The Mystery off Old Telegraph Road

a more appropriate pose in which to draw Trixie Belden.”
    The sketch Nick had drawn was one of Trixie, biting her lower lip and looking contrite, and Sergeant Molinson, towering over her and looking stern.
    “It’s perfectly perfect!” Honey said. “You haven’t known any of us for very long, Nick, but when you have, you’ll know that that’s a pose that Trixie seems to find herself in fairly often.”
    “Too often,” Trixie admitted. “I’m going to hang this picture in my room and stare at it for thirty minutes every day, to remind myself of what happens when I don’t listen to Sergeant Molinson’s advice.”
    “I’m glad you can find a use for this sketch,” Nick said. “Someday, though, I’d like to do a really nice drawing of you. I owe you a piece of artwork, remember? After all, I tore one of your posters up.”
    “I remember,” Trixie said. “I understand, now, why you did it. You were upset because you couldn’t disobey your father and feeling guilty because you couldn’t explain to me why you wouldn’t help at the bikeathon. When you saw that poster, your feelings just boiled over—the way mine often do. You don’t owe me a portrait because of that, though, Nick.”
    “Well, if Trixie doesn’t want it, I do,” Jim said. “I plan to hold you to your promise of drawing a really nice portrait of her, Nick.”
    While the laughter and conversation bubbled around them, Trixie and Honey walked over to the Bob-Whites’ bicycles, which Tom Delanoy had brought over earlier that afternoon. The Bob-Whites had decided that they would lead the way on the last leg of the bikeathon, back to Sleepyside and the end of the route. Soon it would be time to go.
    “It all worked out so well, Trixie,” Honey said. “We raised a lot of money for the art department, caught the counterfeiters, and made a new friend in the process.”
    “We made two new friends, Honey,” Trixie reminded her, looking toward the spot where Ben Riker stood, talking with a group of cyclists. “Things couldn’t have worked out better.”
    “They certainly couldn’t have,” Dan Mangan said as he, along with the other Bob-Whites, joined the two girls.
    “We’d better get everybody back on the road,” Brian said, waving his arm to signal the other cyclists. “I’m ready to get home for a rest. It’s been a long day.”
    “We have the whole long, lazy summer coming up in which to rest,” Di said luxuriously.
    “The only way to achieve that dream,” Mart said, “would be to buy back your introduction to Trixie. You know she’s bound to get us into more scrapes before fall rolls around.”
    “I, for one, am willing to take that risk,” Jim said teasingly. “I have a feeling that the rest of you are, too. Come on, Bob-Whites! Let’s go!”