Silly Rabbit, Trixie’s Not Just for Kids

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Sometimes you have the good fortune as a child to meet a fictional character that seems more like a friend than just a figment of the author’s imagination.  For me, that character was Trixie Belden.  I can still remember the first time I ‘met’ her.  I was 8 years old and shuffling though a box of hand-me-downs from my cousin who was 6 years my senior.  A major disadvantage of hand-me-downs from an older cousin (especially when you’re small for your age) is that you will never be wearing the current style.  So it was in 1983 that I was sifting through a box of jumpsuits and polyester pants.  As I was shuffling through the clothing, I got a glimpse of some books.  Not just any books.  I had been given the first 7 books of the Trixie Belden series.

 

Trixie had me from book one.  She was everything I wanted to be.  She solved improbable mysteries with her best friend from next door, Honey Wheeler.  She rode horses on bridle trails, belonged to a secret club that boasted both a clubhouse and monogrammed jacket.  She even had a not-so-secret crush on Honey’s adopted brother, Jim Frayne.  Trixie used words like jeepers, jalopies, and dungarees (the books were first published in 1948).  Best of all, she had freckles and strawberry blond hair.  I considered her my literary soulmate.

I soon developed traditions for each book in the series.  For The Red Trailer Mystery, I always ate chocolate cake with grape juice because that’s what Mrs. Smith served Trixie and Honey when they were on a quest to find runaway Jim (before the great Wheeler adoption).  I preferred to read The Secret of the Mansion during full moons (because Trixie, Honey, and Jim took a moonlight trail ride in it) and The Black Jacket Mystery during the winter (because Trixie and her brother, Bobby, got lost during a blizzard).  Yeah, I was a weird kid.

 

I spent years completing my collection, making weekly trips to the Dalton’s and Walden’s bookstores in the mall and begging my mom to buy ‘just one more book’.  You can imagine my dismay when the books went out of print in 1986.  I watched my beloved books slowly disappear from shelves I knew by heart.  From that point on, I became a girl (and later a woman) on a mission.  I searched used books stores across the country (including Miami, Seattle, and New Orleans).  I also frequented flea markets and libraries.  I may have ‘lost’ (and paid for) a few library books, and for that I am truly ashamed.  My obsession reached a whole new level with the advent of Ebay.  I plotted my bids based on how the auction ending times coincided with my class schedule and the computer lab’s hours.  I may have been more excited about winning the last book in the series, The Mystery of the Galloping Ghost, than I was about finishing graduate school in 1999.

I still re-read Trixie from time to time.  I even fantasize about attending one of the annual Trixie conventions someday.  Until then, I pay homage to Trixie each day with my blog URL and hope that my daughter will follow in my Trixie footsteps.

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