“We’re here!” Di called, as she pushed her way into the kitchen of Crabapple Farm.

“At last!” her sister-in-law Trixie answered, pulling her heavily pregnant friend into a hug and then taking the parcel she carried from her. “Mart, gather up all the children and get out of here. We have lots of baking to do.”

He glanced around the kitchen, through which raced several youngsters. “And what, pray tell, am I expected to do with all of them, I ask you? They seem to be in a state of high excitement.”

“Not my problem.” She grinned at him. “You volunteered for this job. And you should know by now that the kids are always excited this close to Christmas. Especially on baking day.”

He gave a noisy and completely unconvincing sigh. “If I must follow through on my exceedingly generous promise, I suppose I must.”

“You will be amply rewarded,” Diana told him, leaning in for a goodbye kiss.

He waggled his eyebrows at her. “I look forward to it.”

“With cookies,” she clarified, her expression innocent.

Mart laughed. “I’m still interested.”

“Out!” Trixie ordered, laughing. “Kids! Come and get your coats on. It’s time to go!”

The house filled with excited chatter from the oldest ones and babbling from the toddlers. Helen Belden followed them into the room and, after greeting the latest arrivals, began bundling up the children, ready for their walk to Manor House. Jim joined in a few moments later and between them and Mart they soon had all the kids ready.

“Have a good day, everyone!” Jim called, swinging a toddler onto one hip and taking the hand of a bigger child. “Make sure you make some Peppermint Meltaways; they’re my favourite.”

“Who says there’ll be any for you?” Trixie asked, kissing him and each of their children.

Mart kissed his wife once more. “I would like Lemon Snowballs, if you’re taking requests.”

“Pecan Snowballs,” Trixie corrected.

“Peppermint Snowballs?” Jim suggested.

Trixie shook her head. “You want Peppermint Meltaways and Peppermint Snowballs?”

He smiled back at her. “I like peppermint.”

“I is like cam-a-mel,” their two-year-old daughter Maya pronounced, from her place on her father’s hip.

Trixie rubbed noses with her. “I think we might have some caramel ones, just for you. But only if you go with Daddy and Uncle Mart.”

At once, she began bucking wildly and yelling, “Go! Go!”

“I think that’s our cue to depart,” Mart noted, gathering up the rest of the children and ushering them out the door.

Trixie slumped into a chair as it closed behind them. “Peace at last!”

Hearing that as she entered the room, Honey let out a surprised laugh. “Really? When we have hundreds and hundreds of cookies to make?”

Trixie shrugged and got back to her feet. “At least there are no three-year-olds trying to get their hands on the dough. So, Moms, where do we start?”

“Where you always start: with washing your hands and putting on an apron,” her mother directed.

Trixie stuck her head into the living room, where the rest of the gathered women and teenage girls waited. “You hear that? Wash your hands and get an apron on, everyone! It’s time to bake!”

Soon, the kitchen filled up with laughter and chatter, as they tied aprons on each other. Way back at the beginning, the day had been just for Helen and Trixie to prepare gifts to give the neighbours. But over the years the event grew as first Honey and Diana were invited, then Mrs. Lynch and her two younger daughters, then a wider circle of friends and family, in what was now a two-day baking extravaganza. Madeleine Wheeler had also been invited and even once attended, but afterwards decided to leave the baking to those with talent in that direction. These days, she hosted the six children under the age of five which the Bob-Whites had so far produced.

“I don’t think the kitchen is going to hold too many more people than this, Moms,” Trixie noted, looking around. “And we’re going to run out of aprons soon, too, if this day gets any bigger.”

“I have plenty of aprons,” her mother assured her. “And I’ve also set up the dining table so that some people can work there. Diana, sweetheart, why don’t you sit in the dining room? I think you’ll be more comfortable there. If you stay here, I think you’d need to stand.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” she answered. “Maybe the teenagers can come with me?”

“We’ll be twenty in February,” her sister Catherine reminded her. “You won’t be able to call us that any more then.”

“And I think I’ll stay in here,” her twin, Rebecca, added. “I want to make snowballs and you know you’re not allowed to make them any more, after what happened the year you got engaged.”

Diana groaned. “Am I never going to live that down?”

“I know,” Honey added, giggling. “You lose your brand-new engagement ring inside one of the absolute mountain of snowball cookies one single time and no one ever lets you forget it, ever again.”

“I did find it again,” Di pointed out, waving the hand that held the ring in question.

Trixie grinned. “And we only had to eat about twenty.”

“It was seven!” Di shook her head. “And you can drop this subject right now.”

“Or else?” Trixie asked.

“Or else she bursts into tears,” Rebecca suggested, rolling her eyes. “And that’s the last thing we need right now.”

“I think we’ll do the snowballs in the kitchen,” Helen decided. “They’re rather messy and it’s easier to clean in here. Diana, why don’t you start on the dough for the sugar cookies. It will need to chill for a few hours. Trixie, you can make the gingerbread dough. Honey, you’ll find some shortbread dough in the refrigerator that I made yesterday; it can be the first in the oven and the second set of trays can be caramel ones for Maya.”

She continued to hand out jobs until everyone had something to do. The kitchen and dining room filled with delicious scents and happy chatter. Helen looked around and gave a contented sigh.

“Is any cookie for me?” a small voice called from the back doorway some hours later.

“And me!” another added.

A cluster of small faces peered into the room, eyes wide. Above them loomed Mart, a toddler on one hip and a look of delight on his face.

“Ladies! You have outdone yourselves.” He glanced around the room. “But where is my lovely wife?”

“Lying down in the guest room,” his mother told him.

Mart released the toddler on his hip, who headed straight for the nearest pile of cookies, hands outstretched to snatch one. Mart edged past the table, snitching a couple for himself as he went, then left in the direction of the guest room, leaving his mother to deal with the little ones.

“How do you like that?” Jim asked, entering with the last couple of kids. “I let Mart get just a little ahead of me and the next thing I know, he’s abandoned his post.”

“It’s fine, Jim,” Helen assured him. “Coffee? We’re about ready to do some sampling of today’s efforts.”

“Please. In fact, I’ll get it. Would you like some, too? Honey?”

He set about making the coffee while Trixie and Honey tidied up and Helen took the children into the living room with promises of being allowed back soon. A short time later, Di returned, with Mart following close behind her.

“Feeling better?” Honey asked, smiling. “You look better.”

Di nodded. “I had a little sleep and now I’m all ready for the next ten minutes or so.”

“Coffee, Mart?” Jim asked him.

But Mart did not seem to notice. He stood staring at the kitchen table in disbelief.

Trixie waved a hand in front of his face. “Something wrong, Mart? Jim offered you coffee and you didn’t even notice.”

“Where did they go?”

Trixie looked from him to the table where he pointed and back again. “Where did what go?”

“The snowballs. Where did they go?”

She waved at the counter, where she and Honey had lined up the trays of finished cookies. “They’re all right here. Relax. We haven’t eaten them all.”

“But which tray was here? And which way around was it?”

She threw up her hands. “How am I supposed to know that?”

“You’re the one who moved them.”

“Did I?” She looked at the row of trays. “I moved those pinwheels and the peppermint meltaways. I don’t remember which snowballs I moved. Maybe those.”

Honey shook her head. “I think that’s the tray that I put there. I was going to put it over there, but there wasn’t quite enough room, so I moved the tray you put there over a bit and slid mine in next to it. Only, then there wasn’t room for the next one, so I moved them all again and I’m not sure if I put the last one on the left or in the middle.”

“But why are there so many?” Mart demanded, garnering strange looks from every other occupant of the room.

“You see, after what Jim said this morning, we decided to experiment a little with different kinds of snowballs, since so many people seem to like them so much,” Honey explained, pointing to the different trays. “We did the lemon ones and the pecan ones that we always do, but we also tried lime coconut and cherry pistachio and we were considering whether to try peppermint or chocolate or peanut butter, but we ran out of time, what with the shortbread and caramel chip shortbread that Maya likes, oh, and the gingerbread and sugar cookies that we’re going to decorate tomorrow, there just wasn’t time to make any more snowballs.”

“Thank heavens for small mercies,” Mart muttered.

His sister stared at him, open-mouthed. “What did you just say?” Before he could answer, she shook her head. “You did something, didn’t you? And you meant to be able to identify exactly which cookie you did it to, only we moved the trays while you weren’t looking.”

He stared back at her, obviously torn between admitting the accusation and denying it.

“In that case, the thing we need to do is identify the right tray and the right way around,” Honey suggested, as if he had admitted it. “How about if we line up the four trays of snowballs on the table and see if that helps.”

She and Trixie each grabbed a tray and placed it on the newly-cleaned kitchen table, then repeated the procedure with the other two trays.

Honey frowned at them. “Which ones are the lime and coconut ones again? Because they were already on the counter before Mart got here, I think.”

“No, that was the lemon ones,” Trixie answered. “Because we did them first, they got moved away first.”

Di leaned over one of the trays and breathed in the aroma. “These are lemon.”

“I’m fairly sure those were on the table.” Honey pointed to the place they had been. “They started out over there, but they were in the way and I moved them back to the table while I moved the last tray of gingerbread off the baking tray and onto a cooling rack.”

“Well, I don’t think it was these ones.” Trixie pointed to the cherry pistachio tray. “You can see the little red spots under the powdered sugar and I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the one I moved.”

“What do you think, Mart? Did your tray have red spots?” Honey picked it up and held it in front of him. “Or can I take this one away?”

He gave it a long hard look. “I’m pretty sure that’s not it.”

Honey nodded and replaced that tray with the others.

“Hold on a minute. Didn’t you eat one?” Trixie asked, turning on Mart accusingly. “Surely you know what kind of cookie you ate, or did you swallow it whole?”

He became indignant as everyone laughed. “Of course I know what I ate. It was one of those pinwheels. I used the other hand to… erm, do what it is that I needed to do.”

She frowned. “I don’t suppose you smelled them.”

He looked at her as if she was crazy. “The whole room smells of cookies and their various ingredients.”

“Well, you’d better look at these three trays and see if you can identify the cookie you interfered with,” she suggested. “Start on this side, then move around the table and look at them from the other side.”

For the next couple of minutes, he did just that. He leaned close, then stood back. He tried from different angles. At last, he let out a sigh.

“They smell delectable.”

“But?”

“But I have no idea which cookie it was.” He slumped into a chair, looking rather green.

Trixie eyed him for a moment. “Mart, can I speak to you in the other room for a moment?”

He nodded and heaved his weight back out of the chair.

“Don’t eat any cookies without us,” she ordered, over her shoulder. “Or, at least, don’t eat any snowballs!”

In the dining room, she turned on him and said in a low voice. “It’s a ring, isn’t it?”

He nodded, miserably. “I thought it would be amusing.”

Trixie grinned. “It is. Just think, Mart: you’ve done exactly the same thing that Di did.”

“That isn’t helping!”

She shrugged. “Maybe not. But we’ll be laughing about this for years. Especially if it takes more than seven cookies to find it.”

He let out a groan. “Moms is going to kill me.”

His sister shook her head. “Just leave this to the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency. We always get our man. Or, in this case, our misplaced ring.”

“Neither of you is called Belden or Wheeler,” he pointed out. “Shouldn’t it be called the Frayne-Mangan Detective Agency?”

Trixie waved the technicality away and headed back to the kitchen. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

“What’s happening?” Di demanded, as soon as she entered the room.

“Honey and Mart and I are going to sort this all out,” Trixie promised. “The rest of you can take your coffees into the living room and you can sample the other cookies if you like. When we’ve solved the problem, we’ll bring through a sample of the snowballs, hopefully before your coffee is finished.”

“Sounds like a plan,” her husband agreed. “I could do with a coffee and I’m sure your mother would like a rest.”

In a few minutes, the kitchen cleared, and then Trixie filled Honey in on the situation. Her best friend stared at the three trays in dismay.

“Again?”

Trixie nodded. “But this time, we have a bit of an idea of which one it might be. Remember last time? It could have been any of them.”

“So, exactly where did you put the cookie?” Honey asked Mart.

He pointed to the corner of one tray. “In a position similar to this one.”

“So there are only about six or eight it could be?” Honey looked to Mart for confirmation and he nodded. “Are there any other clues?”

Mart only shook his head.

“But wait a minute,” Trixie put in. “How did you do it? Did you make just one cookie? Did you bake it with the ring inside?”

“It’s only lightly baked. Just enough to be firm. And it’s not exactly a cookie. It’s vaguely edible, if you’re not fussy, but I’m sure it tastes rather unappetising.”

“Get the kitchen scales, Hon. We’ll weigh them. It’s sure to be different.”

Moments later, the pair were leaning over the digital scales and gently lowering on the first cookie. Honey jotted down the weight and they moved on to the next one.

“I don’t think it’s either of those,” Trixie deduced, as she took the second one off. “That was the pecan tray, I think.”

Honey nodded. “Let’s try the next tray. There are three it could be on this one, I think.”

By the time the three from the lime and coconut tray had been weighed, it seemed to have been ruled out as well. They moved on to the lemon tray.

“Last one,” Trixie announced, a short time later. “Let’s hope this is it.”

But the ones they weighed on the lemon tray did not seem to be dissimilar either.

Trixie turned to the cherry pistachio tray, frowning. “I know you said it wasn’t on this one, Mart, but I’m thinking maybe you’re wrong.”

Honey picked up a cookie from one corner and carefully weighed it. She shook her head.

“Can you get the one near the other corner, please, Trixie?”

As soon as she touched it, Trixie announced, “This is it.”

She placed it on the scales and Honey nodded. “Definitely.”

Mart closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Get a serving platter, Hon. It’s time to deliver this to its rightful owner.”

Minutes later, they entered the living room, where a lively gathering sipped hot drinks and chatted.

“Snowballs are here!” Trixie cried, as she carried the plate through the room to set on the coffee table. “Oh, sorry, Di. Which kind did you want? I’ll hand it to you.”

“Lime coconut, please,” Di answered, after a moment’s thought.

Without looking at either Honey or Mart, Trixie picked up Mart’s trick cookie and placed it on the small plate in Diana’s lap. Di smiled her thanks and began to take a bite. Her face crumpled into a puzzled frown.

“Ugh! This is terrible. Did we do something wrong to them?” She sniffed it. “Wait; is this from the right tray? It smells kind of…” She trailed off, staring at the cookie.

“Diana? Are you all right?” Helen asked, concern evident in her voice and expression. She got to her feet.

Di’s shoulders began to shake.

“Sweetheart?” her mother asked. “What’s wrong?”

The “cookie” dropped onto the plate, showering crumbs and powdered sugar everywhere and breaking into several pieces. Tears began trickling down Di’s cheeks as she silently laughed.

One of her sisters scrambled over and picked up the biggest fragment, turning it around so that everyone else could see.

“Have you been losing your jewellery in the cookie dough again, Di?”

Di shook her head, but was still laughing too hard to speak.

Mart reached over and took the fragment, pulling out the ring and dropping the crumbs and a scrap of baking paper he had used to protect the stones onto the plate. He rubbed off a few stray crumbs which still stuck to the surface, then slipped the ring onto his wife’s right hand.

“Thank you,” she finally managed to say, as he kissed her. “But didn’t you want to wait until Christmas to give this to me?”

He shook his head. “When I had the chance to do this instead? Never!”

“You mean, lose it among the hundreds of snowballs?” she asked, smiling up at him.

Mart groaned. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

“But the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency came through, once again,” Trixie added.

“I’ve already pointed out–” Mart began.

“Yeah, yeah. Not important,” she interrupted, handing Di a fresh plate with a real lime coconut snowball on it. “No matter what our names are, the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency is here to help.”

The End

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