Sept. 1972

Trixie Belden and her two best friends burst into the Beldens' cozy farmhouse after disembarking the school bus on a brisk fall afternoon. The three sixteen-year-olds were chattering excitedly about the upcoming Fall Festival being held at Sleepyside Junior-Senior High School in a few weeks' time.

"Moms - Gleeps, what are you doing?" exclaimed Trixie. Her blue eyes were round with amazement as she gazed at the array of photographs, wallpaper samples, calligraphy pens, and photo mounts which covered the kitchen table. Her mother sat at the table arranging several snapshots on a page of wallpaper sample.

"I've been working on a scrapbook for Brian - I'd like to get it done before his birthday next month," said Mrs. Belden. "Now that he's out of high school, I'll probably never see any of his work or be present if he wins an award. So I wanted to put his high school papers, pictures, and awards into a memory book. I hope to do the same for Mart as well as you and Bobby eventually. Margaret Lynch and I attended a class on making scrapbooks and we both thought it would be fun."

Trixie moved a stack of books in from one of the kitchen chairs to the table so that she could sit and look more closely at what her mother was doing. "Why, these look like baby books! Whose are they?"

Mrs. Belden sighed. "Those are yours and your brothers'. You may look at them if you wish, but they need a lot of work. Take them into the living room if you'd like to look at them, so those pictures don't get mixed up with these."

"Yes, let's take them in the living room. I'd love to see pictures of you, Mart and Brian when you were babies," Honey suggested. "Then we‘ll be out of your mother's way."

"OK," Trixie agreed, grinning at her friend. She suspected that Honey only wanted a chance to look at Brian's baby pictures. Honey had been attracted to Brian for two years now, and the two had recently begun dating. Honey blushed as she guessed the direction of Trixie's thoughts, and they both turned to look at Diana, who was the steady girlfriend of Trixie's other brother, Mart. "Do you want to look at our baby books, Di? " Trixie asked, waggling her brows at her black-haired friend.

"Sure, why not?" was Diana's response, and although she strove for a casual tone, her face was also red.

The three girls spent the next fifteen minutes paging through the four baby books. Brian's was the only one which was anywhere near complete. Almost all the information was filled in up until his third birthday, and there were a number of pictures, as well as a lock of black hair from his first haircut. Mart's and Trixie's books had a number of scraps of paper laid in between the pages, with dates, weights, and lengths recorded; there were quite a few snapshots and even a tiny envelope in each with a blond curl, but very few pages had any writing past the initial birth records. Bobby's book was even skimpier, with fewer completed pages and much less information.

"Just another example of Brian being the favorite!" Trixie said, in what she hoped was a joking tone.

"Trixie, my mother kept a baby book for me, and you should see it! Since I was an only child for such a long time, she could record every detail of my life. There are several studio portraits of me, too. But once the twins were born, she wasn't able to spend the time keeping their books caught up. If anything, they're less complete than yours, Mart's or Bobby's. Maybe now Mummy will be able to work on their books, since they're all in school now. If she will show me what to do, I know I can help her. That would be a lot of fun!"

"Oh, Di, I'm such a goon!" Trixie moaned. "Of course Moms didn't have time to keep up Mart's and my books - with only eleven months between us, she spent every minute of the day caring for us and doing laundry! Brian's only about eighteen months older than Mart, so obviously he wasn't any help to her. And when Bobby was born, we were all in school, so there was homework and school activities for us, as well as taking care of a baby."

Honey had been silent up until now. "I‘ll have to ask Mother if she has a book for me," she finally said. "I don't remember ever seeing one. But with me being the only child, and no housework, laundry, or gardening to do, she would have had time."

The girls took the books back into the kitchen, where they found Mrs. Belden putting away her supplies. "Trixie, my next project will be to complete Mart's and your baby books, but it's time to cook supper now," she said, smiling. "Honey and Diana, I hope you can both stay."

"Thank you, Mrs. Belden," said Diana. "But I promised Mummy I would be home by five o'clock to help her finish cooking supper. Our cook is off on Thursday nights, and each week, we cook a family dinner together. Even the girls help, and it's a lot of fun. Mummy always loved to cook, and she says this keeps her in practice." Diana's violet eyes sparkled as she talked about the time her family spent together.

Several years earlier, Diana's father had used lottery winnings to start a successful business, and their newfound wealth had caused adjustment struggles for Diana as well as her parents. They moved into a huge home and hired a large staff, then fired the lot of them when it seemed that the staff controlled their family rather than the other way around. Eventually, Mrs. Lynch realized she needed some household help; the size of the house and demands of five children created too much work for one person to handle. Since her husband also needed to do a certain amount of entertaining because of his business, it made sense to employ a butler to keep the place running smoothly; a cook to come in on most days; and a cleaning service. But she still loved to cook the delicious family-style meals for which she had been famous. Diana enjoyed helping her mother in the kitchen on the cook's day off, and also loved to spend time with her much-younger twin brothers and sisters.

Honey spoke up. "My parents won't be back until tomorrow, and I'm sure Miss Trask won't mind if I stay for supper. May I use your phone?" Even after three years as her best friend, Honey remained rather formal with Trixie's parents.

After supper, Trixie and Bobby walked Honey back up the path to the Manor House. The two girls chattered all the way, but Trixie sensed that her friend was preoccupied. She wondered what Honey was thinking about.

Trixie had forgotten all about the baby books, but Honey had not. Although she and her mother had grown closer since the Wheelers had moved to Sleepyside, their relationship lacked the easygoing camaraderie her two friends enjoyed with their mothers. She felt she could not rest until she found out if her mother had kept a baby book for her. If so, it would answer the question Honey had secretly worried over: did her mother really love her?