Confessions of a Teen Sleuth

by Chelsea Cain

  "We've found her!" George cried. "She's over here!"

  "She really thought we were poor role models?" Judy asked, aghast.

  "Why, that's absurd!" gulped Donna, wide-eyed. "We're all role models in our own way, within the context of our era."

  "That's right," I declared meaningfully to Donna. "Our characters offer girls independent, plucky protagonists who can problem-solve and escape from pirates. But we are also role models beyond that—as real human beings. We have the opportunity to show our readers that they can grow up and go out into the world and evolve as people without abandoning the curiosity and smarts of our spirited youth."

  "I couldn't have said it better myself," agreed Judy.

  Donna's bottom lip started to tremble. "But sometimes I don't think they want us to grow up."

  "It's their youth they want to hang on to," I told her gently. "Not ours."

  She looked at me questioningly, and then her eyes narrowed with determination. We all watched as she slowly reached up and pulled off her headband. She held it in her hands for a moment, then let it drop to the floor. Relief washed over her face.

  "Good girl," I declared, patting her on the hand.

  "There's one thing I don't understand," mused George. "Why did Madge use a magnifying glass?"

  "She could have been trying to frame us," I theorized. "But I don't think that Madge was that smart. It's more likely that it was just the weapon she had handy."

  "She said that she used a magnifying glass for a biology class," Detective Ross declared. "She was studying entomology"

  The girls smiled widely in appreciation of my detection abilities.

  Detective Ross grinned as well and opened a large briefcase he had beside him. Inside were several magnifying glasses, tagged and placed in evidence bags. He pulled them all out and distributed them to the group. He placed the largest and heaviest magnifying glass into my hands. "I believe that this belongs to you."

  IX THE HAUNTED CRUISESHIP, 1985

  "Ned, look out!" I shouted.

  Startled, Ned was able to step out of the way of my speeding shuffleboard puck in the nick of time, avoiding serious injury.

  We were onboard the Atlantic Queen, cruising from New York City to Bermuda. In his retirement, Ned had become a daytime television enthusiast. Whether this had led to his depression, or vice versa, I am still unclear. In any case, Ned had become interested in the New Age movement after seeing Shirley MacLaine interviewed on The Phil Donahue Show. When he found out about a New Age—themed cruise through the Bermuda Triangle, there was no dissuading him.

  "You're so competitive!" Ned cried. "You know that's a past-life issue."

  I put down my shuffleboard cue. "Why don't we just stroll?" I suggested.

  We walked, arm in arm, along the promenade deck. I gazed up at my tall and attractive special friend. His hair had thinned and he had grown out what was left into a sort of elderly mullet. His jowls had sunk and his eyebrows had grown white and wild. He insisted on wearing a Members Only jacket. He bought a DeLorean. And now he carried crystals in his pockets to ward off dark angels. I was beginning to worry that my old friend might be having some sort of late-life crisis.

  "Do you think I'm still handsome and athletic looking?" he inquired shyly as we walked.

  I grinned. "You bet I do!"

  "And broad shouldered and attractive?"

  "Absolutely."

  He squeezed my hand affectionately. We continued walking, arm in arm, in silence until Ned broke the spell.

  "Are you planning on going to the UFO-spotting class at three?" he asked brightly.

  "I've got Jazzercise," I told him.

  I had been taking Jazzercise every day since we had boarded three days before, mostly in an effort to avoid the many seminars on transcending planes of existence and channeling the dead. Because I was well into my seventies, for insurance reasons the cruise operators made me take the class sitting down. This suited me just fine. The instructor, a young woman who wore her striped leotard, leg warmers, and fingerless lace gloves even when off-duty, was named Mandy. She was slim and short, with well-defined quads and tightly curled orange hair.

  At three o'clock, Mandy led class as usual, though I noticed that she seemed somewhat sluggish and perhaps a little bloated. After class I approached her and asked her if she was feeling well.

  She told me that she had not slept soundly the night before, due to a strange, insistent knocking at her cabin door. But whenever she got up to answer the knocking, the corridor was deserted.

  "Probably just children playing a prank," she remarked, dabbing the sweat on her face with a hand towel.

  That night, Ned and I attended a lecture on healing crystals, visited the discotheque in the Twilight Room, and then turned in. A little after two in the morning, we both awoke with a start. Someone was knocking on the door to our cabin!

  I listened for a moment. The knocking grew louder. Remembering Mandy's story, I hesitated to answer the door, as to do so might only encourage the prankster. But what if someone was in trouble?

  Ned sat up. "What's going on?" he asked sleepily.

  "That's what I'd like to know," I told him.

  Gathering my wits, I put on my terry cloth robe and crept quickly toward the door, with Ned doddering behind me.

  But when we opened it, the corridor was deserted! Curious, I stepped into the hallway and craned to see around the corner, just in time to catch a flash of someone scurrying out of sight! Without regard to my personal safety, I hurried after him. Ned hurried after me. When we rounded the corner, we came face to face with a doughy, middle-aged man with bad skin and large black plastic eyeglasses with very thick lenses. He was wearing a stained undershirt and striped pajamas.

  "Who are you?" I demanded.

  The odd-looking man stood his ground. "Who are you?" he retorted.

  "Who are you?" Ned shot back.

  The man drummed his dirty fingernails on the edge of his receding hairline and closed his eyes in deep thought. Then he opened them. "You're Nancy Drew," he announced with a satisfied smile. "The knocking woke you up too. And now you are both after the perpetrator."

  I was flummoxed. "How did you know that?"

  "Guess!"

  I was taken aback. "Excuse me?"

  "Guess! Please. I love it when people guess. Guess! Guess! Guess!"

  "I don't have time for this," I told him, turning back toward my cabin. "Come on, Ned."

  The man hurried awkwardly after us. "My name's Encyclopedia Brown," he answered, "and I'm a detective."

  "Encyclopedia Brown," I repeated. "America's Sherlock Holmes in sneakers."

  His doughy face brightened. "You've heard of me?"

  "Once or twice."

  "So do you want to help me solve the mystery?"

  "Help you?" I asked. "I think you'd be helping me. Besides, as far as I know there is no mystery," I told Encyclopedia. "Just someone playing a prank. For all I know, that someone is you." I pointed a bony finger at him. "You were a precocious boy detective with all the promise of the world laid out before you. Now look at you: you're a middle-aged man with poor hygiene. You probably still live with your parents. I'd wager you could stand a little excitement."

  His posture stiffened defensively. "What kind of loser would still live with his parents?"

  The lights in the corridor suddenly went out, and we were plunged into darkness.

  "W-w-what's going on?" Encyclopedia stammered in the dark.

  "Shh!" I told him.

  "Listen," whispered Ned.

  A low moaning sound emanated from the far end of the hall. I peered in its direction and was disconcerted to see a light floating toward us. As it grew closer I could make out the image of a ghostly young girl wearing a long white dress. She wore a gold locket around her neck and was levitating several feet off the ground.

  "It's an angel!" Ned mooned.

  The lights came back on as suddenly as they had gone off, and she had vanished! I glanc
ed at Encyclopedia. His pimply face was ashen. Ned gazed saucer-eyed at the place where the angel had been.

  A uniformed porter came dashing toward us. "Are you old folks okay?" he asked solicitously.

  "We're fine," I responded. "What happened?"

  "Some sort of power failure, just on this deck," he explained. "I better go check on the other passengers." He continued past us down the hallway.

  "You didn't tell him about the ghost," observed Encyclopedia when the porter was out of sight.

  "That was no ghost," Ned exclaimed. "That was an angel. From Mesopotamia."

  I took Encyclopedia aside. "I find that it's a good idea not to scare people with ghost stories until the ghosts are thoroughly investigated," I told him. "They are almost always people dressed in muslin trying to scare everyone off so they can locate a treasure or get a good price on a house."

  Encyclopedia considered this. "You know, I've read all your books," he remarked. He puffed out his chest a little. "I've read more books than anyone else in Idaville, Florida."

  "You read Nancy Drew books?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  "Yes," he admitted bravely. He looked down at his stained undershirt and pulled awkwardly at it. "I do still live with my parents," he mumbled. "But I'm planning on moving out just as soon as I finish the computer language I'm writing."

  I patted Encyclopedia on his flabby arm. "You better be getting back to your room," I told him kindly.

  He nodded several times.

  "Now," I told him.

  "Okay. Good night." He slumped off down the corridor.

  "Good night," I called. I walked back over to Ned.

  "This proves it," he told me excitedly. "I had my doubts. But now I know that Shirley was right about everything."

  "Let's go back to the room," I sighed.

  Back in our cabin, Ned fell asleep quickly, despite his apnea. Tomorrow, I told myself, I would get to the bottom of this alleged ghost business. Someone was trying to fool us into believing a lot of hogwash. And I didn't like it one bit.

  "Have you ever seen an angel before?" I asked Ned.

  "What?" replied Ned, looking up from the Rubik's Cube he was worrying. We were enjoying our breakfast on deck beside all of the young people in swimsuits. I was writing a postcard to Ned Junior, Foxy, and their three boys, Jupiter, Pete, and Bob, named after some friends from California. (Foxy had taken the unfortunate name of Foxy Belden-Frayne-Nickerson, which, when written on a postcard, left little room for a message.) Suddenly, who should appear but Encyclopedia Brown with his parents in tow. He was wearing a snug Dungeons & Dragons T-shirt, Bermuda shorts, red knee socks, and loafers, and he was making a beeline right for us.

  "Good morning!" Encyclopedia exclaimed too loudly. "This is my mother, Mrs. Brown, and my father, Chief Brown." Chief Brown was wearing a police uniform.

  "Is there a problem, Officer?" asked Ned cautiously.

  Chief Brown laughed. "Oh, no! I'm on vacation." He cleared his throat. "I just like to wear the uniform."

  "I see," commented Ned.

  Encyclopedia grinned proudly. "I wanted Mom and Dad to meet my new friends." He turned to his parents. "See," he exclaimed, "I wasn't lying."

  Mrs. Brown looked surprised and pleased. "Well, isn't that nice," she declared.

  Encyclopedia flung himself down in the chair next to Ned, picked up his Rubik's Cube from the table, and began to turn it with lightning speed. "The folks are going to the harp concert today, so I thought I could hang out with you guys." He set the solved Rubik's Cube back in front of Ned. Ned's face fell.

  "Today's not good for me," I explained frankly. "I've got Jazzercise."

  "That's okay!" Encyclopedia retorted. "I can tag along. I love to dance!"

  I glanced skeptically at Encyclopedia's flaccid girth.

  Mrs. Brown smiled. "It's so nice to see Encyclopedia making acquaintances." She kissed him on the forehead. "We'll see you tonight, dear." She and Chief Brown were gone before Ned or I could say another word.

  Encyclopedia shrugged. "I think they miss Idaville," he confided. He leaned toward me and smiled conspiratorially. "Guess what I have in my pocket!" he whispered, eyes sparkling with excitement.

  I wrinkled my face. "No."

  "Come on!" he insisted. "Guess."

  "I don't know," I declared firmly.

  He pursed him lips and pulled a brochure from the back pocket of his shorts and carefully spread it out on the table. "The activities director gave me this," he explained. The brochure had an underwater photograph of divers on it along with a story of a local shipwreck. Encyclopedia summarized. "In the early 1600s, a rich sea captain came over from England. He made his fortune and then sent for his young daughter to join him. The ship she was on went down in the Bermuda Triangle." Encyclopedia pointed gravely to a sketch of the young girl.

  "Why, she's the spitting image of the ghost in the corridor!" I exclaimed.

  "Hey!" exclaimed Ned. "That looks like my angel!"

  "Is that shipwreck near here?" I asked Encyclopedia.

  Encyclopedia nodded, grinning. "There's a diving expedition this afternoon!"

  Ned put his hands on his knees and shakily stood up. "I'll sign us up for that dive!"

  "Are you sure?" I asked. "I know you were looking forward to that aura encounter group at three."

  "My aura can wait," Ned replied, his elderly eyes bright with purpose. "This angel is real, and I'm going to prove it."

  That left us two hours to fill. Encyclopedia and I decided to change into our Jazzercise clothes and go back and interview our first witness: Mandy.

  Encyclopedia Brown could dance! His moves were a little clumsy, and his perspiration copious, but he had heart and was amazingly quick on his Reeboks. Even Mandy was impressed at how well he could keep up. His net half shirt, however, was a little revealing, and I noticed that several women ducked out of class early.

  "I'm a big Liza Minnelli fan," I overheard Encyclopedia tell Mandy, cleaning his sweat-fogged glasses with his thumb. "I have been for years."

  "Me too!" exclaimed Mandy. "You used to be that boy genius, right? Sherlock Holmes in short pants?"

  "Sneakers," Encyclopedia corrected her, his face reddening at the female attention.

  Mandy was unfazed. "Whatever."

  I told Mandy that Encyclopedia and I were looking into the knocking mystery.

  Delighted by our interest, Mandy told us that the knocking had woken her three nights in a row and that nearly half of her students had reported similar experiences! Like Ned, several had reported seeing an angel. Word had spread, and now many of the hallways belowdecks were lined with passengers camped out in hopes of seeing the celestial vision. The corridors were thick with incense. Someone was even selling angel catcher nets. Mandy seemed quite distressed by all of this.

  With all of the excitement, we were the only three passengers to show up for the shipwreck dive.

  Our instructor was a blond mustachioed man in his thirties. In my ongoing effort to keep my keen eye for detail sharp, I observed that he was tanned a deep bronze and had ample chest hair. He wore a pair of black Italian bikini swim trunks, which complimented his already impressive physique.

  As we made our way by boat to the dive site, the mustachioed man explained some more about the shipwreck. The wreck, he said, had been particularly mysterious, as the ship had gone down in fair weather and without warning in the Bermuda Triangle. Rumor was that the sea captain's daughter was traveling with the captain's treasure and that pirates may have boarded the ship and then sunk it. Until he died, the sea captain refused to believe that the girl had gone down with the ship, and he spent the last years of his life searching the surrounding islands for her, hoping that she had somehow survived.

  We anchored over the wreck and strapped on our gear. Encyclopedia put his glasses away and strapped on his prescription goggles.

  The ocean in that area was not deep, and we could see the wreck clearly through the blue water, just thirty feet
below us. I motioned for the others to follow and began my descent in my skirted one-piece, with the instructor close on my flippers. There was not much left of the ship, only a wooden skeleton that had long ago become a home to a rich variety of marine life. I swam down to the white sand on the ocean floor and sifted through it with my hands in hopes of finding some clue that had eluded the hundreds of divers who had come before me. I saw Encyclopedia and Ned doing the same.

  Time seemed to slow as we searched, listening only to the sound of our own breathing. Suddenly I felt a hand grip me firmly around the ankle! I spun around underwater, ready to confront my assailer, only to find a grinning Encyclopedia. He held out his open hand. In it was a locket identical to the one the ghost in the corridor had worn!

  Suddenly I felt a hand grip me firmly around the ankle!

  I felt another hand grip my ankle! This time it was Ned, his gray hair fanned out wildly in the water around his head. He motioned to his air pressure gauge. It was almost at zero, which meant that our oxygen was getting low. He thrust his thumb toward the surface and we began our slow ascent. When we broke the surface of the water and took off our masks, the dive boat was gone. It was hard to tell from the surface of the water, but it looked as if the ship was gone too! We were alone. In the middle of the Bermuda Triangle!

  Encyclopedia, Ned, and I turned our heads frantically, looking for any sign of a boat or diver, and we paddled madly to keep our heads above water. The sea was getting choppy as a wind picked up. Where had our dive instructor gone? Had we been forgotten, or was this some wicked plot to leave us to our deaths?

  I called to Ned and Encyclopedia to remain calm and instructed them to follow me. We had to try to swim to one of the nearby islands. I put my mask back in place and, using a butterfly stroke, I led the two boys toward a horizon of sand in the distance. Using all the skill I'd learned as a summer lifeguard, I pushed forward through the waves.

  Even when my muscles began to cramp and my lungs ached, I forced myself to continue. When Ned seemed to fail, I waved Encyclopedia over to him, and Encyclopedia pulled Ned's frail arms around his plump shoulders and carried him on his back. When we finally reached the island of our salvation, the sun had set and we could just make out the island's silhouette in the waning evening light. Encyclopedia and I dragged Ned to shore and collapsed in exhaustion on the white sand.