June 23, 2014: Delay or Delays.

“Uh, Trixie?”

“Yeah, Brian.  What is it?”,

“Uh, you know that I love Nellie Bean and think she is wonderful, right?”

“Yeah, you do your own fair share of spoiling her rotten.”

“Well...uhm  how do I say this without totally freaking you out?  Trixie, have you ever considered that Nellie Bean might have a speech delay?”

Trixie looked at Brian in shock.  “Speech delay?  What are you talking about, Brian.  Nellie Bean speaks very well for a two year old.”

“Now Trixie, don’t get upset with me.  I just think, well I wonder if she might have some sort of cognitive issue.   

While we were downtown today, we saw the busses.  But instead of saying, bus,  she was saying buzz, buzz.  Later, she kept pointing out more busses, but it really sounded like she was calling them magical school bus.  I kept repeating that to her, but she just shouted ‘No’ and said it all over again.”

Trixie started laughing.  She laughed so hard she cried, and then sat down heavily on the floor.

“Brian!  For a doctor, you sure don’t understand ‘little kid’ very well.

“What is the name of the bus that travels through Westchester County?”

Brian replied, “It is called the Bee-line bus, of course.”

“Uh huh.  And how to they spell the name?”

“B-E-E  L-I-N-E.  So?”

“B-E-E as in bumble bee.  And what do bumble bee’s say?

“Come on Brian.  Your face is turning a very pretty shade of red, so I think you know the answer.”

Brian wore an embarrassed grin as he said, “Buzz.  Bee’s say Buzz”

“Yes, they do.  I have been doing a lot of traveling with Nellie Bean by bus and rail.  For me, it is a lot easier to get around, when I don’t have to worry about finding a parking spot.  For Nellie Bean, it is a grand adventure.  Personally, I think my daughter is very smart to be saying, ‘buzz buzz’ for Buzz Bus or even Bee Bus.”

Brian laughed and then said, “But Trixie, what about ‘Magical School Bus’?  How could she have ever seen that program.  It went off the air years and years ago.”

Trixie answered, “Well, I happen to think that is even more brilliant.  ‘Magical School Bus, is actually Nellie speak for Metro Road bus.  She hears the announcements on both the bus and the train about ‘Metro Bus’ or ‘Metro Rail’. So now, anytime we are driving on the road through town, she will tell me when she sees the metro road bus.

“It was even more surprising the other day.  I told her we were driving to the grocery store for shopping.  When we got there, she announced, ‘Stop Requested’.

“No Brian.  Nellie Bean doesn’t have any speech delay, she is taking after Mart with the words, and after me with the clue associations, and after Honey with the confusing speech patterns.  Instead of Honey Speak,  we are now going to have to get used to Nellie Speak.”

Prompt: Will the BWG’s ever want to live in the Arizona Desert?

Trixie walked in to the study to see Mart sitting in front of the family computer, grumbling to himself.

“Desert or desert.  You would think that the internet which is supposed to know everything would point out to the user that there is a difference between desert the noun,   desert the adjective, and  desert the verb, and don’t even get me started on desert!”

Trixie couldn’t help  breaking in to Marts’ musings.  “I can’t believe that I just heard you say not to get you started on dessert.”  She reached out the back of her hand to touch his forehead. “Are you feeling alright?  You don’t feel like you have a fever”

Mart batted Trixies’ hand away.  “Leave me alone and let me grump in peace.  I am supposed to write a piece on the Arizona deserts and why I might want to live there some day.  

“You know, desert the noun.  But when I google the word, I don’t just get pictures of those types of deserts.  Oh no!   Even worse, because our IP address is in New York, there was a picture of a quote by Isreal Zangwill that said, ‘NEW YORK IS THE GREAT STONE DESERT.  Then there was a discussion of desert as in abandonment, and another of desert as the adjective like ‘overgrazing has created desert conditions’ and the last one was deserts as in a person being punished and getting their just deserts.”

“It is enough to make a person want to burn up their dictionary”, Mart sighed.

Trixie left Mart to his grumbling only to return with a tray loaded with dishes, scoops, ice-cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. She set the tray down in front of Mart

“You know Mart.  You are the only walking dictionary that I know.  So many people spell desert when they mean something else entirely.  What you need is an ice-cream sundae with chocolate fudge and whipped cream with cherry on top.  You won’t feel parched like a desert or abandoned and forced to desert when you get your just deserts and have a proper dessert.

“Enjoy!”

06/05/2014 Prompt: Deadlines

He spoke sotto voce. “We have a dead line.”

Trixie turned and gave Dan a look that clearly said, ‘you don’t have all the intelligence that I thought you had.’  She stuck out her lower lip and huffed to move that aggravating curl out of her way and with more than a hint of exasperation, replied.  “I know we have a deadline.  We have been….”

She was stopped by Dan lunging at her and placing his palm over her mouth.  “Will you be quiet?” He whispered. “Not a deadline.  A dead line!  The phone is dead.”  He picked up the old-fashioned handset and held it against her ear.  Her blue eyes widened as she realized that there was no dial tone.

Dan continued. “Look.  I have known you for eight years.  I know what you can do.  I know that you are studying criminal justice. You just earned your license to carry a weapon, and I know that you are taking self defense courses, but please, PLEASE, don’t try to be the heroine of the hour.  You are the most naturally gifted crime solver that I know, but you are still in school, and you don't have anything to prove to me.

“We must be in way over our heads.  I am not sure that the Chief, would have allowed you to work with me on organizing these cold case files, if he had had any idea that something would turn up that resulted in the phone line being cut.”

“I think it is worse than just that, Dan.  We have barely gotten started.  We haven’t even started asking questions.  So whoever cut the line, must know that the Chief handed over the files.  Do you think it is some rat on the force?  Who else would know about this project?

Suddenly, a door slammed down stairs.  They heard a lot of crashing and thumping.  It sounded like someone was having a heck of a fight.  They prepared to barricade the door but gradually, the sounds quieted and then they heard one last thump that seemed to rattle the walls.  Cautiously, they went downstairs and searched the stable.  They found Regan in the tack room, feverishly working on a leather bridle.

Dan looked around the room.  “Uncle Bill?  What’s going on?  It sounded like you were having a barroom brawl down here.”

Regan grumbled under his breath. “She is lucky she is a mouse and not a rat.”  

Then he looked at both Dan and Trixie and said, “I am as much of an animal lover as anybody.  But this is too much.  There is a nest of mice in the phone box and they have chewed through the phone line.  Again!  This is the second time this week.  I hoped that after the first time, when we moved the babies, that Mama Mouse would move on.  But apparently she thinks the phone box is like the Mouse Taj Mahal, because they are back.  Mama and all ten babies.

“Well I have news for Mama Mouse. I am giving her a deadline.  I don’t know where, but she is moving, permanently, as of this afternoon.”

We are not alone.

The other day, I had the idea to try writing a snippet where my main character and I kept breaking the fourth wall by talking to each other.    I am sure you have heard about the fourth wall.  It is the imaginary "fourth" wall in front of an audience whether it is for a play, a television show, or in this case, the written word.  Hmm.  Now I am breaking the fourth wall again, but this time it is with you.

Then,  just after I completed my first draft, Jix announced the prompt for July 3rd as, "We are not alone."  So my story became a prompt response, instead of a stand alone snippet.

Thanks to Vivian for editing (and re-editing).  However, since I went back and added more after editing, all mistakes are and always will be, my own.

Edited and re-posted on 06/07/2014 to fix errors in verb tense.

Hello.  My name is GenE and I live in the real world, not the world of fiction which includes Mart and Trixie Belden.  I am having fun right now because I am  pestering Mart to tell us about the birthday cake Moms made for his fifteenth birthday last week.

Mart is currently pacing the living room. I have him so upset, he isn’t even using very many of the thousand dollar words for which he is so infamous.  

At fifteen years of age, he is confident in his demeanor, but he would much rather have discourse with his girlfriend, Diana, than by breaking the fourth wall to talk to me, Bonnie, or Chey.  He hates to say it, but he is uncomfortable with the thought of admitting, ‘we are not alone.’

“GenE, you can’t let Chey in on this story.  All those J words that she wrote the other day. What is she trying to do?  You do realize, don’t you, that she had 68 words that began with the letter J?   I mean, after all, thanks to Bonnie’s habit of having me spout all those multisyllable words,  I have a reputation to protect.   My lexicon is what I am all about, whether it is with or without Bonnie’s help.”

I demand, “People want to know about how you reacted to that birthday cake.  Leave the wall alone, and tell us about your birthday!”

“Oh, all right.”

Mart turns to Trixie who is looking at him with great confusion.  “Mart, are you okay?  Who in the heck are you talking to?”

I watch Mart shrug.  Then he turns to me and says,  “If Trixie can’t see the wall,  then it isn’t an idea that can be easily explained.  It’s more than invisibility or ghosts or aliens. It’s like talking to another, um, another space time continuum or something.  Isn’t it bad enough that the jixers had that poll about the time traveler survey? This fourth wall stuff seems like it would be as bad as traveling back and forth in time.”

“Trixie, what on earth gave you the idea to have everyone make a list of words  that had fifteen letters?  And, then, to have Moms print all those words on my birthday cake?!  It’s bad enough I have the two individual reputations of having an insatiable appetite and being a blowhard wordsmith but to have….”

I call out to Mart from the ether.  “Sorry, Mart, but I don’t think that you would use the words blowhard wordsmith.  That is something that Trixie would say.  You’re famous for your words, now use them.”  

Mart sends me a sour look and says, “I can’t!  You have me too upset.”  He turns back to Trixie and tries again.  “Everybody is always complaining about my being a skilled user of words.  In fact”.  Here, Mart glares again at the fourth wall, “someone, I don’t remember who,  recently used you to call me a blowhard.  No, I’m wrong.  They had you call me a windbag.”

Trixie sputters.  “Mart, you are really acting weird.  Who used me to call you a windbag?”

“Oh, never mind.”  Mart is so annoyed he pulls his hair.  “Let’s get back to the subject.  It was bad enough when Dad said he hoped that, finally, Moms had baked a cake that would satisfy all my sustenance requirements.  But then I had to prove that I knew the definition of acknowledgement, cardiopulmonary, contemporaneous, entrepreneurial, extracurricular. individualistic, lexicographical, misapprehension, neoconservative, parliamentarian, noncommunicable, prognosticators, totalitarianism, straightforward, and unsportsmanlike.  

“The only good thing to come out of this fit of merriment is that Moms acknowledged it was pointless for Brian, Jim, and Dan to try and give me the traditional birthday spanking.  Instead I had to find the word that represented ‘one to grow on.’ Thank goodness, even as much as you dislike math, that with your own usual discourteousness,  you solved the mystery for me.  Otherwise, we might still be waiting to eat cake.”

Trixie grins. “Wow,  a compliment.  I’m still not sure that you’re acting right.  You’re usually talking everybody else’s ear off, not talking to yourself.  I can’t quite put my finger on it.   But give me some time, and I will solve this mystery, too.”

Mart exhales in frustration.  “The only mystery left to solve here, is why on earth you gave me a dictionary that weighs as much as a 25 pound sack of flour. Couldn’t you have just downloaded a dictionary app?

“Dad always says he told Moms that she would rue the day she taught me about words, definitions, and homophones.  

“But I think I am the one  who is beginning to wish that this really will all turn out to be just a figment of someone’s imagination.”

Updated 08/12/2015

Vivian, Chey and Bonnie are fan fiction authors on jixemitri.net which is a message board about all things Trixie.

Jixers: other participants on the above named message board. There was a discussion about time-travel shortly before this story was written. There was also a reference to Mart being a blow-hard or a windbag. Sorry, I don't remember more to give proper credit.

Happy Birthday Mart and his Mart words.

Peter Belden let the screen door slam behind him as he entered the kitchen.

Helen turned to scold the insubordination of one of her children for continueing to let the door slam.  When she saw that the culprit was her husband, she lifted her face for a kiss instead.  As Peter released her, he caught a look at the piece of paper in her hands.  

“Acknowledgment, cardiopulmonary, totalitarianism…  Isn’t it a little late in the school year for spelling lists?”  Then he got a really good look at the project she was working on.  “Whoa, Helen.  That cake is huge, even for Mart’s infamous appetite.”

“Yes, well.  Trixie challenged all the other Bob-Whites to find words with fifteen letters in them for Mart’s birthday.  Then she convinced me to decorate the cake with the words the kids found.  So the cake has to be big.”  Helen gave Peter a conspiratorial wink and continued,  “I think the plan is that before Mart will be allowed to blow out his candles and eat, he will be expected to define each word on the cake.”

She finished the last word with a neat flourish.  “There!  I am done.  The last word to go on the cake is discourteousness.”

“Uh, Helen?  Discourteousness has sixteen letters, not fifteen.”

“Oh crab apples!  Hmm.  Oh, I know.  No matter how hard the boys try, Mart is way to big to be given a birthday spanking.  So discourteousness will have to be the one to ‘grow-on’.”

Peter put his arms around Helen again, and looked over her shoulder at the cake.  “Remember ten years ago, on his fifth birthday, when you caught Mart trying to peek at his presents to find out what he was getting?

“You told him, ‘Mart, you have made me reach the peak of my pique because you chose to peek at your presents.’  I told you then that you would rue the day that you introduced him to words and definitions, not to mention homophones.”

Helen laughed.  “Well, it is usually Trixie who suffers the most.  I wonder how big  the dictionary is that she got him?  It must be really big, because Brian got him a dictionary podium.  My curiosity was almost piqued enough to peek at the present and see what peak of weight and of pages she managed to get  this year.”

This piece had no independent editors. All mistakes are mine.