Confessions of a Teen Sleuth
Page 12
For Carolyn,
Who made my whole life different. Thank you.
XO,
Nancy Drew
More determined than ever to write my memoirs, I sent word to Foxy and Ned Junior that I would not be returning to Crabapple Farm and instead returned to River Heights to begin work on this manuscript.
I spent the rest of that summer at home in River Heights typing out my recollections on an electric typewriter—I had little use for computers, which seemed to me to take much of the fun out of sleuthing. It would have gone faster, but my hands were arthritic. It was early fall when I finally got to describing my last trip to New York. I had just finished recounting my literal run-in with the gentleman at the corner of Fifty-sixth and Broadway when I had a sudden hunch. I stood up and walked upstairs to my large walk-in closet where I kept my matching shoes and handbags. I had not worn the green knit evening dress since that night in New York and therefore had not carried the matching handbag either. I unpacked the handbag from its box and examined it carefully. I reached into a little-used pocket, and my gnarled fingers came across a small scrap of paper. I pulled it out. It read:
7000 Calle Noche, Mexico City. If you are looking for a mystery.
My cloudy blue eyes were fairly frolicking with enthusiasm as I clutched the note in my bent hand. Of course! The young man had not taken anything from my purse—he had put something in it! Why had it taken me so long to figure it out?
I worked frantically that week to finish the manuscript and put my things in order, for this was a mystery from which I was not sure I would be returning. I packed up the house and rented it to two pretty blond twins who had just moved out from Sweet Valley, California. Then I sent a long letter to Foxy and Ned Junior with as much explanation as I thought prudent.
Once this was all accomplished, I went straight from the post office to the River Heights Airport, where I caught the next flight to Mexico City.
I slept almost the entire way to Mexico. When we arrived, I collected my trunk at the airport baggage claim and showed a cab driver the address on the note.
His face scrunched up in concern. "Señora, this is a very poor part of town," he declared gravely.
I shook my white hair defiantly. "This is where I must go."
He nodded and loaded my trunk into the back of his cab.
Once we were in the car, I began to quiz him. "Are there any mysteries that you know of here in town? Missing jewels? Kidnapped princesses? Cults? That sort of thing?"
The cab driver raised his eyebrows. "All the time."
I smiled happily.
After a long drive through the winding streets above the city, we came to a stop at a stucco row house. The paint was peeling and there were bars on the windows.
"This is it," the cab driver told me. "7000 Calle Noche."
I climbed carefully out of the car, and the driver unloaded my trunk onto the sidewalk.
"Do you want me to wait until you are inside?" he asked.
"No, thank you," I retorted, handing him the fare and tip.
He glanced doubtfully between me and the house and then, with a low shake of his head, got back behind the wheel and drove off.
I took a deep breath and steadied myself before knocking on the old wooden door.
It opened almost instantly.
There stood Frank Hardy, white haired and craggy, and as handsome as the first time I met him. I felt as if my heart might burst.
"Nancy," he greeted me. "It's good to see you looking as slim and attractive as always."
I blushed.
He opened the door wide, and I walked into the house. He closed the door and followed me inside.
"I knew you'd come," he told me. "That's why I had my associate plant the address in your purse. I couldn't contact you directly. It was too dangerous."
I turned and faced him. His brown eyes sparkled. "You need my help," I declared happily. "You've come out of retirement."
"Yes," he responded, his face turning serious. "It's big, Nancy, really big. The biggest adventure yet. All the old teen sleuths are being called up. Tom Swift is waiting in the Sky Queen to take us abroad."
His eyes shone as he reached around my waist and pulled me close. "Can I count on you?" he asked.
My knees went weak. And it wasn't from arthritis.
"There's something I have to mail first," I told him, thinking of the manuscript in my bag. "And then I'll have to set my hair."
He pulled me closer. "Anything you want."
Of course I would help him. Little did I know that I was about to embark on the most puzzling mystery I had solved to date, one that would challenge every skill I had nurtured since I was a preteen. For now all I knew is that it felt good to be a sleuth again. And Tom Swift could wait for a little while. Frank and I had some catching up to do.
His eyes shone as he reached around my waist and pulled me close.
They didn't call him Hardy for nothing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editor wishes to thank her husband, Marc Mohan, for his keen editing eye, love, patience and, most important, for access to his extensive Hardy Boys collection. Thanks also to Diana Abu-Jaber, the first to encourage the idea; Karen Karbo, for getting the project in front of Bloomsbury; Cynthia Whitcomb, for the Nazis; and Whitney Otto, for connecting me to the fabulous Joy Harris Agency. On that note, thank you to everyone at the Joy Harris Agency and to Amanda Katz, my smart editor at Bloomsbury. Thanks to my elementary school librarian, for the steady diet of Nancy Drew books, and to Mrs. Burr for pretending not to notice when I read the books in class. I owe a great debt to Lia Miternique for the brilliant cover and interior illustrations. Lia, you are a genius designer and a fine chum to boot. Finally, thanks to my mom, Mary Cain, who always said that I should be a stand-up comedian. Or a potter. Or, barring that, a writer.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Chelsea Cain is a longtime Nancy Drew enthusiast and the author of The Hippie Handbook and the memoir Dharma Girl. She edited the anthology Wild Child, about daughters of the counterculture. She has written for a wide variety of publications and is currently a humor columnist for the Oregonian. She lives with her husband in Portland, Oregon.
By the same author
The Hippie Handbook: How to Tie-Dye a T-Shirt, Flash a Peace Sign,
and Other Essential Skills for the Carefree Life
Dharma Girl: A Road Trip Across the American Generations
As editor
Wild Child: Girlhoods in the Counterculture
Copyright © 2005 Chelsea Cain
Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Lia Miternique
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Cain, Chelsea.
Confessions of a teen sleuth :
a parody / by Chelsea Cain
illustrations by Lia Miternique. –1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 1-58234-511-2
1.American wit and humor. 2. Keene, Carolyn-Parodies, imitations, etc.
3. Drew, Nancy (Fictitious character)-Humor. I. Title.
PN6231.P3C25 2004
3813’.6—dc22
2004013972
First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2005
This e-book edition published in 2010
E-book ISBN: 978-1-59691-735-4
www.bloomsburyusa.com
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