At last we come to the final chapter in the lives of Barbara, Ginger, and Jimmie Gibson. From their first adventure with The Runaway Caravan, to their adventures in The Crimson Cruiser, to their search for the Timbered Treasure, these children have certainly covered a lot of ground and experienced a lot of mystery and danger within those first three books in Mildred A. Wirt (Benson)'s "Trailer Stories for Girls." It's definitely been a LONG summer for these kids, and it ain't over yet! In this fourth and final book of the series, Wirt certainly goes out with a bang, as I think this story has to be the best of all of them.
The title of this last book, The Phantom Trailer, tells the reader exactly what this mystery is about - a phantom trailer! Wirt opens this final tale with the children taking yet another trip out west (unsupervised!), but with one detour - "[t]hey were deviating somewhat from a direct route in order to pass through Michigan where they planned to call upon an old friend, George Tolland, president of the Tolland Trailer Company" (p. 3). Hearkening back to the first book, in which the children solve a mystery involving secret plans for a new type of braking mechanism for trailer homes that provided aid to Mr. Tolland, such that he exchanged their old trailer for a sleek, new crimson cruiser. Now, it seems he has asked them to visit, as he has "an interesting matter" to discuss with them (p. 4).
SIDEBAR - the Vermilion Cliffs are, indeed, real, and they are located in northern Arizona, near the Utah border. What is NOT real is how close these landmarks are to one another. In the book, Mr. Tolland says the cliffs are "not far" from the park; in the real world, the Cliffs are in Arizona and Yellowstone is in Wyoming, making them two states apart, an approximately 11 hour drive from one to the other! I would certainly not call that "not far" by any means!
Back to the story - Barbara, Ginger, and Jimmie agree to have Mr. Tolland join them, as he plans to take his own trailer home, with his Chinaman servant, Lee Sing, driving. The only problem is, Lee Sing is an absolute horrible driver, and that causes multiple issues along the way! Lee Sing is more or less comic relief for this book, and Wirt portrays him in a very demeaning way throughout the story (again, this book is a product of its time, having been published in 1938, so stereotypes such as this were much more common at the time - check out one of Wirt's "Mystery Stories for Girls" - Through the Moon-Gate Door - to see further examples of her treatment of Chinese men and women). Before they get too far on their trip, though, they discover the trailer home Barbara sold to the stranger abandoned, crashed in a ditch. Mr. Tolland regains ownership of the trailer and uses it for the trip.
It takes Wirt more than 100 pages before the Gibsons finally reach the Vermilion Cliffs and meet Mr. Tolland's sister, Penelope "Penny" Tolland. (And I must stop and make note of the fact that Wirt clearly had an affinity with the name Penelope "Penny" - she uses it here, she used it for her four-book Penny Nichols series, as well as for her seventeen-book Penny Parker series - I'm surprised she did not name her daughter Penelope!) Before they meet Penny, however, they meet her nephew, Louis Bayne, who is not the friendliest of people, and the Gibsons discern right away that he's not necessarily looking out for his aunt's best interests (more like, he's after her money and property!). And speaking of that aunt/nephew relationship - how does that work? Penny Tolland is referred to as "Miss Tolland," meaning she's not married. She and Mr. Tolland are brother and sister, but Louis Bayne is not Mr. Tolland's son. So how is she Louis Bayne's aunt? Louis even mentions that Miss Tolland's only relatives are he "and a cousin who lives in New York" (p. 105). So, that begs the question - just who are Louis Bayne's parents?
Regardless of that familial mystery, let's get back to the real mystery - that "phantom" trailer that Penny Tolland has seen driving along the cliff - appearing out of nowhere and just as oddly disappearing a few moments later. No one else has ever seen it, and Louis is convinced his aunt is losing her faculties and is in need of a guardian to handle her affairs. He even forces her to see a doctor that she is unwilling to see, as she feels fully capable of handling her own affairs. The Gibsons do not know what to think until one night they see the phantom trailer for themselves! They don't believe in ghosts, so they realize pretty quickly that some sort of scam is being pulled - the question is, how? And when Mr. Tolland's new black trailer is found at the bottom of a cliff, the worst is imagined - but if he were dead, then where are his and Lee Sing's bodies?
So many questions and so few answers! Once again, it is up to the sleuthing skills of Barbara, Ginger, and Jimmie to solve the mystery and reveal the truth behind the phantom trailer (and just how that ties into the stranger who purchased and then wrecked that black trailer at the beginning of the book). The solution is not really all that surprising (it's pretty easy to figure out) - what is surprising is that the local police are so inept that they could not put two and two together to figure out what was really going on. I guess Louis and his cohort in crime would have gotten away with everything if it hadn't been for those meddling kids! (Sorry, I couldn't resist!)
Despite the simplicity of this mystery, I did find this one to be the most enjoyable to read. Mr. Tolland's kidnapping, Jimmie's ingenious way of calling for help, and the whole phantom trailer scheme were all actually pretty well-written scenes that kept the book fresh and engaging. I give Wirt credit for coming up with some creative new plot elements for her stories.
One last comment - on pages 176-77, one of the characters makes reference to her brother having had a watch stolen at "a very well known place called the Yellow Lantern, located in San Francisco..." Well, being curious, I looked up whether such a restaurant existed. While not in San Francisco, there was a Yellow Lantern restaurant in the 1930s located in Rye, New York. Interestingly enough, the restaurant was owned by a black man, Robert Griffins, but served only white customers (Yellow Lantern Restaurant). Makes one wonder if Wirt was familiar with the restaurant, if she had ever heard of it, or if it was simply a name she created with the real restaurant being only a coincidence.
The final pages make no reference to whether the Gibson children had any more adventures after this; instead, it simply ends with Barbara and Ginger exclaiming that they could finally go to Yellowstone Park, having earned the right to see the park on their own (p. 206). And with that, so concludes the adventures of Barbara, Ginger, and Jimmie Gibson and their crimson cruiser travel trailer. I guess we will never know if Wirt had any more ideas for future stories that never got to see the light of day.
RATING: 10 black cases of brushes with floor waxing machines out of 10 for ending this series with a unique mystery that was a satisfying read (even if the reader wanted the series to continue!).
***Special thanks to Jennifer White for the use of her scan of the dust jacket cover for this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment