure we save the birds, the adorable little birds. Let’s not worry about all the people in the world who are starving. They aren’t cute. They don’t sing pretty for the folks here in Sleepyside. So it’s no point seeing that they get fed.”

  “That’s not true,” Trixie said, her temper flaring. “We have raised money for people. We do think people are important. We just happen to be helping the birds this time, that’s all.”

  “You’ve done your bit for people, have you? Is that what you’re trying to say?” the young man retorted.

  “That’s not it at all,” Honey said. “We haven’t done enough for people. I mean, not all we’re ever going to do. We’ll do more someday, but— Oh, what’s the use of talking to you?”

  “None at all,” said another voice.

  The girls turned to see a middle-aged man approaching the table. He was as distinguished-looking as the younger man was scruffy. His charcoal-gray topcoat made his curly white hair seem almost radiant. He held his hat politely in his hands. “He won’t listen to you, no matter how long or how hard you try to talk to him. His sort are interested in finding problems, not in solving them,” the older man said.

  “You call this a solution?” the young man said. With a wave of his arm, he dismissed the girls, the sign-up table, the entry blanks, and the posters.

  “I call it a good start,” the older man said calmly. “If you don’t like it, why don’t you go off somewhere and see if you can come up with something better?”

  The young man opened his mouth to make another sarcastic retort. Something in his confronter’s calm but determined gaze seemed to stop him. Without another word, he turned and strode angrily away from the table.

  “Whew! I guess that’s what they call an angry young man!” Trixie said.

  “You handled hi
m beautifully,” Honey said. “We would have sat here all day, trying to defend ourselves.”

  “Don’t ever feel you need to defend yourself from blowhards like that,” the older man said. His voice was soft and calm, but the gleam in his eyes showed the intensity of his feelings. “If he really cared about others, he’d find a way to help—as you girls have. Instead, he pretends to care about others as a way of calling attention to himself.”

  “I’d never thought of it that way, but I think you’re right,” Trixie said.

  “I know I am. Now, may I make a donation to your cause, just in case the young rebel frightened away some potential donors?” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a large leather wallet.

  “Well, you don’t really donate,” Trixie explained. “You pay a fee for entering your pet in the pet show, and that’s how we raise money.” The man put his head back and laughed loudly. “My pets are two very aged and placid cocker spaniels. Their show days are long past. I’m sure that they would prefer it if I just gave you some money and let them stay home.”

  “I can understand that,” Trixie said, grinning at him. “My dog will be staying home the day of the contest, too, but not because he’s placid. In fact, he’s so energetic he’d probably destroy the gym.”

  The man had taken a bill out of his wallet.

  As Trixie spoke, he took out another one. “In that case,” he said, “let me make a contribution in your dogs name, as well.” He handed over the money, nodded to the girls, and walked away.

  “There’s forty dollars here!” Trixie gasped. “Two twenty-dollar bills. See?”

  “That’s as much money as twenty entries in the show!” Honey exclaimed.

  “What a wonderful man!” Di said.

  Trixie nodded, then she said thoughtfully, “We actually owe this forty dollars to that loud-mouthed man who attracted the nice man to our table.” She broke into a grin. “If you don’t mind, though, I’m not going to go track him down to thank him.”