Notes for #37 The Pet Show Mystery © 1985
| Page # |
Quote |
| 10 |
Mrs. Belden: "Today
was your (Trixie) first day back at school after two weeks' winter
vacation." Trixie: "First we
had that enormous snowstorm two days before Thanksgiving. Then we
had
another one three days after Thanksgiving. Everything
froze solid so it couldn't be dug out. I'm glad they added
a second run of the school bus every day so country kids like us
could still
take part in activities after school. Still that only gives us an
extra hour and a half." |
| 13 |
Brian: "Mart was telling you about
his vast experience with computers - all twenty minutes of it." Mrs.
Belden: "That's right, you're taking a computer programming class
this term." |
| 14 |
Brian: "I don't have any interesting
classes - just boring old science, math, history, and English Lit." |
| 16 |
It wasn't a cluster of rural mailboxes
- there weren't any between the Manor House and Crabapple Farm. |
| 17 |
Trixie: "I say you
on your hands and knees, and I thought you were hurt." Norma: "I've
spent plenty of time on my hands and knees along this road, and nobody
else ever thought that." |
| 18 |
Trixie: "Why are you out here feeding
the birds? We get dozens and dozens at the feeder in our backyard."
Norma: "Pheasants and quails feed off the ground. But when there's
as much snow as there's been this winter, the ground is all covered.
The birds can't get to their food. They're dying by the thousands." |
| 19 |
Norma: "My name is Norma Nelson." |
| 22 |
Honey: "Norma has always seemed so
quiet and timid. I had an English class with her once. She never
raised her hand, and when the teacher called on her, there was always
a long pause. She always knew the right answer." |
| 27 |
Even indoors, Norma walked as though
she were bundled up in heavy clothing. She trudged head down, as
though she were alone on Glen Road. |
| 28 |
Mart: "Gordon Halvorson, from my computer
class. His father is a computer programmer, and they've owned a computer
since practically the first day there was such a thing. But he isn't
helpful. He practically tells me very key to push before I have time
to figure it out for myself." |
| 30 |
Dan: "We could also post a notice at
Dr. Chang's office. He's an excellent veterinarian." |
| 32 |
Honey: "How can Patch and Reddy help
us save the game birds?" Trixie: "By entering the pet show we're
going to have to raise money and get support for the game birds." |
| 34 |
Trixie: "This one
will be purely for fun, with prizes for biggest pet and smallest
pet and friendliest
and most unusual." Jim: "If the Bob-Whites
are sponsoring the show, we'd better stay out of the entries." |
| 35 |
Trixie: "We'll need really good posters."
Brian: "Fortunately, we know an excellent artist." Trixie: "Nick
Roberts." |
| 36 |
Mart: "It seems to me that ribbons
and trophies might be just what we're looking for." Brian: " And
Robert's Trophy Shop is one place in town where our credit is exceedingly
good." |
| 38 |
Trixie had lettered: HELP YOUR PET
HELP THE STARVING GAME BIRDS! |
| 39 |
Dr. Chang's office was a squat, brick
building that sat by itself on the outskirts of town. |
| 41 |
Trixie: "We want you to judge the pet
show." Dr. Chang: "I already have half of Sleepyside angry with me
because I tell them that their animals are overweight or not well
groomed." |
| 42 |
Dr. Chang: "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?" Mart: "We'll have enough
trophies for every animal." |
| 44 |
The mall (Sleepyside Mall) was laid
out like the letter I. The top and bottom of the I, each four stories
high, were Sleepyside's two 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. |
| 46 |
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. Miss von Trammel: "Dr. Chang.
He's a quack." |
| 47 |
Honey: "Maybe she
doesn't like him because he's Oriental. 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." |
| 49 |
Trixie: "I had no idea so many people
were dying of boredom this winter." |
| 50 |
Trixie: "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." |
| 51 |
Di: "It's the kinds of
pets that I find hard to believe. We already have entries
for parakeets, canaries, hamsters, guinea pigs, a ferret, two gerbils,
I don't know what else." Scott: "Here's the entry for my python."
Trixie: "Scott Hopper, I don't believe you for a moment. 'Ed, an
orange tabby cat.'" Scott: "Like you said, it's been a boring winter." |
| 52 |
Di: "Sometimes I have to go back to
my locker three times before I get everything I need." |
| 54 |
A thin, bearded young man was standing
in front of their table. 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. |
| 55 |
Paul Gale: "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." The girls turned to see a middle-aged
man approaching the table. His charcoal-gray topcoat made his curly
white hair seem almost radiant. |
| 57 |
David Llewelyn: "May I make a donation
to your cause, just in case the young rebel frightened away some
potential donors?" |
| 58 |
Trixie: "There's forty dollars here!" |
| 60 |
TV reporter: "...
Paul Gale, the noted anti-hunger crusader. Gale, whose World Anti-Hunger
Foundation raises
money to buy supplies that are flown directly to Burma, Thailand,
and other Third-World countries, will be in Sleepyside for the next
several weeks to assist in the opening of a foundation office here.
Gale said he chose our community because its relative prosperity
should permit large donations to those less fortunate. Those interested
in making contributions may mail them to the World Anti-Hunger Foundation,
Seventy-five South Tenth Street." |
| 62 |
On Tuesday, things got worse - entrants
began withdrawing from the contest. |
| 65 |
Honey: "She (Heather says there's a
rumor going around school about us, and that's why she withdrew.
The rumor is that we don't plan to use this money for the game birds
at all - we're going to spend it on ourselves!" |
| 68 |
Honey: "Apparently, the rumor is absolutely
all over school. Everybody has heard it from three or four different
people by now." |
| 69 |
Trixie: "Why couldn't
we set up an account at the bank? Then people don't have to trust
us - they can just
trust the bank." |
| 72 |
Trixie: "Who would hate the Bob-Whites
that much?" Honey: "Maybe no one. You know, sometimes somebody makes
a joke or wonders aloud about something. Another person overhears
and takes it as truth, and that person repeats it. Pretty soon it's
a full-fledged rumor. But it's not vicious, and it's not intentional." |
| 77 |
Dr. Chang: "Miss von Trammel was one
of my first clients when I came to Sleepyside. She had an Irish setter.
In the end, she killed the dog with love. Rusty had a tumor." |
| 78 |
Dr. Chang: "By the
time she faced the truth and brought the dog to me, it was too late.
I told her the
animal should be put down. She took the dog to another vet, who said
the same thing. By then, however, she'd decided I'd wasted time trying
ineffective treatments." |
| 80 |
Jim: It's good to
see you backing away from a conclusion, instead of jumping to one."
The playful comment
made Trixie's temper flare. Trixie: "Just because
I was wrong about Miss von Trammel doesn't mean I'm wrong about the
rumor. Somebody
started it, and I'm going to find out who did - with your help or
without it!" |
| 85 |
Unlike the previous store (Roberts
Trophy), which had burned down, this one was bright and cheerful,
even on a bleak winter day. There was more display space. |
| 86 |
Trixie: "What about a 'People's Choice
Award'? Everyone who buys a ticket can get a ballot, and they can
vote for their favorite pet." |
| 89 |
Gale's secretary: "The
red pins on the map indicate all of the areas where desperately poor
and needy
people are receiving food and emergency supplies from the foundation.
The green pins indicate all those cities and town in the United States
where people are contributing money to the foundation." Trixie noted
that the number of green pins far outnumbered the red ones. |
| 91 |
Honey: "That nice man who gave us the
forty-dollar donation at the mall is sitting in a parked car right
across the street." |
| 94 |
Only her brother's heavy concentration,
as they sat in the den with her, made her try to keep her mind on
her textbook. |
| 96 |
Nick: "I had the radio on while I was
studying, and the announcer on WSTH said that the pet show had been
canceled." |
| 98 |
Trixie: "You just
announced that a pet show has been canceled. Could you tell me where
you heard it?"
Radio Announcer: "Why, from you. Or someone who
claimed to be Trixie Belden. But the voice was nothing like yours." |
| 109 |
"My name is David Llewelyn." |
| 112 |
Mr. Llewelyn: "The
idea of Paul Gale sabotaging your pet show doesn't fit in with what
I've learned about
him as a special investigator assigned to his case for the past six
months. I'm employed by the state Attorney General's office. I have
been an investigator for nearly twenty-five years. My specialty is
large-scale consumer fraud cases." |
| 113 |
Mr. Llewelyn: "We think he (Paul Gale)
spends most of the money on gems which he smuggles back into this
country and sells for a fortune." |
| 119 |
Bobby: "If I can't enter Reddy in the
pet show because the Bob-Whites can't enter the pet show, then can
I be a Bob-White?" |
| 122 |
Honey: "It's not like Reddy to run
away." |
| 124 |
Mart: "I got permission
to take a computer home tonight." |
| 126 |
Mr. Llewelyn: "We could wire you -
send you into the foundation office carrying a concealed microphone.
If he says anything that's remotely like a confession, I'd hear it
- and I'd record it to use against him." |
| 127 |
He (David Llewelyn) reached into his
pocket and pulled out the microphone. It was tiny, no larger than
the metal piece at the eraser end of a pencil. There was a clip
on the back, which Llewelyn attached to the collar of Trixie's turtleneck
sweater. |
| 130 |
Trixie grew angrier at every claim
of good works she heard Paul Gale make. Honey's tones grew sweeter
and more admiring as she, too, became more irritated. |
| 131 |
Mr. Llewelyn: "After six months of
trailing Paul Gale, I was getting discouraged. Hearing that smooth
pitch of his made me angry, too - angry enough to tail him for another
six months, if necessary." |
| 135 |
Mart: "I had such
a confusing quilt of corrections that I decided to go right back
to the beginning.
So I put the program in the same way I did two weeks ago at school,
without any of the changes or modifications I've made since then
- and now it works!" Trixie: "You must have done something differently."
Mart: "No, I put this exact program in the computer. It took me the
whole hour. The next morning I came in and tried to run it, and -
Somebody sabotaged my program after I left the computer room!" |
| 136 |
Trixie: "But who would have done such
a thing and why?" Mart: "It would take a lot of knowledge about computers
to ruin the program. There's only one person in my class who knows
enough to do such a thing. Gordon Halvorson." |
| 140 |
He (Gordon) was a tall, thin boy with
mud-colored hair that fell in a lifeless lock on his forehead. |
| 142 |
Gordon: "I just thought
one of the Beldens could let someone else be good at something for
a change.
You Beldens and your rich friends, you're always hanging around in
that tight little pack of yours, living in your own little world,
working on your own little projects. You think you're too good for
the rest of us. You think nobody has anything to offer you, because
you've got it all." |
| 144 |
Mart: "Gordon admitted
the sabotage in front of the teacher. Mr. Johnson was neat about
it. He's not going
to flunk Gordon, but he's going to make him spend a hundred hours
doing programming for some charity project. They'll decide on one
after school. You know, he never did say he was sorry. He's really
convinced that we're a conceited little in-group." |
| 148 |
Trixie: "Norma has exactly the same
reasons for sabotaging the pet show that Gordon had for sabotaging
Mart's program." |
| 149 |
Honey: "She was the exclusive game-bird
feeder until we came along, just as Gordon was the sole computer
expert." |
| 151 |
Honey: "Even though I know he misses
Reddy horribly, I still don't think he's as lonely right now as Norma
is every day of her life." Norma: "I don't even like dogs. I'm allergic
to them." |
| 153 |
Norma: "One day in
the lunch line, two girls ahead of me were saying what a neat idea
it was to save
the game birds. It made me mad, because I'd been spending all my
spare time feeding the game birds, and they were talking as if you
guys had invented the idea." |
| 155 |
Norma: "You're so used to having everybody
admire you. What do you know about wanting to feel special and not
being able to?" |
| 156 |
Trixie: "You said
a few minutes ago that one of the things you don't like about the
Bob-Whites is that
we don't ask for help. But I'd say you're the one who's guilty of
that." |
| 160 |
Norma: "I heard two
people talking. First I heard a man's voice say. 'There sure are
a lot of pigeons
here in Sleepyside.'" Trixie: "That's what
swindlers call their victims." |
| 161 |
Trixie: "Ice! Gems! He was admitting
he buys gems with the money!" |
| 170 |
Mr. Gale: "It didn't start out that
way. At first all of the money really did go to buy food." |
| 171 |
Mr. Gale: "Then, on one trip, someone
offered me a huge, perfect ruby. The price was ridiculously low.
I thought I could bring it back to this country, sell it, and have
that much more money to use for food. Once I had the money it seemed
fair for me to keep a little part of it, as long as I gave the rest
to the foundation. From there it just grew. It was like a game that
I couldn't stop playing." |
| 172 |
Trixie could see a green pickup truck
with a white camper top. Mr. Gale: "You want to see gems? I'll give
you all the time in the world to find them." |
| 182 |
Norma: "I really appreciate
your letting me help with the pet show." Trixie: "It
was the least we could do, after you helped us solve the mystery." |
| 183 |
Mr. Llewelyn: "I just dropped by to
clear up the matter of the reward. One thousand dollars." |
| 184 |
Trixie: "It's Norma's money; she was
the one who produced the evidence." Norma: "I think we should give
half the money to a real anti-hunger foundation." |
| 185 |
When his name was called, the six-year-old
started toward the center of the gym - while his dog started off
in the other direction. Since the dog was larger than the boy, Reddy's
choice of direction won out, and Bobby was pulled along behind. |
| 187 |
Brian: "We gathered over two hundred
dollars during the entry phase of the show." |
| 188 |
- Brian: "We probably doubled that with
our ticket sales today."
- Dr. Chang announced the prize for the People's Choice Award.
Reddy won it, of course!
|
