It’s hard to write about an icon. Especially when the custom is to read about
that icon. And if that icon is your best
friend in the realm of fiction it’s even more difficult. Now I wouldn’t want
Nancy to think that she could ever supersede those great chums I went sledding
with, or played jacks with, or crafted Barbie doll clothes with, but they were
sorely lacking in the mystique that was Nancy Drew.
Why oh why were my friends and acquaintances so deadly dull and lacking in mystery? This in itself was a mystery. Maybe they were just too young to be involved in what I came to know as “sleuthing”. Nancy was the best, and even extended my vocabulary.
All knowledge conferred to children in the 1960’s was on a need-to-know basis. And if it wasn’t a times-table, or tips on drying streak-free dishes, as far as my mother was concerned, you didn’t need to know. The dividing line between adults and children at that time dwarfed the not yet doomed Berlin Wall. So possibly the adults were keeping all those juicy mysteries to themselves.
As I worked through that line of thought, I could see that it didn’t make sense. Wasn’t Nancy Drew a teenager or something around that age? Then it hit me like an errant baseball bat to the head. My sister, strutting around in her teenaged years, was hogging all the mysteries! I knew it! But I needed to find clues to prove it. I consulted my Nancy Drew books, The Hidden Staircase, The Secret of the Old Clock, The Sign of the Twisted Candles. Nothing there. My eyes fell on The Clue in the Diary. Now there was the item that was going to give me the clues I needed to solve the Mystery of the Missing Mysteries. The cursive script in my sister’s diary was a bit hard to read, me still being in the printing phase of my literary development, but I muddled through enough of it to get the gist. Boys. Dates. Basketball tournaments. Ugh. Her life was even duller than mine. After carefully combing through her diary, I pronounced her life completely lacking in mystery.
How could Nancy live in a place that teemed with mysteries so numerous they outnumbered the pollywogs proudly swirling around in my pickle jar? The closest thing that fell into the realm of mystery at my house was who ate the cookies stored away for Christmas. (Me). Or, who forgot to hand over the teacher’s note about that incident in the schoolyard. (Me). Or who hid all those undesirable pieces of pork chop under the edge of Dad’s plate. (Also me). Or who was the accomplice in the shooting of JFK? (Not me).
There was not one single solvable mystery to be had in my humdrum neighbourhood, which had stupid boring street names like Kent and Wilson, and not a single Lilac Inn or hidden staircase to spawn some interest. Why were there lilac trees, but no Inn? Not really worthy of investigation. Even our house lacked mystery, having its staircase in plain view, no one having thought to hide it…and…it went down to basement, not up to some mysterious attic filled with dusty clue-rich treasures. So unimaginative.
After reading our meagre collection of Nancy Drew’s till the covers fell off, and then reading those of all my friends, I grudgingly came up with a plan. I would wait it out until I became a teenager, when gobs of mysteries would fall into my lap. I would solve them all, and maybe even let Ned help me, if Nancy could spare him. In preparation, I set aside the magnifying glass assigned to my stamp collection.
In the meantime, I would hang out with Trixie Belden. She was more age appropriate anyway.
