The Ring O’Bells Mystery
          It’s the end of the Easter holidays, and the children are due back at school. But, in one of Blyton’s tried and trusted plot devices, the children are still recovering from 'flu and need a short holiday away! Mrs Lynton phones her old governess, Miss Pepper, and asks if she can suggest anywhere that might do, somewhere with plenty of walking trails. It turns out Miss Pepper has a cousin who keeps a little boarding house in the village of Ring O’ Bells, near Lillinghame, and this village has stables, woods, hills… everything children need for some good fresh air and plenty of exercise. 
          And so, without much ado, off they go!

The Rubadub Mystery
          It’s the holidays again, and once more the children are off to stay with Miss Pepper while Mr and Mrs Lynton set off to America for a few weeks. They’ve timed their own holiday just right so they won’t have to spend time with their pesky son Roger, and their irritating daughter Diana, and their dreaded nephew Snubby—or at least that’s how it seems to this reader, who finds it hard to imagine why parents should want to go off somewhere just when their children arrive home from boarding school. How inconsiderate! But away to America they go, leaving the children once more in the capable hands of Miss Pepper, who is to take them all off to Rubadub, a delightful place she frequented in her younger days.