This story is my submission for my first Jixemitri
Anniversary. I’ve had the time of my
life here at Jix, and I seriously feel welcome here. It’s not just Cathy that keeps me coming back; it is everyone who
has made this place a great escape from life’s troubles. The world of Trixie Belden isn’t fictional
anymore, once you’ve met Trixie Friends, spent all night chatting with fellow
insomniacs, and dive right into the fan-fiction. If it weren’t for a few encouraging words from fellow authors, I
don’t think I would have ever taken a stab at it.
Thanks, Mary, for introducing me to Jix in the first place. For the first time in my life, I was shy and hesitant to delurk, but you were right. It really is a great place to be.
Dedicated to my husband. He keeps me strong and encourages me to keep my chin up when life
turns sour. What I go through, he goes
through. He is just invaluable to me,
and I love him dearly.
Dedicated to friends and family. Without you, I think I would probably lose
my bearings and slip into insanity…and never come out. All of you listen to my rants when you certainly
don’t need to. Sometimes I think you
must have better things to do, like scratching your eyes out, but you always
seem to pull me out of my funky moods.
How you manage to keep my head up above water when I feel like I’m
sinking fast is beyond me. Thanks.
A big thank-you goes to Susan for proof
reading. Not much hair being pulled out
this time… J
For anyone curious about where this fits in my timeline,
this is right before “Times and Changes”.
Emily and her family aren’t in the picture yet.
Holp!
Holp me if you can I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being ’round
Eleven-year-old
Bobby Belden watched the golden, fiery sun sink behind the trees from the dock
at the lake. Larry and Terry Lynch, the
twin neighbor boys, sat on each side of him, dangling their feet in the
water. Summer vacation was drawing to a
close, and school would soon be starting.
All three boys were going to be in sixth grade.
“What do you think
this year is going to be like?” Larry asked.
“I don’t know,”
Bobby answered. “I guess I haven’t
given it much thought.”
“Do you think girls
will actually talk to us?” Larry asked again.
“Of course they’ll
talk to us,” his twin brother replied.
“Well, they’ll talk to me at least.
I can’t speak for you two.”
Bobby splashed the
water a bit with his foot. “I’m kind of
nervous about going to a new school this year.
I tried to talk to Brian, Mart and Trixie about it, but they just seemed
so preoccupied with their college plans to even think about anything else.”
“It’s kind of
scary, isn’t it?” Terry asked. “I hope
I don’t get lost.”
The three boys
remained silent for a little bit, their surroundings growing dim. Golden rays reflected off of Bobby’s tanned
skin and glistened off his blond curly locks.
He resembled his mother and his two older siblings, Trixie and
Mart. The Lynch boys had jet-black hair
and tan skin, resembling their father, Franklin Lynch. With their dark hair and dark complexion,
they were almost hidden in the shadows.
“I wonder what it
must’ve been like for them to go to junior high,” Bobby said, speaking of all
three of his older siblings. “I hardly
remember, because I was five when Trixie started junior high.”
Larry and Terry
nodded in understanding. They had an
older sister, Diana, who was the same age as Trixie.
“Well, I’ve decided
that I’m not worrying about it,” Terry said.
“Miss Williams said that we would receive letters the week before school
starts with instructions, because we’re all supposed to meet somewhere for
orientation or something like that.”
“I guess you’re
right,” Bobby said.
The three boys were
quiet for a few more minutes.
“I’m hungry. Anyone for some hamburgers?” Bobby
asked. “Moms told me to invite you guys
down after we’re done swimming.”
“Sure,” Larry said,
getting up. “Your mom makes the best
hamburgers.”
“Yeah,” Terry
agreed. “Better than Wimpy’s.”
They put on their
shoes and t-shirts. On their way back
to Crabapple Farm, they met up with Larry and Terry’s younger twin sisters
riding their bikes. Like their
brothers, they had jet-black hair, but they resembled their mother and older
sister and had fair skin.
“Where do you think
you’re going?” Cindy asked her brothers, balancing herself with one foot.
“Yeah,” Mindy
chimed in.
Larry stuck out his
chest. “What’s it to you?”
Cindy stuck her
tongue out. “It’s getting dark and
Mummy wants all of us home by now.”
“They were just
coming over for hamburgers,” Bobby explained.
“We’d invite you, but no girls are allowed.”
“Yeah?” Cindy
asked. “Then what about Mrs.
Belden? She’s a girl!”
“That’s different,”
Bobby said. “She’s my mom, and
she’s making the hamburgers so she can stay.”
“Did Mummy say you
guys could?” Mindy challenged.
Larry put his hands
on his hips. “Yes, Mummy said we
could, because Mrs. B. invited us. So,
there.”
“Hey, Cindy,” Bobby
said, sticking his hand in his pocket.
“Wanna see my pet frog?”
“No! I don’t want to see it,” she seethed. “Frogs are gross! Just like boys!”
“Yeah,” Mindy
chimed in. “Just like boys.”
Bobby laughed. “If you girls don’t go away, I’ll
show him to you!”
“EWWWWW!” Cindy
screamed and hurriedly peddled away on her bike. Mindy followed.
Larry and Terry
doubled over with laughter as Bobby turned to head back to Crabapple Farm. “You had a frog in your pocket and you
didn’t tell us?” Larry asked, laughing.
“No,” Bobby said,
grinning. “I’m just good at bluffing.” He shut his eyes and gestured to
himself. “You see, in this family,
Brian is the one who could set any broken leg before you can say impacted
fracture, Mart is the one who was born with a natural knack for etymology,
and Trixie is the one who can have any mystery solved before you can even think
of Sandy Slew, but I’m the one who ended up with the poker
face. I perfected the ‘who me?’
innocent look.”
Larry laughed. “Girls are gross anyway.”
“Some girls,” Bobby
corrected, opening the back door. It would
take torture of the medieval kind for a million years before he would ever
admit to his friends that out of all the girls not related to him, there was
only one who wasn’t gross. That girl
would be Honey Wheeler, his oldest brother’s girlfriend.
Bobby stayed up
later than usual that night, reading the last chapter of one of Mart’s Cosmo
McNaught books. As he finished, he
looked back at Mart’s name, written in cursive on the front endpaper: Martin J. Belden, Esquire. A small chuckle surfaced as he recalled
seeing that name on all the Cosmo McNaught books. ‘Esquire’ was not a part of Mart’s real name. Their dad read The Grady Boys when he
was young, but Mart never got into them.
He was always more on the scientific end of adventure, so when the Cosmo
series came out, Mart jumped in with both feet.
Even Trixie had her
favorite series: Lucy Radcliffe. Unlike Mart, she read hers over and over
again and even took them with her when she left for New York to go to school. Brian even joked that once she started her
detective agency with Honey, she might be able to write the books off on her
taxes as reference guides for her office.
Brian is going to
be a doctor. He has had this dream
since he was younger than me. Moms said
once that, ever since he was about four, Brian had always wanted to be a
doctor. Moms used to treat my scrapes
and cuts every time I fell down, or tumbled over a tree root. One day, Moms wasn’t around and Brian was
babysitting. He made me lay down on the
bed while he ‘operated’.
Mart wrote for
the school newspaper, but spent most of his time in the Chemistry lab. I even remember the first Science Olympiad
he ever participated in. He set up a
display demonstrating the atomic make up of different chemicals using painted
marshmallows. I remember it
specifically because I got to help him paint the marshmallows.
Trixie’s first
mystery involved Pandy and me. I lost
my panda bear when I was about four and she helped me find him. I had left him out in the sandbox but had
forgotten all about it. She did it like
a pro, and I was so glad to have him back.
If she can find criminals as good as she found Pandy, then she’ll make a
great detective.
Junior High is
going to be so different without them around.
I depended on them for support and assurance, and now they’re off to
other schools, pursuing their dreams.
But, where am I
in the grand scheme of things? Where do
I fit in?
Bobby leaned back
and stared at the cover of the book.
The illustration on the front of the book depicted Cosmo and his friend,
Leopold, peeking into the window of an old, abandoned space vessel.
Even Cosmo knew
what he wanted to do when he grew up.
He wanted to follow in his own father’s footsteps and lead the
Federation in exploring many different planetary systems.
What about
me? I don’t have to grow up to be a
Bank Manager, do I? Well, Brian, Trixie
and Mart sure didn’t think so.
Again, he studied
the cover of the book. He certainly did
have a definite like for all things science fiction. He watched several television shows that were based on space
exploration. Most of them seemed so
hokey and fake in comparison with Star Trek, though.
He remembered the
first episode he ever saw. It
captivated him more than any other hobby, or anything else he was ever
interested in. Captain Kirk was someone
he wished he could be: captain of his
ship.
Just what is my
ship? I have my whole life ahead of me,
and I don’t see anything. I have
command over very little, so it really doesn’t seem possible to do anything to
help myself decide.
Spaceships are
just something that are out of my reach.
Moms would just laugh if I told her I wanted to fly. It’s just a television show, after all. It’s not like this will ever happen, right?
Bobby slept soundly
that night without dreaming. He didn’t
tell anyone about his dreams of space travel, because they would just
laugh. It was something unobtainable
and unrealistic, and just something that was out of his league. Doctors, journalists, chemists, police officers,
actresses, and detectives were legitimate goals. Not space travel.
And now my life has changed in, oh, so many
ways
My independence seems to vanish in the haze
Sunday night marked
the close of the summer. School started
on Monday, and even though it was all going to be a new experience, a new
school and new teachers, he really didn’t want to get up the next morning and
face it.
As it grew dark
again, Bobby lagged behind at the Wheeler’s lake. He had always hoped that Brian would be there to give him the
reassuring pat on the back and tell him that everything would be all
right. For some reason, he had always
pictured this day with his older siblings and listen to them swap stories about
teachers, and some of the crazy antics that happened in school. Instead, he was alone. Mart would surely be able to give him advice
about his science classes and let him in on little secrets about the classes. Even Trixie would be able to give him advice
about her classes, but there was no such luck.
He would have to learn the ropes of Junior High himself.
“I can’t wait,” he
muttered to himself. There was no one
around to answer him. Larry and Terry
Lynch had gone on a last minute weekend trip with their parents, and wouldn’t be
back until late tonight.
“There you are,”
came a familiar voice behind him.
Bobby jumped and
whipped his blond, curly head around to see Regan standing down at the end of
the dock.
“Your mother was
worried,” he said, walking down the length of the dock to join the
eleven-year-old boy. “She thought you
were coming home at eight. It’s
nine-thirty.”
Bobby sighed. “Thanks, Regan,” he said, getting up.
“Take it easy,”
Regan said, taking a seat next to the boy.
“You’ve been here at the dock nearly every night for the last week. What’s on your mind?”
Bobby’s shoulders
slumped. “Didn’t you ever feel like you
were robbed of something?”
Regan’s smile faded
as he took in Bobby’s question. “I feel
I was robbed of plenty of things, Bobby.
I don’t think much of it, because time only moves forward. So, I don’t dwell on it too much.”
The younger boy
folded his hands and slouched his back.
“That’s what I feel like…robbed.”
Regan pulled his
knees up and dug the heels of his boots between the wooden slats of the dock. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Sometimes I wish I
were older.”
“Is this because
school starts tomorrow?”
Bobby
shrugged. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
Bobby glanced up at
the redheaded groom and then out across the lake. “If I had been just one year older, Regan, at least Trixie would
still be around. Not that I want to tag
along after her in school, but it would just be kind of…” Bobby’s voice trailed
off, as he couldn’t think of the proper word.
“Comforting?”
“Yeah.”
“And you feel
robbed of the fact that you won’t have anyone there to smile at you when you
arrive, to let you know that you’re in the right place.”
Bobby nodded.
“But, what about
Larry and Terry? Won’t they be there?”
He nodded
again. “They will, but what do they
know? They’ll be new, too.”
“They will, but
they’ll be by your side to help.”
Bobby looked down
at the dark water. The sun had fully
set, leaving their surroundings engulfed in dark shadows.
“Is that how Brian
and Jim were able to face college?
Alone?”
Regan shrugged. “From the way Jim talked about it a few
years ago, even though they signed up for different courses, they remained
roommates to stay close.”
“You mean to stay
friends?”
“They would always
be friends, regardless, but their friendship gives them the strength to keep
going.”
“They seem so
determined to do what they want that it seems as if they don’t really need each
other. Brian has always wanted to be a
doctor.”
“Not always,” Regan
corrected. “There was a point where
Brian was ready to give up on that dream.”
Bobby was
skeptical. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious. Honey told me about a confession he once
made to her and Trixie one night.
Remember how Brian collapsed during his birthday party about five years
ago?”
Bobby nodded. He remembered how scared he was that night
when the ambulance carried away his older brother. Brian’s face pale from the poison, and his body growing weak, he
had also grown irritable and had snapped at Bobby a few times. It was an incident that Bobby had learned to
put in the back of his memory.
“During that time,
he wasn’t feeling good. Aside from the
contaminated river water poisoning him, he was also hit with a small wave of
depression. He told the girls that he
was rethinking his plans for the future, and how he didn’t want to become a
doctor. After the incident, and he was
back home in bed, Trixie talked to him again.
He had changed his mind after he began to feel better again.”
Bobby was
floored. Brian not a doctor? It was almost unthinkable that something like
that would ever be a topic. The idea of
Brian not becoming a doctor was almost like saying that Trixie would forsake
her mysteries for a needle and thread.
Impossible.
“Sometimes I wonder
how they did it,” Bobby said. “How they
stuck together so much.”
Regan looked up at
the golden sunset that spread out against the August night sky. The orange and red looked like burning
flames, making the rest of the world outside the game preserve seem like it was
on fire.
“Their club was
based on loyalty. They would always be
loyal and treat each other as brothers and sisters. I have to admit, for a group of teens, they sure had their wits
about them as they formed that club, making that their number one rule.”
Bobby
shrugged. “I wanted to be a part of that
club. I wanted to be a Bob-White, too.”
“So did I,” Regan
said quietly.
Bobby was taken by
surprise. “Why? Why would you want to hang out with a bunch
of kids younger than you?”
“They were a nice
bunch of kids, but it’s not that I really wanted to hang out with them,
Bobby. I just wish I could have had a
club just like them when I was younger.”
Regan started to get up. “We’d better
get back or your mother will send out a searching posse for us.”
Bobby followed the
twenty-six-year old man down the dock.
“Regan,” he said, thoughtfully.
“What if Larry, Terry, and I have a club?”
Regan smiled. “I think that would be a great idea. Maybe you and the boys and Cindy and Mindy
could sort of band together and help me out once in a while with the horses.”
Bobby scrunched his
face. “I was thinking of more along the
lines of just Larry, Terry, and I.”
Regan raised his
eyebrows. “Well, I certainly thought
that they would like to be included in exercising the horses, Bobby. After all, if you’re going to take the
Bob-Whites’ places, you will have to exercise horses.”
Bobby’s face
remained scrunched. “Who says we have
to exercise the horses? That was never
a Bob-White rule.”
Regan laughed. “Well, they sure enjoyed doing it and not
one of them complained when I mentioned it.”
As they reached Crabapple Farm, he turned to face the eleven-year-old
boy. “It seemed like it was an unspoken
rule in the club that the horses needed exercise. Maybe I really was a Bob-White after all. You better get inside. Your mother is waiting for you.”
“I guess I’m in
trouble,” he said, opening the door. “I
didn’t realize it was getting so late.”
Regan smiled. “Well, all the more reason for you to get
inside and face the music. She
shouldn’t be too mad, though. I told
her not to worry because I knew just where you were.”
“Thanks, Regan,” he
said, and closed the screen door behind him.
Moms wasn’t happy
with Bobby for coming home late, but didn’t bawl him out too much. She didn’t want him to be any more nervous than
he already was for his first day at school tomorrow.
But every now and then I feel so insecure
Trixie Belden is property of Random House Publishing
Company and was used without permission.
I couldn’t sell this if I tried, so no profit coming in.
Cindy and Mindy Lynch are my given names for the
Lynch girls. They managed to make it
through 39 books without names.
Depending on cut-off dates for different school
districts, Bobby would actually be going into fifth grade. However, according to my incredibly
inaccurate and warped timeline, Bobby is eleven in August of 1967 and he is
going into the sixth grade. Different
school districts have different cut-off dates, so just go with it. J
Star Trek was created by Gene Roddenberry and used
without his family’s permission. Since
it was not used in a bad light, and I love the series, I feel it shouldn’t be a
problem.
Regan refers back to “The Hudson River Mystery –
The Rewrite” from the Cheddartrix Universe.
The events in that story slightly differ from the events in the actual
book.
“Sandy Slew” and “The Brady Boys” are takes on the popular detective series “Nancy Drew” and “The Hardy Boys”. No permission was granted from the responsible parties to use those series.
Cosmo McNaught’s friend, Leopold is my
creation. Cosmo McNaught and Lucy
Radcliffe, on the other hand, are not.
Song used:
“Help!” by The Beatles. No
permission granted to use the song, let alone change the title to say “Holp!”.
The science project of Mart’s is based on a class
project in sixth grade science. We
painted marshmallows different colors to represent different particles. By connecting the marshmallow particles with
toothpicks, we were able to show what makes up different elements on the
periodic table.