I sort of vaguely remembered the "Antique Doll". It was one I bought once I got older, maybe ten or fifteen years ago, so I didn't grow up reading them over and over like I did the original set of 34 (or most of the original set, I should say, I was missing a few). Trixie and Honey offer to help out an elderly woman who has sprained her wrist. She lives next door to the new antique store. Trixie is immediately suspicious when she and Honey go in to look around and the owner of the store doesn't seem to know anything at all about antiques. When he finds out the girls are going to Paris for the weekend on Mr. Wheeler's private jet, he asks if they'll do him a big favor while they are there and pick up a doll from a man. He's too afraid to ship it because she's so valuable and frail. The girls of course agree and bring the doll back. Turns out the doll is concealing engraving plates to make counterfeit twenty dollar bills. Boy, these two. Even a simple jaunt to Paris has to turn into something sketchy :)
I decided to go back to the beginning, rather than reread the later ones I don't really care much for. "The Secret of the Mansion" is where it all began. Thirteen year old Trixie Belden is looking at a long, boring summer since her older brothers are away at camp. Then a girl just her age named Honey Wheeler moves into the Manor House estate next door. The girls become fast friends, Honey teaching Trixie how to ride horses and Trixie teaching Honey how to ride a bicycle. Honey is a very lonely little girl who has grown up in boarding schools and is afraid of everything, but Trixie convinces her to go explore the old mansion on Ten Acres, the property on the other side of Trixie's house. Old Mr. Frayne was just taken to the hospital and not expected to live, and rumor has it he has half a million dollars hidden in the house. The girls don't find any money, but they do find one James Winthrop Frayne II (disclosure: I had the *biggest* crush on Jim when I was a kid and read these books for the first time). Jim ran away from his evil stepfather, Jonesy, and came to Sleepyside looking for his great-uncle. The girls and Jim become fast friends, spending every spare moment searching the rundown old mansion for Mr. Frayne's fortune. Jonesy eventually tracks Jim down to the mansion and accidentally starts a fire. Luckily Jim got out of the mansion in time but Jonesy believed he died in the fire. The next day Jim is gone, run off again before Jonesy could catch him, and Mr. Frayne's attorney shows up looking for him. Turns out Mr. Frayne did have money, and it's all Jim's now, plus Mr. Rainsford, the attorney, wants to appoint a new guardian for Jim since he has testimony from Jim's neighbors about how badly Jonesy treated him. The girls decide it's too risky for the *real* authorities to hunt Jim down and somehow talk their parents into letting Honey's governess, Miss Trask, take them on a wild goose chase to find Jim in the Wheeler's luxurious trailer. Because thirteen year old girls have much better resources for finding missing persons than the actual police.
Which brings us to the "Red Trailer Mystery"! Honey and Trixie and Miss Trask head to upstate New York, where the girls knew Jim was going to go job hunting at a boys' summer camp. Along the way they hear about trailer thieves and are extra cautious. One of their neighbors, the Lynches, had their red trailer the Robin stolen, and Trixie is sure the strange family they saw in the red trailer are the thieves. This book is actually pretty funny, at one point I think they were looking for four or five different people who were supposedly hiding out in the woods. It reminded me of a Perry Mason book I read where there were like ten people in this man's swimming pool one night (all at different times, of course). The dogs were forever running off and getting lost and the girls spent a heck of a lot of time lost in the woods themselves. They finally track down Jim (and the real trailer thieves, and Joeanne Darnell, who ran away from home, and...). A fight ensues over who is going to adopt the husky redheaded boy (I love how they kept describing him as "husky", like that was a good thing. Maybe it was back in the 1950s). Honey wins and convinces her parents to give her an older brother. Jim is adopted by the Wheelers and goes to live at the Manor House.
"The Gatehouse Mystery" is another one of my favorites, because Brian and Mart are back from summer camp (I kind of had a crush on Mart, too. What can I say?). The girls go exploring a rundown old gatehouse on the Wheeler's property that they are planning on turning into a clubhouse for their new club, the Bob-Whites (lots of rundown buildings in this area of New York, for some reason). Trixie finds a diamond in the dirt floor and convinces Honey to let her try to figure out how it got there. She's convinced she and Honey can track down the diamond thief better than the actual police could (I do love the sheer improbability of these books. I know it sounds like I'm making fun, but I truly do love them). Trixie is sure someone was hiding in the woods and overheard her and Honey's conversation. The next day, two men show up at Manor House looking for jobs: Nailor, a gardener, and Dick, a chauffeur. Both men are hired (the Wheelers apparently aren't big fans of background checks) and Dick is assigned a room over the garage with Regan (poor Regan. And yes, before you ask, I had a crush on him, too) while Nailor sleeps in the house. Trixie is positive she heard someone trying to sneak into Honey's room that night when she sleeps over, and she's convinced it's Dick. He certainly does act suspiciously, and of course in the end Trixie was right. Dick is arrested and the girls get a nice fat reward for their part in helping to catch a notorious pickpocket, which they use to buy Miss Trask a horse.
School is back in session, and if you think that will slow Trixie down at all, you're wrong :) Honey mentions that one of their classmates, pretty Di Lynch (she's always "pretty Di". Never forget that she's the prettiest) seems awfully sad and suggests they invite her over and make her a Bob-White. Seems a bit sudden to me, since they barely know the girl, but all right. Di is miserable with her parents' new wealth and her mom's long lost brother, Uncle Monty, is being a real pain. She wants to throw a fun, simple Halloween party but Monty gets involved and turns it into a big catered affair with a band and everything. Thanks to the rest of the Bob-Whites, the party isn't a complete catastrophe, but Trixie is convinced Uncle Monty is an impostor. Turns out she was right, and gets her and Mart nearly kidnapped for their troubles. Alls well that ends well, and as a reward Mr. Lynch gives them the red trailer from book 2, the Robin. The Bob-Whites give it to Tom, the Wheeler's chauffeur, and Celia, the Wheeler's maid, who are getting married and wanted the gatehouse. Now that Tom and Celia have the trailer, the Bob-Whites can keep their clubhouse.
At least until the next big windstorm :)
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