The Mystery of the Ghostly Galeon by Julie Campbell Read Free Book Online Page A

help you?” Dan added, scowling.
    Wordlessly, Trixie nodded and lay stiff and quiet. Her hands, their knuckles white, were clenched at her sides.
    She knew they meant well and were only concerned for her safety. All the same, the reaction from what had just happened was beginning to take effect. To her dismay, she knew that one more remark would make her burst into tears.
    Strangely enough, it was Mart who came to her rescue. “Oh,” he said gruffly, “leave her alone. She won’t do anything like that again, will you, Trix? Besides, I’ve just heard a great joke I want you all to hear.”
    And with a graceful tact she hadn’t known her brother to possess, he turned the conversation away from scoldings, and lectures, and what-might-have-beens, and instead talked firmly of other things.
    Unnoticed by the others, Brian walked quietly across the room. He pulled a spare blanket from a shelf in the closet and gently placed it over her.
    Trixie smiled at him gratefully and began to relax. By now, it was dark and a little foggy outside the blue-curtained windows. The golden glow from the brass lamps that hung above the two neat beds, one on each side of the room, was oddly comforting.
    She could hear the leaves of the maple trees whispering softly to each other. She felt a welcome warmth from the blanket. The combination was beginning to make her drowsy.
    She thought that after dinner she would read just a few chapters of her new Lucy book. Then she’d go to sleep early.
    I wonder what’s for dinner , anyway? she thought.
    Sleepily, with her eyes half-closed, she sniffed the air to find out.
    Suddenly she frowned. Her eyes flew open. All she could smell was smoke. Something was burning—and it wasn’t in the kitchen!
    The Bob-Whites turned to stare at her sharply as she leaped to her feet and ran to the door.
    “Trixie?” she heard Di call. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
    “Brian, Jim, Di, everyone! Hurry up!” Trixie cried. “The inn is on fire!”
    It wasn’t difficult to trace the source of the smoke. It billowed from beneath a closed door halfway down the hall.
    Without hesitation, Dan darted ahead of the others. They heard him mutter, “The door’s probably locked. We may have to break it down.”
    But they didn’t. To their surprise, it opened to his touch. Then, with his bent arm covering his nose and mouth, he rushed inside the dark, smoke-filled room.
    “One of the mattresses is smoldering!” he shouted. “Quick, Brian, Jim, Mart! Help me get it off the bed. Di, Honey! Open the windows! Trixie, we need towels to cover our faces to keep out the smoke. Hurry!”
    Moments later, as Trixie raced back with as many towels as she could carry, she was just in time to see the boys stamp out the last dying embers from the mattress on the floor.
    “It’s all right,” Dan called to her, grinning with relief. “The fire’s out.”
    “I wonder how it got started in the first place?” Mart said, his nose smudged with soot. “It almost looks as if someone built a bonfire in the middle of the bed.”
    Trixie peered through the gloom and layers of smoke that still drifted lazily toward the dark, open windows. She noticed that Di and Honey had each stripped a pillow of its case. They were busily flapping them, trying to clear the air.
    Trixie thought she saw something else and switched on the light. In all the excitement, no one had remembered the lights until now.
    Her heart missed a beat when she realized she had not been mistaken. For a moment, she was so shocked that she couldn’t have moved if her life depended on it.
    As if it were a dream, she could hear the faint confusion of men’s voices as they shouted to each other from another part of the inn. Then several pairs of heavy feet pounded up the stairs toward them.
    Trixie looked once more at the unmoving figure on the far side of the room. Its short hair was brown. It wore a man’s tan sports jacket with leather-patched elbows.
    “Mart?